CHAPTER 90. 1960
As was becoming the regular routine, Lois came home with me on the train at the beginning of September, the second as it were. We had dinner and went to the Exton Drive-in. By this time our visits to the drive-ins had passed anything previous for me and definitely did not include any snacking on my thumb. This is not to say we had progressed beyond some very close hugging and a lot of kissing. I was very slow to give up my gentleman approach to ladies.
were so attracted to Willow Grove. Maybe it seemed closer between our two homes, but there were several parks around we could have went to. Granted, Lenape Park was small compared to most of these with limited choice of rides, so I can understand skipping it. There was Lakeview Park in Royersford, another relatively small park. (Lenape closed as an amusement park in 1976; Lakeview closed in 1988.)
Still there were larger parks abounding. I had always loved Rocky Springs I still remember Rocky Springs with fondness and consider it one of the best. It closed the first time in 1966 and just sat there for years rotting away, like some spooky movie set. It was reopened by new
owners in 1979, but only lasted another four years before being sold off piecemeal at auction. Something very melancholy looking at pictures of the rides of Rocky Springs abandoned and crumbling.
There were the bigger parks that have survived even into the current times, such as Dorney Park in Allentown and Hershey Park in, where else, Hershey aka Chocolate Town. Granted Hershey was a bit of a hike, but my family and Lois had spent a day there on August 21. Whatever our reason, we went to Willow Grove a lot in those early years. Willow Grove Park closed in 1975. It was torn down and now there sits, what else, Willow Grove Park Mall. I understand the mall does have an operating Merry-go-round. Big hoorah!
You might say we were amusement park groupies in our younger years, but never on the roller coasters because of my fear of height.
As I write about these amusement parks I grow very happy I was young when I was. We had so much about us to go and enjoy and we weren’t isolated by technology. Besides the glut of amusement parks we were surrounded by bowling alleys, drive-in theaters, miniature golf courses, roller rinks and other diversions. It was a golden time to be young.
him most of the time because we were away here and yon. When he called to announce his arrival, Lois and I were at Willow Grove. The next day, Sunday the family, including Lois and I went somewhat north and spent the day at Roadside America, a giant train layout, and exploring Crystal Caves. On Labor Day itself I did pick up Ronald, then we went and got Lois and spent the day at my house.
in Maryland on the banks of the Sassafras River. Lois looked so demure sitting on the pier in her blue bathing suit. There was no hint of what some of our future outings would be like. There was no sneaky skinny-dipping this time, nothing unto-forward.
The most that was going on under the surface as we swam was the nips of these tiny fish. Lois did not find these “kisses” very pleasant at all.
Summer 1960 was coming to a fast end. In September television broadcast the Richard Nixon-John F. Kennedy Debate on the 26th. Nixon wore a gray suit and blended into the gray background while Kennedy popped out in his black outfit. Television proved unkind to Nixon. People listening to the debate on radio declared Nixon the winner, but those who watched TV said the opposite.
In my life there had been the Sonja-Lois debate and Lois was the clear winner. I purchased the engagement ring for $125, equivalent to $1,099 today. I didn’t consider it a great ring, but it was the best I could afford. I bought it on the 29th, but even though we had a date that night, I wasn’t ready to propose quite yet. And then an accident on the Schuylkill Expressway delayed my drive home from her house for 45 minutes. There were three people killed. I hoped this wasn’t a bad omen.
On September 30, 1960 the Howdy Doody Show did its last
broadcast. I use to watch this show every afternoon when I lived at 424 Washington Avenue from the first week we got a TV. For the first time in its long history Clarabelle the silent clown spoke. At the end of the thirty minutes he said, “Goodbye, kids”.
Ronald Tipton completed his training at Fort Devens. They gave him a choice of his permanent assignment based on class ranking. Although he had finished ninth in his class it wasn’t high enough for the plum assignments.
“My recruiter told me that 99% of the assignments in ASA were overseas. And that is where I wanted to go, but the only overseas assignment I had a choice of was Ankara, Turkey, which isn’t supposed to be too good. Our class also had two allocations to England, but they were chosen right away. All the rest of our allocations were stateside.”
Ronald, who joined the Army to see the world, would serve out his commitment at Fort Meade, Maryland. He was often able to come home for the weekends. He wanted to see foreign shores, but never got off the Eastern coast of the United States.
flunked out of college. His father bought him a $2,000 boat (worth $17,583 in today’s money) that Bill was to pay back when he got a job. For someone such as Ron and I, whose parents told us to forget college, this seemed a waste of an opportunity. It also seemed strange to see someone rewarded for such a failure.
I was not about to waste my opportunity. October 15 was Lois’ birthday. I took her to dinner at the Black Angus restaurant in Ludwig’s Corner near where I lived. Valley Forge Battlefield was on the route between our homes and as I drove through this historic site I pointed to the glove compartment.
“Do you hear that rattling?” I asked.
She said no.
I said, “Something keeps rattling in the glove department. It’s annoying.”
I pulled into one of the parking areas along the road. I got out of the car, walked around to her side and opened the door.
“I want to see what’s causing it,” I told her and opened the glove compartment.
I took out the ring box I had placed there, got down on one knee beside the car and asked her to marry me.
She said yes.
again took the Atlantic Excursion to New York, the last one I traveled on alone. I saw the Broadway show “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” starring Tammy Grimes. It was a musical based on the life of a survivor of the Titanic sinking and was written by Meredith Willson. Hmm, Brown, Meredith and Wilson, all family names.
On November 8 a razor thin majority, less than one percent, elected John F. Kennedy President of the United States. On December 6 Ronald came home on leave. He made a date with Vivian Beale, a woman he had dated off and on during his high school years, and the four of us spent a night out. Ronald went down to Aberdeen, Maryland to Fort Meade the next morning..
I began the countdown to my marriage.
Lois literally was doing a count down. Despite the fact we dated each other every weekend and ate lunch together as often as possible since we both worked at Atlantic, she wrote me regular love letters on the days we didn’t get together. In most of her missives there would be “only 286 1/2 days” or “190 1/2 days” or “85 1/2 days”left.
With the engagement came a time warp. At moments the marriage felt far off and like it would never arrive. Others moments the time rushed by too quickly to get everything done. The events and occurrences became a jumble in my mind.
On November 26, we attended the marriage of Dottie Bender to Jack Walls at the West Chester Methodist Church. Dottie’s parents were longtime friends of my parents. Her father Joe had served with my dad in the Navy during World War II and Joe helped my dad land his job at Hines Trucking. The Benders had moved to Downingtown around the same time we moved back and for a brief period Dottie was my babysitter. Now that she married her husband and she would become one of our social friends after our own marriage. (Left: The Bender’s home in Maryland.)
The next day Lois and I were at Tommy Wilson’s birthday party at the Norco Fire House. I do not know exactly what happened, but Lois apparently felt she did or said something to be embarrassed about. Two days later I received a letter from her typed on Atlantic Refining Letterhead.
Darling,
I’m sorry if I embarrassed you at the party Sunday night. I was only kidding you, but I know it must have sounded awful. Please forgive me, honey. I know I shouldn’t have been so impulsive and I promise it won’t happen again.
Oh Larry, I love you so much. I promise that I will never ever embarrass you like that again. I feel so bad now but I know that nothing can be done now except to watch myself in the future. Once again let me apologize for my foolish actions. I just hope your folks aren’t too mad at me. I love you.
I wish I knew what in the world she could have done to feel this way. I also wish it was true that such things would not happen again.
These moments of doubt were something deep seated we didn’t realize. She suffered from poor self-image. She spoke of herself as if she was a homely person, but she was really quite good looking. She was 19 and it was incredible how much she looked like her mother at the same age. That is her mother, age 19, on the left and Lois, age 19, on the right.
Work was not a problem. My love affair and pending marriage had no effect on my performance. I was fast and accurate, a work habit I had developed because I wanted to go home at night and write, not be stuck doing overtime. Some might think my missing those typing classes would prove a hindrance on this job with the Graphotype’s standard
keyboard (pictured left). It wasn’t. These machines weren’t made for typing per se, but for cutting names and addresses into metal plates. The mechanics of the machine limited their speed capabilities. I quickly understood these limitations and used them to advantage. I was soon the fastest and most accurate Graphotypist in the group. It didn’t matter if it were the keyboard or the wheel driven Graphotypes (pictured right).
It was no different with the Addressograph machine. I could stomp out the envelopes as if I was just an extension of the machine.
Ron Paul, our “genial” supervisor, was a volatile person, quick to change moods from benign to explosive. I jested describing him as “genial”, that was one mood not in his repertoire. I gave him no cause to take his demons out on me; however, it is hard to predict what kind of demons such people have. I was his best worker. You could give me any job and I completed it before its deadline and without error. In other words, I made him look good. Rather than being pleased he decided I was a threat. The better I got the more it soured his mood.
He was at Atlantic a decade by the time I arrived in the unit, yet only a Grade 6 level. Remember you started with this company as a Grade 3. Even though Atlantic wasn’t the fastest to dole out promotions, this should have indicated something amiss.
Frankly, it wasn’t hard to understand. Ron Paul was cocky, but lazy. Whatever his past performances may have been, and however he managed to become a Supervisor, didn’t matter. Once they pinned that title upon him, he saw his job as supervising only, nothing else. In his mind it was not his place to lift a finger to tap a keyboard. He was boss; he gave the orders and we peons did the finger lifting. You know who he was like, the Don Knott’s character named Barney Fife. You could let him swagger a little bit, but you didn’t dare give him any bullets for his gun.
The company expected him to do actual work of course, but he kept it to a minimum. He seldom cut plates. He would normally restrict himself to operating the Addressograph (pictured left) and then take only the easier jobs. He preferred to lean against his desk and puff his pipe.
His attitude was going to catch up with him in the future and make him my sworn enemy.
It is interesting to note my parents’ reaction to Lois and my announcement of engagement. There was no concern about out young age. We were only 19. There was simply a great deal of relief.
I do not know where my folks ever got the notion, but they had convinced themselves I was going to marry a Black woman. It was one of their biggest fears, but had little basis in reality. I barely knew any Black people. There had been no Black students in Owen J. Roberts High during my tenure as a student. There were no Black people living anywhere near us in North Coventry or East Vincent Townships in those days.
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