Rome was hit with another cold wave, with low temperatures falling to 11° on Tuesday night, a record low for the date. Wednesday night was even colder with a 9° low. While temperatures warmed up into the upper teens on Thursday night, it was still cold enough that a line of precipitation moving through dumped almost two inches of snow on the area, closing schools once again (the second snow-related closing in January 1970). Shorter Avenue was particularly treacherous due to ice beneath the layer of snow, with numerous accidents reported.
The Chieftains turned the season around on January 24th with their first varsity boys basketball win of the season as they defeated Coosa 65-56. Randy Hatch was West Rome's top scorer with 24 points, while Floyd Miller racked up 23 and David Watkins added another 13. The victory was all the better because Coosa was widely favored to win decisively.
National City Bank celebrated the opening of its modern new building at Broad Street and Fifth Avenue this week in 1970 with an open house that included displays of coins through history, including Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts. As part of the celebration, they gave away 9000 foreign coins valued at more than $10,000, including some ancient coins that predated the birth of Christ.The building's contemporary glass, concrete, and brick architect made it one of Rome's most modern -looking structures.
In recognition of an important aspect of Rome area history, Celanese Fibers Company donated the Chieftains, a historic dwelling on Chatillon Road, to the Rome Junior Service League. The donation included 6.2 acres of land with two two-story structures, along with $5000 for renovation and additional research into the history of the property, which was the home of Cherokee chief Major John Ridge.
A long-time West Rome business announced plans to close when Mack's on Shorter Avenue revealed that they were closing; this was the first major closing in West Rome in several years, and the opening of Big K in Gala Shopping Center was cited as one reason for the closing. Mack's said that their Central Plaza location would remain open, so West Romans would only have to drive a few more miles to continue shopping with their hometown clothing store.
Piggly Wiggly had hen turkeys for 39¢ a pound, Van Camp's chili for 29¢ a can, and five pounds of grapefruit for 59¢. Kroger had ground beef for 53¢ a pound, sweet potatoes for 12¢ a pound, and Sealtest ice cream for 55¢ a half-gallon. Big Apple had rib roast for 89¢ a pound, apples for 16¢ a pound, and a five-pound bag of frozen french fries for 69¢. A&P had sirloin steak for $1.19 a pound, Hormel Vienna sausages for a dime a can, and carrots for a dime a bag. Couch's had chicken breast for 59¢ a pound, Nabisco vanilla wafers for 39¢ a box, and Van Camp's pork & beans for 15¢ a can.
The cinematic week began with The Undefeated (starring John Wayne) at the DeSoto Theatre, Take the Money and Run (starring Woody Allen) at the First Avenue, Alaskan Safari (a documentary starring no one you've heard of) at the Village, and Midnight Cowboy (starring Dustin Hoffman) at the West Rome Drive-In. The weekend switch out brought Krakatoa, East of Java (starring Brian Keith) to the DeSoto, Christmas Tree (starring William Holden) to the First Avenue, Viva Max (starring Peter Ustinov) to the Village, and Alice's Restaurant (starring Arlo Guthrie) to the West Rome Drive-In.
The Jackson 5 took the top slot this week in 1970 with "I Want You Back." Other top ten hits included "Venus" by the Shocking Blue (#2); "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" by BJ Thomas (#3); "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin (#4); "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" by Tom Jones (#5); "Don't Cry Daddy/Rubberneckin'" by Elvis Presley (#6); "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Dionne Warwick (#7); "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again/Everybody Is a Star" by Sly & The Family Stone (#8); "Someday We'll Be Together" by Diana Ross & The Supremes (#9); and"Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul, & Mary (#10).
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-Five
I am about to reveal a secret from the early years of our marriage that those who know me may find unbelievable.
For the first two years that Susan and I were wed, we did not have a telephone.
And here's another secret almost equally shocking.
For the first two years, we almost did not have a television.
The former speaks for itself, but let me explain what I mean by the latter. We did own a television--a 13" black and white television. We also had a very poor antenna mounted just outside the living room window, and an antenna wire that ran around the baseboard, over the door frame, to a splitter that went to the tiny little television and to the FM input of our stereo record player/FM receiver (a Singer unit that I had owned before we got married, purchased by my parents at the Singer Sewing Center in Gala Shopping Center--and yes indeed, Singer carried Singer-branded stereo equipment as well as sewimg machines).
The antenna was so basic that we could only pick up channel 2 on a regular basis, and sometimes (if the weather was right and the gods smiled upon us) Channel 11. Nothing else. And even those channels would distort and go fuzzy when the train passed near our house--an event that happened at least six times a day. So we rarely used the television at all; the antenna was enough to bring in a few radio stations, so we did listen to FM radio every now and then, but not much.
As a result, my popular culture knowledge has a two-year gap as far as television is concerned. For example: The New Dick Van Dyke Show aired on CBS from September 1971 to March of 1974. Not only did I not see a single episode of this series, I didn't even remember that it existed until I ran across some bootlegged copies at a convention. And I'm an avid fan of the original Dick Van Dyke Show and of Dick Van Dyke himself. So why didn't I watch it? Because Channel 5 was the Atlanta CBS affiliate, and we only picked up Channels 2 & 11.
While we could have watched shows on NBC (Channel 2 was Atlanta's NBC affiliate at the time, although that would change in 1981) and occasionally on ABC (Channel 11 was Atlanta's ABC affiliate back then, before it switched networks with Channel 2), we didn't. The reception was simply too unreliable, and the television was so small that we didn't watch entertainment programming. Susan liked to turn the teevee on while we were making dinner so that she could see ( or more specifically, hear) the local weather, but that was about it.
We would not get a color television until 1974, when we bought a used 23" set from our friend Larry Mason, who worked for Atlanta electronics repair specialists Norman Electronics and had personally ensured the the television was worth the hundred bucks that he was asking for it. He was correct; it was a great television, and it gave us almost ten years of great service before the tube failed. That was also the year that we decided we could afford to splurge $8 a month for cable TV, which meant that we could watch VHF channels from Atlanta and Chattanooga and UHF channels from Atlanta. Thus began my renewed fascination with television as a medium and the sitcom as an artform--a fascination that remains with me to this day.
As for the phone--well, it simply wasn't in our budget. We lived two houses away from my grandmother, so if an urgent problem came up and we absolutely had to make a phone call, I could walk up to her house and ask to use her phone. We were also only two miles from Susan's old family home, and as her father begrudgingly accepted the fact that we were married, we would drive over there a few times a week to see her sister and brother and even her grandmother, with whom Susan struggled to maintain a relationship. Lastly, there was a small grocery store a half-mile from our house that had a pay phone outside. So we could use a phone if we were willing to go to the trouble ard/or pay the dime for the phone call. I don't have a specific count as to how many times we took advantage of that opportunity while during the two years that we didn't have a phone, but I don't think it was more than a dozen.
It didn't mean we were out of touch with my family and our friends. I was attending school in Rome and working in West Rome, about a mile from my parents' house. If time allowed, I would run by the house and see Mom while grabbing a sandwich for lunch. (Mom always had something I could use as the base for a lunch sandwich, which certainly helped our grocery budget.) Sometimes Dad would be home for lunch, too, so I would get a chance to talk with both of them. As a result, I was seeing at least one of my parents several times a week--and we would always go by their house to see them on Saturdays if we went to Rome. Once a month, they would come down to Cedartown to see my grandmother, so we would either see them at grandmother's house or they would walk down to our house to see us. While we didn't talk on the phone, we talked in person, and that was better.
We would see our closest friends--Gary Steele and Sven Ahlstrom and, later on, Larry Mason--almost every weekend. We would shop for comics and SF and mysteries and albums together, and we did a-apazines and fanzines together. We were great friends, so close that we had an open door policy for one another. When our friend Sven found himself briefly without a place to stay, he lived with us for a week or three in that tiny house. Gary Steele spent many weekend nights at our house after he stayed over so late working on a fanzine that he didn't feel like driving back to Rome.
Even out of town friends like Don Markstein, Stven Carlberg, Cecil Hutto, Steve & Binker Hughes, and mike weber stayed at that tiny, decrepit house. Cedartown was becoming a fan nexus (even if Cedartown neither knew nor cared that it was becoming a fan nexus). But without a phone, how did we stay in contact with our out-of-town friends between visits? We wrote letters! Susan and I wrote lots of letters and got lots of mail. Hardly a day went by that we didn't get at least one letter from one or more of those friends. And a lot of those were multi-page letters; in those typed pages (all of my friends typed their letters, as did we), we talked about so much more than we would ever have discussed in a phone call.
Those who know me now realize that I am never without my iPhone; it may be hard for them to believe that for two years Susan and I did not have a phone and did not feel like we were missing anything. And all of my friends know how much Susan loved television (she loved it even more than I did, which is why she wanted both DirecTV and Comcast to ensure that she didn't miss anything, and we had about a half dozen Tivos, eight DirecTV receivers, and two Comcast boxes in Lansdowne (the main house), along with ten tuners and an attic antenna in Marchmont (the overflow house) so that we could record over-the-air programming as a backup.
But for two years we didn't watch entertainment programming at all, and didn't care.
Sometimes I look back on those two years and wonder how we found the time to write all those letters, do all those fanzines, and read all those books and comics while working (Susan held a full-time 40 hour a week job, while I was working 25 hours a week on average)--and I was taking a full class load at Berry, and in some quarters an overload! It would seem like we should have had no spare time at all.
And yet, in spite of it all, those were two of the most glorious years of our lives.
For the first two years that Susan and I were wed, we did not have a telephone.
And here's another secret almost equally shocking.
For the first two years, we almost did not have a television.
The former speaks for itself, but let me explain what I mean by the latter. We did own a television--a 13" black and white television. We also had a very poor antenna mounted just outside the living room window, and an antenna wire that ran around the baseboard, over the door frame, to a splitter that went to the tiny little television and to the FM input of our stereo record player/FM receiver (a Singer unit that I had owned before we got married, purchased by my parents at the Singer Sewing Center in Gala Shopping Center--and yes indeed, Singer carried Singer-branded stereo equipment as well as sewimg machines).
The antenna was so basic that we could only pick up channel 2 on a regular basis, and sometimes (if the weather was right and the gods smiled upon us) Channel 11. Nothing else. And even those channels would distort and go fuzzy when the train passed near our house--an event that happened at least six times a day. So we rarely used the television at all; the antenna was enough to bring in a few radio stations, so we did listen to FM radio every now and then, but not much.
As a result, my popular culture knowledge has a two-year gap as far as television is concerned. For example: The New Dick Van Dyke Show aired on CBS from September 1971 to March of 1974. Not only did I not see a single episode of this series, I didn't even remember that it existed until I ran across some bootlegged copies at a convention. And I'm an avid fan of the original Dick Van Dyke Show and of Dick Van Dyke himself. So why didn't I watch it? Because Channel 5 was the Atlanta CBS affiliate, and we only picked up Channels 2 & 11.
While we could have watched shows on NBC (Channel 2 was Atlanta's NBC affiliate at the time, although that would change in 1981) and occasionally on ABC (Channel 11 was Atlanta's ABC affiliate back then, before it switched networks with Channel 2), we didn't. The reception was simply too unreliable, and the television was so small that we didn't watch entertainment programming. Susan liked to turn the teevee on while we were making dinner so that she could see ( or more specifically, hear) the local weather, but that was about it.
We would not get a color television until 1974, when we bought a used 23" set from our friend Larry Mason, who worked for Atlanta electronics repair specialists Norman Electronics and had personally ensured the the television was worth the hundred bucks that he was asking for it. He was correct; it was a great television, and it gave us almost ten years of great service before the tube failed. That was also the year that we decided we could afford to splurge $8 a month for cable TV, which meant that we could watch VHF channels from Atlanta and Chattanooga and UHF channels from Atlanta. Thus began my renewed fascination with television as a medium and the sitcom as an artform--a fascination that remains with me to this day.
As for the phone--well, it simply wasn't in our budget. We lived two houses away from my grandmother, so if an urgent problem came up and we absolutely had to make a phone call, I could walk up to her house and ask to use her phone. We were also only two miles from Susan's old family home, and as her father begrudgingly accepted the fact that we were married, we would drive over there a few times a week to see her sister and brother and even her grandmother, with whom Susan struggled to maintain a relationship. Lastly, there was a small grocery store a half-mile from our house that had a pay phone outside. So we could use a phone if we were willing to go to the trouble ard/or pay the dime for the phone call. I don't have a specific count as to how many times we took advantage of that opportunity while during the two years that we didn't have a phone, but I don't think it was more than a dozen.
It didn't mean we were out of touch with my family and our friends. I was attending school in Rome and working in West Rome, about a mile from my parents' house. If time allowed, I would run by the house and see Mom while grabbing a sandwich for lunch. (Mom always had something I could use as the base for a lunch sandwich, which certainly helped our grocery budget.) Sometimes Dad would be home for lunch, too, so I would get a chance to talk with both of them. As a result, I was seeing at least one of my parents several times a week--and we would always go by their house to see them on Saturdays if we went to Rome. Once a month, they would come down to Cedartown to see my grandmother, so we would either see them at grandmother's house or they would walk down to our house to see us. While we didn't talk on the phone, we talked in person, and that was better.
We would see our closest friends--Gary Steele and Sven Ahlstrom and, later on, Larry Mason--almost every weekend. We would shop for comics and SF and mysteries and albums together, and we did a-apazines and fanzines together. We were great friends, so close that we had an open door policy for one another. When our friend Sven found himself briefly without a place to stay, he lived with us for a week or three in that tiny house. Gary Steele spent many weekend nights at our house after he stayed over so late working on a fanzine that he didn't feel like driving back to Rome.
Even out of town friends like Don Markstein, Stven Carlberg, Cecil Hutto, Steve & Binker Hughes, and mike weber stayed at that tiny, decrepit house. Cedartown was becoming a fan nexus (even if Cedartown neither knew nor cared that it was becoming a fan nexus). But without a phone, how did we stay in contact with our out-of-town friends between visits? We wrote letters! Susan and I wrote lots of letters and got lots of mail. Hardly a day went by that we didn't get at least one letter from one or more of those friends. And a lot of those were multi-page letters; in those typed pages (all of my friends typed their letters, as did we), we talked about so much more than we would ever have discussed in a phone call.
Those who know me now realize that I am never without my iPhone; it may be hard for them to believe that for two years Susan and I did not have a phone and did not feel like we were missing anything. And all of my friends know how much Susan loved television (she loved it even more than I did, which is why she wanted both DirecTV and Comcast to ensure that she didn't miss anything, and we had about a half dozen Tivos, eight DirecTV receivers, and two Comcast boxes in Lansdowne (the main house), along with ten tuners and an attic antenna in Marchmont (the overflow house) so that we could record over-the-air programming as a backup.
But for two years we didn't watch entertainment programming at all, and didn't care.
Sometimes I look back on those two years and wonder how we found the time to write all those letters, do all those fanzines, and read all those books and comics while working (Susan held a full-time 40 hour a week job, while I was working 25 hours a week on average)--and I was taking a full class load at Berry, and in some quarters an overload! It would seem like we should have had no spare time at all.
And yet, in spite of it all, those were two of the most glorious years of our lives.
Monday, January 20, 2020
Only the Lonely
"It must be tough being alone."
I hear that a lot.
I don't know. I'm not alone. Not really.
Loneliness is always there. Never leaves my side.
There's a cure to being alone. Just go where people are. If they're your friends, that's great. If it's people who know you and like your company, that's good. But even if it's people you don't know, they're people. Doing people things. Talking. Shopping, Eating. Walking Complaining. Sitting. Laughing. Crying. 24 hours a day, you can be around people if you want.
But loneliness is the companion who never leaves. Even when you're with people, loneliness is there, too. He may be quiet for a while, but he doesn't go away. In the lull of the conversation, loneliness reminds you that when this ends, it'll be the two of you. He hitches an eyebrow to let you know that he's patient. He's waiting for the moment when it's just you and him again.
Loneliness isn't boisterous. He likes to whisper. "This is the way it's always going to be," he murmurs. "Just us," he sighs.
I wish that loneliness would get tired of me and find other friends. But he brought a lot of baggage with him. Looks like he's moved in to stay.
I hear that a lot.
I don't know. I'm not alone. Not really.
Loneliness is always there. Never leaves my side.
There's a cure to being alone. Just go where people are. If they're your friends, that's great. If it's people who know you and like your company, that's good. But even if it's people you don't know, they're people. Doing people things. Talking. Shopping, Eating. Walking Complaining. Sitting. Laughing. Crying. 24 hours a day, you can be around people if you want.
But loneliness is the companion who never leaves. Even when you're with people, loneliness is there, too. He may be quiet for a while, but he doesn't go away. In the lull of the conversation, loneliness reminds you that when this ends, it'll be the two of you. He hitches an eyebrow to let you know that he's patient. He's waiting for the moment when it's just you and him again.
Loneliness isn't boisterous. He likes to whisper. "This is the way it's always going to be," he murmurs. "Just us," he sighs.
I wish that loneliness would get tired of me and find other friends. But he brought a lot of baggage with him. Looks like he's moved in to stay.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-Four
There are few things more glorious than the early months of a loving marriage.
Susan and I had drawn up our budget under the assumption that I would only be able to work about 10 to 15 hours a week. I was determined to do better, and I lucked into the perfect situation just a couple of months after we got married.
The House of 10,000 Picture Frames had opened a franchise location in Rome, run by Mr. & Mrs. Peacock, who had set up the shop in an old Buy-Wise location in West Rome (they would later move it to a former roller-skating rink also in West Rome). I was one of four part-time employees working at the shop in August of 1971; I was the only part-time staffer who was still working for them in 1975, when I had to quit because I was beginning my student teaching and Berry College didn't allow student teachers to work at any other job.
Working at the frame shop turned out to be the best part-time job I could have hoped for. I was a quick learner and became quite adept at cutting mats, cutting glass, assembling custom frames, building shadowboxes, stretching needlework, running a dry-mount press, and doing all the other miscellaneous jobs that go along with framing. And since Susan and I lived in Cedartown, I was more than willing to run deliveries to Cedartown customers on my way home from work, which gave the shop an edge that no other Rome frame shop had. That was actually my idea; I saw that we had a few Cedartown customers, and I mentioned to the shop owners that it could be an extra service we could offer. Not only did it make existing customers happy, but it brought us new business as those customers told their friends.
Since custom framing isn't a "while you wait" service, the Peacocks were more than willing to let me work around my class schedule. As I had done during my summer enrichment program experience at Berry, I scheduled my classes in a morning block as much as possible. Susan had to leave the house at 7:15 every morning for her job in the payroll department at Arrow Shirts; since I was getting up to make breakfast for her anyway (something I did every morning of our marriage, except when I was sick or recovering from heart surgery), I would begin with a 7:50 class (for some reason, Berry's classes didn't start on the hour). Most days, my last class would end by 12:40 or so at the latest, and I could begin work at 1pm. Sometimes I had Monday-Wednesday-Friday courses at the end of my class block, which meant that I could get out before noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Peacocks were more than glad to let me come in early on those days. The shop was also open a half-day on Saturdays, and I took those shifts whenever I could.
So rather than working 10 or 15 hours a week, I was working 20 to 25 hours a week (and during the holiday season, I worked 30 to 36 hours a week). That meant that our budget was less stressed than we had initially imagined... and that meant more money for comic books, paperbacks, hardcovers, record albums, and (best of all) regular trips to Cumberland Mall in Marietta.
By the fall of 1971, Susan and I had increased our budget to allow for $15 a week for savings; $10 a week for books, comics, and music; and $10 a week for our trips to Cumberland. Savings came first, then books.comics, and music, then Cumberland--but if we spent less on our entertainment budget, we would roll that into our Cumberland budget.
As far as we were concerned, Cumberland was a shopping mecca. Having grown up in Rome and Cedartown, we had very little exposure to the sort of chain stores that were prevalent at Cumberland. We also had rarely shopped at (or even visited) Rich's or Davison's, both of which had huge stores at Cumberland. (Alas, both chains were eventually acquired by Macy's, which stripped them of most of the variety and character that defined each store.)
Getting to Cumberland was an adventure in itself. I-75 was not completed at that time, so we made the entire drive on 411 to Cartersville, then on 41 to Cumberland. Highway 41 is rather hilly between Cartersville and Marietta, and we usually made the trip in our 1964 Volkswagen with its 40 horsepower engine (some claimed that the engine couldd generate as much as 44 horsepower, but I doubt it), which meant that we had to get up as much speed as possible on the downhill runs in order to top the next hill at something approaching 35 miles per hour. With that old VW, getting to Cumberland was an adventure in itself, but that soon became part of the fun.
Cumberland had everything we could hope for: bookstores, record stores, clothing stores (Susan loved buying clothes at Cumberland--I was happy buying my clothes wherever they were on sale), home decor stores, and so much more. We would get up early on a Saturday so that we could get to Cumberland as close to the 10:00 am opening as possible. Susan and I (and sometimes Sven Ahlstrom and/or Gary Steele, who would occasionally make the trip with us) would spend hours walking around Cumberland, just window shopping and daydreaming of a time when we could afford to buy everything we saw there. (I saw my "dream stereo system" at Rich's in 1971: a Marantz stereo amplifier and Bose 901 speakers on a tulip-base stand. It would be 2016 before I would actually acquire the now-vintage amplifier and speakers that I had admired at Rich's forty-five years earlier.)
Susan loved to shop for clothes; having grown up in a very poor household, she thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of buying quality clothing. She would usually buy at least one article of clothing on every Cumberland trip, but she would try on things that she knew we couldn't afford just because she loved to try them on and see how they looked.
Quite unlike the stereotypical bored husband waiting for the shopping excursion to end, I actually enjoyed accompanying Susan as she shopped for clothes. I loved being with her as she tried on things, seeing the enthusiastic joy on her face as she came out the dressing room to show me clothes was considering as well as clothes that she hoped to someday afford. I enjoyed helping her to pick out clothes, and I was always happy when she liked something that I had suggested. Whether it was clothes that Susan had selected or clothes that I had suggested, I liked to see Susan in those clothes; there is a sort of intimacy in shopping together for something as personal as clothes, and in seeing the woman you love in clothes that both flatter her and bring her happiness.
Thankfully, Susan took our budget very seriously, because it was impossible for me to tell her "no" when she found something that she really wanted. We never had a "your money and my money" marriage: every penny we had was our money. Ultimately, our relationship wasn't built on either of us telling the other "no." We were equals, and we treated each other as equals. We would discuss costs and budgets, but we trusted one another to make wise choices--that's the way our married life worked, and it never changed.
Susan and I had drawn up our budget under the assumption that I would only be able to work about 10 to 15 hours a week. I was determined to do better, and I lucked into the perfect situation just a couple of months after we got married.
The House of 10,000 Picture Frames had opened a franchise location in Rome, run by Mr. & Mrs. Peacock, who had set up the shop in an old Buy-Wise location in West Rome (they would later move it to a former roller-skating rink also in West Rome). I was one of four part-time employees working at the shop in August of 1971; I was the only part-time staffer who was still working for them in 1975, when I had to quit because I was beginning my student teaching and Berry College didn't allow student teachers to work at any other job.
Working at the frame shop turned out to be the best part-time job I could have hoped for. I was a quick learner and became quite adept at cutting mats, cutting glass, assembling custom frames, building shadowboxes, stretching needlework, running a dry-mount press, and doing all the other miscellaneous jobs that go along with framing. And since Susan and I lived in Cedartown, I was more than willing to run deliveries to Cedartown customers on my way home from work, which gave the shop an edge that no other Rome frame shop had. That was actually my idea; I saw that we had a few Cedartown customers, and I mentioned to the shop owners that it could be an extra service we could offer. Not only did it make existing customers happy, but it brought us new business as those customers told their friends.
Since custom framing isn't a "while you wait" service, the Peacocks were more than willing to let me work around my class schedule. As I had done during my summer enrichment program experience at Berry, I scheduled my classes in a morning block as much as possible. Susan had to leave the house at 7:15 every morning for her job in the payroll department at Arrow Shirts; since I was getting up to make breakfast for her anyway (something I did every morning of our marriage, except when I was sick or recovering from heart surgery), I would begin with a 7:50 class (for some reason, Berry's classes didn't start on the hour). Most days, my last class would end by 12:40 or so at the latest, and I could begin work at 1pm. Sometimes I had Monday-Wednesday-Friday courses at the end of my class block, which meant that I could get out before noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Peacocks were more than glad to let me come in early on those days. The shop was also open a half-day on Saturdays, and I took those shifts whenever I could.
So rather than working 10 or 15 hours a week, I was working 20 to 25 hours a week (and during the holiday season, I worked 30 to 36 hours a week). That meant that our budget was less stressed than we had initially imagined... and that meant more money for comic books, paperbacks, hardcovers, record albums, and (best of all) regular trips to Cumberland Mall in Marietta.
By the fall of 1971, Susan and I had increased our budget to allow for $15 a week for savings; $10 a week for books, comics, and music; and $10 a week for our trips to Cumberland. Savings came first, then books.comics, and music, then Cumberland--but if we spent less on our entertainment budget, we would roll that into our Cumberland budget.
As far as we were concerned, Cumberland was a shopping mecca. Having grown up in Rome and Cedartown, we had very little exposure to the sort of chain stores that were prevalent at Cumberland. We also had rarely shopped at (or even visited) Rich's or Davison's, both of which had huge stores at Cumberland. (Alas, both chains were eventually acquired by Macy's, which stripped them of most of the variety and character that defined each store.)
Getting to Cumberland was an adventure in itself. I-75 was not completed at that time, so we made the entire drive on 411 to Cartersville, then on 41 to Cumberland. Highway 41 is rather hilly between Cartersville and Marietta, and we usually made the trip in our 1964 Volkswagen with its 40 horsepower engine (some claimed that the engine couldd generate as much as 44 horsepower, but I doubt it), which meant that we had to get up as much speed as possible on the downhill runs in order to top the next hill at something approaching 35 miles per hour. With that old VW, getting to Cumberland was an adventure in itself, but that soon became part of the fun.
Cumberland had everything we could hope for: bookstores, record stores, clothing stores (Susan loved buying clothes at Cumberland--I was happy buying my clothes wherever they were on sale), home decor stores, and so much more. We would get up early on a Saturday so that we could get to Cumberland as close to the 10:00 am opening as possible. Susan and I (and sometimes Sven Ahlstrom and/or Gary Steele, who would occasionally make the trip with us) would spend hours walking around Cumberland, just window shopping and daydreaming of a time when we could afford to buy everything we saw there. (I saw my "dream stereo system" at Rich's in 1971: a Marantz stereo amplifier and Bose 901 speakers on a tulip-base stand. It would be 2016 before I would actually acquire the now-vintage amplifier and speakers that I had admired at Rich's forty-five years earlier.)
Susan loved to shop for clothes; having grown up in a very poor household, she thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of buying quality clothing. She would usually buy at least one article of clothing on every Cumberland trip, but she would try on things that she knew we couldn't afford just because she loved to try them on and see how they looked.
Quite unlike the stereotypical bored husband waiting for the shopping excursion to end, I actually enjoyed accompanying Susan as she shopped for clothes. I loved being with her as she tried on things, seeing the enthusiastic joy on her face as she came out the dressing room to show me clothes was considering as well as clothes that she hoped to someday afford. I enjoyed helping her to pick out clothes, and I was always happy when she liked something that I had suggested. Whether it was clothes that Susan had selected or clothes that I had suggested, I liked to see Susan in those clothes; there is a sort of intimacy in shopping together for something as personal as clothes, and in seeing the woman you love in clothes that both flatter her and bring her happiness.
Thankfully, Susan took our budget very seriously, because it was impossible for me to tell her "no" when she found something that she really wanted. We never had a "your money and my money" marriage: every penny we had was our money. Ultimately, our relationship wasn't built on either of us telling the other "no." We were equals, and we treated each other as equals. We would discuss costs and budgets, but we trusted one another to make wise choices--that's the way our married life worked, and it never changed.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Fifty Years Ago This Week in West Rome - 1/12/1970 to 1/18/1970
Rome was recovering from a surprise snowfall that began on Sunday, January 11th, and continued into January 12th. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain made travel treacherous, which resulted in city schools being closed. Officer Harper McDaniel said that main roads in Rome were drivable, but side streets that were shaded were still icy and they advised residents not to get out unless absolutely necessary. Monday morning started out in the teens, but temperatures rose to just above freezing by Monday afternoon. Things were close enough to normal by Tuesday morning that students returned to school.
West Rome's wrestlers defeated Cedartown (36-18) Calhoun (28-24), and Cherokee (26-21), pushing their record to 3-2. Winning wrestlers included Howard Braziel, Randy Kennedy, Tommy Shaw, Johnny Williams, Steve Shaw, Sam Tucker, Henry Studyvent, Chuck Kinnebrew, Edward Sellers, and Ivan Rutherford.
The Chieftains' boysbasketball team was not having a great year. They lost to Cedartown 72-51 on Friday, January 17th, continuing a totally winless season. It was up to the girls to salvage the night for West Rome, and they did that with a 37-29 victory over the Bulldogs.
Merle Haggard appeared in concert at the Rome City Auditorium on January 17th, accompanied by Bonnie Owens, Johnny Duncan, and the Osborne Brothers. (Yes, there was a time when Rome actually got concerts!)
Piggly Wiggly had fresh whole fryers for 29¢ a pound, Oscar Mayer bologna for 49¢ a package, and sweet potatoes for 12¢ a pound. Kroger had round steak for 98¢ a pound, Starkist tuna for 33¢ a can, and fresh strawberries for 29¢ a pint. A&P had sirloin steak for $1.09 a pound, Bush beans for a dime a can, and tomatoes for 39¢ a pound. Big Apple had jiffy steak for $1.29 a pound, Campbell's tomato soup for a dime a can, and bananas for a dime a pound. Couch's had spare ribs for 59¢ a pound, Saltine crackers for 39¢ a box, and temple oranges for a dime a pound.
The cinematic week began with On Her Majesty's Secret Service (the only James Bond film to star George Lazenby, who turned out to the one of the best Bonds ever) at the DeSoto Theatre, Alfred the Great (starring David Hemmings) at the First Avenue, The Riot (starring Jim Brown) at the Village, and Parent Trap (starring Hayley Mills) at the West Rome Drive-In. The weekend switch out brought Undefeated (starring John Wayne) to the DeSoto, Take the Money and Run (starring Woody Allen) to the First Avenue, Alaskan Safari (a documentary starring no one you've heard of) to the Village Theatre, and Midnight Cowboy (starring Dustin Hoffman) to the West Rome Drive-In.
BJ Thomas took the number one slot this week with "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," a song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the film Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. Other top ten hits included "Venus" by the Shocking Blue (#2); "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 (#3); "Someday We'll be Together" by Diana Ross & the Supremes (#4); "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin (#5); "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul, & Mary (#6); "Don't Cry Daddy/Rubberneckin'" by Elvis Presley (#7); "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" by Tom Jones (#8); "Jam Up & Jelly Tight" by Tommy Roe (#9); and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Dionne Warwick (#10).
What a week it was for great album: the top five LPs this week in 1970 were Abbey Road by the Beatles (#1); Led Zeppelin II (#2); Willy and the Poorboys by Creedence Clearwater Revival (#3); Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas (#4); and Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones (#5), with Three Dog Night, Engelbert Humperdinck, Blood Sweat & Tears, Santana, and the Easy Rider Soundtrack taking the next five chart positions.
The end of an era: Diana Ross and the Supremes performed together for the last time this week in 1970. The week's most prominent album release was Magic Christian Music by Badfinger, which featured the hit single "Come and Get It," a song written by Paul McCartney, who produced that track and two other songs; another track was produced by Beatles producer George Martin.
The glory days of the Warren horror comics magazine Creepy were coming to an end, but they had one final moment of brilliance this week in 1970 with the release of Creepy #32, which featured a Frank Frazetta cover painting and a lead story, "Rock God," written by Harlan Ellison and illustrated by Neal Adams. Both Frazetta and Adams would soon leave Warren entirely, unfortunately.
West Rome's wrestlers defeated Cedartown (36-18) Calhoun (28-24), and Cherokee (26-21), pushing their record to 3-2. Winning wrestlers included Howard Braziel, Randy Kennedy, Tommy Shaw, Johnny Williams, Steve Shaw, Sam Tucker, Henry Studyvent, Chuck Kinnebrew, Edward Sellers, and Ivan Rutherford.
The Chieftains' boysbasketball team was not having a great year. They lost to Cedartown 72-51 on Friday, January 17th, continuing a totally winless season. It was up to the girls to salvage the night for West Rome, and they did that with a 37-29 victory over the Bulldogs.
Merle Haggard appeared in concert at the Rome City Auditorium on January 17th, accompanied by Bonnie Owens, Johnny Duncan, and the Osborne Brothers. (Yes, there was a time when Rome actually got concerts!)
Piggly Wiggly had fresh whole fryers for 29¢ a pound, Oscar Mayer bologna for 49¢ a package, and sweet potatoes for 12¢ a pound. Kroger had round steak for 98¢ a pound, Starkist tuna for 33¢ a can, and fresh strawberries for 29¢ a pint. A&P had sirloin steak for $1.09 a pound, Bush beans for a dime a can, and tomatoes for 39¢ a pound. Big Apple had jiffy steak for $1.29 a pound, Campbell's tomato soup for a dime a can, and bananas for a dime a pound. Couch's had spare ribs for 59¢ a pound, Saltine crackers for 39¢ a box, and temple oranges for a dime a pound.
The cinematic week began with On Her Majesty's Secret Service (the only James Bond film to star George Lazenby, who turned out to the one of the best Bonds ever) at the DeSoto Theatre, Alfred the Great (starring David Hemmings) at the First Avenue, The Riot (starring Jim Brown) at the Village, and Parent Trap (starring Hayley Mills) at the West Rome Drive-In. The weekend switch out brought Undefeated (starring John Wayne) to the DeSoto, Take the Money and Run (starring Woody Allen) to the First Avenue, Alaskan Safari (a documentary starring no one you've heard of) to the Village Theatre, and Midnight Cowboy (starring Dustin Hoffman) to the West Rome Drive-In.
BJ Thomas took the number one slot this week with "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," a song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the film Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. Other top ten hits included "Venus" by the Shocking Blue (#2); "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 (#3); "Someday We'll be Together" by Diana Ross & the Supremes (#4); "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin (#5); "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul, & Mary (#6); "Don't Cry Daddy/Rubberneckin'" by Elvis Presley (#7); "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" by Tom Jones (#8); "Jam Up & Jelly Tight" by Tommy Roe (#9); and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Dionne Warwick (#10).
What a week it was for great album: the top five LPs this week in 1970 were Abbey Road by the Beatles (#1); Led Zeppelin II (#2); Willy and the Poorboys by Creedence Clearwater Revival (#3); Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas (#4); and Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones (#5), with Three Dog Night, Engelbert Humperdinck, Blood Sweat & Tears, Santana, and the Easy Rider Soundtrack taking the next five chart positions.
The end of an era: Diana Ross and the Supremes performed together for the last time this week in 1970. The week's most prominent album release was Magic Christian Music by Badfinger, which featured the hit single "Come and Get It," a song written by Paul McCartney, who produced that track and two other songs; another track was produced by Beatles producer George Martin.
The glory days of the Warren horror comics magazine Creepy were coming to an end, but they had one final moment of brilliance this week in 1970 with the release of Creepy #32, which featured a Frank Frazetta cover painting and a lead story, "Rock God," written by Harlan Ellison and illustrated by Neal Adams. Both Frazetta and Adams would soon leave Warren entirely, unfortunately.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-Three
While my parents had welcomed Susan as a part of the family, the situation with Susan's family was much more complex... and much less friendly.
Susan's mother died in the fall of 1970, just as Susan and I were first giving voice to our dreams of spending our lives together. Susan spoke very little of her mother's death, which was ruled a suicide by the coroner and the Cedartown police department. Susan never fully accepted that determination, and always suspected that it was an accidental overdose of prescription pain medications. Susan's sister (who actually found her mother's body and got word to Susan, who was at work but rushed home, arriving even before the ambulance) also felt like it was not an intentional suicide.
Susan's mother's death affected Susan for years, as the loss of a parent almost always does. The suicide ruling made it even more disturbing for Susan, who struggled with sorrow, loss, and anguish as well as confusion and doubt--and a little bit of guilt. Susan always wanted to know without a doubt what happened... and she wanted to know if in some way she or other members of her family had pushed her mother to suicide if it was a suicide. She would never get the answers she desired, and it always troubled her.
Susan's father and her grandmother were not happy when Susan and I told them of our plans to get married. Her father actually told her that he would not give his permission. Susan pointed out to him that, since she was 19 at the time, she didn't need his permission and wasn't asking for it. Susan's father had a volatile temper made even more so by his heavy drinking. While he never used physical violence against her, his rage would lead to loud outbursts filled with abusive language. We experienced his vitriol first-hand on that day.
Susan's grandmother (her father's mother) was manipulative in a totally different way. She constantly undermined everyone in the family, criticizing them and excoriating them and and controlling them by playing on their fears, insecurities, and sometimes on their guilt. She instilled fears in her grandchildren (including Susan) that took years to overcome. Susan's grandfather had given up long before I met them, and was a lost, broken alcoholic by the time I first met him. I suspect that Susan's grandmother had likewise destroyed Susan's father's ambition and self-worth as well, which is he and Susan's mother had never moved out of the same house where they had lived when he was a child--a run-down duplex in a slum block that was eventually razed by the city.
I would have thought her father would have wanted Susan to escape from such a home life, but quite the contrary: he wanted her to remain there, contributing a significant portion of each week's paycheck to the family budget. Her grandmother was even more harsh in condemning the plans for us to marry; she told Susan that she was turning her back on them, abandoning the family, condemning them all to a horrible life.
To her credit, Susan remained undeterred. I talked with her father and her grandmother, trying to assure them that I wanted to help Susan achieve the sort of life she deserved. My words fell on deaf ears.
I was so concerned about Susan that I talked with my parents and they agreed to a plan whereby Susan would move into my family's home if necessary. She would take my bedroom, and I would sleep on the sofa in the living room for the few months until our wedding. We never had to follow that plan, thankfully. After a week or so, anger was replaced with taciturn sullenness, as if they thought that not speaking to Susan would change her mind. It did not.
To his credit, Susan's grandfather (who had always treated me with a level of courtesy and a modicum of hospitality) told her that he did approve. "You have to get away from here," he told her. "You have to take care of her," he told me. It was the only time in his life that I knew him to speak against Susan's grandmother's wishes--and even then, he did so when Susan's grandmother was not present to hear his words.
So as we began tp make final arrangements for our wedding, Susan's Aunt Willie--her mother's sister, who looked so very much like Susan's mother--stepped in to help. It was Willie who performed all the alterations on Susan's wedding dress. It was Willie who helped us with the plans for the wedding. It was Willie who told Susan that if she needed a place to stay, she could stay with them (which would have been much closer to Susan's job in the payroll department of the Arrow Shirt Factory in Cedartown).
In a move that seemed almost precognitive, Susan gave me her comics and her books and her records (which she said were now our comics and our books and our records) and asked me to keep them at my parents' house in Rome until we got married. Her decision turned out to be a wise one; just a week or so afterwards, her father went through the house when Susan was at work, looking for those "damn comic books," as he called them. He blamed them for bringing Susan and me together, and intended to burn them all. Thankfully, they were safely stored away beyond his reach by that time.
As the date of our wedding approached, we planned our wedding without Susan's father's and grandmother's presence. Her aunt continued to help Susan, showing up at the wedding to fill the role that Susan's mother would have filled. Susan's sister was a flower girl; her brother was a groomsman.
Just a week before the wedding, her grandmother told Susan that she planned to be there. Susan told her that she would agree only if her grandmother would promise that she would not cause any disruption. Her grandmother acquiesced to Susan's request--and true to her word, she attended the wedding without any outward display of the anger and disapproval with which she had met the news that we intended to get married. Unlike Susan's father, she had at least accepted the inevitability of our wedding.
And thus on Tuesday, June 15th, 1971, Susan and I were married in Cedartown. Why a Tuesday? Because Susan and I had met on June 15th, 1968, and we wanted to get married on that same date--even if it was a Tuesday. It was a modest church ceremony with about fifty people--mostly our friends and immediate family--in attendance. There was a brief reception afterwards, but neither Susan nor I ate very much; we were eager to change into casual clothes and go to our new home.
Once we got home, I did the ceremonial carrying of my bride across the threshold. About a minute later, Susan looked at me and said, "Are you as hungry as I am?" I assured her that I was. "Do you want to go to Rome and get a pizza first?" And so, on the evening of our wedding, before we spent our first night together, we drove a half-hour to Rome, where we got an Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper, and black olive pizza at Village Inn on Shorter Avenue, just as we had on so many Saturday nights when we were dating. And as long as Village Inn was open in West Rome, we always thought of it as "our pizza place." (To this day, I still remember the fennel-rich flavor of their Italian sausage, which was unlike any that we ever found at any other pizza place.)
And after we enjoyed our favorite pizza at "our pizza place," we drove back to Cedartown and spent the first of 17,569 nights as husband and wife.
Susan's mother died in the fall of 1970, just as Susan and I were first giving voice to our dreams of spending our lives together. Susan spoke very little of her mother's death, which was ruled a suicide by the coroner and the Cedartown police department. Susan never fully accepted that determination, and always suspected that it was an accidental overdose of prescription pain medications. Susan's sister (who actually found her mother's body and got word to Susan, who was at work but rushed home, arriving even before the ambulance) also felt like it was not an intentional suicide.
Susan's mother's death affected Susan for years, as the loss of a parent almost always does. The suicide ruling made it even more disturbing for Susan, who struggled with sorrow, loss, and anguish as well as confusion and doubt--and a little bit of guilt. Susan always wanted to know without a doubt what happened... and she wanted to know if in some way she or other members of her family had pushed her mother to suicide if it was a suicide. She would never get the answers she desired, and it always troubled her.
Susan's father and her grandmother were not happy when Susan and I told them of our plans to get married. Her father actually told her that he would not give his permission. Susan pointed out to him that, since she was 19 at the time, she didn't need his permission and wasn't asking for it. Susan's father had a volatile temper made even more so by his heavy drinking. While he never used physical violence against her, his rage would lead to loud outbursts filled with abusive language. We experienced his vitriol first-hand on that day.
Susan's grandmother (her father's mother) was manipulative in a totally different way. She constantly undermined everyone in the family, criticizing them and excoriating them and and controlling them by playing on their fears, insecurities, and sometimes on their guilt. She instilled fears in her grandchildren (including Susan) that took years to overcome. Susan's grandfather had given up long before I met them, and was a lost, broken alcoholic by the time I first met him. I suspect that Susan's grandmother had likewise destroyed Susan's father's ambition and self-worth as well, which is he and Susan's mother had never moved out of the same house where they had lived when he was a child--a run-down duplex in a slum block that was eventually razed by the city.
I would have thought her father would have wanted Susan to escape from such a home life, but quite the contrary: he wanted her to remain there, contributing a significant portion of each week's paycheck to the family budget. Her grandmother was even more harsh in condemning the plans for us to marry; she told Susan that she was turning her back on them, abandoning the family, condemning them all to a horrible life.
To her credit, Susan remained undeterred. I talked with her father and her grandmother, trying to assure them that I wanted to help Susan achieve the sort of life she deserved. My words fell on deaf ears.
I was so concerned about Susan that I talked with my parents and they agreed to a plan whereby Susan would move into my family's home if necessary. She would take my bedroom, and I would sleep on the sofa in the living room for the few months until our wedding. We never had to follow that plan, thankfully. After a week or so, anger was replaced with taciturn sullenness, as if they thought that not speaking to Susan would change her mind. It did not.
To his credit, Susan's grandfather (who had always treated me with a level of courtesy and a modicum of hospitality) told her that he did approve. "You have to get away from here," he told her. "You have to take care of her," he told me. It was the only time in his life that I knew him to speak against Susan's grandmother's wishes--and even then, he did so when Susan's grandmother was not present to hear his words.
So as we began tp make final arrangements for our wedding, Susan's Aunt Willie--her mother's sister, who looked so very much like Susan's mother--stepped in to help. It was Willie who performed all the alterations on Susan's wedding dress. It was Willie who helped us with the plans for the wedding. It was Willie who told Susan that if she needed a place to stay, she could stay with them (which would have been much closer to Susan's job in the payroll department of the Arrow Shirt Factory in Cedartown).
In a move that seemed almost precognitive, Susan gave me her comics and her books and her records (which she said were now our comics and our books and our records) and asked me to keep them at my parents' house in Rome until we got married. Her decision turned out to be a wise one; just a week or so afterwards, her father went through the house when Susan was at work, looking for those "damn comic books," as he called them. He blamed them for bringing Susan and me together, and intended to burn them all. Thankfully, they were safely stored away beyond his reach by that time.
As the date of our wedding approached, we planned our wedding without Susan's father's and grandmother's presence. Her aunt continued to help Susan, showing up at the wedding to fill the role that Susan's mother would have filled. Susan's sister was a flower girl; her brother was a groomsman.
Just a week before the wedding, her grandmother told Susan that she planned to be there. Susan told her that she would agree only if her grandmother would promise that she would not cause any disruption. Her grandmother acquiesced to Susan's request--and true to her word, she attended the wedding without any outward display of the anger and disapproval with which she had met the news that we intended to get married. Unlike Susan's father, she had at least accepted the inevitability of our wedding.
And thus on Tuesday, June 15th, 1971, Susan and I were married in Cedartown. Why a Tuesday? Because Susan and I had met on June 15th, 1968, and we wanted to get married on that same date--even if it was a Tuesday. It was a modest church ceremony with about fifty people--mostly our friends and immediate family--in attendance. There was a brief reception afterwards, but neither Susan nor I ate very much; we were eager to change into casual clothes and go to our new home.
Once we got home, I did the ceremonial carrying of my bride across the threshold. About a minute later, Susan looked at me and said, "Are you as hungry as I am?" I assured her that I was. "Do you want to go to Rome and get a pizza first?" And so, on the evening of our wedding, before we spent our first night together, we drove a half-hour to Rome, where we got an Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper, and black olive pizza at Village Inn on Shorter Avenue, just as we had on so many Saturday nights when we were dating. And as long as Village Inn was open in West Rome, we always thought of it as "our pizza place." (To this day, I still remember the fennel-rich flavor of their Italian sausage, which was unlike any that we ever found at any other pizza place.)
And after we enjoyed our favorite pizza at "our pizza place," we drove back to Cedartown and spent the first of 17,569 nights as husband and wife.
Friday, January 03, 2020
A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-Two
The first few months of 1971 were almost comics-free. Susan and I diligently saved everything we could for our upcoming married life, and that frugality meant and end to unnecessary expenses. Quite honestly, I began to think that my involvement with comics had come to an end. After all, I had sold my collection to pay for Susan's ring; the comics that had been so important to me since before I started school no longer seemed to matter. I hadn't forgotten them, of course--I still had a great appreciation for the books that I had read and for the creators who had given me so much enjoyment---but I had assumed that I would no longer have any money for comics.
Apparently I had not discussed this with Susan, however.
Comic books brought Susan and me together back in 1968, and she and I had continued to read comics ever since then. While my collection was gone, Susan's wasn't. And Susan had always assumed that we would continue to read comics. "We don't have to buy every comic to enjoy some comics," she reminded me.
So we drew up a budget--a budget that included $5 a week for books and comics.
Because of Susan's dislike of Marvel Comics, there was only one Marvel on my must-buy list: Conan, the series that Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith had launched in 1970. My one-time favorite, Fantastic Four, had lost much of its appeal after Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel. As for other Marvel titles--well, the Marvel bullpen that I knew in my childhood was largely gone. One-time favorites like Spider-Man, The Avengers, and Captain America were enjoyable but no longer essential. And my other Marvel favorite, X-Men, had become a reprint book.
Most of the books we both wanted to read were DC's—Batman, Detective, Brave & Bold, Justice League, Green Lantern, the occasional Superman book, and the new DC titles that Jack Kirby was creating. The books had the scope and grand drama of some of Kirby's Marvel work, but he was building a new comics mythology, and I wanted to see where he ws going.
In spite of our meager budget, though, we also allotted a few dollars every month for fanzines. Both of us had become very fond of the amateur press alliances Myriad (overseen by our friend Stven Carlberg) and Galaxy (created by our friend Gary Steele, who wanted to come up with something midway between Myriad and the comics apa CAPA-Alpha). We had made friends through the pages of those apps, so we wanted to continue doing a-amines as well.
And like every fan in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we learned to play the Science Fiction Book Club game to get new books cheaply. One of us would take advantage of the "six books for a penny" offer, get six book club editions, then we would meet our four-book purchase requirement and quit, at which time the other one of us would sign up for the same deal. Even though we weren't married yet, we were already sharing our comics and books with one another.
We also began to rely on Coosa Valley Book Shop in Rome and Croker's in Cedartown. Both stores had used comics and used books, which meant that we could get twice as much reading for our money. This began a lifetime habit of frequenting used bookstores, something we continued to do for the rest of our married life.
With June 15th approaching, we were diligent in our budgeting; We had a little bit of furniture of our own, but not enough. I had a sofa bed that I had used in place of a regular bed since 1967. (Prior to that time, I had bunk beds in my bedroom so that I had a second bed for my friends when they spent the night at my house. By 1967, I had outgrown bunk beds, and my parents were ready to buy a bed for me, but I liked the idea of a sofa bed because it would make my tiny bedroom seem a bit more spacious. Some people hate sleeping on a sofa bed, but I can sleep on almost anything, including the floor, so a sofa bed was fine for me.) I had a desk and chair. I had an end table.
Susan, who had never had a bedroom of her own and shared a bed with her younger sister, had even less: a bookshelf.
Thankfully, Howard Rogofsky's purchase price for my collection had been more than sufficient to buy Susan's engagement ring. I had some money left over--enough to pay for a Mediterranean style bedroom set. Dark-wood furniture with a Mediterranean/Spanish design was popular in the early 1970s, and we found a set that Susan fell in love with--a bed, a dresser, a chest of drawers, and a nightstand, along with an impressionistic matador painting that the furniture salesman threw in at no extra charge. (The painting and most of that furniture is long since gone, but that chest of drawers is till in the bonus room of the house that we had built for us in 1996. Susan wanted to save one piece of that furniture as a permanent reminder of our first important purchase together.)
Susan had also saved some extra money that I had not known about, and with that we were also able to purchase a harvest gold formica kitchen table and four dinette chairs with harvest gold and yellow patterned vinyl seats.
It may not sound like anything much, but all of this was very important to us. First, it meant that we had furniture for the bedroom and the kitchen of whatever house or apartment we would eventually rent. Second--and more important to us--it was a symbol that we could build a modest life for ourselves. We had found a way to pay for it in cash, which meant that we were going to be able to fulfill our dream of starting our marriage with no household debts (Susan still had a car payment, but that pre-dated our engagement.)
There was one complication, though: we had budgeted $75 a month for a place to live, but the only thing we could find for that price was an old duplex in Cedartown, not too far from Susan's childhood home. We didn't like it, but we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea of a duplex.
Then my grandmother mentioned that she had a tenant moving out of her smallest rental house at the end of May.
The timing couldn't have been better: two weeks before our marriage, a house was about to become available. Even better, the price for the house was below our budget at $40 a month. That would put $35 a month back into our household budget, which seemed like a huge amount to a soon-to-be-married couple counting every penny.
One problem: the house was tiny (640 square feet) and it was it in horrible condition. It had once been a garage/workshop behind a larger rental house that my grandmother owned; she had it build out into a separate rental house, and I'm sure that none of the construction work would have been up to any sort of building code had anyone bothered to inspect it.
For all practical purposes, it was a two-room house: a living room/kitchen combination that took up about 300 square feet of the house, and a bedroom/bathroom/closet that took up the other 340 square feet. There were two radiant gas heaters, one in each room; there was a hole in the floor at the baseboard near the bathroom that had to be blocked off to keep pests and the occasional stray kitten (yes, it was that large) out of the house. The bathroom was so small that there was barely room to turn around, with a tiny shower that could not hold the two of us at one time (although we frequently tried). There was no sink in the bathroom because there wasn't room; the sink was actually in the bedroom, just outside of the bathroom.
But it was $40 a month.
Susan said she was fine with it; the rental house she had grown up was so poorly maintained and in such disrepair that she insisted that this was actually a step up for her. Her worry was that I would be unhappy. "You had a great house with plenty of room, and now you're going to have to live here." (I never thought of a 1000-squrae-foot home with three bedrooms, a living room, and an eat-in kitchen as having "plenty of room," but apparently it was all a matter of perspective.) I assured Susan that it didn't matter to me--and I meant it. For $40 a month, we were going to have a small house of our own, complete with all the furniture basics we needed. It may sound pretty humble, but we were incredibly proud of the life we were building for ourselves..
Apparently I had not discussed this with Susan, however.
Comic books brought Susan and me together back in 1968, and she and I had continued to read comics ever since then. While my collection was gone, Susan's wasn't. And Susan had always assumed that we would continue to read comics. "We don't have to buy every comic to enjoy some comics," she reminded me.
So we drew up a budget--a budget that included $5 a week for books and comics.
Because of Susan's dislike of Marvel Comics, there was only one Marvel on my must-buy list: Conan, the series that Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith had launched in 1970. My one-time favorite, Fantastic Four, had lost much of its appeal after Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel. As for other Marvel titles--well, the Marvel bullpen that I knew in my childhood was largely gone. One-time favorites like Spider-Man, The Avengers, and Captain America were enjoyable but no longer essential. And my other Marvel favorite, X-Men, had become a reprint book.
Most of the books we both wanted to read were DC's—Batman, Detective, Brave & Bold, Justice League, Green Lantern, the occasional Superman book, and the new DC titles that Jack Kirby was creating. The books had the scope and grand drama of some of Kirby's Marvel work, but he was building a new comics mythology, and I wanted to see where he ws going.
In spite of our meager budget, though, we also allotted a few dollars every month for fanzines. Both of us had become very fond of the amateur press alliances Myriad (overseen by our friend Stven Carlberg) and Galaxy (created by our friend Gary Steele, who wanted to come up with something midway between Myriad and the comics apa CAPA-Alpha). We had made friends through the pages of those apps, so we wanted to continue doing a-amines as well.
And like every fan in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we learned to play the Science Fiction Book Club game to get new books cheaply. One of us would take advantage of the "six books for a penny" offer, get six book club editions, then we would meet our four-book purchase requirement and quit, at which time the other one of us would sign up for the same deal. Even though we weren't married yet, we were already sharing our comics and books with one another.
We also began to rely on Coosa Valley Book Shop in Rome and Croker's in Cedartown. Both stores had used comics and used books, which meant that we could get twice as much reading for our money. This began a lifetime habit of frequenting used bookstores, something we continued to do for the rest of our married life.
With June 15th approaching, we were diligent in our budgeting; We had a little bit of furniture of our own, but not enough. I had a sofa bed that I had used in place of a regular bed since 1967. (Prior to that time, I had bunk beds in my bedroom so that I had a second bed for my friends when they spent the night at my house. By 1967, I had outgrown bunk beds, and my parents were ready to buy a bed for me, but I liked the idea of a sofa bed because it would make my tiny bedroom seem a bit more spacious. Some people hate sleeping on a sofa bed, but I can sleep on almost anything, including the floor, so a sofa bed was fine for me.) I had a desk and chair. I had an end table.
Susan, who had never had a bedroom of her own and shared a bed with her younger sister, had even less: a bookshelf.
Thankfully, Howard Rogofsky's purchase price for my collection had been more than sufficient to buy Susan's engagement ring. I had some money left over--enough to pay for a Mediterranean style bedroom set. Dark-wood furniture with a Mediterranean/Spanish design was popular in the early 1970s, and we found a set that Susan fell in love with--a bed, a dresser, a chest of drawers, and a nightstand, along with an impressionistic matador painting that the furniture salesman threw in at no extra charge. (The painting and most of that furniture is long since gone, but that chest of drawers is till in the bonus room of the house that we had built for us in 1996. Susan wanted to save one piece of that furniture as a permanent reminder of our first important purchase together.)
Susan had also saved some extra money that I had not known about, and with that we were also able to purchase a harvest gold formica kitchen table and four dinette chairs with harvest gold and yellow patterned vinyl seats.
It may not sound like anything much, but all of this was very important to us. First, it meant that we had furniture for the bedroom and the kitchen of whatever house or apartment we would eventually rent. Second--and more important to us--it was a symbol that we could build a modest life for ourselves. We had found a way to pay for it in cash, which meant that we were going to be able to fulfill our dream of starting our marriage with no household debts (Susan still had a car payment, but that pre-dated our engagement.)
There was one complication, though: we had budgeted $75 a month for a place to live, but the only thing we could find for that price was an old duplex in Cedartown, not too far from Susan's childhood home. We didn't like it, but we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea of a duplex.
Then my grandmother mentioned that she had a tenant moving out of her smallest rental house at the end of May.
The timing couldn't have been better: two weeks before our marriage, a house was about to become available. Even better, the price for the house was below our budget at $40 a month. That would put $35 a month back into our household budget, which seemed like a huge amount to a soon-to-be-married couple counting every penny.
One problem: the house was tiny (640 square feet) and it was it in horrible condition. It had once been a garage/workshop behind a larger rental house that my grandmother owned; she had it build out into a separate rental house, and I'm sure that none of the construction work would have been up to any sort of building code had anyone bothered to inspect it.
For all practical purposes, it was a two-room house: a living room/kitchen combination that took up about 300 square feet of the house, and a bedroom/bathroom/closet that took up the other 340 square feet. There were two radiant gas heaters, one in each room; there was a hole in the floor at the baseboard near the bathroom that had to be blocked off to keep pests and the occasional stray kitten (yes, it was that large) out of the house. The bathroom was so small that there was barely room to turn around, with a tiny shower that could not hold the two of us at one time (although we frequently tried). There was no sink in the bathroom because there wasn't room; the sink was actually in the bedroom, just outside of the bathroom.
But it was $40 a month.
Susan said she was fine with it; the rental house she had grown up was so poorly maintained and in such disrepair that she insisted that this was actually a step up for her. Her worry was that I would be unhappy. "You had a great house with plenty of room, and now you're going to have to live here." (I never thought of a 1000-squrae-foot home with three bedrooms, a living room, and an eat-in kitchen as having "plenty of room," but apparently it was all a matter of perspective.) I assured Susan that it didn't matter to me--and I meant it. For $40 a month, we were going to have a small house of our own, complete with all the furniture basics we needed. It may sound pretty humble, but we were incredibly proud of the life we were building for ourselves..
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