Thursday, September 28, 2017

Hef

 I am taking time out of my life stories timeline to talk about someone and something that shaped my life for many years:  Hugh M. Hefner and Playboy Magazine.
 I was born just six months before Playboy was introduced with Marilyn Monroe on the first cover.  It was 13 years later, when I saw my first issue of Playboy.  I found a copy in the woods near Five Points and Maxcy Gregg Park at the railroad trestle.  One of my favorite actresses, Sherry Jackson, was featured inside.  It was an eye-opening moment in more ways than one.  Whoever had left that magazine, continued to do so at that spot for me to find.  Some of them had gotten wet with the rain, but they were still viewable, and no I was not reading the articles.  As a big movie fan, I really liked seeing these pictures of actresses.  It became something of an obsession for me.  As stated in a previous blog, I did some shoplifting between the ages of 14-16.  One of my favorite things to steal was Playboy.  I didn't have to wait for the guy in the woods anymore.  I could steal new copies.  After looking at them, I left them in the woods near my house for someone else to find.  They did.  A kid in high school told me his father had all of the issues of Playboy locked in a shed behind his house.  He and I tried to figure out how to break into the shed, but it was a combination lock, so we failed.
 When I was 15, some boys from my church went on an outing to Atlanta.  Our hotel was next door to the Playboy Club.  We got to see bunnies swimming in the nude in the rooftop pool.  Our hotel room was a few floors higher than the club.
 Moving on to college, it was easier to get Playboys, because I could buy them at a local newsstand in Anderson.  One of the actresses featured was Susan Clark.  Shortly after her appearance, I found myself working with her on "The Midnight Man".  While I was "dancing" with her, and she was cussing me out, I could only think about seeing her naked in Playboy.  I even told her that I liked her pictures.  She smiled, but still threatened to walk off of the picture if I had to dance with her.  At PC, I had a centerfold tacked up on my dorm room wall of Playmate Martha Smith.  She went on to play Babs in "Animal House".  The centerfold stayed up until my father came to my room unannounced.
 When I was working at Sanger Harris in Ft. Worth, Hope Olson came to the store for a personal appearance.  She was a Playboy Playmate of the Month.  She was nice and signed a picture for me and one for my friend.
 Another thing Playboy did was to expose (no pun intended) to Americans about James Bond.  I was already watching the movies, but Playboy would publish excerpts from the Ian Fleming books.  So, I started reading those books, and I had complete sets in both US and UK pressings.  They also had their own record company, and I bought all of the Barbi Benton releases.
 There were times when I abandoned Playboy, especially as I got older.  It wasn't so taboo anymore.  But, I did have a close encounter with Hugh Hefner.  About 20 years ago, I got my first computer.  I was on it one night, going through chat rooms, and I found a chat hosted by Hefner.  It was a legitimate chat.  A lot of people were asking him questions about the Playmates, especially the more current ones.  He was polite, but gave one or two word answers.  I finally was able to ask a question, and I asked him about Marilyn Monroe.  He was more than happy to answer my question with a complete sentence.  I then called him "Hef", which was the name his friends called him, and we began a 10-minute chat of just him and me talking about old movies.  He loved film noir, so we talked about that.  I also told him about working with Burt Lancaster.  He was interested in that story.  I messed up though, when I asked Hef if he was going to put Amy Fisher in Playboy.  He got mad and sat absolutely not.  He then went on a rant about her, and he cut me off.  For a while, I had made a connection with Hef.  He was really a nice guy.
 Some people call him a pariah.  Others call him one who changed society.  I prefer now to think of him more of a guy who was one of a kind.  He did things his way.  Although I don't condone a lot of what he did, Playboy and me are the same age.  We are both a bit worse for wear.  Rest in Peace, Hef.
 

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

River Race

 A radio station in Columbia in 1980 on a Saturday sponsored a river race down the Congaree in Columbia.  The main rule was that the boat had to be homemade.  You could use wood and floats, but nothing professional.  Those of us at the Census thought it would be fun if we entered.
 We built our "boat" out of plywood and inner tubes.  We tested it out and found that it would float with four people on it, so we loaded it on a car and headed to the starting line which was upstream from the city.  We were on the West Columbia side and put it into the water.  It was also important that this craft held our cooler full of beer.
 As we were floating in the current, it was hot but the beer was cold.  We started drinking and really didn't care anymore about winning the race.  We got into the waters of the Congaree River and quickly ran into two problems.  First, the rocks in the river caused us to get hung up.  The Congaree is not very deep, so we had one of our crew responsible for jumping out and getting us off the rocks.  That was a full-time job.  The second problem was that the plywood was falling apart.  It became clear that we would not make it to the finish line.
 Another thing we learned was that the Congaree did not fall under any local police jurisdiction.  As long as we stayed in the river, we could drink and smoke dope as much as we liked.  The problem was that we had to get off of the river, especially with our "boat" falling apart.  We were coming under a railroad trestle and saw officers taking pictures and making notes of offenders.  We decided to make our landing in a part of the shore we knew the police would not be waiting for us, so we made land in some woods on the Cayce side.
 We gave up on hauling our "boat" up the hill from the water, so we just left it to sink.  We got up the hill from the river and found a guy with a van.  Three of us asked him to take us back to our cars, which were parked at Brookland Cayce High School.  He was nice to do so, especially because we were all stoned and drunk, and we were trying to evade the police.
 I got to the school and proceeded to break into the school looking for a bathroom.  I got in through an open window to take care of business.  When I finished and was walking around the building, my friends were waiting for me in the parking lot.  Just then, a Cayce police car pulled up.  The officer got out and approached us.  He asked one friend, "Son, have you been drinking?"  My friend replied, "No, sir".  He was immediately arrested.  He then asked my other friend the same thing.  My friend replied the same way, and he was arrested.  He then asked me the same thing.  I replied the same way, but he didn't arrest me.  To this day, I don't know why I was not arrested.  He let me get in my car and drive home.  I was scared straight.  I still did it a few times after that, but not binging.  I am just glad that the officer didn't ask about the open window at the school.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

NYC

 I guess it does seem that we did a lot on our afternoons off while in Philly, and I guess we did.  The highlight of our time off was to go to New York City.  We left Philadelphia early one afternoon and rode in the van to the city.
 We were on the New Jersey Turnpike, when our van driver decided he was getting tired.  He didn't want to pull over, because we were following another vehicle and didn't want to get lost.  So, as we were going 70mph, another guy in the front seat said he would switch with him.  The second guy got on the lap of the driver as the driver inched out from under him.  The switch was made while all of us passengers thought we were going to die.  We all had to promise never to tell anyone in the other car what we had done.  We were too speechless to say anything to anyone.  I do not recommend that procedure to anyone.
 We got to the city and began to look around.  One of the sites we went to was the World Trade Center.  This was 1980, and the WTC had not been up for very long.  We went up to the top of one of the towers to their restaurant.  We got to look out of the windows, where one could see several states and the harbor.  We stood on the railings to look straight down on the city below.  After 9/11, I have wondered if anyone working there was killed some 21 years later.  I hope not.
 We left there and went up towards Broadway.  We went to a Theatre shop, and I got an order form for Broadway t-shirts.  After I got home, I ordered 3 shirts.  I still have them today, although one doesn't fit anymore.  The shirts were:  NYC Shakespeare Festival, Beatlemania, and I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road.
 Then, we went to dinner at Mama Leone's in the Theatre District.  It was a beautiful Italian restaurant complete with violins.  We had a 22-course meal over a 3-hour period.  Granted, most of the courses came in small bowls surrounded by the entrĂ©e, but they just kept bringing the food.  After it was over, I could barely walk.  If someone had a hand truck, I would have gladly had them wheel me back to our van.  Just as we were leaving the restaurant, some boys tried to rob us, but we told them we didn't have any money, and they left.  Instead, they just ran away knocking over garbage cans.
 We got back late to Philly from our NYC adventure.  Sleep was easy.  Getting up the next day wasn't so easy.  I hope the kids didn't mind so much.  The puppets were very sleepy, too.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Philly

 As stated in my previous story, the Singles from First Baptist went on a mission trip to Philadelphia in the summer of 1980 for a week.  We left on a Friday afternoon.  The weather report said there was a 20% chance of rain.  Just as we were getting ready to go, the skies opened and poured the 20% chance of rain.  Thankfully, we got most of the stuff loaded up before the storm.
 We drove all night and got to Washington DC the next morning.  We didn't have much time to sightsee, but we did see the Lincoln Memorial.  We headed onto Philadelphia and got there late Saturday afternoon.
 We stayed in an old church that was our home base.  Their electrical system was a little old.  If a girl wanted to dry her hair, she had to announce it, because two hair dryers could blow the circuit.  The guys slept in one classroom, and the girls in another.  One night, I woke up from sleep to go to the bathroom.  I walked into a fly strip hanging from the ceiling.  I got a face full of dead flies.  I waited until morning to go to the bathroom after that.
 One afternoon, two friends and I wanted to walk around the neighborhood.  We were near where they filmed "Rocky".  All of a sudden, we started hearing popping noises coming from behind us.  A guy in a car was shooting a gun toward pedestrians.  We ran to a bank.  I told the security guard that he needed to call the police.  His response to me was that sort of thing happens all the time.  Drive by shootings were common place?  We had dropped into another world.
 Of course, every tourist has to run up the steps at the art museum, just like Rocky did.  I had actually done the same thing years before, when I was in Philly in 1972, but this was different.  We were all Rocky.  The event really isn't all that hard.  It is a lot of steps, but they aren't steep.  Sorry if I burst anyone's bubble as to the accomplishment or lack thereof.
 Another free afternoon, I went into the downtown to go see a movie.  That night, we were going to a Phillies baseball game, and I had to be back at the church by 5:30.  The movie was over around 4, so I headed to the train station to get the train back to the church.  I noticed on the map that there was a red line and a blue line for trains.  I couldn't figure out which line I needed, so I asked a man on the platform which train I needed.  He told me the blue line.  I stood there on the platform waiting for the train, and wondering if he told me the truth, or was he just blowing me off.  I decided that it was really the red line I needed, so I got on that one.  As it took me out to North Philadelphia, my stop was approaching.  The train didn't stop and kept going.  I realized that the man was telling the truth, that I really did need the blue line.  I got off at the next stop and had to run back over a mile to the church, getting there just as they were leaving to go to the game.  I have a problem with trusting people.  We got to the game.  The Phillies were playing the Reds.  The Reds won 14-1.  It was one of the worst losses in Phillies's history.  That year they went on to win the World Series.
 On another free afternoon and evening, we went to Amish country.  They really know how to cook.  The food was great, but the people didn't want their picture taken by us.  One man got very mad and threatened us.  One of the cooks told us that carrot cake was an aphrodisiac.  I don't know if that is true or was she just trying to sell her cakes.
 Our last night there, we decided to do a talent show to amuse ourselves.  There was a record at the church of the greatest Motown hits.  A girl, a guy, and I got together to mime two Supremes songs--"Stop in the Name of Love" and "Love Child".  The girl played Diana Ross, and the guy and I were her backup "singers".  I worked out the choreography.  We won the show.
 As we left the next day, the kids found out when we were leaving.  They didn't want us to go.  We had made a lot of strong bonds with those children.  Some tried to get on our van to get us to take them to SC.  As we drove down the street, the kids ran after our van until they couldn't catch up with us.  I have often wondered what happened to those kids.  I hope they did okay.