CHAPTER 101. 1962. BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND
On October 1, 1962 the Meredith name became headline news. James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi as its first Black student. His name was in the news constantly that fall. As a result of this I had to put up with a lot of tasteless jokes such as “is he the black sheep in your family,” etc. etc.
In late November we began the Speedaumat conversion. It was going to occupy my days for the next six months and then some.
Ronald wrote in December that he had bought his first car, but promptly had an accident. All his saved up money was going to go to pay for the damage. He asked me not to send him a Christmas present that year since he couldn’t reciprocate.
Dante’s “The Devine Comedy. As for my own writing, I was finishing up the “Writer’s Digest” Course. I still had a B+ average.
TITLE _______ PAGE
.1. Rescue 9
2. Purgatory Story 21
3. Moon Was Cloudy 29
4. Kidnapped Bus 45
5. Lay Me Down 51
6. Urban Warfare 55
7. Crime 62
8. Into Thy Hands 76
9. Out West 85
10. Ship Called Flowed 90
11. Wreckage 96
12. Dislike 109
These were written when I was in high school and were crime for adventure stories. Wreckage was one I wrote based on an idea by Ronald Tipton, I had sent several out to magazines over those early years but without success. "Rescue" had been read at Owen J. under the sponsorship of Agues Manser fun 1958. I had written it in1956.
In early December I began writing a novel about teenagers and cars. I was obviously still under the influence of Henry Gregor Felsen, but this was a novel I felt confident I would finish. I had the timeline and plot events all outlined. There was a trio of boys at the center of the novel. Again I was basing some of my characters on people I had known. Jerry Westfield, a boy obsessed with girls and cars, was patterned after Richard Wilson The other two boys were patterned after myself. I always said Casey Scott was me as I wished I was and Ronald Candle was the me I thought I was. My working title had been the name of the main character, Ronald Candle, but eventually I changed this to Come Monday.
In December of 1962 I outlined a novel. I hadn’t written a completed full novel before. In 1958 while in high school I had started an apocalyptic novel called, Breadth of the Earth, but I had never finished it. I had written three novellas or novelettes that I collected as Smoke Dream Road. This time I wrote Ronald Tipton that I had a novel I thought I could finish.
Every evening I typed away and by the end of January I had completed the book. I originally titled it Ronald Candle after the main character, but later changed it to Come Monday. It was based somewhat on the incident between Richard Wilson and Bob Browler that I used for my short story “Moon Was Cloudy” a few years earlier. I greatly expanded it. I based the character Ronald Candle loosely on myself. He lived in the small town of Wilmillar and he felt left out of things because he didn’t have a car, especially when a tough kid named King Victor began going after his girlfriend. Ronald Candle had two close friends, very different types. One was Jerry Westfield, based on Richard Wilson. The other was Casey Scott, an idealistic version of myself. Casey was the kid I had wished to be. The book followed these characters over a two-week period in late February until it ended with disaster on the first Monday of March.
You may have noticed some mention of “Wilmillar” previously. First of all, it was part of the official pedigree registration of my little Chihuahua, Cindy. Her American Kennel Association name was Cynthia Wilmilar (left). I made a decision in my teens to create this mythical place called “Decket County” and much of the actions and plots of my stories happen in the small town of “Wilmillar, Pennsylvania”, based on Downingtown, Pennsylvania. I was kind of following William Faulkner’s lead with Yoknapatawpha County standing in for Lafaette County and Jefferson for Oxford, Mississippi.
I wrestled with these fictional placenames often in my life. It isn’t hard to figure out that “Decket County” is just a pseudonym for Chester County, “Wilmilar” for Downingtown and “Formton” for Philadelphia. I’ve had friends, especially Ronald Tipton, who have urged me to use the actual place names and there were times I considered doing just that. However, there are good reasons why I choose to not use the real McCoys.
The original reason was privacy. A lot of my stories had strong autobiographical details and I didn’t want to become a pariah in my old home town; I didn’t what to be like Thomas Wolfe in Asheville.
But the more important reason, which I came to realize later on, it allowed me to change things without some nitpicker complaining that such and such a street or building didn’t exist in Philadelphia or wasn’t located where I placed it. If I had certain government officials or the police behaving in a certain manner for the sake of my plot, I did not want some critic screaming they didn’t do it that way in Downingtown. I wanted the freedom to use things as I needed them, not as reality might dictate.
I was feeling very confident at the beginning of 1963. For Pete’s sake, why wouldn’t I? We were living in a nice home and living what many would call the good life. We weren’t doing much good for others, but man we had it good. We ate out at “fine” restaurants a couple time a month, took some “wonderful” day trips here and there. We took in some “great” top-notch shows whenever we wished. Work was going very well. We had started the Speedaumat conversion, which would take months. There were over 40,000 plates to be converted and I was the main converter. I wasn’t happy with the lost evenings to the overtime it was doing, but my paychecks looked good. I had no idea 1963 was going to be a turning point for the country as well as me personally.
Updike fan. I read The Same Door and Pigeon Feathers, his collections of short fiction as well as the short novel, The Poorhouse Fair. Then I read a book that especially impressed me, Rabbit, Run. John Updike (pictured right) had grown up in the same general area as I had. I could identify with the places and people he wrote about. He became another writer influencing my own work. I decided to visit his boyhood home.
He had been a lad in Shillington, Pennsylvania. I lived a bit south of Pottstown and he had lived a bit south of Reading, about 20 to 25 miles from each other, a little more than a half hour drive. He was 9 years my senior, but that meant he wasn’t greatly removed by area or age from my own experiences. Lois an I drove up Route 100 pass my parent’s and turned left onto Route 724 toward Birdsboro. We just kept going and Route 724 became Philadelphia Avenue when you got to Shillington, which was the street he had lived on. Somewhat coincidently, I live today just off a road named Philadelphia Pike.
it may be today. I walked up to the white house and took a couple pictures (pictured left, then right). We went down the road a little from his house and saw the property that was once the Alms House, the inspiration for his novel, The Poorhouse Fair.
Life was going on pretty much where it had left off on the home front. We were hardly into the new year when my car was back in Roy Miller’s garage, this time for new brakes and state inspection. As usual, my parents delivered the car back to us after the work. It cost me $49.57.
The car wasn’t the only thing continuing to be sickly. Lois was not feeling real great either. Whatever it was hung on and there seemed to be some problem in figuring out what was going on.
The number one hit on “Billboard” was “Go Away Little Girl”, by Edie Gorme’s husband, Steve Lawrence, but on February 25 a single was released that began to cause a stir. It was entitled, “Please, Please Me” by some British group called The Beatles. It was their first United States single.
I had seen a photo of the group and honestly, I thought they were funny looking with those bang-style haircuts and Mod Suits. I wasn’t overly impressed with their music. It didn’t strike me as being very innovative and I thought they were another flash in the pan. So much for my judgement of musical talent. Lois thought the drummer was cute.
Meanwhile her illness persisted. She spoke on the phone with my grandmother about it on both the 5 and 6 of February. On February 11 I didn’t go into work because I had to take Lois to the doctor and the Red Arrow Line was on strike. And by the way, the car was back in for service on the 16th. My grandmother came home with us on the 17th and stayed overnight. On the 18th she taught Lois how to cook a pot roast. I believe that was the recipe we still employ today. It makes a very good pot roast, although now we make it in a crock pot and not a large roasting pan. Then on February 25 I was again home to take Lois to the doctor.
These doctor visits kept going throughout the Spring, only the location changed. On March 29 she was at doctors in Philadelphia and once more on April 15. We had no diagnosis yet, but Lois suspected she was pregnant. On May 6, I took off from work to take her to the doctor. She was really thinking she might be pregnant. She was definitely gaining weight. On May 25 my mom bought Lois a shift dress to wear to her cousin’s wedding because none of her other dresses would fit. Then on June 3 my mom and grandmother came to our home and took Lois to a new doctor in Malvern, a Dr. Clifford Lewis. He said she was pregnant and the due date was December 1.
On May 27 1, a fairly obscure folk singer from Greenwich Village named Bob Dylan released his second album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. His first had been simply “Bob Dylan” and did not have great success. The lead song in his second album was called, “Blowin’ in the Wind”. It pictures Dylan and his then girlfriend Suze Rotolo walking on West 4th Street in New York's West Village during a chilly day in February. This was near where the coupe lived
Yes, there were a lot of things beginning to blow in the wind.
I had by this time accumulated a good-sized record library. It was full of the Rock idols of the ‘fifties, Elvis, Fats Domino, Everly Brothers, actually a wide selection of the hits of the period. One of my favorites was Ricky Nelson and I had quite a few Johnny Mathis, who was not a Rock singer. I had a little of everything. I had Sinatra, Streisand, Connie Francis and naturally a great number of Country, especially Johnny Cash. I had a fair sampling of Classical and some Jazz, and I was very heavy with Broadway original Cast Scores, but in the late 1950s I really started leaning toward the Folk Scene. I had every album the Kingston Trio had made up to that point, From 1958’s alp-named The Kingston Trio” throught 1962’s, “College Concert”. The first featured Dave Guard and the last John Stewart, who had replaced Guard. The Trio had turned me into a fan of Folk Music and I was immediately attracted to Dylan’s songs.
songs that had strong lyrics with meaning as much as I liked a melody, and Dylan supplied that. I had already begun collecting Peter, Paul & Mary and Phil Ochs. Now Dylan became an obsession.
Socially we were visiting with Dave Claypoole over in New Jersey, but he was more my buddy then a friend to Lois. She often declined joining us. Thus Saturday usually found Dave and I tooling about in his little two-seat sports care and then playing tennis somewhere. Lois was beginning to back out of socializing with new people and I was the one bringing anyone new around.
On March 14, my mom and grandmom came by and they took Lois to a Jewelry Demonstration in West Chester. Hosting it was Dottie Bender, my old friend and babysitter from both Glen Loch and Downingtown. Her father had been a friend of my dad when they lived up the road from our house in the swamp. They moved to Downingtown and lived by the “Blob” diner not long after we moved back to Washington Avenue.
She was now Mrs. Jack Walls and lived on Neilds Street in West Chester. My great grandfather Meredith had once owned several homes on that street and died in one. She invited us to visit and for a couple years after that we had regular get-togethers with Dottie and Jack.(I never took a photograph of the Walls.) There were often little dinner parties with Susan Frank, a woman I had known in high school and thought was very pretty, and a couple, Florence and Gene Bare (pictured left). Occasionally we met at the Bares or our place.
Dottie was always a bit strange to be around. She had strange eyes. She was a bit flighty. That part of her nature was one reason my mom stopped using her to babysit me. The other reason was my mom considered her “boy crazy”. Now she was married with children.
She gave dinner parties, but she was a terrible cook. It was all a mystery to her. At our first get together she served a chocolate cake she baked. Like many cooks she fastened the layers with toothpicks. When we began to eat she warned us to watch out for the toothpicks. I don’t know about the others, but I pulled fourteen toothpicks from my piece alone.
kitchen. Lois had made some fudge, which was cooling on a counter. Dottie took a pan of macaroni off the stove and set it down atop the fudge. The fudge then melted and dripped out of its pan to fill the silverware drawer. Startled by this mishap, Dottie used a dishtowel to remove the pan of macaroni, ignoring the fact of a hot burner on the stove. A moment later we had a burning dishtowel to contend with. She said she didn’t think an electric stove could cause such a fire. After that she somehow managed to get mashed potatoes up a wall. (Photo on left is Lois and me, New Year’s Eve at The Bares, 1963.)
Although we enjoyed our visits with the Walls they only lasted a short time. The years since have not been kind to Dottie and her family. One of the children is dead and another is on drugs. Jack went to jail for sexual abuse of children and has since died. Dottie herself was committed to Embreeville (pictured right), a former Pennsylvania State Psychiatric Hospital. I believe she is still alive, but am not certain of it.
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