Chapter Twenty Two
Jeanette and I met in Dallas while I was standing on a street corner selling copies of Claxon. Publisher/Editors did all the work in those days. Besides, it was fun flirting with the girls who bought the paper.
It was a giggle when little old ladies would quickly lock their doors so the scary hippies wouldn’t get them as they waited for the traffic lights to change. It made us even more determined to attract their attention and to get them to buy a copy.
Jeanette's sister, Judy Clark –one of the finest unknown white blues singer/songwriters around- and she drove up to buy the latest issue. I'd met Judy before through a girl I was living with at the time: Elaine Gerdine.
Judy introduced her sister. She was a lovely dark haired, round faced southern woman with an education and an attitude. She had a feisty look about her: a no-nonsense intelligence that said "watch out for me!"
I didn't pay much attention to her at the time other than the normal amount of ogling I was wont to do anyway.
There’s plenty to ogle when selling underground papers on the corner. It was the beginning years of the Sexual Revolution and everyone was a “combatant”. Bra’s weren’t all burned in those days…just unused. And panties too!
I didn't see her again until I attended a Halloween party at their house in the Oak Lawn neighborhood a few blocks from my old place.
I was definitely on the prowl that night. I popped in at Judy's for a look-see and then made a few more stops before coming back.
Late in the evening I was making a pass at my hostess when she said "No! Not me. I'm married. Try my sister over there. She's the prostitute in the black dress."
Jeanette made a great little prostitute. Her costume was a satiny black dress that hugged her body like Saran Wrap hugs an onion. And Jeanette had a very huggable "onion".
She was broad hipped and small breasted with just the slightest pooche of a tummy.
I schmoozed my way across the room and found a moderately well intoxicated Jeanette seemingly ready to be "hit upon". We talked and flirted and danced for awhile.
Originally from Amarillo, she had graduated from the former Sam Houston Institute of Technology, near Houston, but the acronym S.H.I.T. was a little bit more than the school could handle in these modern times and the name was changed to Sam Houston State University. She had been working on her master’s degree in Russian history and had taught school in Kenosha, Wisconsin before coming back to Texas and, most recently, Dallas.
Now she wanted another drink (Vodka straight up) and I followed her into the kitchen to help her make it. She filled her glass from a bottle in the refrigerator.
Before she drank it all I took her in my arms and we kissed an electrical storm up. We were locked tight. This was going to be a night to remember.
The next thing I knew, mid kiss, she’d tipped her glass and ice cold vodka was pouring down my back!
It cooled the back but not the ardor.
We were standing in the kitchen locked in oblivion. It was around 2 am and a perfect Dallas Autumn night: temperature in the mid 60's and no wind. People kept struggling to get around us to refresh their drinks so we took our osculation outside into the back yard and lay on the grass.
And lay we did, under the stars of a cloudless sky; as if there were no tomorrow...or the old neighbor lady who very well might have been watching, never mind the rest of the party just beyond the open kitchen door.
We finished our dance of the four-legged weed eater at my place that night.
I was also dating another woman at the time named Cay Clingingsmith. She was blond, considerably more filled out than Jeanette in every respect, and I was in love with her.
We'd been dating for several months and I had the feeling she was pretty taken with me too; but, for some reason, she refused to admit it. Whenever we talked about "us" she'd remind me of the other guy she said she was dating: the heir to the Piggly Wiggly/Minyard's Food Marts chain of grocery stores, Buddy Minyard.
Like me, Cay was adopted too and I could tell it was as confusing to her as it was for me. Although she knew what her real name would have been, she’d never met her biologicals.
I, on the other hand, was never told what my real name would have been (certain flora notwithstanding). The assumption Elizabeth Blakeney was my real mother is based solely on my putting two and two together vis-a-vis the conversations and events described herebefore.
My relationship with both women matured over the next few months but I was spending more and more time with Jeanette while leaning more and more towards Cay with my affections...to no increased avail.
When Christmastime came Jeanette went back to her home in Amarillo to visit her family for a few weeks. Judy went with.
Cay and I spent Christmas Eve in bed together. I left about 3 am because I was frustrated with her refusal to show any signs of wanting to join me in a more committed relationship. I was certain she wanted to but was afraid of it at the same time.
Although nothing was said, Cay and I didn't bring the relationship along any further. It just stopped.
In February of the New Year, 1971, Jeanette told me she was pregnant. It came as no real shock.
We talked about it and I suggested the avenues of approach to the situation as I saw them from my viewpoint:
• We could get married and live happily ever after.
• She could get an abortion.
• She could have the child and we’d raise it together.
• She could have the child and raise it alone with my support.
• She'd have the child and I'd take custody, with her support.
I told her that my vote on the abortion issue -recognizing her right to making the final decision- was to not have one; that, as the father, I didn't want my child aborted.
We decided to get married.
The wedding took place in the old Oak Lawn House on February 11, 1971. Jeanette and I had already been living together when I learned the upstairs half had come up for rent.
We jumped at it.
Her bosses at KLIF gave her a entire half-day off for a "honeymoon" which we spent at the Holiday Inn in Downtown Dallas.
Jack Caspary, the celebrated Dallas Magazine cover photographer, took the wedding photos. He was one of Dallas' top photojournalist/fashion photographers of the time; but, somehow, the three color rolls he shot didn't come out of the processing tank correctly and we had no visual record of the event.
We performed the ceremony ourselves with me as the minister. I was ordained, not only by God when I was 14 and having a conversation with Him while at Allen Academy, but also by the Universal Life Church in San Francisco in 1970.
It was a corny cliché but our wedding cake was a pair of Hostess Sno-balls.
So now it was 1973, two years later, and we were back in Amarillo. I had gotten hired on at KGNC-TV and it was time to settle down.
Jeanette's aunt was a dabbler in real estate and we learned she had a house she might be willing to rent us.
It turned out she was more than willing. In fact she said she’d sell it to us for $5,000 plus another $2,500 for the vacant lot next door. She'd even fence off the back half of the lots.
On top of that she agreed to charge us simple interest on the deal which meant we got the house and two lots, measuring about 140’ x 100’,for a total cost of $9,000.
It's the only good financial deal I ever made in my life.
Lesson: Even an idiot gets one right now and then.
To celebrate owning my own home, I "marked" it by peeing off the back porch one night not long after we moved in.
Why men do that is beyond me, but the urge to do it was overwhelming, almost primeval...so I did.
My job at KGNC was a good one. I was one of the "voices" of the station. I announced all the station breaks, voiced commercials for the station’s accounts, did little live tags at the end of commercials, introduced the live shows, and handled the sound levels for network and local telecasts: Amarillo’s Don Pardo.
I also did a little freelance commercial announcing and was making a comfortable living when you added in the money I was receiving from the trust fund the a.m. had established.
Over the months I’d risen to the number one slot in both the noon-time bracket and the mid afternoon period with my two shows.
But management was changing. New owners had taken over and I could feel things weren't going the right way for me, anymore.
I’m too outspoken sometimes and it cost me the job
I complained, one afternoon, to the general manager about my not being included in some now forgotten survey of personnel as to their programming ideas or some such. As host/producer of the two top rated live shows (not including newscasts) I felt I should be consulted, too.
I was angry, to say the least, and was telling the G.M.
He made the mistake of passing it off lightly and telling me, “Well, that’s not for you to think about.
Then I made the mistake of telling him he had no business telling me what I could or could not think about, that this was still a free country and if I wanted to “thing he was a horse’s ass I was still free to think it.”
He excused himself from the room for a few minutes and returned with a severance check and told me my services were no longer needed, effective immediately.
Lesson: Free speech is expensive.
So, I followed one of our newsmen, Keith Adams (ne Pipkin), over to a radio station he had just bought: KRAY-AM, which later became KQIZ.
I became their mid-day man.
I went on to make a name for myself on the air doing all sorts of wacky things...Live! I made the show up as I went along. I had 5 hours to fill every day and I did it the best I knew how: with things I felt people would enjoy being a part of and would talk about at the proverbial water cooler for the next few days.
I liked to make long distance calls around the country to talk to various dignitaries like Donald Duck at Disneyland.
Another call was to Tokyo, Japan. I wanted to sing "Happy Birthday" to Emperor Hirohito on his day of nascence.
I called the local operator and was put through to the overseas operator in Denver who connected me with information in Tokyo.
"Tokyo", the woman answered.
"Hello. I'm calling from Amarillo, Texas. I need the phone number of Emperor Hirohito, please", I explained.
"Who?" she asked.
The overseas operator was still on the line: I'd told her what I was doing and said she could stay on if she wanted to. She liked the idea of being part of a radio show and hung on. She answered the operator with "Hirohito. Emperor Hirohito".
"Emperor...?" the Tokyo operator wasn't quite catching our accents too well.
I helped her: "Em-per-or Hirohito. He's the Emperor."
"Oh. Hirohito! Ohhhhh! I'm sorry. I cannot...You must be official person to speak Emperor", she informed me.
That was the “punchline” I was looking for and I went straight to the next record.
Lesson: Always be “official” person.
The first month’s long distance bill shocked Keith when he saw it.
That particular call to Japan didn’t cost a cent because I'd never been connected to anyone other than phone company employees.
But station management being what it is the world over was more concerned about the bottom line than actual entertainment value for the dollar and informed me my phoning days were over.
I learned something from the last call that told me I could have my cake and eat it too: I could make calls for free...as long as I didn't talk to anyone directly...or...if I made them pay for the call!
About this time disgraced former President Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, now with Gerald Ford, was being linked in the press with mob ties/friends.
No allegations of wrong doing, mind you, just that they were acquainted. It was his birthday and I wanted to wish him a good day.
I first tried the State Department in Washington.
Those people have no sense of humor whatsoever. When they found out I was "taping this call for possible future airplay" there was a definite and immediate "click" and deafening silence on the line.
I called back and was curtly told they would not talk to me at all and to not call back.
I tried another tack: I called information in Chicago and asked for the number of "Murder, Incorporated".
After a few seconds the operator, dead serious, came back with her scripted line, "I'm sorry, under Murder Incorporated I don't show a listing."
"Well, could you try under ‘Mafia’?” I asked, “It's Henry Kissinger's birthday and we wanted to wish him a happy day, but he's out of town and we thought these guys might know where he is. They're supposed to be friendly with each other."
Pause.
"No. Under Mafia I don't show a listing, either.” Another pause, then “Uh...I don't think they advertise in the phone book", she said with a slight smile in her voice; she was beginning to enjoy the game.
"Well, we'd really like to get hold of him. Could you give us the names of some mobster types we might call and find out?"
She quite innocently responded with the perfect punch line to the call, "I don't know ...unless you called Mayor Daley!"
Lesson: There’s always a way around every obstacle.
It was now 1974, and the Vietnamese refugees were landing in America and staying, among other places, at the Marine’s Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. Since my show was around the noon hour I decided to call -collect- to the mess hall and enquire what they were serving them for lunch.
The operator reached the camp's switchboard and we were quickly put through to the mess hall. A corpsman on duty answered and the operator asked if he'd accept the charges for the call. He was surprised by the request and told us he wasn't authorized to do that.
I sneaked in, by cleverly directing my comment to the operator that we were trying to find out the refugee’s menu.
The marine had his wits about him and said that while he couldn't accept the charges he could tell the operator what they were having.
Like a real trooper, she replied she'd “kind of like to know” herself, and allowed us to listen in while he told her they were having chicken, vegetables, and rice, with bread pudding for dessert with coffee and iced tea to drink.
It was interesting they were eating regular American fare, no special menu at all...and yet foods they were familiar with.
The operator thanked him for the information. I thanked them both for being good sports and racked up another free call and a bit of informative entertainment as well.
Lesson: We’re more alike than we know.
Management at KQIZ was worried they couldn't control me. They mandated I inform them what I was going to do on a daily basis.
I countered with the explanation that they heard the show the same time I did: I didn't know what I was going to do until I did it. That was the only way I knew how to work.
Push came to shove and I left the airwaves.
Lesson: There’s always another obstacle.
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