Dad's Memorial Card, 1988

Dad's memorial card from Zook Mortuary.  

It's hard for me to look at this and see Kansas City, Missouri.  I get that that is where Dad was born, but that certainly is not his resting place.  I am not even sure that Dad is resting anywhere for that matter. No, he's in LA somewhere, somewhere downtown or near there, probably dropping in for an early morning mass or a late afternoon confession before going across the street to Olvera Street to grab a cheese enchilada, rice, and beans and a Coors.  

I really don't like this famous image of Christ.  When we were kids we were taught to revere, even worship Christ in all of his man-made forms.  Whether it was the suffering Christ on the cross in St. Joseph's chapel at Santa Teresita in Monrovia or a more artistic rendition of the crucifix at St. Frances [one of the Franciscan orders] of Rome Parish in Azusa. But it was this particular memorial card that disturbed me as a kid because the image is one of the sacrificial Christ, a sacrifice called for by his father. Never commenting on the art or the story behind the image, my dad exalted in his own heart the holiness of Christ's suffering.  

Speaking of the Old Mission, called La Placita, I could not help but post a few pics of it.  For it was a great place of comfort for my dad.  He came here first after stepping off a train from San Diego while on leave from the war.  He'd walk over to La Placita, find a quiet pew, kneel, and pray for those he loved and the ones he missed.  The prospects of seeing his mom and dad, his wife and baby girl lifted him.  The church consoled him.  Refreshed, he stepped out of La Placita and into the sunlight.  His prospects carried him across the street to Olvera Street where he got some Mexican food.  The War was over.  He could now begin to rebuild.  

Twenty years and 7 kids later, he returned to San Diego for weekend excursions, staying in the Padre Trail Inn where he returned to his poetry of composing striking post-card greetings in his signature all capital letters and commit to hours of interest devouring the craft of local writers from the San Diego Tribune.  He settled in.  A ribbon of smoke from his Tareyton, perched at the edge of a motel dresser, rose to the ceiling and the room absorbed it.  To fuel his chariot further, Dad nursed a beverage for inspiration. 

The image of the Tareytons made me think of Dad's coconut ashtray he'd brought back from the war. It had some names and dates scrolled on it in  yellow paint, but I was too young to register the names to memory before Mom tossed it. I am sure it had Majuro Island written on it somewhere.  I liked the ashtray because the fibers or hairs of the coconut were still on it, making it look like a fresh extraction from an island in the Pacific from a war only 20 years since its close.  It was a brilliant trophy to survival and how men made useful things from bad situations.  All was not lost. Oblivion and death do not hold sway over men's lives.  

The pack of cigarettes there at the right are 100's. Before he quit cold turkey, Dad almost always smoked Tareyton regulars and only rarely did he buy 100's when a liquor store was out of regulars. But I like the image of the worked pack, and that's why I posted it. 

He'd explore Presidio Park with his children and schedule a stop to the San Diego Zoo.  

And as the day came to a close, he'd take us out to dinner in Old Town San Diego at La Pinata with its colorful wicker seats and pinatas hanging from the ceiling. 

To digress even further, my last visit to San Diego with my dad came in 1982.  It was me, my dad, and Sally.  I drove my green, 1980 VW bug.  We stayed at many hotels over the years.  This time we stayed at Mission Valley Inn.  

And as Dad settled in to read the local journalists and write his memorable postcards, Sally and I drove down to the Old Town State Park bypassing our old, childhood haunts, Presidio Park, where we found a weekend festival with booths lining the periphery of the park. The city-given name of the park is Plaza de Las Armas.

And why wouldn't there be a festival?  It was after all Cinco de Mayo weekend, 1982.  We were there actually on May 1, a Saturday, and Cinco de Mayo fell on the following Wednesday. So that weekend there were lots of vendors that occupied the park. Wandering through the park and observing things and people, sliding through the hordes we found a vendor selling dollar-sized corn tortillas for $.25.  They served them fresh from the grill on a sheet of baking paper.  The tortillas were topped with butter and salsa. Uncomplicated. They were warm, salty, and divine. So we ordered more.

Afterward, we drove downtown looking for a movie theater.  The Walgenbachs were always the ones for the movies.  It was a tradition.  It was love. It was history.  It was a way to share the times of our parents, who loved the movies and legends of Hollywood. We found a film.  Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, aka, Hans Solo.  We didn't plan to see this movie, so when we arrived the line was wrapped around the block.  We got in line anyway.  We stood.  We waited. We sat.  On the sidewalk.  The official release date for Blade Runner wasn't until June 25, 1982. But we were in San Diego on May 1st.  So how did we see a movie prior to its official release? San Diego happened to have an early, special preview.  

A San Diego Sneak Preview shown only once in May 1982.^[4] This version is nearly identical to the 1982 US theatrical version, except that it included three additional scenes not shown before or since, including the Final Cut version (2007).

Call it luck.  The movie was long for me.  The visuals were stunning but haunted by a predacious search for replicants, beauties that needed to be eliminated.  The movie seemed to be a hard-boiled, noirish commentary on post-deconstruction, whatever that means.  Where has the time gone? Where are the people and actors of the era that anchored my identity and mojo? Where is Sean Young, Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and character actor M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, James Hong, Brion James, Edward James Olmos, aka, "Jaime Escalante," and others?  I don't like the detachment or dispossession from life of those days.  I was still working nights at UPS in Baldwin Park and trying to make a go at selling Amway.  Mom was a good soul and a good sport in those days to buy a large tub of Amway's soap at wholesale from me. She actually liked the soap and said so, which worked to silence the criticism and suspicions from my siblings.  It was Bill and Darlene Hardister who were my Amway mentors.  Bill said he had given up his lucrative $70,000/year trucking job to sell Amway.  I loved Darlene.  She had an older daughter, quite attractive, from a previous marriage.  Wish I could remember her name.  The picture of Darlene below is one that in my mind captures her funny laugh, her energy, and joy.  She may not like the picture, but for me, it captures how much she loved to laugh and thought how so many things that people did in life were funny.  Life and people absolutely delighted her.  

Darlene Hardister.  Not sure of the year.  2005 maybe.

But to return to La Placita Plaza in downtown Los Angeles.  It is a beautiful, old little Spanish chapel. I love it.  I loved it because he loved it.  

For some excellent older shots of this little chapel and perhaps a glimpse of the world my dad inhabited, see these pics.

Even in the mornings before he'd go into work, he'd stop here for a 5:30 or 6am mass. He'd get on the Pasadena Freeway from the 210 and wind his way toward downtown. But instead of going directly to the courthouse, he'd stop here and pray for his Pa, Ma, and sister, Josephine.  Before ballgames, he'd stop here and run across the street for a Mexican dinner for he and his three youngest sons, and a beer for himself and sodas for the boys.

The interior was tiny but beautiful.  It was all aged gold.  I do remember thinking where do I fix my devotion since there was no large crucifix on the wall behind the altar as they have at Immaculate Conception or St. Joseph's Chapel at Santa Teresita Hospital in Monrovia.  Instead, this tiny La Placita chapel had only gilded framed paintings. Okay.  The chapel evoked a storied worship. But knowing how much comfort this place gave my dad means that this place still occupies a very dear corner of my heart. 

Elk in Estes Park, October 13, 2016

Mom and Dad on a rock in a river at Estes Park, Colorado, probably 1939 or 1940.  Amazing to think how these 2 individuals made everybody in the family more lovable.

We also stopped at Camp St. Malo.

Old Church Shops, Estes Park, CO

Dad Loved Radio

My dad loved radio.  I can imagine him sitting at home or walking by a Woolworth's or pharmacy and hearing voices broadcasting Notre Dame and Frank Leahy as they rolled on to victory.

Maybe it was his love for the glory of the old days of Knute Rockne commandeering the Irish to a win against the dominant Army Black Knights team in 1924. 

After the game, New York Herald Tribune sportswriter Grantland Rice, 1880-1954, penned one of the most famous ledes in sports history.  Rice's iconic memorable headline appeared in the paper's evening edition, as well as the Sunday, October 19 printing.  The Four Horsemen helped lead Notre Dame to a its first-ever national championship, and the quartet of backs became college football icons.

Well, that is pretty cool.  By the way, Rice's NY Herald piece opened with this:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again.  In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death.  These are only aliases.  Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.  They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down on the bewildering panorama spread on the green plain below.

Wikipedia has the background on the Irish's Four Horsemen: 

George Strickler, then Rockne's student publicity aide and later sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, made sure the name stuck. He had pitched the idea out loud at the halftime of the Army game in the press box as a tie in to the 1921 Rudolph Valentino movie The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.^[5] After the team arrived back in South Bend, he posed the four players, dressed in their uniforms, on the backs of four horses from a livery stable in town. The wire services picked up the now-famous photo, and the legendary status of the Four Horsemen was assured.^[5]

After that win over Army, Notre Dame's third straight victory of the young season, the Irish were rarely threatened the rest of the year. A 27–10 win over Stanford in the1925 Rose Bowl gave Rockne and Notre Dame the national championship and a 10–0 record.

As it usually is with legends, the Four Horsemen earned their spot in gridiron history. Although none of the four stood taller than six feet or weighed more than 162 pounds, they played 30 games as a unit and only lost to one team, Nebraska, twice. They played at a time when there were no separate offensive and defensive teams. All players had to play both sides. Once a player left the field, he could not come back into the game. 

Could you imagine owning a beauty, like this 1940 Philco?

For information on radio broadcasting greats, check out this site.

At the 27-minute mark, Frank Leahy, 1908-1973, is introduced.  He coached Notre Dame from 1941-1943 and again from 1946 to 1953,

compiling a career college football record of 107–13–9. His winning percentage of .864 is the second best in NCAA Division I football history, trailing only that of fellow Notre Dame Fighting Irish coach, Knute Rockne, for whom Leahy played from 1928 to 1930.

I mention Leahy because my dad admired him more than any other Notre Dame player or coach, I am sure, but also because Leahy was a devout Catholic.  During Leahy's reign, 1946-1953, my dad was in his late twenties, 27 to 29, the prime years of his life. In 1946, Leahy's second stint as Irish head coach, Dad was 32 years old, a prime year for a man in the bloom of his physical life. Leahy was indeed memorable to Dad. Dad was drafted by the U.S. Marines in 1943, the last year of Leahy's first stint with the Irish.

You really get a sense of the reverence and love that my dad had for Notre Dame through the years.  It wasn't just the winning tradition of Notre Dame that he loved but the fact that the team was essentially a Catholic team made up of Irish boys. Having attended Cathedral High School in LA between Chinatown and Dodgers Stadium and been an altar boy a score of times, my dad, too, was a Catholic dedicated to the Catholic tradition, to the holidays and their call for commemoration and a call to honor.  Notre Dame, therefore, was his team that fired his devotion for and dedication to the church. Notre Dame's struggles on the gridiron were high moral drama between on the Elysian fields between successful execution of strategy or blundering failure.  The holy imagery of the Virgin Mary and the suffering Christ on the Cross was sidelined for four quarters on an early Saturday morning.  The demands for precision, for outsmarting, for outplaying their opponents exhausted my dad.  

   

There was Don Criqui years later after the Notre Dame era,  FYI, if anyone is interested in excavating further details on or about Notre Dame, the university, this site is their archived site.  

More on Don Criqui

This game likely made my dad sick.  It was played on Saturday, October 14 in South Bend.  Notre Dame was ranked #5, while USC was ranked #1.  USC beat the Irish that year, 24-7.  Notre Dame scored first and was leading 7-0 before USC scored.  This is what always worried my dad.  Whenever Notre Dame didn't come out of the gate dominating USC, he knew that USC was a powerhouse and would always come back.  OJ Simpson led the league in rushing that year, 

Simpson led the nation in rushing in 1967 when he ran for 1,543 yards and scored 13 touchdowns.  He also led the nation in rushing the next year with 383 carries for 1,880 yards.  

OJ scored 3 touchdowns in that game.  

Terry Hanratty was Notre Dame's quarterback in the game, and he looked bad.  

Tony Roberts was one of Notre Dame's radio/television announcers from 1980 to 2006.  Wikipedia explains that 

Roberts is from Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Columbia College with a degree in journalism

When Roberts retired in 2006, it was Criqui who replaced him.   

Transistor radios weren't invented until 1954.

Following their development in 1954, made possible by the invention of the transistor in 1947, they became the most popular electronic communication device in history, with billions^[1]  manufactured during the 1960s and 1970s. Their pocket size sparked a change in popular music listening habits, allowing people to listen to music anywhere they went. Beginning in the 1980s cheap AM transistor radios were superseded by devices with higher audio quality, portable CD players, personal audio players, and boom boxes.

As for radio broadcasters, here is a list:

1.  Red Barber. 
2.  Mel Allen.
3.  Vin Scully
4.  Jerry Doggett
5.  Ross Porter.
6.  Gil Stratton.
7.  Dick Eagan.
8.  Chick Hearn.
9.  Marv Albert
10.  Dick Stockton
11.  Pat Summerall
12.  Tex Rickards, Dodgers announcer in Ebbett's Fields.
13.  Marty Glickman.
14.  Harry Kalas, 1936-2009.
15.  Keith Jackson, 1928- (he's 87 years old).
16.  Brent Woody Musburger, 1939-
17.  Mick Hubert, the voice of Florida Gator football.  His birth year is not given at Wikipedia.  Hysterical.  
18.  Charlie Steiner.
19.  Rick Monday.   


SPORTS WRITERS
1.  Donald Honig.
2.  Jim Murray. 
3.  Bob Broeg, 
4.  Leonard Koppett.
5.
6. 
7. 
8. 
9.
10.

Top 10 College Football Radio Announcers of all Time.


Allen Pinkett. 

Joe Boland, Radio voice of Notre Dame football.

Are Americans Tuning Out the NFL over Protests? 

Loved those Andes Chocolate Mints.  

There was a distribution outlet,  store, an office supply store on Beverly or 3rd Street in Hollywood where I used to deliver and pick up for UPS in 1984.  And they had a small porcelain and glass dish filled with Andes Creme de Menthe, or what I like to affectionately refer to, chocolate mints.  And I would always walk away with a handful of chocolates.  I loved the wrapped candies, like Chunkies that were wrapped in shiny silver foil.  Beautiful.  It wasn't just a treat, it was a luxury, for these were things you'd enjoy only around Christmas or at fine dining or parties, special occasions.  But here I had access to them almost every day.  I was guilty of cheating time and I paid for it health-wise.