Rockford- Salesmanship -To The Victors, The Spoils!!!

In a February blog on Salesmanship, I relayed my experiences in the newspaper business by working, selling and winning a trip to Puerto Rico with 50 other newsboys in 1959. Imagine, 50 kids ages 9-13, in Puerto Rico, no sunscreen, for a week. The best part was that the hotel was across the street from the ballpark and an old fort next door. It was built in a triangle, so everyone could scream and what few other guests were there, could listen to the echo of 50 kids across the whole lobby-maybe even the street.

Well, the last day was a sun and fun day on the beach. We burned RAW!!! No not the first degree stuff, but RAW! I relate to desert movies of guys walking with blisters so big they look like warts. That was us. Since we returned to Chicago in January, we had heavy coats and, of course, sports jackets. World travelers, like us, had to dress the part- even though everyone did it back then. The next two weeks were pretty rough, but Lou gladly spent her idle time peeling skin in strips off my back. At first it feels good and the itchiness goes away, but as it dries, oh, SHIT!

Word spread around school and everywhere that I was back with a truckload of slides of the trip. Everyone wanted to see them. I made the tour at church, neighbors were invited over and the travelogue became a phenom. Even after moving to Springfield, the teachers at Hay-Edwards asked me to show the slides to the class. Well, it was strange that teachers would stop the show and ask me to start over as other teachers were invited in to see my slides then leave after a short period of time "

to get back to their class". My head was huge. I was a star and recognized by all of the teachers for my travel experiences.

Left: Only years later as I cruised through the slides of El Morro fortress did I really find the "true reason for my rock star sensation?"

Kid Forts

The other day, I passed some kids in the neighborhood with a play fort. Plastic, solid, impurvious to rubber bands and cost a pretty penny. Well, technological leaps of this dimension were unheard of when we were kids.

Our forts were makeshift. They were a cross between a bedoiun camp and laundry rack. Simply:

1. Place a certain number of chairs in a circle or square
2. Throw a blanket or sheet over it
3. Find rocks from the garden wall to hold down the edges ( be sure to leave room for an opening or you just wasted good play time and
4. Voila.... a fort.
5. For enhancing appeal and reducing bug bites, add a rug and a few magazines to justify spending time in a hot tent.

Even better was laundry day when the sheet were already on the line. Simply take the middle of the sheet and place it along the laundry line and go to step 3 and 4. This was the most expedient, but not popular with management.

Lincoln Jr High Swim Team

In those days, junior high in Rockford was grades 7-9. When I was still in 6th grade at Highland Elementary, I envied Ron when he joined the swim team at Lincoln Jr High and came home to dinner with bloodshot eyes and smelling of chlorine. Oddly enough, I never really inquired much about what he did there. I think in the back of my mind, knowing Ron, that it must have been some sort of water ballet or choreographed swimming. So next fall, I too signed up for the swim team. My friends were curious why I would go out for swimming when I was not a very good swimmer. Certainly a very reasonable question,...... but I was 12 or 13 and quite stupid.

I was a bit anxious going to the first practice with my pink nose clip and blue nylon suit. Our school had a small 20 yard pool with only 4 lanes. There must have been 50 people out for the team and Coach Stringer (EARL STRINGER: emblazoned in my memory) didn’t believe in cutting anybody…it was a little like natural selection…..the weak and infirm just drowned (or wished they did). After a brief introduction, he said “Everybody in the pool for a warm up circle swim.” I don’t think I swam more than 50 yards without stopping in my life, but suddenly I was in the cold water, dog-paddling, while the entire team of excellent swimmers swam over me, pushing me under. I grasped for the gutter, coughing water, when I could hear Coach Stringer yelling, “Keep swimming! No stopping!” To keep us all motivated, he had this 10 foot long metal pole with a rubber ball at the end that he would use to whack you if he thought you were loafing. What did I get myself into? Who was this sadist? And what’s he doing torturing children? For 10 minutes which seemed like an eternity, I tried to keep my head above water and at least look like I was moving. The next 2 hours are a blur in my memory – fear, anxiety, panic, exhaustion – I know how soldiers must feel landing on an enemy beachhead. All this time, I could also see Ron out of the corner of my eye, swimming with the elite and moving gracefully through the water. The stark contrast was humiliating.

I probably should have quit and taken up knitting or canasta, but in the Jensen household there was no such thing as quitting. So every day, as I sat in class and 3:30 approached, I would be overcome by this enormous sense of dread….a feeling of utter hopelessness and panic. And for three months, it never got any better….but I did become a better swimmer. That summer, every time we went to Lake Geneva, I practiced. The next year, I actually swam backstroke in a JV meet and finished 3rd out of 4 in my race (not last), and had a kickass flip turn! By 9th grade, although I wasn’t an elite swimmer, I also wasn’t a total embarrassment. To this day, I credit Coach Stringer with instilling in me a sense of hatred…scratch that…”anything’s possible.”

Please, don't let it be mice...............

The summer of 1969 -during my college years, I worked the ramp at O'Hare Airport, Chicago, for North Central Airlines. A small, but highly profitable carrier covering Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakota territories and Colorado. A regional carrier. Back in those days, our standard plane was a Convair 580, but we recently introduced DC-9's on our non-stop flights and exotic destinations in our route system like Duluth and Detroit.

Enough about equipment. I was a "ramp rat", meaning one day I would work the bag room and the next unload and load flights. Actually, I was pretty good at both and I loved airlines, so the 3:00PM to 11:30 PM during WEEKDAYS was OK by me.

Our flights handled a lot of stuff including caskets of Viet Nam soldiers to Bob Hope! Yes, I got his autograph and a few moments of his time while a Convair was revving it's engines. I am sure to this day that he remembered me.

We served MADISON, WISCONSIN. Well today, it is all about what goes on in their capitol, but back then it was what went on in their university. We carried lab mice to other colleges around the US. Well, on one shift, around 8:30 PM, I unloaded a flight from Madison. The mice had eaten through their cardboard cartons and were "living large" in the hold of the plane until I opened the door. For once, I felt fear and religious rejuvenation at the same time-like Moses. Once daylight sprung on those critters, they bailed for freedom. They ran right over me, my face, down my leg and flew over the guy next to me. American Airlines, alert, they are headed your way..

Well, since then, I have not had a great respect for these creatures. A recent life experience rehashed this past life changing situation and I think I am a better man by it. Kill em all!

Baseball in our Blood!!!

The Jensen "Boys of Summer" loved baseball. We collected baseball cards, played on various teams throughout our formative years and spent endless hours listening to the Chicago White Sox or Milwaukee Braves games on the radio. Editors note: TV did not carry baseball in those days. We had one channel, anyhow, and lucky to see anything through the snow. So wrapped up in baseball that one, only one of the brothers, created home and away uniforms from a set of blue pin stripe and red pin stripe pajamas with appropriate crayon color for numerals and team name across the chest. White socks with some type of striping added to the overall mystique as the PJ legs were tucked into the socks to give the target sock look. Downright authentic... and multi-functional.

The "heaven on earth" moments came when dad said we could pick out a game and he would take us all to a game. Mental gymnastics were at peak performance as we poured over the schedules and dates. Home game, afternoon game, any special events were all part of the planning process. It was either a Chicago White Sox road trip to the old and mystical Comiskey Park or the Braves at Milwaukee County Stadium near Lake Michigan in Milwaukee. The week ahead was total excitement as we projected lineups, batting order and analyzed stats of the players on the visiting team. On the night before, no one could sleep, because we had to get up early and hit the road! It was always a couple of hours or more just to get to the stadium. Then we had to arrive super early to pounce on unsuspecting players walking to the locker room to get autographs. Better be sure to call out the right name or everyone would look at you as subhuman.

Time for the gates to open, we would position at the right gate and take in the souvenir shops, food stalls and the dimly lit areas in the guts of the stadium. Then as we passed into the tunnel, bright sunshine and the greenest green I have ever seen meets you head on. Players in bright white and others in gray were spectacular contrasts in color and motion. The sounds of the dull roar of the fans and the crack of batting practice hits are embedded forever in my memory.

The games were exciting and we were rivetted to each play and inning. Mid way through the game, dad would give us money and we would hustle to the souvenir stand and buy team pictures, bat shaped pens and team pennants. These were treasured items and many of us still hold these in safekeeping today. Hey, we may have lost the house or car keys or family members on occasion over the years, but not our team pictures!!!

No one remembers much of the ride home. Exhausted and emotionally drained, we fell asleep with thoughts of the magic we had just witnessed. Tales to be told for weeks to jealous friends and bored neighbors.

Pets- But Mostly Dogs

Growing up in the Jensen household had one prerequisite, you had to love dogs. Oh, sure, we had the occasional parakeet, goldfish and turtle, but our lifelong companions were the dogs.

My earliest recollections were our cockers, Nickel and Penny. Always affectionate to everyone, even to the two human rug rats (Ken and Lou). When we moved to Rockford, we had a cocker collie. We had expected it to be small like Penny and Nickel, so dad "bobbed" the tail. Well, it didn't. It took on the size of the collie side of its family. To make matters worse, we chose the name, "Knucklehead." Well, you can imagine calling the dog to come home when strangers are walking up the sidewalk. More than one person may have been affronted, but heck, we were simply calling our dog- clueless of the negative mental impact on strangers. "Knuck" was lovable and was RJ's sidekick for years. He lived to forgive us for his lack of a tail.

Then we had Chang Wong, a Pekingese. Mom grew up with pekes and this was a natural. Over the years, we have had a number of these gentle creatures with long flowing locks that seemed to make everything in the house appear to be mohair. I don't know how mom came up with all of the names, but suffice it to say, my theory is she took names off of Chinese restaurant menus. I am still waiting for Moo Goo Gai Pan.

The real center of our dog world were our German Shephards. Rontu ( actually a Belgian Shepard RJ bought)was the first and most notorious. He could open doors, frequented neighborhood bar-b-ques, eat a dozen eggs out of the box and close it. If mom didn't hustle up, Rontu and Changy would take it upon themselves to hoof it two miles into town to meet dad at the train station. "Toozer" and dad were inseparable. With RJ in the Navy, Toozer Bud and dad would take their walks and share special times together. When dad repaired an Oldsmobile convertible, it was Toozer in the co pilots seat on one of the first test drives.

Years forward, great dogs have joined this family and we looked at them as an integral part. They will never be forgotten because they brought much love, joy, pleasure, friendship and laughs to a growing family.