Indholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2022 i Reminisce

My best friend, Tom, and I were ready to do anything we could to aid the war effort in 1942. The San Francisco Bay Area was home to shipyards that produced Liberty ships, a Ford Motor Co. plant that assembled tanks and armored cars, and many smaller companies that added resources to assist in the nation’s defense. These industries were prime enemy targets, so when our town of Richmond formed an air observer organization to spot aircraft over the Bay Area, Tom and I lost no time in offering our services. Margaret Madison was in charge of the organization. We rode our bikes to her house on 34th Street, charged up the stairs to her porch and rang the doorbell. She greeted us with surprise and skepticism: We were 13.…

For 10 years, my older brother Alfred diligently researched our family’s history. He discovered that our great-great-grandfather Robert E. Roberts, a successful silversmith, was born in New York City in 1812. Then, in 2018, Alfred had two wonderful surprises: a notice through ancestry.com of a DNA match and a Facebook message asking if he’d ever lived at a certain address in Yorkville. These inquiries led Alfred to two previously unknown first cousins of the Roberts name, Marge and Katie. They are the daughters of two of our dad’s five brothers, Alfred, born in 1898, and Franklin, born in 1906. Our cousins were warm and welcoming, and we had absolutely no doubt about the relationship’s authenticity. The only question was how and why a break had occurred. The answer lay in…

WHEN MY BROTHER BUDDY Earl was 7 and I was 8, we were looking forward to spending the summer of 1950 with our grandparents Papaw and Mamaw at their mountain home in Tennessee. Their small farmhouse was a former log cabin that had no electricity or inside plumbing. It felt like a throwback to pioneer days. Dad’s 1948 Pontiac bumped over tree roots and ruts in the lonely dirt road to the house. We were met by 10 dogs, six cats and a herd of goats. Dad said the dogs were friendly but warned us not to turn our back on the billy goat. “He will knock you into next week.” Alas, Dad failed to mention how fast the goat could move. As soon as I got out of the…

From 1978 to ’85, my brother, Louis Belcher, was mayor of Ann Arbor. I was single, living in Battle Creek, which was 70 miles away. But whenever Lou was scheduled to attend one of those social engagements where his presence was required, he’d give me a phone call and ask if I could accompany him. Lou’s wife hated to dress up, and on such occasions, she’d conveniently find that she was scheduled to be playing golf somewhere else. For one memorable function in 1980, I didn’t learn the details of the dinner until we were on our way. The event was actually a Republican fundraiser, and George H.W. Bush, who was running for president, would be there, along with his wife, Barbara. Lou and I were seated at a round…

ACROSS 1 Pilgrims’ ship 7 A kayak is one type 11 Pig _____ poke, 2 wds. 13 To and _____ 14 Early colonists 15 Rule keeping people home at certain hours 16 Hearing organ 17 The Wealth of Nations author and economist Smith 20 Plymouth Colony leader Myles _____ 24 Asian sauce 25 Came out of slumber 26 Briny body 29 Tribe whose name means “People of the First Light” 31 Honest president 32 Hither’s partner 33 Secret meeting 35 Suffix for belief system 36 “_____ country, ’tis of thee…” 37 Cry of a crow 39 Clippers state, abbr. 40 Land of 10,000 Lakes, abbr. 42 Pilgrims’ landing spot, 2 wds. 46 Machine learning 47 Fort Knox units 49 Second governor of Plymouth Colony, William _____ 51 Animal sanctuary 52 Move…

Louise, my teenage sister, had a visitor—Ina Mae. In the late 1940s, life in Happy Valley, a little community on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains, could be dull. But fun always happened when Ina Mae came over. My sister Tot and I stayed close as Louise and Ina Mae sat at the kitchen table: It was fortune-telling time. Louise lit the kerosene lamp and turned it low. They tied Daddy’s big bandanna handkerchiefs around their heads and stared intently into the lamp, describing in scary voices the people and things they “saw” in the flame. Sometimes they predicted love and fortune. I held my breath—an impressionable 8-year-old believing every word. Tired of the lamps, the girls sent Tot and me out into the dusk to pick apples…

THRILL OF IT ALL Michael Jackson, below, releases Thriller, which goes on to sell 100 million copies worldwide. “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” are hits, but the music video for the title track, with an elaborate dance number, is a game changer. BIG SHOULDERS Women’s fashion goes big, above, with bold silhouettes and colors. Working women favor a menswear look, with large shoulder pads. Dressy outfits feature chunky jewelry, balloon sleeves and waistlines cinched with wide belts. And the finishing touch? Big hair! POISON CONTROL Seven people die after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol laced with potassium cyanide. Johnson & Johnson recalls 31 million bottles, but the only tainted containers are in the Chicago area. Although the killer is never found, Johnson & Johnson reissues the medicine in a tamper-proof bottle that…

My mom, Frances, met my dad, John, when he was in the Navy, stationed in New York during World War II. They settled in Brooklyn, where Abraham Levitt and his sons built a community of houses on Long Island. My parents bought one in Hicksville in 1950. Dad worked at the Happy Little Bear Garage in Brooklyn. With the new house payment and three kids to feed, Mom tried to help pay the bills. She started Park-A-Tot, charging 10 cents per hour. Sometimes she had a lot of kids to care for, which my sisters and I thought was great, because we always had someone to play with. Mom also made crafts to sell: beach bags made out of washcloths, fingernail polish bottle covers, toilet paper cozies shaped like hats,…

WE GREW UP IN A HOUSE that was built in 1888; Mom has lived there more than 60 years. We often had items go missing for a while, and then they would suddenly show up on the table. No one could explain why. I would hear a ball bouncing in the attic as though someone had dropped it. Then I’d hear the footsteps of someone walking to the ball to pick it up and drop it again. One night, Mom and I were reading some of the old letters Dad had written during the war, when a book flew out of the shelf onto the floor. On the shelf near where the book had been was a G.I. Joe toy. My siblings and I got used to these strange occurrences…

A familiar sight at most sporting events today, especially auto races and football games, the airship known as the Goodyear Blimp has a long pedigree going back to well before World War I. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. entered the blimp business largely because of the efforts of Paul Litchfield, a Goodyear executive and fan of the almost-silent airships. A few airships had dotted European skies since the late 19th century. They were more common by the early 1900s, when enthusiast groups held regular meets and races. Litchfield saw his first airship at an air meet in Europe in 1910 and fell in love. In Scotland, Litchfield visited the North British Rubber Co., which had invented a machine that could spread dissolved rubber on fabric. He negotiated for one of…

DESERT MODERN These celebrity homes were the scene of glamorous parties—and some scandalous affairs—that defined Palm Springs’ golden era. 1. Built for Sinatra in 1947, Twin Palms estate features low lines well-suited for the desert landscape. 2. Martin was known for Sunday entertaining at the hangout he called the Tea Dance House. 3. The Hopes’ futuristic, circular residence built into the side of the hill was completed in 1980. 4. Before Liberace converted this 1926 Mediterranean-style house into an eclectic estate, it served as a hotel. 5. Skelton’s two-bedroom house set near a country club fairway allowed plenty of socializing with passing golfers such as Lucille Ball.…

Stationed at Hanscom Field in Concord, Massachusetts, for nearly two years, I knew I was due for reassignment as 1966 came to a close. Sure enough, as we turned in our weapons after patrol one day, the desk sergeant announced that he’d received transfer orders for some of us. We gathered around as he read: “Johnson: Saigon, Jones: Bien Hoa, White: Cam Ranh Bay, Bardone: Thule, Harris: Da Nang.” Some of the names of the new duty stations in Vietnam were familiar, but I’d never heard of Thule (pronounced TOO-lee). The non-commissioned officer in charge told me he’d been to Thule in 1954, and advised me to bring a crying towel. Where the heck was I going? “I didn’t think we were in Vietnam in ’54,” I said. He laughed…

NEW FOCUS The memory of the 1972 Munich Olympics is forever tainted by the terrorist attack on Sept. 5 that ended in the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer. But the Games began in a spirit of optimism and positive change. Organizers sought a clean, joyful look that would show the then-West Germany as welcoming of all flags, left. It was a deliberate departure from the aggressive presentation Germany put on the last time it had the Games—in ’36, under the Nazis. Architect Gunter Behnisch designed an open concept sports center that included pleasing green spaces. Frei Paul Otto’s massive fabric-and-metal-net roof, an engineering marvel at the time, capped the structure. Behnisch’s and Otto’s creative successes in Munich led to greater use of computer models in…

JOE, MY DAD, AND HIS father, Pappy, had a special bond. After Pappy died, Dad claimed he often felt his father’s presence. In 1957, several years after Pappy’s death, my grandmother Bo married a man named Fred. This was funny in a way because Pappy’s living brother, for whom I was named, was also called Fred. So we had three Freds at the table when we all gathered to play cards. All seemed to be going well with the newlyweds until the new Fred’s son began to pressure his father to put his house in the son’s name. The son objected to his 79-year-old father marrying my 78-year-old grandmother. Fred assured Bo that he had written a new will to protect her in case he died before her, and the…

For decades, most mass-produced four-and six-cylinder engines in the worldwide auto market had a common component: the timing belt. A belt timing mechanism between crankshaft and camshaft delivered a quiet, lightweight engineering advance, which brought the efficiency of overhead-cam (OHC) engines to the motoring public. Belt drive had its start in the 1950s’ Devin-Panhard racing engines and in small-scale production in Europe, but it was a familiar figure—General Motors’ John Z. DeLorean—who had the vision to put it into large-scale production in North America for the first time. Overhead-cam configuration had long been seen as the best way to maximize horsepower, but early interfaces between cam and crankshaft using chains or gears were faulty and expensive. German automaker Hans Glas was the first to use a timing belt in a production…