My Radio Career: Hello, Spencer Iowa!

I was the News Director at two radio stations in Northwestern Iowa for several years.

I have pleasant memories of my time spent there.  When I worked at KICD AM in Spencer, we broadcast live from the Clay County Fair every year, in the same building as the large, intricate model train display.  I was introduced to my first taste of corn cob jelly while broadcasting at the Clay County Fair.

At KIWA AM in Sheldon I enjoyed the last vestiges of a harmless payola; radio employees got a free pass into the movie theater next door.  (To set the record straight, I always paid for my own popcorn.)  I loved to drive down to the Loess Hills, stopping on the way to snap pictures of weary old barns, frozen in mid-collapse, on deserted farmsteads.

And people in that region put a slice of dill pickle in their beer bottles, which I’m still trying to figure out.

One thing I did NOT enjoy about my News Director position in Northwestern Iowa was pronouncing the names of the dead.  A small market radio station, such as the ones I worked at, derives a steady chunk of income from the broadcast of funeral announcements. Each funeral parlor in the home county of the radio station faxes over the announcement, as it is to appear in the local newspaper; it is then the News Director’s job to edit the information for inclusion in the next broadcast.  It is normally done three times a day; on the 8am newscast, the noon newscast, and the 6pm recap of the day’s news.  There are days when the funeral announcements run longer than the local news does – especially during the long, cold winter, when pneumonia settles in as an uninvited guest at all the local nursing homes.  Before coming to Iowa I had done radio news in North Dakota and Minnesota, so I thought I was prepared to do the obituary announcements – but I wasn’t.  Not with those tricky, pretzel-like Dutch names!

In the early 1900’s, according to the local history books, several thousand families, all members of the Dutch Reformed Church, came to settle in Clay and O’Brien counties in Iowa.  They not only brought their rigorous religion with them, but they brought some pretty darn challenging surnames, too!  I was used to dealing with Scandinavian tongue-twisters like Stuhlsted and Thingvold -- but Gontjes, Vander Ploeg, and Imwiehe left me flabbergasted.  My hubris initially did not allow me to ask for help in pronouncing these alphabetically-challenged surnames (after all, I was a graduate of the prestigious Brown College of Broadcasting up in Minneapolis, Minnesota!)  But after the first dozen irate phone calls from the next of kin, demanding to know why I was making fun of the deceased, I humbly began seeking help.  The office secretary was usually a local gal, so she often knew how to pronounce the names.  But even she would get stumped once in a while, glancing at the name on the glossy fax sheet and shaking her flaxen mane in bewilderment.  Then I would have to call the funeral home to see if they knew how to pronounce it.  Sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn’t.  If they didn’t there was nothing for it but to track down the pastor or priest who was to give the eulogy and ask them, for heaven’s sake, how do you pronounce “Baughfman”?

Then there was the great Kneen controversy.  This was a large, spread-out, long-established family, so members were going to meet their maker on a regular basis.  The problem was that some of the family pronounced the name “Keen”, and some of them pronounced it “Kaneen”.  Inevitably, if I said “Keen” on the air, it was supposed to be “Kaneen”, and vice versa.  And in what kind of world does a man go around with the last name of Caauwe?  I honestly and sincerely wanted to get the names right, since this would probably be the last time they would be pronounced in full, besides at the funeral, this side of eternity.  Every human being deserves at least that much respect.

I’m happy to say that as time went by I picked up a smattering of knowledge on Dutch surnames – I even took the trouble to look up the use and pronunciation of tussenvoegsels at the local library in Sheldon (and if you want to know what that is you can go look it up yourself!)  And so my frantic calls to the funeral home became fewer and fewer, and my flubs became fewer and fewer.  But then, one fatal day, I read the obituary of a person with the last name of Snuttjer (it’s pronounced “Snooter”).  I pronounced it correctly, but it struck me as just plain funny.  I came down with an attack of the giggles on the air.  After that I had to be careful, to think really sad thoughts as I read the names of the departed, so I would not desecrate them with a belly laugh.  I met my Waterloo when I had to do the sports one day.  I scanned the script hastily before going on the air, too hastily – since halfway through I read the following:  “The Red Raiders at Northwestern University in Orange City have made two selections so far; Donkersloot and Boogert . . . “

The Program Director rushed in to finish the broadcast for me, as I slid helplessly to the floor, choking on my stifled guffaws.

They Breed 'em Big in Texas

The unpredictable weather patterns stimulated by climate change affect infectious diseases, as well as chronic ones. Warmer weather encourages food-borne organisms like salmonella to multiply more rapidly, and warmer seas foster the growth of bacteria like Vibrio that make oysters unsafe to eat. Spikes in heat and humidity have less visible effects, too, changing the numbers and distribution of the insect intermediaries that carry diseases to people.
from the NYTimes 

They breed ‘em big in Texas, those mosquitoes that compel

The folks there to wear Kevlar all the skeeter bites to quell.

But just when things got quiet and the skeeters were subdued

That global warming devil came along to see them screwed.

It didn’t freeze all winter and the rains came early, too --

And now the skeeters zoom about like it was World War Two!

They pass along diseases with a generous disdain

Of all the woe they’re giving and the unremitting pain.

Now Texas is the tropics -- I guess yellow jack will spread

And who needs all those oil wells when the populace is dead?

'Devil's Night' at the Circus

There are two holidays that the smaller shows never book. Mother’s Day and Halloween.

On Mother’s Day families take their mothers and grandmothers out to a nice Sunday dinner -- nobody in their right mind wants to celebrate the day under the big top. Even the mighty Ringling Brothers show, at least when I was on it as a clown forty five years ago, lost money on Mother’s Day. The seats were so empty that tumbleweeds blew through them during intermission. Smaller shows, all the mud shows and Shrine shows that I played spanning a thirty year period, took the day off and didn’t worry about setting up the tent. It was a nice change of pace from the normal frantic tear down, drive like a maniac, and set up before the sun rises routine. The cook tent would make a special meal for dinner -- sometimes lamb, sometimes turkey -- which was also a wonderful change from the usual beans, tortillas, and greasy carne asada that kept the Hispanic roustabouts content.

Halloween was a zebra of a different stripe. It was not only unprofitable to play on that last day of October, but it was downright dangerous.

The reason goes back to the 1980’s in Detroit, when the destructive tradition of Devil’s Night began in the rundown neighborhoods and slums of the crumbling Motor City. Mobs of unemployed and psychotic people roamed the streets Halloween night, torching abandoned houses and factories. Any innocent trick and treater caught out by the mob that night was in for a very rough time -- sometimes lethal. This nasty tradition spread throughout the Rust Belt in the next few years, and then became a general malaise in the Midwest. It is still a terroristic tradition in some of the more backward areas of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and southern Illinois. But you never find it mentioned in brochures from their Chamber of Commerce.

Fifteen years ago, when I was the ringmaster on Carson & Barnes, the management decided to buck the tradition of no shows on Halloween. We were in the deep south of Illinois and the weather was holding up fine -- beautiful Indian Summer days of warm hazy sun and crisp refreshing nights. Most of the show was Hispanic or Russian, and playing on Halloween meant nothing to them one way or the other. It was just another day, like any other day. But to the few Americans on the show who knew the pulse of the Midwest, it didn’t seem like a good idea.   

The Halloween matinee was meager. Most of the candy butchers didn’t bother to go out to sell their wares, since there was pretty much nobody out there to sell to. I did the Peanut Pitch to one of the most lethargic group of goitrous yahoos I’d ever seen. We sold exactly two bags.

But the evening show was packed -- and it was an ugly crowd. No children, just teenagers and young adults, who were obviously drinking hard and spoiling for a fight. Their costumes were not pretty and cute, they were brutal and monstrous. Creepy fanged clowns predominated.

Gary Byrd, one of the owners of the show, came up to me just before opening to say “I don’t like the look of these people. The minute any sumbitch starts trouble I want you to blow the whistle and close the show!”

“Yessir!” I replied.

He strode off and his wife, Barbara, came up to me a few seconds later to say: “I know these people look to be trouble, but they’re buying concessions like there’s no tomorrow. No matter what, don’t you whistle down the show -- you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am!” I replied.

Now I was in a pickle. Gary was known to deliver a stout roundhouse punch to any employee who disobeyed him -- but Barbara was the one who handed out my salary each Sunday. I decided to take my chances with Gary. Not out of bravery -- but out of greed.

There was trouble not long after the show got underway. After the first clown act, Pepito, the head clown, came to me to say they were not going to do the rest of the show -- the hente maldito were slinging pennies at them from slingshots. He showed me a cut right above his left eye.

“They blind me, those bastardos!” he screamed in my face. I told him to calm down and go talk to the Byrds about it. “No show!” he spat in my face and strode away.

All five clowns took off their makeup, despite Gary Byrd’s resonant threats. But they didn’t just leave the tent. They saw how good concession sales were going, so they borrowed some white jackets and striped caps and went out hawking hot dogs and Coke and making a killing.

During the lion act someone set fire to a hay bale under the bleachers, but since the roustabouts put it out quickly while the big cats were jumping through their smoky flaming hoops the crowd didn’t catch on -- they thought all the extra fug was just part of the act.

During my Peanut Pitch that night some reveler sent a penny speeding into my forehead, leaving a flap of skin that bleed like hell. Barbara Byrd patched it up and passed me a hundred dollar bill while hissing “Keep going -- we’re almost sold out of everything and then we can kick these hillbillies all out!”

“Yes ma’am” I said woozily, my head ringing with an incipient migraine. To this day I still carry a slight scar on my forehead from that episode.

As the highwire act got ready to go one I spotted a furtive group of kids trying to set fire to the sidewall of the tent. I quickly pointed them out to Rudy, the roustabout hefe -- he got a group over to the pyromaniacs pronto and had them frogmarched outside, where they were gently massaged with an assortment of hand tools.

We didn’t let either the elephants or the trapeze act go on that Halloween night. The elephants might have been spooked into stampeding and too many drunks were hanging around the rigging trying to untie it -- the flyers could have come plummeting down on a loose guy wire.

Barbara finally gave me the high sign to end the show, so I blew the show down and gave the audience the most insincere thank you for their attendance in the annals of show biz. The Midway rides and concessions didn’t bother to stay open for the aftershow crowd -- they were afraid they’d be robbed and their stands smashed. So there were no elephant or pony rides, and the petting zoo was securely locked up as the crowd staggered out of the tent and back to their cars. The local cops had finally shown up, strengthened with a spate of State Troopers, so we thought there’d be no more trouble.

But during the night someone, or something, got into the pony stable and ripped open one of the animal’s throats. The poor thing was found bled to death early the next morning.

That was the only Halloween I ever worked on a small circus. And believe you me, if another show had proposed the same thing I would have gladly quit rather than go through that kind of Grand Guignol deviltry again!

The Name

“And whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day.”

Taking on the name of Christ is done not with a label

On your coat or shirt or blouse, or placemats at the table.

No uniform or special hat; no haircut that’s distinct

Can mark a person as with Jesus Christ securely linked.

Lugging scriptures all around and quoting prophets past

Doesn’t make me instantly His partisan steadfast.

Outward signs of fealty are billboards, nothing more --

Only tender heart and mind can prove who I adore.

Restaurant Review: The Smoking Apple, in Lindon Utah

I needed to go to Lindon, to the Map Store, to complete my wall map collection -- Mexico and Minnesota. I've already got Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Thailand, up on my apartment walls -- with the addition of Minnesota and Mexico I have now completed my personal geography. Except for North Dakota -- where I lived a total of six years. But that map can wait a long, long time . . .

Daughter Sarah drove me up to Lindon, with grand kids Brooke and Lance kibitzing in the back seat. In return I took them all to lunch at the Smoking Apple on State Street in Lindon. It's barbecue and sides the way it's supposed to be done -- rib sticking and generous.

Sarah had the rib platter. I had the two meat platter (brisket and Cajun sausage.) The kids had chicken nuggets and mac & cheese. The sweet potato fries are dipped in white sugar after they've been fried, which made them taste better to me. But Sarah shares the prejudices of all younger people who believe sugar is a gateway drug to heroin. The kids loved their meals; Sarah enjoyed her ribs; and I gobbled down as much of mine as I could without bursting my gizzard.

The whole shebang, with fountain drinks, came to $32.00. And I took home enough in my doggie bag to make a toothsome dinner tonight or possibly a decadent brunch tomorrow morning. I'm giving this place 4 juicy burps. If you need a carnivorous injection stat, this is the place to go and riot in red meat.

The staff is quick and friendly, and even the restroom knew my nickname --

My Byline

I’ve done a lot of writing, and my byline never varies

As I travel round the world (via good libraries.)

My legs ain’t what they used to be, and I no long drive,

And so my journeys all take place inside my mental hive.

I buzz around the Bering Sea or tramp the Kalahari --

Writing bits and pieces without being very chary.

I haven’t any money for an airplane or a cruise,

And thus must stay at home and type according to my muse.

But that’s okay because I feel that I am a headliner --

Filing all my stories from my La-Z-Boy recliner . . .

Get me to the circus on time!

As I was investigating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints during rehearsals of the Ringling Bros Circus Blue Unit in 1971, I felt an intense desire to attend one of their Sunday meetings.  But we had full-day rehearsals on Sunday, so I was never able to attend services up in Sarasota, Florida.

After I was baptized, Tim Holst and I, as the only two Mormons on the show at that time, made a pact with each other that we would faithfully attend morning services each Sunday, no matter where we were or how tired we felt.

And we felt mighty tired after three shows on a Saturday; we never seemed to get to bed before one or two in the morning.  And Sunday was usually move out night, when we had to pack everything up so it could be put on the train for the next town.  Holst also helped roll up the two miles of green rubber matting for an extra $25.00 per week.

  Services generally started at seven in the morning on Sunday.  So the routine was either I would be banging at Bear’s door at 6am or he would be banging on my door at 6am, so we could get shaved, find some breakfast, and either call the local Mormon chapel to see if we could get a ride, or call a taxi to take us to services.

I remember in Baltimore, Maryland, we couldn’t raise anyone at the local chapel and we were too broke to afford a taxi.  I was all for giving up and going back to bed, but Bear (Tim Holst’s affectionate nickname in clown alley) insisted we board a local bus and see if it took us near the chapel.  The surly bus driver was of no help, so we sat, the only two on the bus, scanning each side of the street for the familiar LDS chapel outline.  Miraculously, we DID pass right by the chapel, and got off the bus just in time to attend Sacrament Meeting.  Afterwards I asked Bear if he had had a ‘revelation’ about taking the bus.  He thought a moment and then replied that no, not a revelation, but rather just a feeling that the chapel would be on a major bus line and if we just took the bus we stood a fair chance of finding it.  He was always that way – pragmatic and unemotional; he thought that if he could figure out a sensible plan, it stood a fair chance of working.  That’s why he never felt completely comfortable in clown alley.  The majority of clowns, like me, didn’t believe in a structured, sane universe; we felt in our bones that total chaos was only a stone’s throw away, and acted accordingly.  I guess that’s why Bear went up the corporate ladder so easily at Ringling.  He had a serene sense of the basic rightness of things, while I stayed a clown, which is the only thing I ever wanted, because I believed that there was very little to plan for beyond the next pie in the face.

Once we got to church it was no problem getting a ride back to the show in time to get made up for come in.  There was always an LDS family delighted to drive us right up to the back door of the arena, where Charlie Baumann would inevitably be waiting for us.  How he hungered to see us late, so he could fine us!  He did not approve of clowns going to church, and I suspect he had already guessed that Bear had his sights on Charlie’s job as Performance Director.  We got the better of him each week, and he would glance at his watch, then glare at us balefully while intoning:  “Okay, funnymen, be funny.”

The only time we came close to being late was up in Montreal, Canada.  We were there late in the fall.  Too late, as it turned out.  That icy Sunday morning Bear and I managed to get a ride to church from a local member who only spoke French.  Services were in French.  I started to get worried while the service was going on, because huge snowflakes were coming down thick and fast outside the chapel window.  By the time our new French friend was ready to take us to the arena there was a full-blown blizzard going on.  Being a true Quebecois, this did not bother our driver.  He got us back to the building in time for the matinee.

But no one else was at the arena!  The show bus, and all private transportation at the circus train, was snowed in.  But the Quebecois audience showed up on time for the matinee, which meant that Bear and I had to slap on our makeup and do an hour-long come in, playing for time until some of the other clowns and cast could dig out and get to the arena.  We must have done Bigger and Bigger, and the Broom Jump, about twenty times.  Plus I got to try out my musical saw for the first time.

The show finally got started about an hour late.

By hook or by crook Tim Holst and I managed to make it to church every Sunday that season.  It’s a record I still look back on with pride, and amazement. 

The very last day of that season, as the clowns were shaking hands with each other after the last show, Swede Johnson, one of the oldest clowns, sidled up to me with a wad of bills in his hand that would choke a goat.  With a lopsided grin the old reprobate explained to me that at the beginning of that season the word had gone out that two First of Mays (Holst and I) had decided to go to church every Sunday, without fail.  No one believed we’d do it, except Swede.  So he started a betting pool, with odds three to one against us, and began taking in money.  We had been watched with keen interest every Sunday that season, to see if we would sluff off.

Since we never did, Swede had collected a handsome bundle of mazooma.  In gratitude, Swede had already offered Tim Holst a slice of the winnings, but Bear had imperiously told him to take his filthy lucre and begone; he had not struggled all season just to satisfy some lurid betting instinct.  Swede had then come to me, offering me a sheaf of greenbacks as a way to say thanks for the killing he had made off of our piety. 

I glared at Swede; did he think I would stoop to taking his tainted cash, which looked to be about three-hundred bucks . . . ?

You bet I would!

Restaurant Review: Street Tacos!

At the corner of 100 North and 500 West in downtown Provo is a food truck serving street tacos. Only beef. No chicken and no pork. But you get a wide variety of cuts from the cow: there's tongue, head cheese, tripe, heart, liver, calf's foot gelatin, and something called 'underbelly.' I had a regular beef soft taco, a tongue taco, and a head cheese taco. The head cheese was superlative; soft and flavorful. The tongue was good, too -- not tough or stringy. And the regular beef was okay. They just give it to you in small chunks, laying naked in the soft shell taco. I'm too much of a gringo, I guess -- I expect my tacos to be gussied up with lettuce and sauces. The three tacos set me back $5.75, and I was very full when I finished.

They have a wide variety of condiments to put on your tacos. There is no seating -- it is strictly take-away, or eat crouching at the curb (which about a half dozen customers were doing while I got my order.)  Good luck if you want to take some condiments away with you -- the damn plastic lids don't fit the damn plastic cups. I crushed a half dozen cups vainly trying to get them to seal.

The truck is clean and the two guys running it are wide-awake fellows. I give this place my maximum rating -- four burps. I can see myself strolling over on a hot summer day when I don't want to mess in the kitchen for a couple of beef tacos -- it's good value for money. I think I overdid it with 3 tacos. Two tacos will be plenty from now on.

arizona clown antics

Ah, Arizona at last, and the long, wet, cold spring, was behind us!  The Ringling Blue Unit had at last left the gray smog of the East behind and was in the West – where a man’s a man, and a clown’s a moocher, at least when the a/c goes out on the Iron Lung in the middle of a July heat wave in Phoenix, Arizona.  We baked at night like Idaho spuds, waking in the morning drowning in our own perspiration.  The plexiglass windows in our roomettes were sealed so they could not be opened.  We asked the train master when the air conditioning would be fixed; he merely glanced off into the middle distance and began whistling “Oh Danny Boy” while he wandered away.  We tried sleeping outside the train in cheap little Army surplus tents, only to be deafened and nearly flattened by the rushing freight trains that zipped by on nearby tracks all night.  We tried sleeping at the arena, only to be kicked out by persnickety ushers.

We never thought to ask the management to pay for motel rooms until the a/c was fixed; we had been trained and broken in; we knew our place, and knew not to ask for any favors that involved money – the answer was always to “Take it to AGVA”, our union.  They never replied to our questions or requests; we might as well have been in Outer Mongolia for all the union cared.

So some desperate, slightly questionable, action was called for.

Across from the arena was an oasis, a motel with a large kidney-shaped pool, and neon signs advertising air conditioning that mimicked, if it didn’t exceed, conditions in the Arctic.  Their rates were also on the neon sign, and they were beyond our meager resources.  Unless . . .

I forget who had the original brainstorm, but it sounded pretty good under that broiling Arizona sun.  Bear, as the oldest, most respectable-looking of us, would saunter into the motel lobby and reserve a room for the rest of the week, a room for one.  Five of us went in on the payment; me, Roofus T. Goofus, Chico, Rubberneck, and Anchorface. It amounted to just a few dollars apiece.  Each night, after Bear had gotten the key from the night clerk and gone upstairs, each one of us, one by one, would sneak past the distracted clerk, who was engrossed in studying necromancy or something from a big, thick textbook and paid no attention to anything that did not walk up and ring the bell.  We then would make ourselves comfortable either on the bed or on the couch or the floor, and wallow in the frigid breezes from the a/c. 

The first two nights, all went well; we tiptoed past the clerk, who never stirred from his seat and book.  We could have snuck an elephant upstairs without his knowledge.  Our second floor room looked out  over the pool.  We were discrete in leaving in the morning, of course, and always went out the back way, through the kitchen, where the vigilant day clerk could scarcely catch a glimpse of us.

But I made the mistake of boasting about our little escapade to Stanley and Lester Janus, twin brothers, midgets, and notable cheapskates.  Even though their train car still had functioning air conditioning, the little pishers couldn’t resist the thought of staying basically for free in a nice motel room right by the arena, so they blackmailed us; either we let them in to sleep at night or they would blow the whistle.  The Janus brothers could not keep their big traps shut, and so we soon had a slew of other clowns clamoring to be let in to our Antarctic retreat.  We finally stood firm at an even dozen for the night.

The consequences, as you may guess, were not happy.  That very night, after everyone was safely in the room and the a/c was cranked up to Ice Age, a few of the more rambunctious clowns wanted to have a little party, put on some music, drink some beer, howl at the moon.  Our original chaste intention to use the room as a demure sanctuary from the heat and humidity of Arizona went out the window, along with several pillows and an ashtray.  Thundering up the stairs came the night clerk.  He knocked on our door, demanding to know what all the hubbub was, when there was only supposed to be a single, solitary human being in the room!  We were all dressed in pajamas, or briefs, and so could not very well explain our presence as a social visit.  Roofus T. Goofus panicked.  He opened the sliding glass door out onto the balcony and took a heroic leap over the side, clutching all his clothes, to land safely in the pool.  Several more clowns followed suit, until it must have appeared to the residents on the first floor that it was raining bodies.  (Stanley and Lester wisely hid in the closet – when the excitement was over, they snuck out without a word to anyone.) When Bear was all alone in the room he opened up to the furious night clerk, who had been pulverizing his knuckles on the door for ten minutes.  Although threatened with arrest, Bear stuck to his guns, insisting that he was the only one to be sleeping in the room that night, so the night clerk allowed him to stay, but he’d have to leave the first thing in the morning.

The rest of us, sopping wet, trudged back to the circus train, a good two miles away, and bedded down in our sauna for the rest of the night. 

The air conditioning stayed broken until we residents of the ‘Iron Lung’ realized that some baksheesh was expected by the train master to fix the problem.  We each kicked in five bucks, and lo and behold the next day the Iron Lung was as cool as iced tea.

And, as far as I can recall, I have never had to jump out of a second story window again.

Who Does God Help?

These hand-lettered signs are plastered all over the two blocks between the Provo Rec Center and the Provo Public Library.

They are recent, not having been there last Friday when I walked through the area. My question to the person or persons who taped these up to lamp posts and on trees is "What if you're poor yourself?" Seems kinda self evident to me.

The rich, of course, are always helping themselves to the best of everything -- or so I've heard. Since I'm one of the bona fide poor, and have been from the day I was born and paid for on the installment plan, I have no actual knowledge of how rich people act. And to me, anyone who owns their own house and drives their own car and has health insurance and life insurance and works a full-time job is RICH. Maybe they also have mountains of debt that is weighing them down, but so what? They can cash in and flee to Thailand, which has no extradition treaty with the USA, and live even more like kings -- since a plate of shrimp fried rice in Thailand costs only 75 cents and you can rent a condo on the beach for about 400 dollars a month.

IF we could eliminate both greed and hard work from the world, then there would be no poor people -- or rather, everyone would be merely subsisting. I think that would make a great bestseller: 'THE ART OF SUBSISTING.'  I may have to write it myself one of these day, if I can ever take time off from my busy panhandling schedule.