Springfield-WKMJ

One of my boyhood chums in Springfield invited me over to his house one saturday afternoon. He lived on McArthur Blvd., a nice area with large homes. Mom dropped me off and soon we were up in his second story bedroom with a great view of the neighborhood out the back. Better yet, he said he had his own radio station. Oh, yeah, right. Well- against the two big windows was a desk with gauges, a turntable and two microphones. I asked where and how he broadcast. His dad helped him set up a PA system on steroids. For the rest of the day, we played records, interviewed each other and just plain goofed off over the air. He had a record library and a reel-to-reel tape player all inter-connected. How cool. I had to have one too.
Never thinking about neighborhood impact studies.


Well, a few weeks later, I had a plan and dad was on board. He helped out with just about any hair-brained idea I came up with. I think just to keep me busy and hope that someday it may lead into a career. He got a kick out of some of the kid creativeness. I think he chuckled himself to sleep on more than one occasion.

Anyhow, an old black and white TV, whose usefulness was well past, was my speaker. With proceeds from my paper route, I bought a fantastic black and aluminum microphone and stand. Dad helped wire the microphone, through the TV to a speaker in the window well in the back of the house. ( Now it all makes sense why he didn't have too many objections) The mic, as we in the industry call it, was on my desk in my basement bedroom. WKMJ was on the air. For a few weeks after the paper route, WKMJ took to the airwaves playing old 45's dating to the 1950's and more recent stuff, but those were pretty few. Interviews were pretty limited to commentary, mostly about things at school and other topics of riveting interest to the neighbors.

I never received notice from the FCC of competition and regulatory concerns. Nor any fan mail, but with a limited platform, I was running out of program ideas. So I guess, it was time for the final sign off and farewell broadcast on a Saturday afternoon. WKMJ is now a memory and a part of Springfield media history forever as those programs are still out there in space, somewhere.

Merle "DAD" Jensen

Sitting back and reading the stories of “Growing up Jensen” I smile, chuckle a little, and think of my dear “Father-in-Law”, Merle Jensen. There are no two families alike, just as there are no two people alike. As I entered this new family, as in my own family, the one constant, and confidant had been my Father, and so it was in Family Jensen. Both fathers were the stabilizing force in these worlds. It was interesting as the outsider to sit back and view through the picture window this world of Jensen. Eileen was, and still needs to be the center of attention; just her personality. Merle on the other hand was the wing beneath her wings. He supported her, balanced her sometimes unorthodox logic, and gave total unconditional love. Merle always took second stage, not only to his wife, but to his children and grandchildren as well. He could fix anything from wiring on a stove that mice had decided to make a home in while stored in the garage, installing fencing, planting a garden, and working on car transmissions. He was a listener, a study in observance and then action. Never failing to call a son or daughter late in the afternoon as his work was winding down, just to see how the week had been, to find out how those special “someone’s” in their lives were doing. Ready at a moments notice to help move one of his kids from apartment to apartment or new house, to drive to kingdom come on a whim to see the Mississippi River, go to church on a Sunday morning 2 hours away or drive to Minneapolis to do whatever the dear “Deighton Girls” needed. He could pack a car or truck and get more in than any professional mover could ever dream of, and drive cross country on 2 hours sleep.

Dad sat back at family gatherings and took simple pleasure in watching his children, now all adults, joke, laugh, play practical jokes and laugh some more. He possessed a wonderfully dry sense of humor, a jovial belly laugh when something struck his funny bone, always ready to make the next Mai Tai, or grab a beer from the fridge, he was the perfect host. A small town farm kid that went to college, had a long successful career with IBM, a self made man of many attributes, but the most endearing was the love of his children. He glowed in their success, because it was his as well. Dad was the balancing scales in Family Jensen, a gentle and loving patriarch who could dish out discipline fitting the crime, but was also the guiding light by which all four children flourished in his love and respect. He was practical, logical, funny, caring, full of mischief when the time came, and most of all loving.

If nothing else Dad was a constant, so much like my own Father. The day that I became a Jensen my own Father was in the hospital waiting until I “became a married lady” to have surgery. Merle had called me two days prior and volunteered in his own sweet and sensitive way to walk me down the aisle. I was so shocked and surprised by his thoughtfulness. My brother walked me down the aisle, but it was Merle John Carl Jensen that was the first to take a small town country girl in his arms on her wedding day, give her a hug and kiss and proclaim, now I have a third daughter. Yes, this was a man of many attributes, depth of soul and heart, of love for his family, a constant in all our lives; and a man who loved his children more than life itself.

SHS Cross Country and State Meet 1962

After my sophomore year in high school, I realized that distance running was what I did best and would be my fastest way to a varsity letter. In those days, earning a varsity letter was a major accomplishment as these were not given out as "paticipation" awards as so many things are today. This had to be earned at the varsity level and had strict requirements. So that summer of 1962, I trained very hard. I ran almost every day with my best buddy, John Prillaman, in Washington Park, Illini Country Club and Pasfield Park Golf Course. In spite of the hot, humid summer weather, we logged up to 50-60 miles each week. When the season started in September, we were ready. We had a great team. John was by far the best runner and maybe one of the best in the state as a junior. We had a couple of seniors, including Allen Ice, juniors which included Prillaman and myself and one or two sophomores. We were deep, and we cruised through the early dual meets. We stumbled a bit at the Peoria Invitational, but still finished high and were regarded as a possible state meet contender. We won our Big 12 conference meet and placed 1st or 2nd in the district meet to secure a team spot at state. This would be coach Cochran's first time to the state meet with a team, and he was excited. The meet would be at 10 am Saturday morning at Urbana Country Club.

We left Springfield in two cars, with John, Allen Ice and myself with coach Cochran in his station wagon. He didn't say too much, which told the rest of us how nervous he was. When we arrived in Champaign, he stopped at a traffic light which was green. John nudged me and winked, nodding toward the traffic light. When the light then turned red, coach proceeded to go through the red light. We cracked up laughing so hard....lucky there wasn't any cross traffic. We stayed at a small motel outside town (lest we be enticed by the nightlife of a college campus) and had an early dinner at the Redwoods Inn which was an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. In spite of a curfew, we horsed around till late at night with our own nervous energy.

When we arrived at Urbana Country Club the next morning, we all began to realize what a big deal this really was seeing all the other teams in their fancy sweats...New Trier, Evanston, Rockford East, Oak Park - schools three times the size of ours.  Coach told us about the course and emphasized that about 400 yards from the starting line we would have to go almost all the way around a green before heading nearly back the way we came. He said that if we didn't get around that green with the leaders that we would be strung out too far behind. So when the starting gun fired, all seven of us tore away like the hundred yard dash and we were all within the first 20 people around that green! Then we crashed! Lactate production sky-rocketed, legs became heavy and breathing labored. Prillaman still did reasonably well, but not as well as he might otherwise have done with a more controlled start, while Allen Ice and I finished 157 and 158 out of 164 runners....brutal!! Our senior year we returned to the state meet and did much better, and John received all state honors. To this day, I think cross country is one of the best sports for a kid - comraderie, shared pain and exhilarating finishes.

Springfield - Sports

Left: Lou displaying her swimming trophies
Middle: DJ running X-Country for SHS
Lower: KJ (third from front-"Squints" Jensen)
None of RJ: no evidence, no crime

Ah, I see we are jumping to Springfield..methinks to avoid any more embarrassing takes, but we will retreat down the road.

Well, where to begin, but SPORTS! All of us were involved in a number of sport teams in Springfield. Lou was a terrific swimmer and diver. DJ a decent to average swimmer, but magnificent distance runner ( see I told you fighting wasps had its plus side) and baseball, RJ continued as a swimming phenom and women's water polo star. Me, well, too short for the local popular sport, basketball. I ran track for the Jr. H.S team- distance, but my proud moments were in baseball. That brings me to our family sporting motto, " shake it off or you are gonna get IT." There it was again, the IT word. But, again, I digress.

One summer Friday evening Lou and I and some local kids were running around the house- probably playing tag. In sprinting over the concrete tiled patio, I slipped and fell on my right hand. My brain said a well-rehearsed line:"Shake it off...."

The next day, Saturday, my hand was throbbing, but hey, gotta ball game this evening . As I was considered in most circles a whining kid ( mostly due to losing rubber band and acorn fights), my complaints received a cool reception around the house. Think Randy in Christmas Story. He had me pegged.

That evening, my hand was swollen like a softball. At the game, noticing my injury, the manager decided to take me away from shortstop (I am left handed) and put me at first base where all I really had to do was catch the ball. What he forgot was that I was left handed and my right hand, yes, the injured one, was my glove hand. Well, a lot of guys got on base that first inning. Every hard throw to first hit my glove, ricocheted up my arm to my scalp, where hairs jumped wildly under my hat.
I was taken out of the game. Everyone thought it was a bad sprain, so "shake it off."

Monday morning, I strolled into class at Hay-Edwards sixth grade homeroom. We had to do something that required both hands, maybe move desks, but memory fades at this point as the pain to the scalp hit again. The teacher came over to take me out of the fetal position and realized how badly my hand was swollen. I was given a pass to the school nurse. She immediately could see it was a broken hand. Instead of the expected, "shake it off" and get back to class, it was go back to class, I am calling your mother to come pick you up and take you to a doctor. Well, we only really went to doctors or hospitals if we were in near death situations. Otherwise good old home remedies worked just fine.

For a long time mom and dad had a hard time talking about the incident, especially since now I was now wearing a cast on my right hand and half way up the arm.

I just told them to "shake it off."

Springfield: First Day at US Grant Jr High

If you asked 100 kids whether they wanted to move towns when they were in the 9th grade, probably 101 would say, "No way!"(there would be another kid sneaking in just to say "Hell no!"). At first, the thought of moving from Rockford to Springfield was typically nightmarish. However, upon further reflection, I came to realize that there could be a silver lining. In junior high, I was a dork...and a geek....(probably like most 8th graders feel) with loser friends, no girlfriend, and no immediate prospects for a girlfriend...and probably typecast as such. How bad could starting over really be?

So in September 1960, we moved to Springfield and bought a house in Pasfield Park, and I was enrolled at U.S. Grant Junior High in the 9th grade. I got a cooler haircut (flattop), cooler clothes (nice jeans, a nice belt and yellow cotton button-down sirt), and tried to act really cool as I entered US Grant on my first day. School had been in session for a month already, so the Assistant Principal showed me to my first period class - Social Studies - and I took a seat in the back row. The teacher did not introduce me or comment on the new kids arrival. I did have a textbook, but had no idea what page we were on, so I leaned over to the cute girl in the next seat, and very coolly asked what page we were on, when "Bam!" I was hit right in the temple with a piece of chalk. The teacher glared at me and said that there would be no talking in his class unless I was called upon. "Yes, sir" I answered....meekly and embarassed and very un-coolly. Welcome to Springfield, Illinois!

Popcorn: Incident One

In our house in the 1950’s mom, like most, did the grocery shopping about once a week. If packaged and processed food existed in the 50’s, it certainly did not exist in the Jensen household. Snacks consisted of apples, carrots or raisins. Getting hungry between meals and looking in the refrigerator for something good to eat was really an exercise in futility. Mom always told us that if you did not want carrots or raisins, you simply were not hungry. You were pretty sure you were hungry, but wise enough to know better than push mom to show you all the perfectly good food in the frig that you could be eating if you were truly hungry. Hence, popcorn, being inexpensive and sold in a large enough quantity to actually last in the house for any period of time, was the snack food of choice. Mom would make us popcorn as an after-school snack or we would have it on Sunday nights while watching The Wonderful World of Disney.

There was a definite art to the making of the popcorn. You had to use the popcorn pan for starters. This pan was really used for no other purpose. It was an old, beat up looking saucepan that I could never conceive of as being new. You had to add just a bit of oil or Crisco to the bottom of the pan along with the popcorn and wait for the oil to heat the corn and start the popping process. The key was that you had to shake the pan the entire time the corn was popping and remove the pan immediately from the hot burner once the popping stopped or you would burn it.

Well, one night mom and dad went out and left DJ and RJ in charge of KJ and me. Ken was probably about 7 at the time and I was around 4. KJ and I decided it would be okay to make some popcorn. We had seen it done and were sure we were entirely capable. Self-sufficiency over safety was our motto. Who knows where RJ and DJ were, obviously not watching us. Not able to reach the top of the stove, we had to push a chair over to stand on while we cooked. Ken was the cooker and shaker of the popcorn. I think I was the assistant, getting the bowl, etc. When the corn stopped popping and we knew it needed to come off the burner post haste we encountered our first problem. Where to put the hot pan? KJ took the pan off the burner and carefully got down off the chair and took the pan from the stove and placed it on the chair. These were our chrome kitchen chairs with a padded back and seat ~ very deco. Mom had just that day, or the day before, finished reupholstering them in a trendy pink vinyl embedded with what appeared to be flecks of silver glitter. We did not have a lot of new furniture in our house and mom prided herself on reupholstering what we had to make it look up to date.

Oh…the horror! KJ and I stared in shock at the seat of the chair upon lifting the pan. Where there was new pink vinyl there was now a seemingly gigantic hole with stuffing protruding and the now slightly blackish pink vinyl melted to the bottom of the pan. I think we immediately put the pan back over the gaping abyss hoping that we could somehow reverse the damage. This I believe was my first brush with pure panic. An entire eternity eclipsed waiting for mom and dad to get home. The waiting was really the worst part of any punishment. The phase of the Jensen house for such impending doom was, “boy, are you going to get it!” Even at my tender age, I knew that whatever “it” was, I certainly did not want it. KJ and I thought of trying to cover up or hide this disaster only to decide that throwing ourselves on the mercy of court was really the best option. I do not remember if we got punished, because as luck would have it, mom had some leftover vinyl and was able to redo the chair. A stroke of luck that saved us from the much dreaded “it”. I am not sure what I thought was going to happen to us as we were never punished with any severity, but I learned about the power of fear. This is only one popcorn incident of many. Stay tuned.

Rockford - Wasps vs. Kids

Left: Wasp and hornets nests next to driveway further to the left on the sloping hill just behind wall along sidewalk.

Some kids burn critters with magnifying glasses, but the Jensen kids and a few ad hoc friends every summer would pit kid guts, hoses and brooms against an angry nest of hornets and wasps in a small hole next to the driveway and the sidewalk. The front of the house looked like the fire department had just arrived. Hoses, like anti-aircraft guns, caught targets coming out, going in and airborne. Bringing them down, they would be immediately swatted and killed- or we hoped, but not always the case. It just made a few even madder.

Great fun and certainly is the reason the Jensen kids had the best hand-eye coordination in the neighborhood. Also, another reason we could really run FAST.

Left: Running, but disclaimers abound on many levels with this picture.