A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty

My childhood and teenage years were marked by friends who were also kindred spirits. I've mentioned David Lynch, John Ball, and Gary Steele, all of whom were my best friends at various periods in my life. In early 1970, I met someone who was destined to be a dear friend to both me and Susan over the next few years.

Sven Ahlstrom was a Rome transplant, having come to West Rome from Menomenee, Michigan, with his mother, Dorothea, who was involved in the nursing program at Berry College (the school that had offered me an academic scholarship). I didn't know any of that, though, when I first met Sven. What I did know, however, was that he was the only person in Mrs. Higgins' room reading a science fiction book the morning that our paths crossed. (I sometimes think that science fiction and comics readers have a sort of "fan radar" that alerts when someone shares our interests, but in reality it's probably an example of affinity awareness--just as we are more apt to notice cars that are the same make and model as ours, so we are more apt to notice people who read books or buy music that matches our tastes.)

We began talking and found that we shared other interests--comics, music, television shows, movies. Because we had so much in common, we began talking more regularly. I was also immediately impressed with Sven's quick wit and his enthusiasm tempered with a dash of cynicism. Before too long, we were hanging out together at school and dropping by one another's house after school. Sven made me aware of musicians, albums, authors, and books that I hadn't read (I remember that he had a copy of the Beatles'  White Album, which I heard in its entirety for the first time at his house, and he also had a copy of Jesus Christ Superstar, which I had foolishly dismissed until he convinced me to really listen to it). Meanwhile, Sven was curious about the fanzines that Gary Steele and I were involved with, and was particularly interested in the amateur press alliances Myriad and Galaxy. 

Within a couple of months, Sven was good friends with Gary Steele and me, and soon after he met Susan. By the time the summer of 1970 rolled around, Sven and I had become great friends--and a lot of that was due to the Atlanta Journal.

What did a newspaper have to do with our friendship? Actually, it was  newspaper route that had a lot to do with our friendship. Sven had a part-time job delivering papers for the Atlanta Journal--but it wasn't a neighborhood bicycle route like I had years earlier. Instead, Sven had a far-reaching car route, which took a couple of hours every day. Sven drove a blue 1968 Chevy Malibu that he used for his route, he took the responsibility seriously. Since I didn't have an afternoon job and had some spare time, I began riding Sven's route with him, helping to fold and rubber-band the papers. And we talked... a lot.  We talked about fannish stuff, of course, but we also talked about school and family and life in general. 

Sven was also the first person I knew who had an eight track tape player in his car, so we listened to a lot of music while we were running his route. The first tape he bought was Let It Be, the final Beatles album; I already had a copy on vinyl, but I had become so enamored with Beatles music since I rediscovered the group in late 1969 that I could listen to that album over and over again (and unlike some critics, I thought Let It Be was a great album, almost as good as Abbey Road). Soon we added a few more tapes to the automotive library: we played Simon & Garfunkel's Sound of Silence and Badfinger's Magic Christian Music so frequently that it took me a while to get used to the vinyl sequencing of the songs on those albums, since I had heard them first on 8 track. (In my mind, the album always ended with "Richard Cory," since that was the last song on the 8 track before it circled back around to "The Sound of Silence," while it seemed natural that "Come and Get It"—the best song on Magic Christian Music—should be followed by "Carry On 'Til Tomorrow"—the second-best song on Magic Christian Music—even though the vinyl version has the latter song kicking off side two.) As the summer went along, we added The Rolling Stones' Through the Past Darkly, Crosby Stills & Nash's eponymous first album, Steppenwolf Live, and Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida to the playlist, along with more from Simon & Garfunkel. Every one of those albums has become so inexorably linked to the summer of '70 that I can't listen to them without remembering that time, which I still think of as the most wonderful period of my pre-married life.

Soon we noticed another person at school who shared some of our interests in music and science fiction: Ida Hutchings, who was a year ahead of us in school. Ida was a brash free spirit, and her personality brought both contrasted with and complemented ours quite well. It made no difference to any of us that Ida was a senior about to graduate, while we were juniors with another whole year of school ahead of us. I first heard Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" at Ida's house, and I initially thought that the pre-bleed that was a part of the song's sound was a defect in either her record or her stereo system. Ida had been accepted at Georgia Tech for the fall of 1970, but she never seemed enthusiastic about it; her attention seemed entirely focused on the spring and summer of 1970, and not the fall and college. Ida loved talking music and science fiction and comics almost as much as Sven and I did, so she became a member of our group almost instantly.

In my mind, I had thought that Sven and Ida would become a couple in the same way that Susan and I had become a couple. They hit it off well, shared many interests, and at times seemed attracted to one another. Ultimately, though, Ida was another friend in our small but growing group. What had been just Gary Steele and me as "comic book buddies" in early 1968 had gradually expanded to include Susan, then Sven, then Ida. For years, most of my fan friends were people I only knew through correspondence and fanzines but by the summer of 1970 I had a dynamic, intelligent, articulate group of friends I saw on a regular basis, and I was relishing the change.

A Life in Four Colors Part Forty-Nine

As 1969 gave way to early 1970, I felt like my life was nearly perfect--but it was about to get better.

There was no shortage of great comics to read, and I had enough money to afford pretty much all the new comics I wanted. I had gotten to know Mildred Christian, the owner of Liberty Hatworks and Newsstand on Broad Street, who agreed to let the Wednesday afternoon shipment of new comics wait until I could come to her store after school and process them out for her, so I never had to worry about missing a comic--and I was even "paid" with a discount on the comics, books, and magazines I was buying every week.

I was reading a lot more science fiction, and had joined the Science Fiction Book Club for the first of what would be many times.

I had discovered the Mystery Book Club through an SFBC flyer, so I had joined that as well and was discovering the fiction of Ellery Queen, Dick Francis, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and others.

I had a driver's license and my parents were willing to let me use one of the family cars fairly regularly.

Oh, and Susan and I were beginning the tentative transition from liking each other to falling in love with each other.

The driver's license was an important factor. Once I got my license, I could drive from Rome to Cedartown to see Susan almost every week. Since my grandmother lived in Cedartown, she was willing to let me spend the night there, which meant that Susan and I could see each other for both days of the weekend if I went down on a Saturday morning and stayed until Sunday. That didn't happen every week, because my parents only had two cars and sometimes they would need both of them on one day of the weekend--but a weekend stay at grandmother's became a pretty common occurrence, which meant that Susan and I soon progressed from good friends to people who dated regularly.

We continued to talk to each other every evening, and we also kept up our habit of writing letters to one another. Both Susan and I were somewhat introverted by nature, and writing came very naturally to us, so it was no surprise that we both felt more comfortable writing about our feelings than talking about them.

I had never actually dated anyone prior to Susan. There were girls I liked as friends, but I had not had a girlfriend since elementary school. I was an oddball--a reasonably intelligent teenager who did well in school, but still loved comic books and spent a lot his spare time writing for these strange fanzines, composing poetry, and drawing. Let's be honest--I wasn't the kind of guy who attracted the attention of the girls at my school.

But with Susan, I could be comfortable with all of that. Even better, I was falling love with someone who enjoyed all of those things almost as much as I did.

Susan also reinvigorated my interest in music. I had been an avid music fan until about the time of Beatles '65; then my growing interest in comics, model kits, monster magazines, and fanzines forced me to make some budget choices. Music fell by the wayside.

Susan, however, loved music. Susan also had a full-time job, which meant that she could afford to buy comics, magazines, books, and still have money left over for albums.

How did Susan have a full-time job? Well, she was older than me by about two and a half years, so she actually graduated from Cedartown High School in the spring of 1969. Soon after she graduated, she got a job working in the payroll department of the Arrow Shirt factory in Cedartown, where she earned (after deductions) a little over $69 a week. Today, that seems like nothing--but to both of us, it was in impressive figure indeed. She meticulously saved $20 a week, contributed some to her family's budget, and still had money left over to buy fun stuff.

I had become interested in the Beatles once again with the release the single "Hey Jude" back in 1968. I owe my mother a debt of gratitude for that; it was Mom, not me, who bought that single because she liked the song a lot. She did not care as much for the flip side, "Revolution," but I played liked it almost as well as the A side. The Beatles had changed in the three intervening years, but the music was still good.

Alas, their 1968 album The Beatles (aka the White Album) was a double album that was well beyond my budget, so I stuck with singles for a while longer. I picked up "The Ballad of John and Yoko" when it came out in the spring of 1969 and liked that one a lot as well. I also bought the double-A-sided single of "Come Together/Something" and liked it a lot.

Susan and I talked about music a lot, and she remembered how much I liked the Beatles. So in late 1969 Susan gave me a copy of Abbey Road as a Christmas gift. I must have played both sides of that album two dozen times during the Christmas holidays of 1969. I asked her what she thought of it, and she told me that she actually didn't have a copy; she couldn't afford to buy two copies of the album, so she had bought just the one copy that she gave to me.

In early January, I cut a few non-essential items from my budget and bought a copy of Abbey Road for Susan. It wasn't a Christmas gift--I had given her a copy of Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land for Christmas. I just wanted her to have a copy, too.

She was surprised and moved by the gift. She said that no one had ever given her a gift for no reason before. As soon as she got home, she listened to the album, and we discussed every song at length. We both loved the album, although we didn't share the same favorites. I loved the medleys on side two, while she preferred "Here Comes the Sun," "Something," and "Come Together."

And I was a Beatles fan again. From early 1970 on, I acquired every Beatles album (group or solo) upon release or soon after. And by the spring of 1970, we didn't have to buy two copies, because Susan and I were spending so much time together that I would just lend her my copy for a week, and she would lend me some of her albums.

Thanks to that album, I told Susan that I loved her. It was a weekend, and we were driving down a country road south of Cedartown, just riding around and talking. I told  her how I thought about her every time I heard the song "Something," and that I felt the same way about her that George Harrison felt about Pattie. Susan wasn't willing to let me get by so easily, though, and she replied, "Oh, really? How's that?"

"Well, I love you just like he loves her," I said.

There was a moment of silence that left me apprehensive that I had said the wrong thing.

There was a dead-end dirt road that led into a pasture about a hundred yards ahead. "Pull over there," Susan said.

Not sure what she was going to say, I pulled over without saying anything further and stopped the car.  As soon as I did, she took my hand, looked at me, and said "I love you, too."

And on February 7th, 1970, I realized that I had found the girl I really wanted to spend my life with.

Fifty Years Ago This Week in West Rome - 11/10/1969 to 11/16/1969

Seventh District Congressman John W. Davis introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives that would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by creating a freedom of choice program that would allow parents to choose which school within their local school system their children should attend, and also ensuring that teachers would be allowed to serve in the schools in which they were contracted to teach. Under the bill, the federal government could not withhold any financial aid from a school on account of racial composition so long as parents were allowed to freely choose any school within their system for their children. It would also make it unlawful for a federal agency or department "to coerce or induce the school board to bus students to alter the racial composition of any student body at a public school."

Talk about rubbing it in: East Rome head coach David Patterson invited West Rome parents and students to attend a showing of the highlights from the prior week's East Rome-West Rome football game, to be shown in the East Rome High School auditorium. I wonder if he would have been so eager to show that footage had East Rome not won the game...

Piggly Wiggly had sirloin steak for $1.09 a pound, Sealtest ice cream for 39¢ a half-gallon, and lettuce for a dime a head. A&P had chicken breasts for 39¢ a pound, apples for 19¢ a pound, and Van Camp's chili with bean for 33¢ a can. Kroger had chicken liver for 49¢ a pound, Eight O'Clock coffee for 65¢ a pound, and grapefruit for a dime each. Big Apple had center cut pork chops for 79¢ a pound, Campbell's tomato soup for 12¢ a can, and collard greens for 19¢ a bunch. Couch's had ground beef for 55¢ a pound, Bama jelly for 25¢ a jar, and bananas for a dime a pound.

The cinematic week began with Last Summer (starring Barbara Hershey & Richard Thomas) at the DeSoto Theatre, My Side of the Mountain (starring Teddy Eccles) at the First Avenue, Sweet Charity (starring Shirley MacLaine) at the Village, and The Chairman (starring Gregory Peck) at the West Rome Drive-In. The weekend switchout brought  Once Upon a Time in the West (starring Henry Fonda) to the DeSoto, Uncle Tom's Cabin (starring John Kitzmiller & Herbert Lom) to the First Avenue, and Days of Anger (starring Lee Van Cleef) to the West Rome Drive-In, while Shirley MacLaine continued to her Sweet Charity drive at the Village.

The 5th Dimension held on to number one for a third week with "Wedding Bell Blues." Other top ten hits included "Take a Letter Maria" by RB Greaves (#2); "Come Together/Something" by the Beatles (#3 & 4--it's an A-sided single that took both slots), "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat, & Tears (#5); "Smile a Little Smile for Me" by the Flying Machine (#6); "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam (#7); '\"Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" by Stevie Wonder (#8); "Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley (#9); and "I Can't Get Next To You" by the Temptations (#10).

And what a great week it was for the album charts: The Beatles' Abbey Road took the number one slot, while Led Zeppelin II was in second place, Green River by Creedence Clearwater Revival was in third place, Santana's eponymous first album was in fourth place, and I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! by Janis Joplin took fifth place.

This week in 1969, Sesame Street debuted on National Education Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service).

***

And now some bad news: this will be the last installment of "Fifty Years Ago This Week" until early 2020—and this one is totally beyond my control. Apparently, over the years, the Rome News-Tribune has lost its archive copies of all newspapers from November 13th, 1969, through January 2nd, 1970. (That also explains why there is so little local news this week--I only had access to newspapers for the first three days of the week). Without copies of those newspapers, I have no source for information for this column for the next few weeks. I apologize in advance for the absence, but I promise I'll be back as soon as we reach the time period for which newspapers are available once again!

A Life in Four Colors Part Forty-Eight

1969 was the year when I began to stumble across the path to my future.

First off, I really felt like I had found my place with friends who truly understood me. I had a close friend who shared most of my interests (Gary Steele), I had a new friend who also shared most of my interests and who had the advantage of being a beautiful girl (Susan)... and I took advantage of an opportunity that would turn out to lead me to my first career.

Berry College, located just a few miles from my house, had a Summer Enrichment Program that allowed invited high school sophomores to take college courses during the summer between their sophomore and junior years. Somehow, for reasons I never understood, I got one of those invitations.

And I almost turned it down.

It wasn't like I really had anything else on my schedule for the summer of 1969. But like pretty much every teenager, I was looking forward to sleeping late and goofing off for most of June, July, and August. My parents told me that they thought I should consider it, though, since it was an honor to get the invitation. My parents were never pushy or manipulative in any way. That's probably why I took their advice--their reasoning was sound (I could get high school credit for the course I took, and it might make a good impression on someone at Berry) and it was only a couple of classes.

So I accepted the invitation and signed up for the program. And I began what became a college tradition for me: I looked at the schedule of classes I could take and searched out the two earliest classes.

Like I said, I looked forward to sleeping late and goofing off--but I put a higher priority on "goofing off" than on "sleeping late," and I realized that if I could take an 8am and 9am class, I could finish up by 10am, get home by 10:20, and still have the entire day to do what I wanted. Heck, if I hadn't taken the class, I probably wouldn't have gotten up much earlier than 10am anyway, so I really wasn't losing any time at all!

Turned out that I enjoyed the classes, and I liked Berry College. It also turned out that they liked me, I guess, because at the end of my junior year they offered me a chance to take another class in the summer of 1970--and even better, they offered me an academic scholarship contingent on me maintaining my GPA and doing well in my summer 1970 class.

None of that had been in my mind when I took advantage  of the Summer Enrichment Program in the summer of 1969. Had I not participated in that program, however, I probably would have never gotten that scholarship offer, which means that I probably would have never gone to Berry College, which means that I wouldn't have been able to marry Susan a week after my high school graduation because it wouldn't have been financially feasible, which means that I wouldn't have crossed paths with the college professors who guided and inspired me to sign up for the teaching program at Berry, which means that I wouldn't have become an English teacher, which means that  Susan wouldn't have been able to go to Coosa Valley Tech as soon as I began teaching, which means that she wouldn't have gotten the software design certification that got her the job with Management Science America in Atlanta, which means we wouldn't have moved to Marietta, which means that I never would have gone to Dr. No's when Artie Decker owned the shop, which means hat he would have never offered me a job ordering comics for his store, which means that he would have never sold me the store in 1982...

It's amazing how much my life was changed by two little decisions: first, that fateful call to one Susan Hendrix of Cedartown, Georgia, in response to her letter of comment in an issue of Batman; second, my taking advantage of an invitation to take college courses at Berry in the summer of 1969. Put those two things together, and the doors to all the good things in my life were opened for me.

(This also began a lifelong habit of scheduling things in the morning, by the way. Medical appointments, financial appointments, pest control visits, home repairs--whatever it is, I try to schedule it as early as possible. I still value my goofing off time, and I love the feeling of getting those obligations and duties out of the way as soon as possible.)

Fifty Years Ago This Week in West Rome - 11/3/1969 to 11/9/1969

The annual East-West confrontation took place on Friday night, November 7th—but the outcome wasn't what Chieftains fans were hoping for. East Rome took the win with a 13-yard field goal with just two minutes left in the game, propelling them to a 16-13 victory over West Rome. That brought an end to the season for West Rome as the Gladiators took the 7-AA South region championship for the second year in a row. West Rome's first touchdown came via a pass from David Love to Thomas Crowley, while Alan Carrington ran the ball for the second touchdown. The Chieftains made one final  long pass attempt in the final seconds of the game, but the pass was intercepted by East Rome, securing the win for the Glads.

Ida Hutchings, Janet Webb, and Belinda Rodgers received letters of commendation for their outstanding performance on the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. They were among 39,000 students nationwide who scored int he upper 2% of all students taking the test. (It has been far too long since I last crossed paths with Ida Hutchings, who remained a member of my circle of friends through the 1970s--anyone know where she is now?)

Piggly Wiggly had center cut pork chops for 89¢ a pound, Shurfine tuna for 33¢ a can, and Atlanta Dairies ice milk for 33¢ a half-gallon. Kroger had fresh whole fryers for 25¢ a pound, Heinz ketchup for 25¢ a bottle, and collards for 29¢ a bunch. A&P had round steak for 95¢ a pound, Eight O'Clock coffee for 69¢ a pound, and corn for 8¢ an ear. Big Apple had ground beef for 55¢ a pound, Van Camp's pork & beans for 14¢ a can, and a five-pound bag of Dixie Crystals sugar for 39¢. Couch's had hen turkeys for 43¢ a pound, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce for 29¢ a can, and bananas for a dime a pound.

I don't even remember Minnie Pearl Fried Chicken at 901 Shorter Avenue, but apparently it was a going concern in 1969. Minnie Pearl was offering a free 10" lemon meringue pie with the purchase of any $1.25 fried chicken dinner. "Due to the fact that Minnie only baked 49,734 pies, limit of one per customer per day, please."

The cinematic week began with Battle of Britain (starring Michael Caine) at the DeSoto Theatre, Hell's Angels '69 (starring Tom Stern) at the First Avenue, File of the Golden Goose (starring Yul Brynner) at the Village, and The Longest Day (starring John Wayne) at the West Rome Drive-In. The weekend switch out brought The Last Summer (starring Barbara Hershey) to the DeSoto, My Side of the Mountain (staring Teddy Eccles) to the First Avenue, Sweet Charity (starring Shirley MacLaine) to the Village, and a double feature of She (starring Ursula Andress) and One Million BC (starring Raquel Welch) to the West Rome Drive-In. (That's quite a double-feature!)

The 5th Dimension held on to the number one slot for a second week with "Wedding Bell Blues." Other top ten hits included the double-A-sided single "Come Together/Something" by the Beatles (#s 2 and 3); "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat, & Tears (#4); "Baby It's You" by Smith (#5); "I Can't Get Next To You" by the Temptations (#6); "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley (#7); "Smile a Little Smile for Me" by the Flying Machine (#8); "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (#9); and "Take a Letter Maria" by RB Greaves (#10--and boy, would that song stir up controversy if it was released today!).

The Allman Brothers Band released their eponymous debut album this week in 1969. (The Macon band holds a special place in the hearts of many 1960s/1970s Chieftains because of a concert appearance at Berry College in October of 1970--I know that's what made me a fan of their music!)

Rod Serling's second fantasy anthology series, Night Gallery, made its debut on NBC on November 8th. To be fair, this was actually just a special showing of the pilot episode; the show wouldn't return as an ongoing series until December of 1970, thirteen months later.