DECORATION DAYS IN KEOKUK
by Bryce Martin
The city of Keokuk, Iowa, is now and always will be a part of my life. That was first evident in 1949 when my grandparents and my aunt Margaret made the trip there for Decoration Day ceremonies. They went to see the grave in the national cemetery and honor the memory of their son, brother, and my father, Wallace Bryce Martin Sr., killed in World War II along with the entire crew of an Army Air Force combat plane.
I stayed home that first year. In the trips that followed I have many memories, pleasant and sad alike.
Our federal government relocated the crew in which my father perished at the stateside gravesite in Keokuk, after previously burying them in a mass grave on foreign soil.
I remember my grandmother, especially somber as she attached her Gold Star Mother�s pin just above the heart. For the ceremonies, she had chosen a navy blue dress, matching hat with veil, and new black dress shoes. She made only one other trip to the cemetery in Keokuk. Each year at the appropriate time, she would hang a gold star in our living room window facing the street in Galena, Kan. I made the journey three times after sitting out that first year in 1949.
For my grandmother, it was an event meaningfully satisfying since she met parents and other family members of all those killed in the crew of the B-29 bomber with her son. She exchanged letters and photographs with the families for years to come.
Although it was not a pleasure trip, there were things to see and do in the city, with the proper perspective taken into consideration.
One thing you could not miss was the large mass of water you had to cross to enter the city, nor the statue of Chief Keokuk and the inscription explaining the city�s origin.
Then, there was the Keokuk Dam, and the bridge whose span crossed over the Mississippi River, and resembled a giant Erector Set when its drawbridge girder mechanisms kicked into gear from the hands of an operator stationed under the mass of steel. The drawbridge opened for river traffic to proceed through the lock.
One summer, thousands and thousands of moths infiltrated the air and thousands more lie dead on the ground. The earthy aroma of the moths was an unforgettable smell.
There were two main downtown hotels. We always stayed at the same one, the Hotel Iowa, except for one summer. From our room in the other hotel, we could see far down below and the animals in the city�s small zoo. We usually ate at the Chuck Wagon Caf� on the main drag between seventh and eighth streets. It was a cowboy-styled diner with portions of the inside walls decorated in knotty pine wood. The pork tenderloin sandwich was my favorite.
The first time we stayed in the hotel was a first for me. A man with an odd outfit insisted on carrying our bags and escorting us to our room. His outfit reminded me of the little bellhop I had seen in ads for Phillip Morris cigarettes. Once inside, the man drew open the curtains, showed where everything was and then kind of stood still, still as the statue of Chief Keokuk. My grandfather grimaced, reached into his pocket and handed the man a fifty-cent piece. �He wanted a tip,� explained my grandfather as the man exited. I could tell he did not like the idea of giving someone money for imposing on you for something you could have done for yourself.
There were trips to Joyce Park to see the Keokuk Kernels play baseball. During some of our first visits, the Kernels were a Class B professional minor league team in the Three-I League. I knew all this from reading the backs of my baseball cards. In reading them, I never imagined ever actually being in one of the many cities mentioned on those cards, except for the ones nearby my hometown that I was already familiar with, such as Joplin, Independence, Chanute, and some others.
The lobby floor of the Hotel Iowa on Main Street housed the office for the Keokuk Kernels. I met the team�s manager at the hotel in 1954, Jo-Jo White, when they were a farm club for the Cleveland Indians. �Do you have anyone who hits the long ball, like Mantle maybe?� I asked him. �No,� he said, seemingly disinterested where the conversation was going. �Oh, yes,� he lit up, as if he just remembered something. �Roger Maris. He can belt them a ways.�
�I�ll remember that,� I said. �I�ll be looking for him on a baseball card.�
On a later 1960 trip, Keokuk was a Class D farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals and a member of the Midwest League, along with Clinton, Decatur, Dubuque, Kokomo, Davenport, Quincy and Waterloo. I enjoyed memorizing the names of the league cities. They sounded so alien somehow. Gone was Quad Cities and other teams, along with Keokuk, that had previously helped form the Three-I League.
A letter to my grandmother was especially troubling. A dark-haired, handsome young man with impeccable manners, dapper in a dark suit, who sang impressively from the stage during wreath ceremonies in Keokuk, had died, and from complications quite unusual. The fact came out that he liked to place redskin peanuts in the bottles of his sodas. That was not all that odd, I and many of my neighborhood friends had done the same thing. However, doctors said an accumulation of the peanut skins had built up in the young man�s body and that is what killed him.
Because of the effect it had on my grandmother, the stark reminder that death was no respecter of persons or circumstances, that has always left a stronger impression on me than any of my other Keokuk memories have.
Tell them how the weather was... -- Ernest Hemingway bryce_martin_1@Lycos.com
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Thursday, September 04, 2003
LIVING AND DOING IN 1962
by Bryce Martin
Here I was with my first traffic ticket and scheduled court appearance, after five years of driving and countless miles traveled. It was just a few weeks ago when the odds caught up with me. An oscillating red light (dimmed some by the light of day) and the sound of a siren coming from a California Highway Patrol car near Red Rock Canyon clamored for my attention. I was driving just a few miles over the speed limit, according to the officer, but enough for a speeding violation citation. As noted on my copy, I was to appear before the judge in Johannesburg on such and such a date. That part rather threw me� Johannesburg. I mean it was not even a place you encountered along the highway. It was off the highway, kind of out of the way. However, since that was the closest settlement to the violation, I guessed that it made sense to attend court there.
At age 19, I considered myself to be an experienced driver, and my 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne was my fifth car; all of them stick shifts and two-doors except for this one, and all of them Chevies.
My first car was a dark green 1951 Chevrolet Deluxe two-door. The total cost for it in late 1957 was $312.50. It was equipped with a standard, column shift (�three on the tree�), fender skirts, and a sun visor. Next came a hand-me-down �54 Bel-Air, a light blue and white two-tone and clean as a pin; a �55 standard post 210 series, light green, two-door; and a custom-painted dark blue �53 hardtop with a converted floor shift.
The neglected undercarriage of the Biscayne creaked and groaned, especially when I slowed to corner one of Trona�s small streets. At one certain corner where an old man was usually sitting outside on his porch, I heard, �Hey, Flintstone,� when I cornered past. I did not know if he was commenting on how I resembled Fred Flintstone or how my creaking car sounded like some stone-wheeled vehicle from the television series.
I was 14 years-old and a freshman in high school when I was presented with the �51 Chevy for my very own. I enlisted an older cousin, Bill Cagle, to help me smooth out my shifting and to analyze my overall handling of the vehicle. We used a gravel road, one between two paved roads running in the same direction, near the Old Crow distillery site. He seemed to think I was taking it all too seriously and advised me to just relax more and I would be okay. It dawned on me that was the type of advice I would likely get from anyone older, and that I was on my own with the machine and Galena would have to suffer the consequences along with myself.
As it turned out, I did not do too badly, a couple of dings and nothing major or catastrophic over the delicate next few weeks. I was issued a restricted license, of course, one that you can receive in Kansas at age 14. I was only supposed to drive the car on agriculture errands, and certain other occasions, and not at all after six p.m. I drove it to school and back each day and on all occasions and at any time. I figured the more practice, the better. I have yet to run my first agricultural errand. If I had to wait on that, I would have never gotten behind a wheel.
I was so excited about the car; I just had to give my grandmother a ride. �No, no, no, Bryce, boy, you go on with it. I�m too old for that, � she said, good-naturedly. I politely insisted and finally talked her into it. �Just around the block or two, � I said. Returning in front of the house, she said, �Goody.� I was glad I took her for that ride, short though it was. It was the only time. She died not long after.
Just a few short months later in the summer of 1958, I drove, with my grandfather in his 1957 medium green Chevy, all the way to Trona from Galena for a two-week vacation. It was not that we would drive nothing but a Chevy. I remembered a roomy-as-a-house 1939 Packard. We stopped in Albuquerque where my grandfather called Virgil Duley from a roadside pay phone. Virgil was a young man who had lived across the street from us in the Spring Grove region of Galena. He had worked at the local Feezell�s Market, and the experience had somehow landed him a job as a grocery store manager off Route 66 in Albuquerque. We gave Virgil directions as to where we were located and waited while he arrived.
Albuquerque was about eight hundred miles from Galena and the unofficial midpoint to Trona.
Once in Trona, it was oven hot. Searles Valley, where most of the inhabitants work in one of two chemical plants, is just a short distance removed from Death Valley proper. My grandfather would sleep outside at night in either his car or his son�s, Walter. The cold air from the cooler in the house gave him respiratory problems. It did for me, too. The only type of air conditioning we were acclimated to was an open window. I was not about to sleep outside, so I suffered through some minor sore throat irritation and upper throat discomfort.
I attended the Foursquare Church in the evenings with Walter�s wife, Annabelle, and the boys. (Annabelle and Walter are both from Galena). Uncle Walter, like the other men in our Martin family, did not go to church. The Trona house of worship reminded me of my Assembly of God Church in Galena on Main Street. At the Trona church, I met a local girl, Bonnie Alter, who captured my attention. We were later to keep in touch with letters.
Near the end of the vacation, I drove us across more desert and down the El Cajon Pass among trees and grass to the city of Rialto, near San Bernardino, where my grandfather had a visit planned with a nephew, George M. Shaw. The two sat around George�s kitchen table and talked all afternoon. I drove us back to Trona the next morning.
When it was time to leave Searles Valley and reroute back to Galena, I drove to Barstow where we stopped to eat. I left the restaurant first, while my grandfather stayed to pay the tab. Outside, I was twirling the car keys when a pair of Marine M.P.�s wearing white armbands and wanting to see my identification approached me. I showed them my driver�s license, but they were not interested in that. Finally, my grandfather arrived. He listened and seemed to understand what they were asking. �He does not have a service card, he�s just fourteen,� he told them. That satisfied them and they drove away. �They wanted to see your military identification. They thought you were at least eighteen.�
I remembered all that while getting dressed and getting ready to drive to my first ever court appearance. I had fifty-five dollars in cash. I had no real idea what the fine might be, or if I was to receive a fine at all, but I did not think it would be any amount near fifty-five dollars. Oh, well, I had better place it all in my wallet, in case I have car trouble or some type of emergency.
I had already talked to some of my co-workers at Stauffer about the ticket. I was told that the judge would have a copy of my driving record, all previous citations and so forth. When I reminded that it was my first time in court, and that I had no previous citations, they all said the same thing: Then, he will go easy on you.
In court, the judge read the charges and asked how I pled.
�Guilty, your honor,� I said. I was not so sure, though, that he actually had a copy of my driving record or was aware that I had no prior violations. I felt it in my best interests to let him know.
I was quick to add, �This is my first time in court, my first ticket, your honor.�
�So, this is your first ticket,� he repeated, looking down at some papers and then focusing back on me. �That will be fifty-three dollars or three days in jail.�
I was a little stunned. I was angry at how he seemed to relish his words, and the severity of the punishment. If he was trying to prove a point of some kind, it was only that he came across as a jerk. The point being that life offers jerks galore and this is just one of many I will confront. I would have told him that, too, if he would have asked.
I left happy in the fact I had started the trip from my relatives� house with a full tank of gas. What had I learned from all of it? Something that I already knew: If you do not put yourself in such circumstances, you will not be subject to the particular whims of that fate -- something along those lines.
You do not necessarily live and learn; you live and do. I made that up for the moment and decided that would be my motto, at least until I thought of another one.
by Bryce Martin
Here I was with my first traffic ticket and scheduled court appearance, after five years of driving and countless miles traveled. It was just a few weeks ago when the odds caught up with me. An oscillating red light (dimmed some by the light of day) and the sound of a siren coming from a California Highway Patrol car near Red Rock Canyon clamored for my attention. I was driving just a few miles over the speed limit, according to the officer, but enough for a speeding violation citation. As noted on my copy, I was to appear before the judge in Johannesburg on such and such a date. That part rather threw me� Johannesburg. I mean it was not even a place you encountered along the highway. It was off the highway, kind of out of the way. However, since that was the closest settlement to the violation, I guessed that it made sense to attend court there.
At age 19, I considered myself to be an experienced driver, and my 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne was my fifth car; all of them stick shifts and two-doors except for this one, and all of them Chevies.
My first car was a dark green 1951 Chevrolet Deluxe two-door. The total cost for it in late 1957 was $312.50. It was equipped with a standard, column shift (�three on the tree�), fender skirts, and a sun visor. Next came a hand-me-down �54 Bel-Air, a light blue and white two-tone and clean as a pin; a �55 standard post 210 series, light green, two-door; and a custom-painted dark blue �53 hardtop with a converted floor shift.
The neglected undercarriage of the Biscayne creaked and groaned, especially when I slowed to corner one of Trona�s small streets. At one certain corner where an old man was usually sitting outside on his porch, I heard, �Hey, Flintstone,� when I cornered past. I did not know if he was commenting on how I resembled Fred Flintstone or how my creaking car sounded like some stone-wheeled vehicle from the television series.
I was 14 years-old and a freshman in high school when I was presented with the �51 Chevy for my very own. I enlisted an older cousin, Bill Cagle, to help me smooth out my shifting and to analyze my overall handling of the vehicle. We used a gravel road, one between two paved roads running in the same direction, near the Old Crow distillery site. He seemed to think I was taking it all too seriously and advised me to just relax more and I would be okay. It dawned on me that was the type of advice I would likely get from anyone older, and that I was on my own with the machine and Galena would have to suffer the consequences along with myself.
As it turned out, I did not do too badly, a couple of dings and nothing major or catastrophic over the delicate next few weeks. I was issued a restricted license, of course, one that you can receive in Kansas at age 14. I was only supposed to drive the car on agriculture errands, and certain other occasions, and not at all after six p.m. I drove it to school and back each day and on all occasions and at any time. I figured the more practice, the better. I have yet to run my first agricultural errand. If I had to wait on that, I would have never gotten behind a wheel.
I was so excited about the car; I just had to give my grandmother a ride. �No, no, no, Bryce, boy, you go on with it. I�m too old for that, � she said, good-naturedly. I politely insisted and finally talked her into it. �Just around the block or two, � I said. Returning in front of the house, she said, �Goody.� I was glad I took her for that ride, short though it was. It was the only time. She died not long after.
Just a few short months later in the summer of 1958, I drove, with my grandfather in his 1957 medium green Chevy, all the way to Trona from Galena for a two-week vacation. It was not that we would drive nothing but a Chevy. I remembered a roomy-as-a-house 1939 Packard. We stopped in Albuquerque where my grandfather called Virgil Duley from a roadside pay phone. Virgil was a young man who had lived across the street from us in the Spring Grove region of Galena. He had worked at the local Feezell�s Market, and the experience had somehow landed him a job as a grocery store manager off Route 66 in Albuquerque. We gave Virgil directions as to where we were located and waited while he arrived.
Albuquerque was about eight hundred miles from Galena and the unofficial midpoint to Trona.
Once in Trona, it was oven hot. Searles Valley, where most of the inhabitants work in one of two chemical plants, is just a short distance removed from Death Valley proper. My grandfather would sleep outside at night in either his car or his son�s, Walter. The cold air from the cooler in the house gave him respiratory problems. It did for me, too. The only type of air conditioning we were acclimated to was an open window. I was not about to sleep outside, so I suffered through some minor sore throat irritation and upper throat discomfort.
I attended the Foursquare Church in the evenings with Walter�s wife, Annabelle, and the boys. (Annabelle and Walter are both from Galena). Uncle Walter, like the other men in our Martin family, did not go to church. The Trona house of worship reminded me of my Assembly of God Church in Galena on Main Street. At the Trona church, I met a local girl, Bonnie Alter, who captured my attention. We were later to keep in touch with letters.
Near the end of the vacation, I drove us across more desert and down the El Cajon Pass among trees and grass to the city of Rialto, near San Bernardino, where my grandfather had a visit planned with a nephew, George M. Shaw. The two sat around George�s kitchen table and talked all afternoon. I drove us back to Trona the next morning.
When it was time to leave Searles Valley and reroute back to Galena, I drove to Barstow where we stopped to eat. I left the restaurant first, while my grandfather stayed to pay the tab. Outside, I was twirling the car keys when a pair of Marine M.P.�s wearing white armbands and wanting to see my identification approached me. I showed them my driver�s license, but they were not interested in that. Finally, my grandfather arrived. He listened and seemed to understand what they were asking. �He does not have a service card, he�s just fourteen,� he told them. That satisfied them and they drove away. �They wanted to see your military identification. They thought you were at least eighteen.�
I remembered all that while getting dressed and getting ready to drive to my first ever court appearance. I had fifty-five dollars in cash. I had no real idea what the fine might be, or if I was to receive a fine at all, but I did not think it would be any amount near fifty-five dollars. Oh, well, I had better place it all in my wallet, in case I have car trouble or some type of emergency.
I had already talked to some of my co-workers at Stauffer about the ticket. I was told that the judge would have a copy of my driving record, all previous citations and so forth. When I reminded that it was my first time in court, and that I had no previous citations, they all said the same thing: Then, he will go easy on you.
In court, the judge read the charges and asked how I pled.
�Guilty, your honor,� I said. I was not so sure, though, that he actually had a copy of my driving record or was aware that I had no prior violations. I felt it in my best interests to let him know.
I was quick to add, �This is my first time in court, my first ticket, your honor.�
�So, this is your first ticket,� he repeated, looking down at some papers and then focusing back on me. �That will be fifty-three dollars or three days in jail.�
I was a little stunned. I was angry at how he seemed to relish his words, and the severity of the punishment. If he was trying to prove a point of some kind, it was only that he came across as a jerk. The point being that life offers jerks galore and this is just one of many I will confront. I would have told him that, too, if he would have asked.
I left happy in the fact I had started the trip from my relatives� house with a full tank of gas. What had I learned from all of it? Something that I already knew: If you do not put yourself in such circumstances, you will not be subject to the particular whims of that fate -- something along those lines.
You do not necessarily live and learn; you live and do. I made that up for the moment and decided that would be my motto, at least until I thought of another one.