Guardhouse Lawyer

With the prospect of going back into the newspaper business, my law studies really began to suffer. Another diversion contributed to my school decline. In February, in my car, on Bodley’s Hill, I asked Janice to marry me.

She said yes. She thought I was rich because I had bought a newspaper and I thought she could type (I would need someone to help at the paper). We were both wrong! We decided on an August date because by then I would be out of school and settled in the paper. Besides, the Register traditionally shut down for a week during the county fair and that would give us a chance to get away on a honeymoon.

A major problem cropped up, however. The Guard was scheduled for a weekend training session at Camp Ashland near Lincoln and a number of the officers went out Friday night for a party prior to the Saturday-Sunday sessions.

The booze was plentiful and I was still young enough to think I could handle it. I couldn’t. Late in the evening, I decided to go back to my apartment in Lincoln. My friends tried to get me to bunk at the camp but I was belligerent and refused.

On the way back to town I ran a highway patrolman off the road and I found myself, shortly thereafter, sitting in the municipal lock up with the officials wanting a urine sample.

At that time the law allowed refusal of urine tests by those arrested. I was a “guardhouse lawyer” with my nearly one year of schooling and was aware of the law. So I refused the test.

Law enforcement officers had “been there, done that” and simply bided their time. I could refuse the urine test, but they were not required to let me go to the bathroom. Eventually the bladder becomes so full you beg for relief and they stick a bottle in front of you and they get their sample, freely given.

I was pretty well out of it but I was told later that when this was happening, the stream was errant and one of the officers got wet. My response, reportedly, was, “Good, I always wanted to piss on a cop.”

For anyone who knew me at the time and knows me now, that remark was completely out of character. It is simply another indication of what excessive drinking can produce.

I woke up the next morning on a steel bunk, no mattress, no pillow, in a jail cell. It began to sink in what had happened and I was near panic.

Fortunately a cell mate said he was being released that morning and asked if he could call somebody for me. I gave him Joe and Al’s number in Wilbur without much confidence in his following through.

Apparently he did, however, for later that day the firm of Steinacher and Vosoba showed up to get me released without bail.

Al and Joe did not want to represent me in the Lincoln system but recommended a local attorney, Paul Douglas. He told me to come to the court hearing with $500 and my toothbrush just in case I might get some jail time.

I had to call Mother for the money, obviously a hard thing for any son to do. She did not chastise me but simply asked how much I needed and she said she would put it in the mail that day. I’m sure the money was not easy to come by for her but as in so many other instances, she was there for me when I needed it.

The fine was $100 and six months suspension of license. The attorney’s fee was $50. That was a lot of money in the fifties but with the seriousness of my action, endangering a patrolman and abusive conduct, I figured another attorney might not have gotten me off so leniently.

Resignation

Now I was faced with a number of problems. I had missed the weekend National Guard drill and I could not drive to meetings, or anywhere else.

On Sunday, after my escapade Friday night and subsequent release from jail Saturday, I had my roommate take me to the Ashland camp site and asked for a meeting with the battalion commander.

I told him what had happened and said that for my best interests, and that of the Guard, I would like to resign my commission. He agreed and subsequently the papers were processed to that effect. I was required to stay in the inactive reserve until my time was up.

Finals were underway at school and I got through them somehow. I think I flunked Con Law and just barely got by in Legislation. The other courses were a little better but it didn’t really matter since I had already agreed to take over the paper in Stanton and would not be coming back to law school.

My contract with Jim and Bette Cornwell had a morality clause in it so I was faced with the possibility they might invoke it in light of my conduct.

After discussing it with them, they decided not to pursue that contract clause, but my position was certainly weakened. I was disappointed to find out later Jim had called a friend on the Lincoln papers in an attempt to kill the court report on me. He would not take that kind of action for anyone with regard to his own paper, so I was amazed he would attempt it with a metropolitan daily. I suppose some word of my indiscretion got back to Stanton but I was never confronted with it.

The Stanton Register

Having worked at Stanton previously, it was not a difficult transition when I arrived there again in June of 1955. I was well settled in when I took the week of the Stanton County Fair to get married.

The deal the owners gave me for the Stanton Register was almost too good to be true. As we’ve been told so often, if it is too good to be true, it probably is the case. I was to take over the paper, receive an $80 per week salary and 25 per cent of the net profits. That 25 per cent could be used to buy the paper after five years at a pre-set price of $35,000.

The problem with the deal was that a town of 1,300 in the 1950s economy could not really support a conventional hot metal printed newspaper. Later, with offset technology, computers and a centralized printing plant's labor, costs could be trimmed to make the operation feasible.

Janice and I struggled for nearly five years trying to make a go of the paper. There were many reasons why it didn’t work. My youth and inexperience in running a business and coping with marriage and fatherhood were major factors. The lack of a well-planned business structure was also involved. No provisions for replacing antiquated equipment were made so revenues were not sufficient for much more than paying salaries and other fixed expenses. During our entire time in Stanton, the net profit percentage I received was the grand sum of $400, and even that came under dispute.

Tea House of the August Honeymoon

Janice and I decided to get married during the Stanton County Fair when the paper shut down for vacation. During the interim, after I took over in June, our relationship was more or less long distance. Since I had lost my license for six months, I let Janice have the 1951 Chevy and she would come to Stanton for the weekends.

One Sunday evening she came into Wahoo and noticed some men waving at her from a gas station along the highway. She knew them and waved back but they seemed to be a little frantic so she stopped. At that point she smelled rubber burning and got out of the car. It seems a tire had blown several miles back and Janice had driven quite some time on it. The rim was so hot the guys at the gas station had to wait a while before they could change it.

E-mail at that time, of course, was not even a science fiction item so the U.S. postal service was the best means of communications. We still have the letters we wrote each other during those two and a half months before we were married. I counted some 45-50 letters when I dug them out.

Al and Joe, my college buddies, decided they should throw me a bachelor party. I took the bus to Omaha the day before the wedding and met them for a night of bar hopping. It was probably the dullest night I have ever spent in my life. Attempting to pick up girls was not an option and what do you talk about after a few hours?

Consequently, we went back to our hotel fairly early but I made my friends promise they would get me to Stanton by noon the next day. We were not to be married until 7:00 p.m. but Janice wanted me there in time to meet with our attendants and make other preparations.

Whether it was inadvertent or intentional on Joe and Al’s part, I never found out, but we slept late and it was nearly noon before we got out of Omaha. Obviously, it was much after twelve o’clock when I arrived and Janice was not too happy with me. Not a good way to begin our life together!

We were married by Rev. J. Frank Bartleson at the Methodist church in Stanton on Aug. 21, 1955. Janice’s sister Phyllis Wagner and my last college roommate, Duane Noble, stood up with us.

We didn’t want to start out on our honeymoon at night so I had booked a motel in Norfolk, some 15 miles from Stanton. I had rented a house in Stanton and it was ready to move into but for some reason, I didn’t consider using it that first night.

We went to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Our first stop there was Hot Springs and of course rude jokes emanated from that post mark when friends received cards from us.

Our trip was cut short when I ran out of money after about four days so we went on back to Stanton to set up housekeeping. That weekend, Phyllis and Janice had arranged for a wedding reception at the Presbyterian church in Wahoo.

Charlie

The house we lived in was originally a stable and moved in from the farm and converted to a house. It was on a lot next to the owners, Charlie and Amelia Blaser. Charlie was retired but considered himself a carpenter. At best he was a rough carpenter and while the house was comfortable enough, it had some quaint features. One was the opening at the top of the stairs leading to the bedrooms. Charlie had figured badly and when he got the stairs finished, there was only about four feet left for a door. The re-make was not pretty to see.

We started out paying $50 month rent but after a couple months, Charlie told us he thought $45 was probably more fair. A month later, however, he felt a compromise of $47.50 would be best.

Our relationship with Charlie and Amelia was unique. She was very quiet and about as nice a woman as one would want to find. Charlie was 77 years old and a nice guy too, but eccentric, to say the least.

Of good German stock, Charlie liked his beer and spent most of the afternoons at one of the local taverns. His friends occasionally would lace his beer with a shot of whiskey and he would find his way home rather uncertainly. That created some problems. There were several occasions when we would discover Charlie seated on the sidewalk in front of our house playing with our 18 month old son, Sam. It was quite a sight, this old man thoroughly enjoying himself and the youngster similarly engaged. Our fear was that Charlie’s condition on occasion might put Sam in harm’s way, but we kept an eye out and nothing untoward ever happened.

One day the local business organization sponsored a “Turkey Days” promotion to generate some traffic in the stores. Each place of business placed a live turkey in a cage in front of their store. Customers were to guess the weight and the closest won the turkey at that store. The noise produced by those turkeys was something else but at the day’s end, the promotion was considered successful. Winners were required to take their turkey home and leave the cage because the hatchery where they came from had to have them back for other uses right away.

As it happened, Amelia Blaser won the turkey at the newspaper office but she had no way of getting it home without Charlie.

“I don’t know where he is right now,” Mrs. Blaser said.

I knew I could find him in one of the two or three taverns in town so I told her I’d find him and get the turkey home for her. I did find him and he had been enjoying one of those afternoons where his buddies enhanced his enjoyment with additional spirits in his beer.

After convincing him we didn’t have time for me to have a beer with him, Charlie agreed to get his car, load the turkey and take it home. Since the cage had to be returned immediately, we had to chop the turkey’s head off so Amelia could clean it.

Even though Charlie was none too steady, I had had little experience in wielding an ax so I agreed to hold the turkey over the chopping block while Charlie took a whack at the bird. That was a mistake. A big mistake!

Charlie took a mighty swing and just nicked the bird in the neck. I had one hand around the legs and my other arm trying to contain the wings. The blow that Charlie struck only wounded the turkey but it had the strength to spread its wings and try to get out of the situation. My hold on the wings was none too secure and up they went while I was hanging on to the feet for dear life. The bird pulled me off the ground for a couple feet but my weight eventually brought us both back down to earth. I managed to grab the bleeding turkey’s neck and wring its head off. While that may be a gruesome vision, it was not an uncommon method of butchering chickens or turkeys in those days.

As an aside, that turkey promotion was deemed illegal by the state attorney general. He called our local county attorney and informed him the promotion constituted gambling in that it contained all three elements of the offense - prize, chance and consideration. The prize, of course, was the turkey and even though we considered guessing the weight a skill, that was deemed the chance. Although we did not charge customers for the guess they made, the state said just their making the effort to come to the store was consideration (payment).

The county attorney conveniently delayed notification until the promotion was over. No charges were involved. He was simply to have halted the affair. I called the state attorney general’s office to complain that enforcement of such gambling laws would stifle local commerce.

The answer I was given was that they normally did not try to enforce chamber of commerce type events but that they had received a complaint and were obliged to follow up. Off the record, I was told one certain individual was scanning weekly newspapers and complaining against such promotions. His intent was to get towns so incensed they would get the law changed. That did happen several years later.

The Sequel to Charlie

Charlie was a good landlord. He would do about anything we asked around the place. Sometimes his absentmindedness proved irksome. We had a little enclosed back porch on the house that led to the door of our kitchen. The door knob on the porch was loose and kept falling off so I asked him if he would fix it. That night when we came home from the office we found Charlie with his tool box at the back of the house and he told us he had just finished fixing the door knob. He went on home but we didn’t have the heart to tell him he had fixed the wrong knob. He had worked on the inside door, which was perfectly fine, and left the loose knob alone.

Charlie was not that good of a driver, either. He wasn’t sure about all the knobs in the vehicle so he would use them all as he backed out of his garage. He would have the clutch (this was before automatic transmissions were common) half way out, the engine revving and the windshield wipers going full blast in bright sunshine. He had to replace the clutch in his car quite often and couldn’t figure out why.

Some years later, we visited Stanton, we found Amelia had died and Charlie was in the state mental hospital in Norfolk. We visited him there but he didn’t know who we were. He spent his days putting a table together and taking it apart. The staff provided him with a rubber hammer so he couldn’t hurt himself but he was content being the master carpenter he could never be in his real life.

Small Town Paper

Janice did not go to work at the shop immediately. Later, we needed a back-up linotype operator and she took on the task. The linotype is a very complicated machine. One story, commonly accepted, is that the person who invented it (Merganthaler) died in an insane asylum before it was completely perfected. I had been around linotypes most of my life, of course, but I did not have any training on them. It was kind of like a person who attempts to work on his own car without any schooling. At any rate, I knew enough to get the thing going and we learned the mechanics together.

Janice is a quick study and she learned to operate it all right. Most of the problems came when we worked alone on weekends or nights and something went wrong and we didn’t have the expertise to fix it.

Delores Marotz (later Wagner after she was married) was the linotype operator for most of the time we were in Stanton. Charlie Prokopec was the printer until he quit and went to work at Nebraska Public Power district in Columbus. We had other employees for shorter times. Jack Pollock, son of the district judge for that area, came home from the Navy and worked for one summer. He later married Beverly Buck, daughter of the Nebraska Farmer publisher and eventually ended up as owner-publisher of the Ogallala weekly newspaper in Nebraska.

He was a summer-only employee and so it was necessary to be inventive to find work for him to do. When the fair came to town, I told him to do a story on something different rather than the usual livestock entries or evening professional shows. He decided telling about the sideshows with the carnival might be interesting so I said okay. I had read enough of his copy to know he was qualified and as it turned out, I did only a cursory job of editing his story before we went to print.

The next day I began to get phone calls making reference to Don’s “obscene” story. Some were from friends who were simply chiding me and others from irate readers. I went to the story and found what they were talking about. He had referred to the ring toss, milk bottle, and other carnival games as “Sporting Houses.” That is an obsolete term for houses of ill-repute in a red light district. He claimed he was too young to know that definition and I had to accept it but I never did know for sure. I always kidded him about it in later years when we were together at a press meeting or something, but he continued to maintain his innocence.

The county fair was a big annual event. Getting people to spend time on the organization and running it was difficult as it is in most groups. That was probably why, as a new “responsible” member of the community, I was asked to serve as secretary of the fair board. I probably should have turned it down, but I felt I should contribute. The amount of time it took really cut in to my work at the paper and I feel it might have helped in my failure in the long run.

Some of the other members of the board tried a practical joke on me the first year. The treasurer was the local court reporter and the vice-president a highly respected farmer. Both enjoyed a good laugh, particularly at someone else’s expense. The president was not so inclined. He was a quiet, staid member of the Methodist church.

After the carnival had set up during my first year in office, the treasurer called me and said there were certain responsibilities I must take care of. One was to inspect the grounds and make sure there were no shows that could offend the sensibilities of the local population. He told me this, knowing full well there was a “girlie” show as part of the carnival.

As all four of us approached the tent where the barker was enticing the crowd to come in, he gave us a quizzical look.

I walked up to him and said, “I’m Ken McCormick, secretary of the fair board.” And then I introduced the rest of the members.

“Come right in, gentlemen. No charge!” the barker chortled.

The president of the fair board was mortified and quickly glanced around to see if any one was watching. The other members realized I had turned their joke around by forcing them to go inside and they were enjoying it.

We went in, but got out quickly. We declined the invitation to go on in to the back part where the “real” show was.

Minnie Pearl

Another interesting event concerning the county fair involved a nationally known celebrity.

We (the county fair board) used a booking agency out of Omaha for our entertainment portions of the three-day event. One year, Minnie Pearl was booked as the headliner. I was not much in to “country” acts and had just barely heard of this entertainer. She later became nationally famous for her act opening “Howdie” and a price tag hanging on her straw hat. Among country fans she was fairly well known, but was obviously at the beginning of her career where county fairs were a regular part of the tour.

If I remember correctly, we had to guarantee her $1,000 for one night and give her a percentage of the gate over that figure. The grandstand was sold out so we made money on the show.

Her husband was the advance man and drove in early that day to make arrangements. She flew in to Norfolk (about 15 miles from Stanton) and he picked her up just in time to make the show.

It was a hot August evening and after the show Minnie sat in the vacant grandstand waiting for her husband to wrap things up. I asked her if she would like a cold drink and she thought that would be great.

I went down underneath the grandstand where the Lion’s Club booth was closing down for the night. They sold ice cold pop and had done a land office business because of the heat. One other feature helped sell their product. For those who were “in the know” (and that included most of the local patrons) one could get a “spiked” Coke for extra money. A Coke normally sold for ten or fifteen cents but for fifty cents the bottle would be spiked with a shot of whiskey.

I took the higher priced drink up to Minnie and she gulped it down with gusto and said it was really refreshing. She didn’t ask what was in it and I didn’t volunteer the information.

Boy Editor and Son

Our first son, Sam Allen, was born June 11, 1956. Janice insisted she be allowed to pick the name and I would have the option on the next child. Her choice was Sam because his initials would stand for his name, Sam Allen McCormick. The Allen came from my middle name, I guess. It might have just been a convenience to get the “A.”

I printed an eight by ten inch miniature front page for Sam’s birth announcement, including a version of my weekly column, “Loose Ends.” Pictures of mother and son were printed on the back side. A bulletin on the front page indicated Sam had to be taken back to Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Norfolk because of an infected gland.

I had been at the hospital waiting for Sam’s birth but when it seemed it would be a while, I went back to Stanton to get some work done. As a result, when I was finally called, he was already born by the time I got back.

That same year I was elected secretary of the Northeast Nebraska Press Association. I was unofficially given the title “Boy Editor of Northeast Nebraska.” I took over from another publisher who, until I came along, was the youngest in that part of the state.

Jim and Catherine Brooks lived next door to us. Jim had a trenching business and was building their house as money became available. When we first came to Stanton they were living in the basement. By the time we left, they had moved into the upstairs.

Since Janice’s mother did all the cooking at home, the children in the Owens family received little practice in culinary skills. I must say that over the years my wife has been an excellent cook but I was not completely aware of the difficulty she had early in our marriage in that respect.

I got a hint of the problem one noon when I came home earlier than expected and found Janice crossing the alley from the Brooks house with a pan of noodles. She was always asking me what I liked to eat and one of the things was beef and noodles. She had made them on several occasions and always asked how I liked them. I tried to be honest and the first few times I said the noodles were a little on the tough side. That day I came home early, I realized I had been criticizing Catherine’s noodles all this time.

When Sam was old enough to walk, he would wander across the alley to the Brooks’ home where either Catherine, Jim or one of their three children would entertain him. He went a little far, however, when one morning before any of us was awake. He got up, went across the alley, into their bathroom, and used the facilities.

A few minutes later, he went into the bedroom, shook the sleeping neighbor, and said “Kwipe me, Jim!”

When Randy (the youngest of the Brooks children) was five years old, he came out to the curb where I was burning trash and very seriously warned me, “Ken, fires are very dangerous and you should be real careful.”

Bonnie and Cheryl were older and treated Sam as a younger brother. They would dress him up like a doll and push him around in a baby carriage. Later, when they were high school age, they visited us in Auburn for several weeks one summer. We still had small children at the time and dealing with teenagers enlightened us with the problems we might have later in life.

They were not really any problem. We were the problem in not knowing anything about how to handle their dating local boys. It all worked out and they seemed to enjoy their stay, especially with the one guy who took them around town in his convertible.

More Fatherhood

I related the story earlier about Jim Cornwell and how he handled people who wanted to have their name kept out of the paper. In 1956, I got my first taste of that problem.

A high school boy from Pilger (the only other town in Stanton County) wrote me a letter explaining that he had been picked up and understood he could pay for having his name kept out of the paper. I wrote him a scathing letter telling him he was assuming dishonesty on my part, if such a thing was possible.

I wanted to emphasize how irate I was at his assumption. But then I tried to explain why we did not have such a policy. I told him (I still have a copy of the letter) that all court actions are open to the public and his indiscretion would become known anyway.

In addition, that type of action usually fosters rumors. And rumors can be much worse than any printed, factual story. I also told him about my own experience of being fined in Stanton and how that story was published.

He wrote back and apologized “for making me mad.” He said he had done it because he was afraid of what his girl friend’s parents would do if they found out he had been speeding. He added that it would never happen again, particularly because he didn’t plan to get stopped.

Dr. H.S. Tennant was the only physician in town and despite the fact we had two local pharmacies, he dispensed all his own prescription drugs. He was also the mayor and had held office a good many years so things got done without much argument from the council or townspeople.

Janice was pregnant again in 1957, but we lost that child (named Douglas) at birth. Dr. Tennant suggested we have another baby as soon as possible, as a means of closure, so when Kay Lynn came along August 13, 1958, it was the third pregnancy in three years. Newspaper friends at press conventions we saw once a year gave Janice a hard time and kept explaining to her what caused these things.

Kay was also born at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Norfolk. She arrived at 7:51 p.m. on a Wednesday and weighed eight pounds and one ounce. Janice’s parents, sister Phyllis, and her family happened to be in Stanton and supervised the birth, according to my column, “Loose Ends.” We went to press on Wednesday nights so the paper could be in the mail for the next day. Although my column didn’t mention it, I probably was still at work when Janice produced our new child. Kay was due on August 4 so I probably didn't get exited this late in the process.

Janice tells me I got to the hospital in time to see her being pushed down the hall and following instructions to “pant.” Lamaze (the current vogue for child birth where the father is involved) was not common so I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on and came close to panic until I was told she was okay.

Stitch and Taxes

Dr. Tennant’s office brought us another experience when Sam was three or four years old. We had bought a new mattress and it was delivered one evening as we were leaving for some event or other. We just left it sitting on the living room floor and planned to put it in place the next morning since we would be coming home late.

As was his custom (like when he wandered over to Catherine and Jim’s) Sam woke up early and found that brand new mattress in the living room. It was a great place to jump up and down but at his age he was unable to control his movement. Consequently, he bounced too high, tumbled off the mattress and hit his head on a piece of furniture.

The loud cries woke us up and we found Sam with a gash in his forehead. We called Dr. Tennant at home, since it was before regular hours, and he told us to meet him at the office.

The office was stuffy on a hot summer day and Doc told Janice she better wait outside and let me act as a nurse because he thought she might not be able to handle the blood under those conditions.

So, macho Dad held on to Sam while Doc put some stitches in Sam’s head. It wasn’t long before the room began to move and I told the good doctor I had better join Janice outside.

By that time, Sam had calmed down and was handling the situation a lot better than his parents. When we came back he was ready to go and he said, “Dr. Tennant, where’s my sucker?” He had been there before and knew it was standard procedure for kids to get a sucker on their way out.

My inexperience, not only in the newspaper business but in many phases of life, showed up quite frequently. Some I handled well, some I didn’t.

At that time, Nebraska had a personal property tax and businesses had to list equipment and place a value on it. The first time I had to fill out the forms, I simply used the figures of my predecessor from the previous year.

The county commissioners called me in to justify my figures. After a while in their board of equalization room, I found out my competitor in the little town of Pilger had complained my figures were too low. One of the commissioners was from Pilger and he was not backing down no matter how justified my argument appeared.

They knew absolutely nothing about the value of printing equipment but reasoned that since the Register had three times the circulation of the Pilger paper our equipment would have to be more and higher priced. That was not true, of course, since the same printing press, for example, could print either 500 or 1500 copies quite easily.

What it all boiled down to was one politician’s position with his constituent. When I found out the difference in tax based on my valuation and what they proposed was only a few dollars, I figured it wasn’t worth antagonizing the other two commissioners so I relented.

Another factor involved in the commissioners’ attitude probably was the story I carried in the paper concerning their setting of the mill levy that year.

The state legislature had decreed that valuations should be at 35 per cent of actual value instead of what it had been in previous years. I have no clue as to why this figure was chosen since it really doesn’t matter. Levies are set based on tax requirements of the various county subdivisions. Assuming the same money requirements, the levy would go down with increased valuations and up with decreased totals.

After years of writing stories about Nebraska taxes, I understand this principal very clearly. At that time, however, I did not. Consequently, when the commissioners set their levy on the reduced 35 per cent mark, it required a higher levy but did not raise substantially more money.

My headline did not reflect the true picture when it stated “Commissioners Double Taxes in Stanton County.” I got a number of calls about that and it is no wonder the commissioners called me to task on my property tax filing.

No•Nats, Ak•Sar•Ben

The rivalry between Stanton and Pilger was typical of many areas. The smaller towns feel the larger ones get more of the attention and are fiercely competitive when issues are joined.

A good example was shown when Jim Cornwell was publishing the paper. He worked as a sports official for extra money but made the mistake of booking Pilger for both basketball and football.

Pilger’s “mover and shaker” was the town postmaster and he had a son who was a good high school athlete. It so happened that Jim fouled him out during a basketball game and his father didn’t leave any doubt about how he felt about that. The next fall, the kid threw a punch or some other serious violation during a football game, and Jim tossed him out.

The father was irate and organized enough financial support to bring in a competing newspaper to spite Jim. The man he brought in to run the paper was a printer from a plant in Fremont and he was able to survive with commercial work. A town of 500 could not support just a newspaper and the advertising revenue it might produce.

This man and his wife ran the paper for a couple years after we came to Stanton. The wife was very outspoken and when they ultimately decided to leave and return to the job in Fremont she proceeded to tell everybody in town what she thought of them. The job fell through, however, and they had to continue working in Pilger. Bea (the wife) had to face her advertisers with a contrite attitude as she called on them thereafter.

I spent quite a little time in the courthouse, which was just across the street from the paper. In addition to covering the various offices for news, we also sold the county printing services.

While making my rounds one day, I noticed a gathering of employees at a window listening to a radio. I walked over and found out they were playing a joke on the county welfare director.

He lived directly across the street from the courthouse and you could see his garage from the window where the employees were standing. He was parked in front of the garage door using a radio controlled opener (the forerunner of today’s remote controls). The courthouse gang had gotten hold of the radio station he used to signal his door and as he would lift it, they would dial it to close. He would raise it and they would reverse it. After a few frustrating minutes, they lifted the window and told him what was going on.

The joke was probably in retaliation for some joke this man had pulled on them. He was known as a practical joker. Although he was not a member, he attended the Methodist church in Stanton and was a regular contributor. One Sunday, the church treasurer (the same man I talked about at the “girlie” show earlier) found a poker chip in the collection plate. He took it to Rev. Bartleson and asked him if it was 4H Sunday because the chip had an imprint like their logo, a four leaf clover. The straight laced treasurer, of course, was not familiar with poker chips.

The minister knew immediately what it was. Businessmen and others (including the welfare director) frequented a place called the Not Nats Club (Stanton spelled backwards). Members usually dropped in on the way home to supper for a cool drink and a game of cards, quite frequently poker.

Our jokester from the welfare department had taken a poker chip, split it apart and inserted a five dollar bill in it and pasted the parts back together. He had thrown that in the collection plate after Rev. Bartleson had kidded the players he was going to take ten per cent for the church from their poker pots.

Sheephead and Other Stories

Stanton was a small town and the local tavern was a meeting place, much like a coffee shop. The one across from the Register office was frequented by many businessmen and farmers, not only after hours but during the day.

They played a card game called “Sheephead,” schoscop in German, I believe. Each player paid a dime per game and the winner would win merchandise. The house got the ante, of course.

That small amount was not significant, even in the 1950s, but winning or losing was serious stuff. One farmer I remember had the financial ability to buy or sell most of the players but he did not like to lose. In fact he cheated, and most of the players knew he did. When they caught him, they called him on it and he accepted the challenge and made it right. He really got mad, however, when he was accused of cheating and he had not.

Another fellow, owner of the local elevator, usually sat with his shirt unbuttoned showing a heavy mat of gray hair on his chest. As the game progressed he would get so intense he would sit there pulling out chunks of hair.

This same fellow owned a farm and raised cattle. One year he went to Mexico and bought a railroad car load of long horn cattle at a ridiculously low price. He figured to bring them back to Stanton County, feed them out, and make a pile of money. The problem they presented, however, was that the cattle were accustomed to wide open ranges and did not respect the fences of the Midwest. Louie, the farmer, liked to inspect his cattle from his Cadillac but these Mexican animals were so wild he tore up a brand new vehicle chasing them through the broken fences.

Louie’s daughter was just reaching puberty and her mother bought her a training bra. She retreated to her bedroom to put it on and then came out to show her mom how grown up she had become. She reappeared with the device on outside of her white tee shirt. Her sister, by the way, worked briefly for us at the paper and later married a man who became publisher of the Fairbury Journal in Nebraska.

Rural life displayed itself one day when a man came in to the office to renew his subscription. He was dirty and wearing ragged clothes. Janice happened to be in the front office at the time and waited on him. He rifled through his bib overalls and came up a few cents short. I walked in just in time to hear Janice tell him she would put the shortage in for him.

After he left, she told me she felt so sorry for that man. He had so little money but still wanted his paper. I hated to disillusion my wife but I knew the man. He was a local cattle feeder and owned half the county. He probably had just come from the field and that kind of appearance was not unusual for him.

I had a reverse faux pas one day when a gentleman came into the office dressed in a nice brown business suit. I asked him if I could help him and he wanted some information on advertising rates. He said he had just bought the local cafe. I introduced myself and welcomed him to the Stanton business community. He looked at me rather quizzically and said he was no newcomer. He had been born in Stanton and worked at the local elevator. When he said his name, I was so embarrassed I could hardly talk. It was a man I drank coffee with in a group nearly every day at the coffee shop. He normally came in with chaff from the grinding mill all over him and I simply had not recognized him all cleaned up in a business suit.

A Small Town is Good Enough for Me

Almost everybody trusted everybody else in a small town but it produced an amusing incident. A lawyer from an adjoining county subscribed to our paper. He either was a former resident or wanted to keep up with the area for business purposes. At any rate, each year when he received his subscription notice he would send a check “signed in blank” as he phrased it. He apparently would always misplace the notice and could not remember the amount so he would leave that blank and sign the check. Theoretically, we could have filled it out for any amount but he trusted us.

One year, however, he sent the check with the same phrase but not only left the amount blank but also failed to sign the check. I wrote him and chided him about being absent minded and he remitted the subscription price immediately.

Small towns, then as now, have a hard time keeping up with larger cities when competing for entertainment dollars. Stanton had a movie theater owned by a couple for many years but when the husband died his wife did not want to continue alone, although she tried for a while.

Her attempts to sell the theater also failed. Television was becoming popular and the cost of booking movies compared to the return in dollars was not sufficient to survive in such a small market.

Members of the local American Legion post felt the theater was essential to the well being of the community, particularly as a place for youth to go at night. They came up with a novel idea to retain the theater.

They determined it would cost about $100 a month to hire a part time theater manager and another $100 for film rental, maintenance and other overhead. The committee then went out and sold $10 memberships good for six months. They sold enough to cover the expected costs for that period. The membership entitled the owner and members of his family to attend any movie during that time. The show changed bills twice a week. There was not much cheaper entertainment anywhere, even in the 1950s.

A remarkable thing happened after the program got underway. Since Dad didn’t have to pony-up admission prices, his kids got extra money for concessions and they went a lot oftener because the ticket was prepaid. As a result, the Legion not only made expenses on their membership fees, they cleared about $1,000 a year on concessions.

Go Big Red

Many interesting things happened while we were in Stanton and I don’t recall them all well enough to tell. One that does stick in my mind is the four-inch rain that fell in a very short time. Stanton was built in a valley and this “gully washer” came down the hills with such force that mud came down like lava out of a volcano. The streets were full and stores had to actually sweep the mud out of their places of business.

I was elected vice president of the Northeast Press Association in 1957 and president the following year. Organizing and conducting the winter meeting was not difficult but was time consuming.

With two small children at home we didn’t have much time for vacations, even if we would have had money for it. A couple days at press conventions, our Northeast Nebraska event in the winter and the state convention in the spring, were about it.

As publishers we got free tickets to Nebraska football games and we took in a number of those. That would give us a chance to see Janice’s parents and other relatives in Wahoo on the way to and from Lincoln. The free tickets were discontinued later, of course, when the Cornhuskers developed into a national power.

In 1955-60 they needed the support of both daily and weekly newspapers because it was difficult to fill the stadium, even though it seated only 30,000. It also became apparent that newspapers could not criticize politicians and others for accepting freebies when they were doing it themselves. The university then changed their policy and made a couple tickets a year available but required payment for them.

The football games remind me of an incident when I was working in Stanton just before I got drafted. We were having coffee in a local cafe with our regular group plus a traveling paper supply house salesman called Gil Reynolds. The guys were discussing Nebraska football (yes, it was a topic even then) and particularly Bobby Reynolds. He was one of the most famous Cornhuskers at the time, having been dubbed “Mr. Touchdown, USA” after leading the nation in scoring. None of the locals knew our salesman, of course, but were polite enough to include him in the conversation and asked him what he thought of the star.

“Well, I’ll let others be the judge of that since I’m probably biased. He’s my son,” replied Gil.

Even though I knew this man reasonably well through newspaper circles, I was not aware of his relationship to the famous Bobby Reynolds. He obviously was not one to brag.

Midland Passages

As time passed in Stanton, I began to realize the viability of the business was not what it had been painted to me by the Cornwells and Bette’s father, E.L. Vogeltanz. We were barely producing enough income to pay salaries and other expenses.

Many factors entered in to my failure with the paper. I had no practical experience and my education was on the news side, not advertising. Journalism school at that time did not even have a department to study advertising. We had to take a course in the business school that concentrated on national campaigns with magazines. It was completely worthless in a community newspaper situation.

Although I did not admit it at the time, in looking back it appears the decline started right after the loss of our baby in 1957. Depression set in for me, and I suspect also for Janice, so enthusiasm for work waned.

The Cornwells had gone to a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah and had expected their share of profits from the Stanton operation to help finance their new newspaper. Mr. Vogeltanz, an attorney at Ord, Nebraska, tried to handle things at home for his children but he was totally inept.

As an example, he complained that I was “farming out” job work instead of doing it in house. We did not have the equipment or the manpower to do the jobs I sent out so it was a matter of sharing the profit with another shop or turn down the contract. He also criticized me for not fighting the tax assessment mentioned earlier.

After we moved to Auburn, I received a scathing letter from Vogeltanz outlining a dozen or so alleged misdeeds in my conduct of the business. I took them one by one and answered them fully, at least to my satisfaction. His accusations were unfounded and I now realize he must have been trying to justify his inadequacies as an attorney by shifting the blame of the business failure to me.

The contract I signed when taking over the paper attempted to make the deal a partnership when in fact it was not. If it had been, I would have been liable for part of the loss shown by the books as we left. As it was, I demanded and received the $400 generated earlier as my 25 per cent.

The mid-50s were draught years and small communities relied heavily on income from farmers. There was no money for new equipment and barely enough for maintenance of what we had. Fifteen to 20 years later offset printing and computers replaced linotypes and changed the face of the newspaper business completely. Central printing plants replaced the need for high priced printing presses in your own shop.

By 1959 it was apparent things were not going to improve and I began looking for other avenues of employment. The Cornwells also needed cash and were willing to put the Register on the market.

A job as advertising manager at the twin weekly Auburn Newspapers in Auburn, Nebraska, was offered to me and I took it. A buyer was found for the paper in Stanton and we made the move in October of 1959.

The couple who bought the Register struggled like we did for a while but eventually converted to offset, controlled their expenses and remained in Stanton for a number of years.

This little remembrance was contributed by Col. D.A. Wininger, USAF, Ret.

Sam,

There is one story I forgot to ask you about--so I will tell you how I remember it--if it's not true--too bad--I've been telling it now for years.

Remember back in the fall of 1972, we had American History with Ted Russ as our instructor. During the Presidential campaign, we had to take one of the candidates and do a political speech on why they should be elected. You and I were in different classes, but we both ended up having to support George McGovern--We got together sometime during the week before the class to talk about our mutual assignment. I remember you saying something like, "McGovern doesn't have a very good platform, so I recommend we play up this Watergate incident. We should emphasize that the activity was illegal, and that a full disclosure should be made-- then President Nixon should not be re-elected, but should resign instead." I remember thinking, "this is kind of crazy, but what else do we really have?" So I remember arguing that point.

Of course everybody thought we were crazy--but less than two years later--as I was in Basic Cadet Training at the Academy--they brought us into a big auditorium to watch President Nixon's resignation speech. I remember laughing, and they guy next to me asked me what was so funny--I told him, "Almost two years ago, a friend of mine said that Nixon should resign because of Watergate--we used it in campaign speeches--and now it has taken place!" It was one of those 'Nobody will ever believe me moments.' Do you remember that?

Dave Wininger


Dave:

Here's what I remember about it.
1.) It was my mom's idea. She had an extreme dislike for "Tricky Dicky"
2.) We lost the general election by a landslide.

You and I may have been the only two votes for McGovern in the whole school.

Sam McCormick


Sam:

So it was your mom's idea. That is so cool! The only other thing I remember about McGovern was that Byron Orton was in college in South Dakota at the time and he was a big McGovern fan--used to talk a little bit about it around the baseball field. But like you said, there were not many of us.

Dave Wininger

Well, that was fun. We're going to take a break for the Holidays. Next up is Loose Ends the memoirs of K.A. McCormick, 1929-1959.

The Antarctic Journal of a Young Man

August 25, 1975: Monday

The World is Flat! I have been up there and have seen it! Spreading out from under the plane (my first, United Flight 799, a 727) like a giant hazy pancake. Fields of brown and gray-green check their way in infinite variety towards the horizons.

It is hard to tell variations in elevation. The ribbons of dark creek valleys and the unevenness of the country roads are interpreted as hills. Our part of Nebraska is flat. A far different picture of the state than we had when we hitchhiked. (“What’s beyond the next hill?” Another hill.)

We fly low from Lincoln to Omaha. I can see Highway 6, and Ashland, and Ceresco, and Ithica, and way off in the foggy blue distance is Wahoo. In fifteen minutes I’m 10 miles closer to Auburn and 50 miles farther from L.A. Oh, well, it’s my first jet flight and it’s over territory I know and understand.

The Lincoln airport is built like one of the cabins at Cedar Creek, a large two-story sort of A-frame. It looks like a pavilion at Six Flags. It only has four gates and no paperback copy of Centennial. I met Mrs. Treves, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and Dr. Treves’s two boys. They’re wearing Operation Deep Freeze T-shirts. Cal says I’ll find out where they come from.

We say good-bye. It was terribly unemotional. Cal’s been down before. I made two mistakes in the news story. This is only Dr. Treves’s ninth expedition and we’ll go from New Zealand to McMurdo by plane, not icebreaker. Oh, well. I’ve forgotten three things: a watch, air-mail stamps, and a duffelbag.

Epley is a lot bigger than the Lincoln airport. But Omaha’s a lot bigger than Lincoln. On the way back I can follow the Platte into the Missouri (gee is it muddy) and follow the Missouri as it snakes down the state. It’s hard to visualize that one side is Nebraska and the other Iowa, but that’s easy to do on the ground. I can see Cedar Creek, and Springfield, and Louisville, and Manley. Over in the corner of the world, where the misty blue horizons meet the Pizza that is Nebraska, I think I can see the City. But you can never be sure, they only come out at night, you know.

Nebraska is an east-west, north-south state. The mile roads intersect uniformly in all directions, like a quilt. It’s comforting to know that the land surveys look so nice from the air.

I can follow Highway 6 to Hastings. I look for the College where Deb will be on Wednesday. Then the Platte comes into view and we must pass right over Kearney and I miss my chance to wave at Joy. Shelby was on the wrong side of the plane.

Marilyn was right. You can see the circles of green that center-pivot irrigation makes on the section or quarter section. I get sort of lost after Kearney. I think I see McCook, but it might be Julesburg. Who cares? I think we cross into Colorado when the pattern of sections and country roads becomes only sketchy. The pilot announces our descent into Denver, 75 miles out. We fly much higher than we did to Omaha. Off in the distance I can see the Front Range rising above the purple haze. We get a snack.

Denver is bigger than Omaha, at least it looks bigger. It’s much bigger than Lincoln. Lincoln from way up looks like Waverly from close down. The Capitol is hard to spot because of the shadows. But Memorial Stadium stands right out, an oval of green in gray.

We get off in Denver to wait to reboard the plan. We stand around and watch people in the terminal. There must be some correlation between city size and airport size. I haven’t run across anyone I know yet, which is unusual. But then, I haven’t tried hard.

Back on the plane a young lady sits next to me and talks to the lady on the aisle. Dr. Treves tells the man next to him where we’re going. He takes it calmly.

I think I spot the Great Divide. At least all the valleys on one side go one way and the valleys on the other go a different way. The timber line is very evident. Changes in elevation are much easier to spot. The pilot is friendly and tells us where we are, which helps because I’m not familiar with the area.

I eat lasagna for supper. The girl beside me asks what state we’re over. She’s dressed in green and has eyes and hair like Brenda Holding. She has that “I know I’m pretty” air. Close up she’s full of make-up. She’s reading The Bible and History: Do They Agree? Or something like that. I read parts of it. The arguments are weak and typically half-hearted, religious, “It is because I’ve told you so.” Even though I agree with the book, I don’t respect it.

Clouds have flat bottoms! The little marshmallow ones do, anyway.

Coming into L.A. (from 35,000 feet up), we travel through the clouds. Above the clouds it’s bright, with shadows, and the sky above is a purple-blue-black. I hope it’s really thin air and not tinted windows. Down below the clouds it’s sort of murky. The built up area just goes on and on and on. I’m totally confused about where the individual cities are.

At the airport we met Cal’s cousin, her son, and Cal’s grandmother. We travel by bus to Golden West Airlines to fly to Oxnard. It’s dark, now, and one young marine comes into the building and says, “That was a dramatic entrance, wasn’t it?” He sounds like Tom Triptow, but doesn’t look like him. California people are strange.

Now I know where all the people who aren’t driving around Dallas and Houston are. They’re all at Los Angeles International Airport. Our flight to Oxnard is canceled because of weather. Everyone’s mad because we have to take a bus. Sit in the lobby and right post cards to Joy, Marilyn, and Cathy. The bus driver gets directions from the guy at Golden West. We drive on the Santa Monica Freeway, Interstate 10, and California 1, through Malibu, the cliffs on our right and the Ocean on the left. I can’t see it. Oxnard is 50 miles away, to the north, which is the direction I’m going. I doze as we travel around the cliffs.

We get out at Ventura County Airport. We must have been on Ventura Highway. We get a cab (my first) with a guy going to the “base.” Back to the Oxnard Lodge, which we’ve passed once. Go to the bathroom and go to bed.

Today’s Expenditures:
$0.48 ....Post cards
$0.50....38¢ worth of stamps
$0.15.... Orange pop

August 26, 1975: Tuesday

I’m afraid my idiosyncrasies are more noticeable than Dr. Treves’s or Calvin’s, oh well, my shower (with my bath robe) and all my odd personal things (diary, travelers cheques, hat, jacket).

We eat breakfast at Keely’s, seventy-four cents and a dime tip. Walk down town. They have this neat mall, kind of like Gateway, but on an old street. Oxnard reminds me of Miami, but only more so. We pass a Mexican diner. “We ate there last year, remember?” Dr. Treves says, “Yeah, it was warm.”

We watched a John Wayne-Roy Rogers-Walter Pigeon western. I knew Roy Rogers couldn’t be a bad guy all the way through. It was about Cantrel’s Raiders. The good story line was not enhanced by the corny dialogue. John Wayne, in his J.W. accent, saved the picture when he turned to Walter Pigeon and said, “Sure.”

We ate back at Keely’s about 2:30. This time it was spaghetti (two dollars and five cents). The tip was a dime and the pennies in my pocket. The food was good and portions small. Gee, I sound like Peter Citron. “I’ll give the movie an 84. Who for? Gary Clark, Saturday night, and a bag of Dorittos.”

I mailed the post cards. Should have sent one to Nancy and Ann. Oh, well. We took a cab to Point Mugu Naval Air Station and waited three hours in the air terminal for the jet. Once we took a walk down to the N.E.X. cafeteria. It was closed. I took a picture of the mountains. I think it was illegal.

There was an officer (Navy, wore white duds) with a broken leg. Also some oceanographer from Scripps had come early. He’s a real freak with chin whiskers (scanty) and one earring.

The Navy officer asked me to get him a Coke. The machine wouldn’t work. I got him an ice cream sandwich. He looked like Wes Ebler and was on standby to Hawaii. Another officer and his two oriental-looking sons ran the place, checking in the Naval and NSF personnel that arrived. The plane came in, a Northwest Orient D.C. something or other. The check-in went quickly, but we were first in line.

I meet Emmett, the Holmes and Narver representative. He remembers my name when he introduces his wife, daughter, and her husband. There’s another Holmes and Narver guy who’s going to Winter Over (Dave, or Mike, perhaps). Also meet the NSF bigwig. He’s young with a beard. A cross between Mr. Falter and the Music Teacher. He acts governmental important. I forgot his name.

The plane takes off in the dark and I am completely lost. I think I spot Antares. We must be heading west-southwest. We get a chicken dinner. I doze and have fitful sleeps. It’s cold.

I feel a change in engine noise. We are descending into Honolulu. Gosh is it pretty. Lights all over the place. Beautiful.

We have to get out at Aloha airport. Just like on “5-0.” The plane has to be boarded by a staircase instead of one of them tunnels. It’s beautiful. The climate is delightful, at 11 o’clock, anyway.

I buy Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Had trouble deciding between it and a Forsythe or Michner book. When I discovered he wrote “Coventry” and Starship Trooper I had to get it.

We watch the crazy brown Flight Board and go back to reboard. They search us for everything. I got caught for a belt buckle.

Today’s Expenditures:
$0.74.... Breakfast
$0.10....Tip
$2.05....Lunch
$0.23....Tip
$1.50....Book

August 27, 1975: Wednesday

Read awhile, back on the plane. It’s dark and we fly very high, 39,000 feet. Berzel’s read this book. It’s very funny, I think, in our way. Witty, I guess. I sleep and look out the window. I see Orion and Sirius. I judge we cross the equator when Sirius goes out of sight above the window.

August 28, 1975: Thursday

Somewhere we cross the International Date Line and Wednesday was very short.

I dream a weird one about a lady who thinks we are derived from photons being quanticized across the universe. Life is a particle of light following a titration curve path. Billy Graham speaks against her. This all takes place in central Missouri and I have to take secret pictures of it. The airplane taxis down the highway and crosses a big, steel-girdered bridge to get to a high school, where this all happens.

I awake for breakfast. Then read. Then snooze. Dinner is roast beef. The sun is coming up. We are flying farther southward than I had thought. Sunrise is nice. I think, “Sun arise, come every morning.”

The clouds stretch out below us in all directions. In the distance they look like the hills around Auburn, covered with snow and devoid of trees and buildings. Peaceful, calm, and inviting. We descend into the clouds and they are gray and swirling, but not threatening. I have lost directions.

We come below the clouds. New Zealand looks like a Nebraska flooding spring. It looks gray, through the rain, and homey. I was afraid the plane’s 150 passengers would double Christchurch’s population, but it’s as big as Omaha.

We land. They spray some sort of aerosol that makes us gag. Then we de-plane. I get stuck having my baggage checked. Cal says it was my long hair. But I have an honest face, don’t I? They checked everything, but missed my quartz crystal. The lady had a flat face. She spoke with a Scottish-English accent.

I get 55 N.Z. dollars plus one Florin (20 cents). All for 60 dollars, American.

We got a cab. The driver was a lady, very friendly. She drives on the wrong side of the road, with a car that has its steering wheel on the wrong side. Of course, my directions are 180º off, too.

The Town Hall Motel is somewhere between Quaint and Rustic. Our room has three beds. Across the hall are two. We share a living room, kitchen, and bath. It’s cold. The space heater is spacey and the radio is even wilder. T.V. doesn’t come on until later. It’s only 10:30, after 9 hours and 50 minutes of flying from Hawaii.

We meet our two roommates. One’s a wide open Freak. The other looks like a Frat Rat. We talk. I learn about Antarctica. They’ve been before. The NSF guy’s name is Dave. They don’t respect his dignity.

The Freak had trouble with the inspection, too. They took a dog near him. “Come on, boy! Smell something! It’s got to be there! Sniff, boy! He’s a long-hair! Find something!”

We took off for lunch, walking through the rain and the streets. All the houses have walls around them, secluded, reserved. Dr. Treves says the British think New Zealand’s quaint and the Australians think it’s backwards.

Downtown is rows and rows of shops. Most of them are tiny one-family operations. Lots of produce, meat, bakeries. Almost frontier-like. Fifty-four cents for fish and chips; it was very hot. We huddled outside the door, protected from the cold and trying to stay warm.

The gutters run full of water and it splashes when you walk. Cal, Dr. Treves, the Frat guy, and I go looking in stores. I enjoy rain. Always have. And shopping in the rain. It’s just a pleasant feeling. Ninety cents for post cards. The Frat’s name is Doug. He’s all right.

We walk over to Canteberry Museum. It’s free and not bad. Learn things about Captain Cook and Moas and Maoris. Fifteen cents for tea. I could get to like hot tea. Very British.

We walk back to the motel. We see two Chevys. Cars are real out of sight here. Over $4000 for used cars. We sit around and talk and tell stories. It’s all right. I wish I could remember the stories.

Tim (the Freak) comes back and we’re reminded it’s time to eat. I write nine post cards. I still have to write Andria and Mom.

It’s bitterly cold out. We talk to the manager. She’ll get us an extension cord and another space heater. She introduces us to her husband. She remembers our names.

We walk back downtown, briskly, to keep our circulation going. Tommy is showing at the State Theatre. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Christchurch is like pictures of London, with the long streets intersecting each other at haphazard angles, shops wedged in the triangles. Things are painted gray with gold lettered signs in the windows. Hardly any neon signs. There are only a few new buildings over three stories tall. It is all so delightfully old-fashioned. We pass a shop with an alarm ringing. There’s not a policeman (constable?) in sight. We walk (shiver) a block farther, past more curious squares (the city is full of Monuments, Statues, Plazas, and pleasant things), shops, and cars, turn left, and there is the Shanghai Café. The interior is the same size, shape, and color as Marie’s Café, but it doesn’t have a counter or calendars on the wall. The man at the table in front of us looks half black, half oriental. Maybe he’s Maori. He enjoys his food noisily and gets the very last drop. He has not a fine set of teeth, but the waitress does not find him offensive. He gives a kid a shilling (10 cents) or a florin (20 cents). I’ve found those out. Everyone (except us) in the place looks so typically English. I mean you couldn’t mistake it. I feel like I’m inside Quadraphenia.

I eat shrimp soy something for $1.90. It’s very, very good. Another first for me, a Chinese meal. Pay when served. No tips. The waitress could be very pretty, if she tried. The girls walking about at night seem nicer, prettier. I wonder if that means anything.

Doug got a huge steak for $2.50.

We walk, I mean hurry, back to the motel. There are some Constables (Bobbies, perhaps?) at the alarm scene. Still don’t see anything inside. It’s 6:30, dark, rainy, cloudy, cold, wet, windy, and thoroughly enjoyable. They tell more tales about what McMurdo is like. They have a diffractometer there. I am very anxious to get to work.

We get back, fool around with wholly inadequate electrical connections, watch a British soap opera, “M*A*S*H,” and part of a “Streets of San Francisco,” the one where the guy’s son is killed by a deaf burglar and he goes after him himself. That’s a confusing sentence, ain’t it. Oh, well.

I read another chapter. I like the way Heinlein’s story line is going. It’s the way I would have done it.

We talk about McMurdo. It has a radio station, FM. Whoever wants to play records and isn’t busy can go ahead and do so. This might be fun. I must not rush things and act awed, respectful, and eager to get my hands on it, but in a polite way. Unfortunately it isn’t KOOL, but there’s four months ahead of me.

Boy, am I an ambitious one tonight.

Hurrah for electric blankets.

What I Spent:
$0.54....Fish and Chips
$1.90....Dinner
$0.90....Post cards

August 29, 1975: Friday

Got up once to go to the bathroom. I’ll never get used to the toilets here. They’re very deep, with hardly any water. The other part is way up on eye level. The flush thing is a device that looks like a key on an old cash register. It releases an absolute torrent of water.

I get up early, shower, have trouble getting the water hot. The controls need getting used to. Breakfast is corn flakes in a cup, bread with jam, and tea. It’s free.

We blew a fuse and are out of electricity ‘til the electrician gets us more.

We take a taxi out to get our clothes. I buy some shampoo and soap after we get our P.X. passes. Didn’t need it to get the stuff, though. Mailed the nine post cards with nine ten-cent stamps. That’s air mail.

My clothes are all right. They look official, like I know what I’m doing. We dress and take inventory in a cold drafty cement-floored room. It reminds me of football, especially Rock Port, sitting in longjohns, lacing up heavy shoes with tube socks, and funny pants on.

I feel dumb, having to copy everything Dr. Treves does. But it’s the only way to survive. I ask dumb questions. I can’t see the purpose of the actions we have to do, but finally I understand what’s going on.

Lunch is in the Non-Com cafeteria. One dollar twenty for pork chops and stuff. I’m eating more than I ever have in my life down here, without getting full. It’s unusual.

Dr. Dick (PhD, Wisconsin) and his assistant need blood samples to see what kind of germs we’ll infect the Winter Over people with. I gave my share.

We go to the NSF headquarters and meet Mr. Jack Hoffman and Mr. Bob Thompson, important people with the New Zealand Antarctic Program. We talk about the problems at McMurdo, look at a map of the drill sites and make provisional plans and ideas for alternatives.

I’m learning more all the time. There’s a big map (three dimensional) of McMurdo. Cal shows me where everything’s at. I get used to the place, because it looks all right. Sort of what I expected, only more sophisticated.

We go to the airport, catch a bus, and walk back to the motel. I wish I could remember the funny things Dr. Treves says, but they’re just throw away lines, playing on the conversation and being only funny at that specific moment.

McMurdo is on Ross Island with Mount Erebus.

Calvin got bumped by a biologist and has to go down on Wednesday. I wonder if he wonders why I (as having least seniority) wasn’t the one demoted. I feel it an honor to be on the first-day flight.

We ate at the Shanghai Restaurant, again. A dollar ninety-five for sweet and sour pork. We went window shopping. It was almost like Christmas shopping with the cold and the happy feeling. We wanted to see a movie. We looked at The Night Porter and I suggested Tommy. I hope they liked it and don’t blame me if they didn’t. I feel guilty about forcing them to do something they didn’t enjoy.

It was a buck fifty, plus all sorts of commercials and a Newsreel about the Queen Mother, Margaret. I told them that seeing Tommy twice was cheaper than buying the album.

We returned home. Wrote to Kay. Why am I putting off writing to Andria? I want to be in the write mood. I must contemplate tonight, grokking her fullness. I like Stranger in a Strange Land.


Today’s Expenditures:
$1.20....Lunch (pork chop)
$0.75....Soap and shampoo
$0.50....Bus ride home
$0.90....Stamps
$1.95....Chinese supper
$1.50....Tommy

August 30, 1975: Saturday

Rise and shower. The same breakfast, except the toaster works. Big discussion with Doug about rugby.

After reading awhile Cal and I go to the Botanic Gardens. Gee, the place is nice. Lots of vegetation and people enjoying the warm winter sun. There’s this Paradise duck, which is an unusually friendly, nicely colored thing. This New Zealander gave us a bunch of bull about the bird, about us, and about Antarctica.

We get back to Cathedral Square where Dr. Treves is eating fish and chips. We go get some while he gets some stamps. A dollar two for fish, chips, and scallops. We get something to drink while waiting for the bus to New Brighton.

They guy in the Hot Dog place hassles me about what size Coke. I get a 38 cent one. It’s a 750 ml bottle. Cal gets a small one. I need a cup. Cal ends up with another Coke. And I’m self conscious about my accent. The hopeless feeling gets worse, especially when connected with my fear of not knowing how to get on buses. The driver tells me to get rid of the bottle (one quarter full) and I have trouble communicating what size ticket I need to get to New Brighton, mostly because I don’t know myself.

Feeling down. Brighton’s the place in Quadraphenia. But here the day is bright and the sea roars onto the beach and all is peace and inner thoughts prevail. The Pacific and the land around reminds me of a puzzle. It’s all right.

We look in the New Brighton stores and reboard a bus (40 cents, round trip). The driver makes Cal throw away his ice cream bar. Finished my first roll of film.

We walk back to the motel and I read. I keep liking the book more. The Martian’s notions remind me of the way I feel towards Cathy. I must grok this carefully.

Cal and I go to Wino’s Pizza, while Dr. Treves naps. The pizza is made with Cheddar cheese, and it’s a bit soggy. Two dollars is all right, pricewise. Some old lady gives some bull about a lady she knows who fixes pizza on New Year’s Eve. I tell her we’re going to Antarctica to drill holes in rocks. Cal laughs. You have to say that line with a straight face. I’m feeling more confident, now.

We walk around looking for something sweet. I buy a nickel candy bar for eighteen cents. Dad would be ashamed. We walk home to watch T.V. and read. We get flight schedules. Dr. Treves and I have to be at the airport at 11:15 p.m. tomorrow night. The landlady hassles us about getting out tomorrow by 10:00, but not leaving the place. Dr. Treves tells her we’ll just pay for an extra day.

Costs:
$1.02....Fish, scallops
$0.38....Coke
$0.80....Bus
$2.00....Pizza
$0.18....Candy bar

August 31, 1975: Sunday

Up early again. Gee I picked up a nasty habit this summer. Shower, shampoo, and breakfast. Read and talk. We argue with Doug and Tim about Politics and Social Liberalism. We win. They’re suitably impressed by our Nebraska values. We eat fish and chips. Eighty-nine cents. Oysters this time. They’re O.K. We decide to go to the soccer match. Meanwhile we take a stroll on the Avon. I know why I enjoy the visit here. It’s late winter, the sun warming the cold ground, the coming of spring. A happiness, one of my favorite times of the year.

We return and I read. The book is bogging down in religious fal-do-ral and the totalness of sex. Which, I’m sure is true, but is none of my business.

The soccer match affirms my belief that the sport is purposeless. It lacks any sort of strategy. But for eighty cents, what can you lose. Besides, it’s fun to watch people. The bus is twenty cents out and back. The stadium is deteriorating plastic.

We eat at Shanghai, again, one dollar and ninety cents. Back home, I think this cold, drafty toilet needs an electric bun warmer. We talk about what we’ll be doing on the ice: collecting things to test their chemistry, dredging for sediments. Dr. Treves mentions that the three of us will probably publish a paper on the shallow water sediments. I wonder if that means me, him, and Cal, or three important people. If it’s us, I’m scared. I’ve had things printed before, but nothing that people have to take seriously.

We wait to go out to the airport.

I listen to, really, K.C. Kassom’s American Top Forty. That’s right. My life is now complete, listening to him no matter where I go in this old world. And on, get this, Radio Avon - 1290. Right on.

After paying our bill we taxi out to the airport and get dressed.

The wool shirt and parka are appreciated.

I have to follow Dr. Treves, again. And again feel like a fool because I don’t quite understand what’s going on. But I learn about what you need for hold and hand held. I decide to leave the bag full of good clothes in security storage at the airport.

Dr. Dick and Dan the lab man need to ask us if we have a cold or a fever. I have some symptoms. Dr. Dick asked Dr. Treves if he was sick.

“No.”

“That’s too bad.”

We go over to the cafeteria and get breakfast for seventy-five cents. After that we wander over to the barracks lounge. I read The English People up to the Tudor Kings. It’s a brief sketch of English History. Very interesting.

Days Debts:
$0.89....Fish and chips
$0.80....Bus
$0.80....Soccer match
$1.90....Supper
$0.75....At the airport
$20.00....Motel (receipt

September 1, 1975: Monday

About one o’clock we wander back to get our hand held luggage. We sit around the warehouse manager’s office (nothing like good ol’ Stephenson’s) and listen to the first plane rev up it’s engines. A few minutes later the phone rings.

“Uh huh. I see. O.K. What about accommodations?” Whitney (the manager) informs us the flights have been canceled. Fog and fuel problems. It’s back to the motel at 3:00 a.m.

Say good-night, Calvin.

We wake up at 11:30. Because all our clothes were packed last night, I get to wear my long underwear, jeans, wool shirt, and tight work shoes.

Calvin has gone motoring to the Banks Peninsula. Dr. Treves and I walk down to Fish & Chips and have lunch (54 cents). We sit in the Cathedral Square and listen to some Jesus Freaks preach. The day is warm and lots of people are out shopping. Go to Whitcoumbs and browse. I buy Ivanhoe for 75 cents.

When we get back to the motel, John and Jeff (two oceanographers) invite Doug and Dr. Treves and me to ride down to Lytleton Harbour for some sight seeing.

I grab the camera and we’re off (one dollar for gas). There’s this neat castle-looking tea house. We snoop around. And a hill that gives a commanding view of the city.

The Harbour is in a volcanic setting, absolutely marvelous. We wander around and end up on a farm trail and get some close shots of sheep.

Back home, I finish reading the book. I got a little bored with the proposition of his theological views and will not ask Cathy to read it ‘cause she might take the “growing close” wrong.

Someone, Cal (who’s back), Steve (the guy with the ring in his ear), Dr. Treves, and I eat at the Coffee Pot Café, mutton. Tastes like sweet pork. Two dollars and sixty-six cents, part in American, part in New Zealand. We walk around for awhile and head back.

I take a short nap. Then it’s the same routine as last night, except we get off the ground.


Days Expenditures:
$0.54....Fish and chips
$1.00....Gas
$2.66....Dinner
$5.00....Motel
$0.75....At the airport
$0.75....Ivanhoe

September 2, 1975: Tuesday

I find it hard to believe, sitting sardined on a C-130 “Hercules” (you know, the wings way above the body and the tail that angles sharply up with an all-glass cockpit, that kind), that I’m off to the Southlands. It gets bad, close, cramped. Fanny fatigue and tiring. In short, an eight hour roaring “Herc” trip. Fitfully sleeping in odd positions is an ordeal.

Finally it’s light out and below us you can see pack ice, cracked and tossing in the sea. My heart races.

The pilot informs us that the airfield is in a whiteout and we have to circle. More agonized waiting. We find out later he was off-course most of the way down. Then without warning we bump, bounce in the air, and bump to a landing. In zero visability, we taxi three miles to the airfield. I think the pilot was lost, but we couldn’t see anything to be sure.

Now, with all my Antarctic gear on, we step forth onto the Ice Shelf. As we step out men wave and direct us to follow the fellow in front of us. The wind is at 30 knots. It’s just like any Nebraska blizzard. Nothing different. We get in a truck and drive up to a shack. It’s crowded with men, smoke, and Playboy centerfolds. I eat two donoughts. They were real donoughts.

Sidebar: I think there’s something wrong with doughnuts.

We get back into the truck and drive to McMurdo. My impression is of eastern Nemaha County in the winter. Snow filled ruts and what look like plowed fields. Traffic in both directions. Telephone poles along the hills and stuck trucks with a junkyard on the outskirts of town. The relief is very steep.

McMurdo looks like a warehouse district in Nebraska City, or Fremont, maybe.

My roommates are Dirk (whom I‘ve only shook hands with), Pete (with two telephone calls to his girlfriend and a pith helmet, reminds me of Humphrey when he talks), and Steve (with the ring).

We get oriented in the officer’s lounge. We’ll only be in the big building (Navy barracks and mess) until the station opens up. Then we’ll move into the USARP Hotel. There’s no use getting settled. I start to beat Pete in a game of darts.

Then we go try to get our luggage. It’s not off the skid yet. So Mike takes us on a tour. We end up in the place that outfits campers. I meet Jim. He reminds me a lot of Dunbar (mannerisms, hair, and speech patterns). He seems to be the only sane Winter Over person. The others would be classified as loony back home.

Dr. Treves wants to check out the Earth Science Lab. We spend some time trying to get it open and then walk back to dinner. We get a maintenance crewman to go unlock it.

The lab is adequate. Lots of thin section equipment. Oh, boy. I get to learn something. All the cabinets are locked. We can’t find the keys. I don’t understand exactly what I’m going to do. Just follow Dr. Treves, I guess.

Doug stops by from the Cosmic Ray Shack. He’s got a twenty-minute-a-day job. The Winter Over physicist is missing things. He wanders around, spacey, and stares at a lot of walls.

We stop by Jim’s again. There’s a party going on. We stop. I meet Bio-Bob, another sane Winter Over.

Dr. Treves talks about what we’re going to do. Next week we’ll go out to check the ice. We’ll be out there a couple of days without coming back. I feel cold already.

Meet a Russian. Dr. Narcissus Something (Nartsiss Barkov). He’s from Leningrad. Pete tells him his life story. His girl works for the FBI.

“What?”

“FBI.”

“Like the KGB.”

He’s a super nice guy. I could have put the bull on that man all day. But Doug and I get very tired. Return home. I square things away, sort of. Shoot some pool ‘til someone comes in. Then go to bed.

Expenditures:
None.

September 3, 1975: Wednesday

I have a hard time keeping track of the days. Time is ephemeral. Only meals count towards time.

All morning we look for keys. We find the ones to the cabinets in the Bio-Lab. Boy is that a nice place. It’s huge, with lots and lots of sophisticated equipment. Cathy and Janet would like it here. We look for a microscope down there. Can’t find it, either.

I like the Earth Science Lab, even though it is way up on the windy ol’ hill. It reminds me of the Newspaper Shop, the way the lights softly hum and there is hardly any noise and the gray metal desks and the cloudy gray skies, and the sort of used-but-needed smell. I like it.

After lunch we get our pick-up truck. A four door Dodge that won’t engage third without sputtering out. The foot-feed sticks and it won’t idle.

Jack, the mechanic for Winter Over is lost (gone, perhaps). He wears a field jacket with a plastic flower in the lapel and a CAT baseball cap, out in the snow. He took Dr. Treves in a ride in the Cushman Trackster. Up and down hills, over dale, and up snowbanks. It was wild.

We went over to look at the diffractometer in storage. We get some water jugs and three sleeping bags for our little trip (traverse, as they call it down here on the ice).

We go back to the lab. I find a star chart. It’s not very good. I try to figure out longitude and latitude, 77º 51’ South is close, but I vary from 166º 35’ East to 166º 45’ East on different charts.

There’s an Auroral Observatory around here somewhere. It’ll have a nice dome.

At supper we hear on the radio, KGRI, Grand Island. That’s strange. I’d found the Armed Forces Radio studio, but it was all locked up. Jim was trying to teach Dr. Barkov about credit cards. Dr. Treves thinks that’s the way communism will fall. Give ‘em BankAmericard.

Dr. Barkov got some magazines on Soviet Life, the Black Sea Area.

“Bikinis, beaches, and good oil!”

“Ah, that’s just propaganda,” from Jack.

“Sure, a little,” from Barkov.

They’re friends.

Pete has a tape player. Tea for the Tillerman, Dark Side of the Moon, and Venus and Mars are All Right Tonight.

All right!

Expenditures:
None.

September 4, 1975: Thursday

In the morning we go up to the lab and wait for Calvin to arrive on the plane. I found a couple of O.K. astronomy books. I take my camera and set it up on a tripod. Some New Zealander comes and talks about our traverse. Cal comes up to the lab. We talk a bit and go eat. Steak. I’ve gained seven pounds.

After lunch we go up to the lab. I write a letter to Kay. Cal writes home, too. We walk down to the Post Office, $2.60 for air mail stamps. We go get Cal’s luggage and go square away his room.

He brought along a tape player for the lab. He’s got Layla and Abraxas and some Simon and Garfunkle and some classical.

We walk up to the lab. Dr. Treves has gone to check into the traverse with Dave and Emmett at the Chalet (NSF HQ).

I go out and take some panoramic pictures of McMurdo, Bowers Piedmont Glacier, the Royal Society Range, and Mount Discovery.

At 2:30 we go down to Jim’s and get the key to the security locker, plus two able bodies, and Dr. Treves. We have to move seven skidoos to get to the door. Inside are six microscopes, a copier machine, a 1500 pound x-ray diffractometer, a roll away accessory attachment, and four boxes of parts. We wiggle (with great effort) the machine onto the back of a lift-truck. (Careful, can’t tip it ‘cause it’s full of oil.)

Driving up the hill is scary and jiggling the machine into the cold room and down the hall is hard work.

We get everything into the proper rooms, check out the microscopes (good ones), and try out the copier. It doesn’t quite work right because the rollers won’t roll the paper on out. After much unscrewing, poking around, and lifting so the funny noise goes away (but comes back when you let go), Dr. Treves pounds on it with two screwdrivers. A metal tap slips into its niche and it works.

We go eat.

After lunch Cal and I go up to the lab. We decide to have our own offices, the two rooms in the back, next to the thin section saws. Mine is on the left. We both get electric typewriters. He gets an electronic pencil sharpener. Tomorrow I’m going to get out another battery clock for mine. One clock is over the door to the hall in the front room. If there was a descent bathroom, I wouldn’t mind living up there. I think I’ll bring up the desk stuff tomorrow. It’ll look official. Took a lot of cleaning to get things in order after the last guy left in a hurry. Hope I didn’t throw anything out that was valuable.

On the way back we stop by the Bio-Lab.

I talked to Bio-Mike. (Bio-Bob’s gone home. He was an O.U. man.) He’ll let me use the darkroom. We have to develop some prints off an ERTS satellite transparency for Ross Island and the Dry Valleys.

All my pictures developed, except for a couple of shots in the middle of the first roll. They’ll print O.K. The transparency was a bit thick. Besides that, it’s a negative print.

I think I spotted the Magellenic Clouds. If I did, they’re huge.

Dirk has some tapes, including Chicago Transit Authority and Son of Schmillson.

Days Expenditures:
$2.60....Stamps, air mail

September 5, 1975: Friday

Boy, am I glad I learned how to drive a truck at Stephenson’s this summer, because I sure wouldn’t want to learn here, with all the poles and ditches and snowbanks and cold, cold weather. Especially our pick-up. I killed it four or five times whilst Cal and I were picking up provisions for the lab. Bio-Mike took my jacket, so we had to go down and trade him. It took close to thirty minutes to get up the hill. Dr. Treves told me to take it down to Jack to get it fixed. Backed her out of the drive and couldn’t get it started. Boy, was I unsure of myself ‘cause I thought this whole mess was my fault because I didn’t plug the truck into a block heater.

I told Dr. Treves I couldn’t get it started. He just sent me down to get help. Sam Morgan climbed into an emergency truck and gave me a jump. He and Jack went to work on the carburetor, points, and foot-feed.

In the afternoon, I almost fell asleep listening to Billy Taylor jazz. Fortunately Cal and I had to go find our lab cameras, which we got. The rest of the afternoon we spent giving tours. Met Leon, head of the drillers. Jack and Sam Morgan were suitably impressed by everything, especially thin sections in crossed nicols, and my quartz. I’d brought it up, with the pen holder and letter holder. Makes the office look used. I wish I new what to do in that office. The last two hours we sit around and talked about teaching, geology, and field camp. I listen carefully and feel that I’m not doing too bad. Everyone makes the mistakes I do. I got out Rocks in Thin Sections for a review. I need it.

They’ve got a machine here called a Freshen-up with Seven-up Machine. It dispenses, for twenty cents, either Coke or Miller’s. I read Ivanhoe and drink Miller’s. Then I wandered down and taught Pete, Bio-Mike, Ed (a bioperson, Chicano, I think), and Dan (the health joker) how to play darts the way Clark and I play. Told ‘em it was “collegiant rules.” Then Dan and Ed and I play “Round the World” (one, two, three…). I lose both times.

Days Output:
$0.20....Beer, Miller’s

September 6, 1975: Saturday

It started out like a Saturday. We vacuumed the rug in the lab. I almost fell asleep before lunch. In the afternoon I started a little project with zones on the astronomical chart.

The water truck came late in the day. We got everything all hooked up except that there is a leak in the system. No water ‘til tomorrow.

Gee, am I tired. Went to bed right after supper.

September 7, 1975: Sunday

I slept 14 hours. Pretty good.

Went up and finished the star chart.

I tried to get a phone patch home but no one was around. I was awful nervous about it. Don’t really know why.

We had a meeting to make plans for our traverse. Us three, Jim, Jack, and Jim Newman (a Kiwi, as they call New Zealanders). We’re taking two trucks and lots of things to keep warm.

There’s a bench, right outside the front door of the mess hall, with some plastic ferns stuck into the ground next to it. A sign reads, “McMurdo City Park, keep off the grass.”

It’s across the street from the Penguin Power & Light Company.

Dr. Dick gave a talk on his work in tracing infections of viruses. He’s a short man, gray hair, thin, growing a beard. He talks like Orson Bean. His talk was like a lecture, writing on a blackboard all the unimportant concepts. I ask some dumb questions, which is a hobby of mine.

September 8, 1975: Monday

Today we got ready for the traverse. We’re taking a Nodwell and a Scott Base vehicle. I get to ride in the Nodwell.

The Nodwell is a track vehicle with a flat bed in back and a two seat cab, which is wide, wide! It works like a tank. To turn it, you have to brake on one side or the other. No steering wheel, just a lack of motion in the direction you’re not going.

We have to take along barrels of gas. But first we have to rummage around the junk yard for empty barrels. It takes a long time to fill four fifty-five gallon drums of gas. Almost five hundred dollars worth of fuel! Berzel and I would be kept in heaven for a long, long time with that much gas.

Sam Morgan helps us. He talks like Goober Pyle, but he’s shorter. To look at him you’d never think he had a twelve year old son. He’s a nice guy, but he looks like the devil, with a black Van Dyke beard and dark, dark eyes that look out from under his parka hood like he’s looking into your soul.

We load into boxes all kinds of tools, saws, gasoline cans, kerosene, sleeping bags, foam insulators, pouches of food, stoves, tents, and accessories.

We (Cal and me) get to try out the new type coats. Gee are they nice.

I play Pete in chess. No contest. Got to find someone else, or he’ll end up being another Clark.

September 9, 1975: Tuesday

Surprisingly, I’m awake at five a.m. Had a rough night’s sleep, too. Karen Aufenkamp and Greg Berger and their class got caught on the other side of a breaking away glacier. Karen was sweet.

We sit around waiting for the other vehicle to get their last minute details. It’s a snowtrack, a Volkswagen on tracks.

I get to sit in the middle of the Nodwell behind the engine and overlapping the gear shifter. I get to sit on a five-gallon bucket. It takes almost a half hour to figure out a comfortable position to shift in. It takes a good deal of physical dexterity to shift with me in the middle. But Cal’s too big to sit there.

We head out for the tip of the Dirty Ice. I thought it was southwest of McMurdo. It’s northwest. Oh, well, so I’m confused a bit. The Nodwell (R-41 as they say on the radio) is slow, but sure. The sea ice at the Tip is only 2 or 3 inches thick, so we have to go up on top of the Ice Shelf, which takes for ever because it’s rough. On the other side the ice is thick enough and we go chasing penguins, three of them. Emperors. Jack chases one and catches him. I stand out in the middle of them, looking like Harry Nillson amongst the fiddlers, while Cal takes a picture. You know, little Penguins, three feet high, carrying trays full of drinks and calling you “Guv’ner.”

It’s an endless ride towards the Blue Glacier. Another misconception, the Blue Glacier is on the right, not on the left. Distances are deceiving on the map.

I look for a mountain to name. The one hovering over the Blue Glacier is nice. It forms the bowl for the Hobbs Glacier (the one I thought was so pretty, it must be the Blue Glacier). Anyway, I don’t know if it has a name or not, and we don’t have a map.

At the next stop (the snow track gets way out ahead of us and has to wait for us to catch up), I look at the map, point the mountain out to the group, remark that it doesn’t have a name, and proclaim, “Hence forth and forevermore it shall be known as Mount Debrushka.”

I guess I’m just a helpless Romantic.

A sidebar: On the map its 1340 meters tall.

The mountain, twin spired and majestic, looks down upon the weathered Piedmont and the frozen Sound, glaciers on the left (the graceful, curving Hobbs, in delicate light it glows blue with a small silver cloud echoing its beautiful descent) and glaciers on the right (the Blue, in rushing torrents it cascades down to the ice). Between the spires, in shadowed light, a snowfield, gray, nestles its head against the second spire.

Alas this second peak may have a name. The map is ambiguous. The photos shall tell.

As we move on up the coast, the mountain is viewed sideways, instead of head on, the two peaks, side-by-side and slightly rounded. I think something obscenely remindful of Debbie’s figure and how adequate the mountain is. Debbie would blush, but be proud. I won’t mention it to her. She’ll probably see for herself (and bring it to my attention). She has a dirty mind.

I try to think of ways to make it official and get the name on the map. This will take some doing.

We continue our endless journey passed the Stranded Moraines (huge piles of ground up rubble left behind by a retreating glacier) and through New Harbour. I fell into the Ross Sea through a crack in the ice. Got my boot wet.

We stop at an iceberg and get samples for Dr. Nartsiss. I think it’s the strangest scene I’ve ever been in. Standing on a frozen sea, chipping ice from a towering ‘berg, bundled up in fur, wearing white “bunny” boots, and standing next to a snub-nosed tracked vehicle painted like a Coke truck (with out Coke®).

I trade places with Jim, who has frost bite and needs to keep his fingers warm. The snowtrack is bumpy.

We finally get to Marble Point, our destination, 65 miles from McMurdo and an eleven hour drive. Marble Point has a collection of abandoned road equipment and gouges in the rock where roads were trying to be made.

The village itself has a marker for mapping purposes, a hut with a heater, a blown over Wannigan (hut on skis), two Jamesways over the hill, and several dozen barrels of DFA (drilling fluid), which is what the heater runs on. We clean things up (plenty of food in the hut, even a pot with ice in it), pull over the Wannigan, and set up two tents. The hut is six by six with six people in it. The Wannigan is full of snow and old lumber. Jack sleeps in there. I’ll sleep with Jim Newman (the Kiwi).

We eat Long Range Patrol Rations, called lerps. They’re a self-contained meal in a pouch. All you do is pour in hot water. They come with a spoon and a candy bar and either coffee or cocoa. Spaghetti and Beef with Rice are O.K., except they both come with coffee. I look through all sorts of packets, but never get cocoa.

I go to bed.