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.

100 Days of Solitude

One hundred days.

That's how many days have passed since my beloved Susan died. July 22nd, 10:05 AM--that was when I had to say goodbye to the woman who was the center of my world.

I've always had a thing for numbers. That's why I keep track of these things, I guess. One week without Susan. One month. Fifty days. Thirteen weeks—one season. And now one hundred days.

I wasn't sure that I'd be alive a hundred days after Susan's death.

Sometimes I wasn't sure that I wanted to be alive a hundred days after Susan's death.

I'm lucky. This is also a Wednesday, which means I'll be busy at the store most of the day. I'll get to see my close friends who come by the store every day. After the store closes, we'll go to dinner together at El Rodeo, as we do every Wednesday. Those are the things that will help me get through tomorrow.

But I know I'll be sad. I know I'll be lonely. I know I'll shed tears for Susan. In those ways, tomorrow will be like every one of the past one hundred days, I guess--but I suspect the sorrow and loneliness will be more intense.

One hundred days without her. How can that be?

There are other somber landmark days ahead. My first Thanksgiving without her. My first Christmas alone. My first Valentine's Day alone. Next June, my first wedding anniversary that I can't share with Susan. Then the most sad day of all--the one year anniversary of her passing.

Maybe it gets easier after that.

But somehow, I don't think it really does.

I think I'll just get better at hiding it.

A Life in Four Colors Part Forty-Seven

235-9546.

More than fifty years later, I still remember this number.

That was my phone number. My very own phone number. For my very own phone. In my room. Listed in the phone book under my name. Paid for with my money (okay, not totally--my parents offered to pay the first four bucks of the cost, and I paid the remaining almost-five-bucks myself).

So why did I need my own phone?

If you guessed "Susan," you're beginning to figure me out.

By the spring of 1969, Susan and I talked to each other all the time. We continued to write each other as well, but the letters decreased to one a week as the phone calls increased. We talked about comic books (we both liked Spectre and we were both enjoying Teen Titans more by Neal Adams & Nick Cardy than we had liked it when Bob Haney was writing it; I liked Silver Surfer and she couldn't understand why; we both hated to see Legion of Super-Heroes come to an end in Adventure Comics; Batman was getting better; Susan--who didn't like Marvel--agreed that the Fantastic Four was still the best book Marvel published), we talked about science fiction (I liked Heinlein better than Asimov, while Susan ranked Asimov higher, but we enjoyed both), we talked about television shows (we both loved Hawaii Five-0 and Mission: Impossible, neither of us cared for The Mod Squad, and I liked Get Smart much more than Susan did--but I've always had a soft spot for sitcoms)... and we talked about each other.

Problem was, my dad was a sports editor for a local newspaper that covered sports for more than a dozen local high schools. Dad had a staff of one full-time sports reporter and two part-time sports reporters. Do the math and you'll see that there was no way that he could have covered all those games himself, nor did he have the staff to do so. That meant that he used stringers who were paid per game to phone in vital info and stats to him at home on game nights; he would type up the info, then turn it into a story that would appear in the next afternoon's Rome News-Tribune. And that meant that Dad needed the phone line to be open for incoming calls. So while no one else in Susan's family used the phone very much and thus our increasingly long conversations weren't a problem on her end, they were more troublesome on my end.

So I proposed that perhaps I should have a separate phone line in my room. And my parents weren't opposed to the idea, if I was willing to cover part of the cost myself. (I think they weren't wholly opposed to the idea of the phone since I was spending so much time talking to a girl as nice as Susan--my parents liked her a great deal from the first time they met her.) Some quick calculations and I said yes. I was earning more money around the house for mowing the lawn, raking leaves, sweeping the driveway, and other miscellaneous chores, so I could make room in my budget for a dollar and a quarter a week for a phone.

The big advantage, as I saw it, was that Susan and could talk about each other more--and we could do so without others listening to my side of the conversation. There was little privacy when I talked on my family's home phone--and my sister found it particularly amusing to hang out near me when I was on the phone, as many eight-year-olds are wont to do just to annoy their teenage siblings--but with my own phone, I could close the door and talk to Susan as long as we wanted, and we could talk about pretty much anything.

There was one flaw in my logic: while I had my own phone, Susan didn't, and her phone was in the living room where everyone watched television.  Her solution? Buy a long cord for the phone so she could stretch it out to the screened-in porch, where she could at least get some modicum of privacy.

Not the perfect solution, but it worked. So by the spring of 1969, we were not only talking about comics and books and television shows, we were also talking about how much we liked seeing each other. And we were making plans to see each other much more after I got my driver's license in August 1969.

Six months earlier, I hadn't even particularly cared about getting a driver's license right away. But by the spring of 1969, I couldn't wait to get my license.

My own phone. My own license in the not-too-distant future. Might not seem like much, but it was an indication that my life was beginning to change, and Susan was the catalyst for those changes--just as she would go on to be the catalyst for almost every good change in my life in years to come...

Fifty Years Ago This Week in West Rome - 10/27/1969 to 11/2/1969

The week started off pretty badly for the Chieftains as Nick Hyder announced, "The grave's been dug, but we're not in it yet." What led to such a grim statement? The news that five regulars would most likely miss the Saturday night game against the Pepperell dragons. End-linebacker David Watkins, quarterback Randy Hatch, end Jim Poplin, tailback John Sapp, and end Frank Felker were all on the injured-or-ill list. "I don't ever recall a worse situation with injuries in all my years of coaching," Hyder said. "Right now, we're working with several combinations in practice, trying to find replacements for these boys. Hyder had already called Johnny Thompkins up from the ninth grade team at the recommendation of Coach Wesley Jenkins, who said that the ninth grade team was undefeated in seven games thanks largely to the work of Thompkins.

In spite of those missing players, West Rome managed to rack up a 21-13 victory over Pepperell at Barron Stadium on Saturday, November 1st. That put West Rome in a tie with East Rome for first place in Region 7-AA South--which also meant that the upcoming East-West game would determine the sub-region championship. Thomas Crowley racked up the first touchdown with a ten-yard run; Allen Carrington racked up the second touchdown with an 83-yard run; and Stan Green picked off a Pepperell pass, kicking off a drive that set up David Love for a quarterback sneak that turned into West Rome's third touchdown.

Georgia's Tax Revision Commission continued to look at ways to modify Georgia's tax system. The plan under consideration in October would have exempted groceries and prescription drugs from sales tax, but would raise the tax on other items from 3% to 3.5%. The exemption would cost the state $46 million, but the half-percent increase would bring in $50 million, making the state $4 million richer under the new plan. The Tax Revision Commission also okayed local option income taxes for cities and counties that wanted to add a 1% income tax on those who lived or worked within  their borders.

The Georgia Board of Regents said that (in spite of the fact that they were re-bidding the contract for permanent construction) the new Floyd Junior College should be open for classes by the fall of 1970. They did say, however, that the classes might start in a temporary facility if construction wasn't finished by the time the fall quarter was scheduled to begin. The Board of Regents also revealed that they were modifying the plans to make the initial facilities about 10% smaller than initially planned in order to save on construction costs.

Rome City School Board representatives revealed that they were working on plans to fully desegregate all grades  in the Rome City school system by the fall of 1970 in keeping with new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare rulings. This would require that Rome desegregate all twelve grades one year earlier than their previously approved plan had specified, but Rome said that they were close enough to that level already that the earlier deadline should not be a problem and no education funding should be in jeopardy.

The Rome Pilot Club donated a Baldwin studio piano to the Rome Boy's Club assembly room for use by the Rome Boys Club Choir; the piano would also be available for supervised use by Boys Club members.

Piggly Wiggly had chicken livers for 39¢ a pound, a six pack of Coca-Cola/Sprite/Tab/Fanta in cans for 49¢, and bananas for a dime a pound. A&P had rib steaks for 89¢ a pound, Armour Vienna sausages for 27¢ a can, and corn for 12¢ an ear. Big Apple had smoked center cut pork chops for 99¢ a pound, Mrs. Bell's mayonnaise for 39¢ a quart, and Irvindale ice milk for 39¢ a half-gallon. Kroger had sirloin steak for $1.19 a pound, medium eggs for 49¢ a dozen, and oranges for a dime a pound. Couch's had chili meat (which I presume was chunky ground beef) for 59¢ a pound, Bama peanut butter for 39¢ a hard, and cabbage for 9¢ a pound.

The cinematic week began with Some Kind of a Nut (starring Dick Van Dyke) at the DeSoto Theatre, Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (starring Tony Curtis) at the First Avenue, Alice's Restaurant (starring Arlo Guthrie) at the Village, and Romeo & Juliet (starring Leonard Whiting & Olivia Hussey) at the West Rome Drive-In. The end-of-week switchout brought Battle of Britain (starring Michael Caine) to the DeSoto, Hell's Angels '69 (starring Tom Stern) to the First Avenue, File of the Golden Goose (starring Yul Brynner) to the Village, and Kiss & Kill (starring Christopher Lee) to the West Rome Drive-In.

The 5th Dimension moved into the number one slot this week in 1969 with "Wedding Bell Blues." Other top ten hits included "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley (#2); "Come Together" by the Beatles (#3); "I Can't Get Next To You" by the Temptations (#4); "Baby It's You" by Smith (#5); "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (#6); "Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly & the Family Stone (#7); "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat, & Tears (#8); "Something" by the Beatles (#9--and I have no idea how they determined the Beatles' placement this week, since "Come Together/Something" was a double-A-sided single); and "Smile a Little Smile for Me" by the Flying Machine (#10).

A Life in Four Colors Part Forty-Seven

I described my initial relationship with Susan as "like at first sight," and that's a fair appraisal. But I wasn't the only person who found Susan appealing...

My best friend in 1969 was Gary Steele; we had known each other since junior high and our shared love of comics made us buddies almost immediately. Our tastes in entertainment were sufficiently similar that we both expanded from comics to science fiction, fantasy, Doc Savage, Conan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and James Bond, among many other things.

I was fascinated to meet a girl who shared my interests, and so was Gary. I told him about Susan soon  after my first conversation with her, and within a few weeks he was writing to her as well. From time to time, all three of us would even talk with one another, with Gary on one extension phone at my house and me on the other.

By late 1968, Gary and I had convinced Susan to join the amateur press alliance Myriad, which was created by our friend and fellow fan Stven Carlberg. (For those who don't know what I'm talking about: an amateur press alliance, or apa, is a construct in which contributors produce sufficient copies of their own individual fanzines for all the members, then mail those copies to an Official Editor or Central Mailer, who collates those fanzines into bundles containing one copy of each contribution from the various members and distributes those bundles to the membership. Those fanzines might contain art, reviews, original fiction, reviews, personal commentary, and "mailing comments"--responses to the various fanzines in the prior mailing.  It's sort of a hybrid of fanzines and correspondence, and a lot of effort and creativity went into producing those apazines.) So not only were we both writing to Susan and occasionally talking with Susan, but we were contributing to the same apa.

Since Susan had no way of getting her Myriad apazine Vendetta reproduced (my apazine was not much'a nothin'--the same title I have now repurposed for this blog site), she asked Gary and me if we could do it. Somehow, we had convinced Mrs. Higgins and Mrs. Armona at West Rome High School to let us use the school's ditto machine if we supplied our own paper and ditto masters, so we provided ditto masters to Susan (since there was nowhere in Cedartown for her to buy them) and she would mail us her contributions, which we would print. A few months later, Gary and I bought our own Heyer mimeo machines, so we could actually print our fanzine at home--and at that point, Susan began doing her apazine on mimeo stencils.

(If you want to know all about ditto machines, aka spirit duplicators, and mimeo machines, there are sites that explain it, but here's a quick, simple explanation: a ditto machine uses a two-layer master that transfers carbon to the back of the sheet on which you type and/or draw. When that master is wrapped around a drum and moistened with an alcohol solution, a little of the purple carbon is transferred to a piece of paper. If you remember those old purple school handouts from the pre-xerox days--the ones that smelled like alcohol--that was a ditto machine. Yeah, I realize that we called them mimeo when we were in school but they weren't. Mimeo machines use a wax-covered stencil; when you type or draw on it, it displaces the wax, which allows ink to pass through that portion of the stencil. Put the stencil on a machine with an ink-covered drum and run paper through it and it makes an ink print on the paper. It's more durable, more permanent, and much more messy. I know of no veteran mimeo fanzine publishers who don't have at least one story about an ink-related disaster involving a spill, a spatter, or a curious cat.)

Sharing an apa with Susan was great--it afforded me one more opportunity to get to know about her, and it allowed me to enjoy her "public writing," which was a perfect complement to the letters that she sent me on average twice a week. I was learning a lot about Susan, her tastes, and her impressive word-crafting skills. The more I read, the more I liked her, even when she made it clear that she had no appreciation for Marvel Comics, finding them overwritten and melodramatic. We would talk about that many times over the years, and I remember her even courteously expressing the same thoughts to then-Marvel-editor Roy Thomas when we met him in New Orleans in 1973. I never did change her mind on that subject.

Susan and I continued to make plans to see one another whenever my family went to Cedartown to visit my grandmother; I would sometimes pick up her stencils when I was there so that I could print her apazine and mail it in with mine. It was during my visit to Cedartown in early 1969 that Susan mentioned that Gary had asked her if it would be okay for him to drive to Cedartown and visit her sometime.

I was surprised, because Gary hadn't mentioned it to me. But then I realized why: in his roundabout way, Gary was asking Susan to go on a date with him. since Gary was a few months older than me, he had his driver's license in early 1969, while I wouldn't get mine until late August of that same year.

I asked Susan if they had made arrangements to get together. "No," she said. "I asked him if you were coming up with him, and he said no, so I didn't talk with him about it any more."

That made me happy.

I had felt vaguely bothered when I learned that Gary might be seeing Susan without me; I now realize that was teenage jealousy rearing its head. But I felt great when Susan indicated that she didn't want to see Gary without seeing me.

And that was the point when, in spite of my teenage blitheness, I realized that my feelings for Susan were more than just feelings of one fan friend for another. And suddenly, I was counting down the months until I could get my own driver's license and make the drive to Cedartown on my own...

Fifty Years Ago This Week in West Rome - 10/20/1969 to 10/26/1969

Rome City Schools' roller-coaster relationship with the US Department of Health, Education, & Welfare and the US Justice Department took a dip this week in 1969 when the Justice Department filed suit against 83 school systems, including Rome City Schools. The Justice Department's suit demanded that all 83 systems fully implement their desegregation plans by the fall of 1970--one full year earlier than the plans already agreed to by the Department of Health, Education, & Welfare. "The action is intended to try to get the rest of Georgia's school systems that haven't already desegregated moving," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Frank M. Dunbaugh said.

The Chieftains' winning streak came to an end on Friday night when the Cartersville Hurricanes stormed over West Rome for a 20-0 victory. The loss knocked the Chiefs out of first place in Region 7-AA South, putting them behind crosstown rivals East Rome with only two remaining games in regular season play.

West Rome's midget football team defeated Coosa 20-6 to take the senior division midget football championship on Monday, October 20th. Ricky Ramsey scored all three touchdowns with runs of 54 years, 55 yards, and seven yards respectively.

West Rome's JV team pushed its record to 7-0 for the season with a 46-8 victory over Pepperell. Quarterback Johnny Thompkins ran for two touchdowns and threw three touchdown passes to Herbert Sellers in the first three quarters, while quarterback Jimmy Hatch added to the score with a touchdown pass to Sellers in the fourth quarter.

"Don't turn around." Those three words, followed by the click of an armed robber cocking the hammer of a gun, kicked off a nightmarish evening for Dallas Tanner, manager of the A&P on Shorter Avenue. An unidentified armed robber took all the store's daily proceeds shortly after closing on Friday, October 24th. "He told me to put all the money in a bag and that's exactly what I did," Tanner said. Luckily, the robber didn't get all the daily cash, since the assistant manager had already made a bank deposit midway through the day.

Ledbetter Construction announced ambitious construction plans for a site on US Highway 411 near the Ledbetter interchange. The first phase would seethe construction of a 200-unit Ramada Inn with a restaurant that could accommodate 400 people and meeting space that cold accommodate 500 people. The next phase of the construction would include town houses, garden apartments, and a shopping mall. (Needless to say, the latter part of that pie-in-the-sky plan never came to fruition.)

After the first round of bids for construction of Floyd Junior College came in almost a third higher than initially budgeted, the University System Board of Regents voted to reject all bids and to request new bids. Only three companies bid initially, but the Board of Regents was reaching out to other construction companies who had worked on other projects to request that they submit bids for Floyd Junior College in hopes that increased competition might result in lower bids.

Rome returned to Eastern standard time on Sunday, October 26th, giving all of us an extra hour of sleep.

Piggly Wiggly had cube steak for $1.09 a pound, eggs for 49¢ a dozen and oranges for 12¢ a pound. A&P had chuck steak for 59¢ a pound, golden delicious apples for 19¢ a pound, and Ann Page pound cake for 35¢. Big Apple had baking hens for 39¢ a pound, Irvindale ice cream for 49¢ a half-gallon, and Poss Brunswick stew for 49¢ a can. Kroger had pork chops for 77¢ a pound, canned biscuits for 6¢ a can, and apple cider for 77¢ a gallon. Couch's had ground beef for 55¢ a pound, Bama mayonnaise for 49¢ a quart, and Van Camp's chili with beans for 33¢ a can.

The cinematic week began with Run Wild, Run Free (starring John Mills) at the DeSoto Theatre, Ace High (starring Eli Wallach) at the First Avenue, Alice's Restaurant (starring Pat Quinn) at the Village, and Thunderbirds Are Go  at the West Rome Drive-In. The weekend switch out brought Some Kind of a Nut (starring Dick Van Dyke) to the DeSoto, Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (starring Tony Curtis) to the First Avenue, and Romeo & Juliet (starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey) to the West Rome Drive-In, while Alice's Restaurant continued to serve moviegoers at the Village Theatre.

Elvis Presley returned to the top of the charts with "Suspicious Minds" this week in 1969. Other top ten hits included "Wedding Bell Blues" by the 5th Dimension (#2); "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (#3); "I Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations (#4); "Baby, It's You" by Smith (#5); "Hot Fun in the Summertime" by Sly & the Family Stone (#6); "Little Woman" by Bobby Sherman (#7); "Jean" by Oliver (#8); "Tracy" by the Cuff Links (#9); and "Come Together/Something" (a double A-sided single that was thus credited to both songs) by the Beatles (#10 & 11--that's the way the charts work for double A-sided singles). Meanwhile, the Beatles album Abbey Road sired to the top of the album charts during its third week of release.

Led Zeppelin released their second album this week in 1969; the first single off that album, "Whole Lotta Love," would go on to become Led Zeppelin's best-selling song until the release of "Stairway to Heaven" wo years later.