Spirit Lake

With my two older sisters gone and me graduated, my folks decided to take jobs at Ord, Nebraska with the Ord Quiz, a small town newspaper with a large print shop that had nation-wide customers in the publishing field.

That really left me with nowhere to go for the summer until I went to college so I took a job as counselor at a YMCA summer camp at Spirit Lake, Iowa. The job was easy enough. We basically supervised games and sports and stayed in the cabins to ensure only minor mayhem among the twelve-year-old campers.

All went well except for one afternoon during a touch football game that I was officiating. I called a penalty on one lad who made a strong objection to it. I told him to be quiet and continue the game. He insisted on stating his case vehemently and I continued trying to shut him up. Finally, in frustration, I took the football I was holding and struck him smartly, but not hard, on his head. He was so shocked he stopped chattering and went back to the game and I didn’t hear any more complaints from any of the kids. If that happened today, I suppose I would be brought up on child abuse charges.

Another insight into the minds of 12 year old boys occurred when the custodian asked us to accompany him to the rest room in which he had been working. There on the lid of the stools were muddy footprints about the size of that age boy. Upon further investigation, we found the wall behind the stools was only a divider and did not reach the ceiling. The room on the other side was the shower for the women employees of the camp. By standing on the tank lid, the lads could see over. A screen was quickly installed to prevent further viewing.

The summer job ended before I had to report to Simpson so I took the opportunity to visit my sister, Marcheta and her husband Al, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was attending Rockhurst College and working part time at the Mulebach Hotel.

Mark and I, along with her very young daughter Linda, went car shopping one day and ended up at a place called O’Brien-Cohen, or something like that. At any rate we always kidded about the rarity of an Irishman and a Jewish businessman getting together.

After some haggling for a 1939 Buick coupe, Mark got on the phone to check with Al about whether she should buy the car or not. Al, being a Texan by birth, had a rather slow drawl and was not always quick to reply to a question. The car dealer got on an extension phone and every time Mark would tell Al a price, he would hesitate and the salesman would drop the price by ten dollars. They finally settled on a price and I still remember the salesman assuring my sister he would “never cheat a fine lady and her little girl.”

As Mother told the story, I gave Mark my first semester tuition money to make a down payment on the car so the Gracianos decided the least they could do would be to take me to Indianola in the new car to start school. Mother then had to come up with my tuition money, which after my scholarship was taken into account, probably amounted to around $25.