Larry's Sorta Fun Stories

Since this is Larry’s Sorta Fun Stories I like to share with you some of what happened in my life and today I am going to introduce to you an old friend from my younger days.  Gene Grover wrote a book called Growing UP in a Small Town in Illinois.  I did an interview with Gene several years ago for Zmax Radio … let’s join this interview.  Chillicothe, Illinois. 

Now I want to interject here, that Gene’s mother was actually my fourth-grade teacher.  It seemed that there were three new fourth grade teachers that year.  My mother started teaching again that year.  My mother had taught in a one room school house before she got married but had to quit teaching back them because she was married.  Another friend Bob his mother was also started teaching fourth grade as well.  So, the school system had to make sure that our mothers were not teaching us, so I got Gene’s mother.  So not only did I know Gene and his brother, but I knew his mother who was the real pioneer.   

Just a little note, this podcast is sponsored by Collage Travel Radio dot com.  Travel insights and tips are share beside hit music of the 60s, 70s right up today.  Collage Travel Radio 24/7 streaming on the internet at Collage Travel Radio dot com. 

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A friend of mine actually heard one of the earlier episodes of Larry’s Sorta Fun Stories and she contacted me.  It’s Dorothea (Johnson) Jensen

Dorothea Jensen is proud to be one of a very few people who has boarded a pirate ship and attacked a dragon-powered Viking vessel manned by real, horn-wearing Vikings.  She is also the author terrific books about the American Revolution.  

Dorothea was born in Boston, but she grew up in Chillicothe, Illinois.

And this is where our stories meet.  Doretha or DeeDee and I go back to our high school days in Central Illinois. She and I were in the same high school speech class.  

Dorothea had heard one of earlier episodes and she emailed me and said: 
 “ …. You have such a great reading voice! And to think it all started in The Old Fox’s Closet.”

Well we talked about the FOX and the Closet.

Dorothea also shared about her time in the Peace Corp and how she got stated writing about the American Revaluation and her interest in Lafayette.

Check out her Most Popular Books

• The Riddle of Penncroft Farm
• Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf
• Blizzy, the Worrywart Elf
• A Buss from Lafayette

A Buss From Lafayette Teacher's Guide.

Contact her at Dorotheajensen.com

A reminder… check out Collage Travel Radio … it’s music and positive information about traveling today.  It’s a there 24/7 Collage Travel Radio dot com.

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I had just started working at WMBD-TV in Peoria as a part-time Floor Director in early 1965. I was scheduled Sunday night, but I couldn’t stay away from the station weekdays as well.  Television production had got into my blood. I was hanging out at the station and skipping Dr. Smyth’s English 102 class in the afternoons at Bradley University. Thus, I still don’t know ‘to’ from t o o.  After graduating from high school, I labored for a year at Caterpillar Tractor Company before enrolling at Bradley University in Peoria, because factory life was not for me. I was learning television production.

One Friday as I skipped class again, I discovered a lot of activity in the TV studio, and I was asked to help out. It seems the sales department of the TV station had sold a contest package to a local supermarket Ben Schwartz Food Mart. Founded by Asher Schwartz in the downtown area of Peoria in 1933, and it had grown with several locations in the Peoria market.  The stores had been turned over to his son Ben and that is where the name came from.

The marketing package the sales department had sold Ben was a package to get more people to come into their locations and they could register to win a brand-new motorcycle. The winner was going to be announced ‘live’ on the TV station at 10:30 this Friday evening. 

The promotion had been a great success.  Thousands of names were registered, and all of the entry blanks were delivered to the studio on Friday morning and dumped into a child’s blowup swimming pool that was staged in front of the motorcycle that was to be given away.

As I said, I was asked to help out.  It seems the sales department had just received a frantic phone call from Ben Schwartz just a little after the noon news had gone off the air. 

Ben Schwartz had discovered that his devious teenage son, Kerry Schwartz had taken several of the entry pads to write his name and stuffed them into the entry boxes at various store.  However, employees and family members of Ben Schwartz Food Mart were not eligible to win in this contest.

We at the station were looking at a sea of names in the swimming pool that practically filled to the brim. So, I along with several other staff members were engaged to go through the sea of names trying to get to the bottom to see if we could find any of the entry blanks that Kerry had inappropriately placed into entry boxes at different stores.

Now how do you eat an elephant?  You eat it one bite at a time and that was what we were doing.  There were seven of us around the edge of the plastic kiddie pool on our knees looking at as many entries we could see to verify that Kerry’s name was not one of them.  

As I said, this panic started a little after the noon news had gone off the air.  Ben Schwartz was aware of what it would have looked like if his son’s name was going to be drawn on a ‘live’ TV drawing.  The sales department was hovering about because their client was not happy.  We actually got to see the station manager come up to the studio. 

The station manager with his Florsheim Wing Tip shoes squeaked when he was walked down the highly polished hall on the first floor by the sales offi

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The other day I needed to get new razor. I’m not sure about you but I can usually get a razor blade to last about thirty-five days or longer.  Not really counting but knowing that I don’t purchase a new razor every time I go to the store. I was shocked at the cost when I went through the checkout line.

Shaving for me started when I would sit in the bathroom on the stool next to the sink patiently watching my father as he used his safety razor.  Gillette was always the brand that he purchased.  The double-edged safety razor was introduced to the world in 1903.  It was so slick.  You twisted the handle and the top of the razor opened up and you slide in a thin, double-edged sharp blade.  And you could buy a packet of blades that were not very expensive. And you can still get the Gillette Platinum-Plus Double-Edge Blade.

Today as I bought my latest razor, I thought I was just getting a new set of five blades in a packet, but no I actually bought an entirely new concept in Gillette razors.  The Gillette Proglide Shield.  Not only does it have five blades, but it also has a blade on the back side to help trim your sideburns.  It will glide across your face, and it will swivel around your face.  Now the final kicker is … it has a battery in the handle and when turning on the switch. It vibrates. 

Remember I recommend you check out Collage Travel Radio. It has great light and bright music streaming on the internet 24/7 and is absolutely free.  Not elevator music…the great music from the 60’s to today’s hits.   The station is for anyone that loves music and travel … All you got to do is click and listen to Collage Travel Radio dot com 

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Rose came back for a second episode to share more personally about her family and what the owner of Mother's the nightclub meant to the family.

Part one of the First 50 Years of Mother's concludes on what transformed the club.  Rose took a "hiatus" from the club.   

However...once again….things would change a few months later in July… Tune in for Act Two of “Mother’s-the First Fifty Years!

And if you want your travel dreams to come true, check out Zee Michaelson Travel at zeemichaelsontravel.com.

Collage Travel Radio brings you great light and bright music streaming on the internet 24/7 and is absolutely free.  Not elevator music…the great music from the 60’s to today’s hits.   The station is for the independent traveler and for travel advisors and just anyone that loves music and travel … All you got to do is click and listen to Collage Travel Radio.

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When I was younger, I had an establishment called the Sugar Shack in Chillicothe, Illinois and I hired young bands.   And I love hearing the stories of talented friends. 

Rose brought her guitar with her to the studio and shared about being you performer at Mother's in Lockport, New York when she was younger. 

“Mother’s” was furnished with antiques. An eclectic collection of charming décor to reflect the rich history of the area...old sewing machines, rocking horses, hall trees, old radios, Tiffany lamps, old photos….fascinating! In fact, every time I went into the club; it seemed I would notice different artifacts. “Doc” also had some pieces custom designed to reflect his personality, and that of the club. Fun and captivating!

One of her best fans was a gentleman named “Willis”. 

The woman who stormed into the club holding a laundry basket…..full of laundry. 

This photo was taken by a “photographer” who frequented Mother’s. Coincidentally, he was called “Doc” as well. 

Great stories that I find as my sorta fun stories. 

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Last week’s episode was a story of how I got to Lincoln, Nebraska and one of my directing assignments was directing Cartoon Corral and Diane Simard was on the Cartoon Corral when she was celebrating her 5th birthday and I was directing the program.

I wanted to share with you more about my interaction with Kalamity Kate.  

For me, the Cartoon Corral was an interruption in the production schedule of completing local commercials that we were video taping in the afternoon.  Many times we would have a studio full of cars from a local car dealer and then have to clear the studio in time to get the Corral-Set set up in time for the kids to enjoy their moment of fame on TV.

Leta Powell Drake aka Kalamity Kate was one of the hardest working people in television.  She did everything from stage acting and newscasting to producing the live daily morning show as well as her popular character Kalamity Kate on Cartoon Corral.  It’s said that she interviewed over 80,000 kids on Cartoon Corral.   Not only did she interview kids, but she interviewed major CBS celebrities on their annual promotion junkets from Mary Tyler Moore to Tom Hanks. She paved the way for many women in entertainment with her brash knack for speaking to people on their own level.

One of the fun commercial clients she wrote for and was the talent for  Aunt Betty’s Bakery in Lincoln.  Seriously, she came up with the slogan “Bun Meals are Fun Meals. Get Aunt Betty’s Buns” And she could keep a straight face every time she read that line.  

I got to know Leta better because she was also the producer and was the talent for a show called Gateway to Homebuying.  This was a two hour show that ran on Sunday morning.  It was very unique because is was skirting the then time-limit of a commercial program.  Back then you were only suppose to run a certain number of minutes of commercial matter per hour.  Not like the Informercials of today.  The sales department had worked out a deal with Gateway Realty, the first franchised real estate company in the country so they could show houses for sale in all of their markets across Nebraska during this two hour Sunday morning program.

Jim Ebel, the station General Manager and a very smart engineer for the Fetzier Company had created 10/11 Strong to be seen as far west as Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He had the station purchase a station in Grand Island, Nebraska to simulcast channel 10’s programs and then micro-waved the station’s signal to low power translators in the various communities.  So, the station was seen in Lincoln, Hastsings, York, Grand Island, Kearney, Norfork, Beatrice, North Platte, Scottsbluff and more of the little communities in-between.  Historically, the station had some of the highest news ratings in the country. The one station reached practically across the entire state.  KOLN–TV Channel 10 in Lincoln remained the only commercial TV station for 40 years.  

At that time, many of the local television markets were fighting to keep Cable TV out of their markets. However, Jim Ebel welcomed the population of Cable TV into Lincoln Nebraska. By offering other stations to be seen from around the country via cable this kept the addition of a competing station to be established in the Lincoln market.  

The first franchised Real Estate company was founded by retired Lt Colonel Raymond Gottner.  Colonel Gottner had flown B17s, B29s and became the Commander of the 71st Air Refueling Squadron.  He also was selected to be the first pilot to land on sea-ice to determine whether an emergency landing of a large aircraft on sea-ice would be safe.  After serving in United States AirForce for 21 years, Colonel Gottner retired and became a Realtor.  

The Colonel had the vision to take advantage of the coverage of the TV station and created franchised Gateway Realty offices in

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After last week’s episode, I got a message from Robert and he really remembered the show that he used to watch on WHAS-TV in Louisville, KY station, the Randy and Cactus show. He even remembered the theme song for the show,  (INSERT THEME SONG)

So, as I have asked, if there is something that reminds you of a memory let me know at Larry’s Sorta Fun Stories dot com … 

After hearing from Robert, I thought it might be a good idea to research other Cartoon shows around the country as we were growing up.  And to my surprise, I discovered that practically every television market had a ‘local kiddie show.”

One of the best known shows was the Bozo the Clown show.  This started in 1949 and then became a franchised television show and Bozo was then in different markets. Willard Scott who became the weather-man on the NBC Today Show for many years, was an early Bozo.  Willard also helped McDonalds to create their famous clown, Ronald.  The most famous and last Bozo Show was in Chicago on WGN-TV.

As you listen to this, I am sure there are happy moments of you remembering home after school and you turned on the one channel out of three channels at that time, to the show with the local talent that you remember watching.

So, this is my story as how I got to the Cartoon Corral in Lincoln, Nebraska 

After I had become a TV director in Peoria, Illinois, my wife and I were looking to move to the mountains in Colorado.  I had on opportunity to applied to the ABC affiliate in Colorado Springs.  They gave me my first commercial plane ride.  

This was an early morning flight from Peoria and airlines at that time were serving a full breakfast on all their flights. All I can remember was the poor flight attendant practically crawling up the aisle at what was a very steep angle as the plane was hardly off the ground getting the breakfast cart out to serve the passengers. 

I do not remember if I was offered the position in Colorado Springs, but I remember that I was not impressed with the station and did not want to take it. 

The next year I got a call from the television station KOLN/KGIN 10-11 Strong in Lincoln, Nebraska and they were looking for a young energetic creative director who had street smarts.  The year before the station had hired a young person with a college degree and he didn’t do well.  They were glad to know I did not have a college degree, just the street smarts of what I had learned all that time skipping my college classes at Bradley University. I got the job. 

The main studio of the station was on North 40th Street in Lincoln, Nebraska and the transmitter site and tower was about thirty-five miles west of Lincoln outside a small town called Beaver Crossing, Nebraska. The tower stood one thousand four hundred eighty-nine feet (1,489) and was reported to be the tallest structure in the state of Nebraska.  It had an elevator in it so you could get to the top, but I missed my opportunity to ride to the top at a company picnic because I got there late.  (By the way, this tower actually collapsed in 2019 in a winter storm.)

One of my assignments was directing The Cartoon Corral program Monday – Friday at 3:30 PM.  The show was hosted by Kalamity Kate. Not a-lot-of-jokes, but kids with birthdays were invited to the show to sit in the corral. You had to sent in a request to be on the show and the station received so many requests that there was only a few lucky kids chosen for each show. This show was so popular that kids would be driven in from as far west of 150 miles from the station. For instanc

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There they were …   Captain Jinks (Stan Lonergan) and Salty Sam (George Bahsillyun).
 They hosted the afternoon children’s program The Captain Jinks TV Show on NBC affiliate WEEK-TV in Peoria, Illinois. The show was live and unscripted and ran from the 1956 – 1972. The show had various segments like the joke barrel and cartoons, but the fun part was hearing the Ol’ Captain adlibbing making Salty Sam laugh. 

The two characters were actually the station’s booth announcers. The booth announcer was a person in a small room off of the control room and he would read live commercials and live tags to a commercial or every hour he would do the station ID. This was before everything would be pre-recorded.

The Captain was the morning booth announcer and Salty was the afternoon booth announcer; doing the Captain Jinks Show was their transition time.  The show was first an hour, and it became so popular that they expanded it to two hours.  That meant they could sell a plethora of advertising in the show. 

Now a little back story, I had started my TV career at the competing CBS Affiliate WMBD while skipping classes at Bradley University as a lowly floor director or a … ‘hey you, I need a glass of water or that set needs to be constructed’  
Then due to my immaturity, somehow, I was asked to leave the station that I loved. But I was able to garner a floor director’s position at the WEEK-TV for a while.  I was able to regain my position and career at WMBD, but that is still another story.

Also, at this time I am also still a first-year freshman at Bradley University in name-only and a young entrepreneur with the Sugar Shack in my hometown asking kids to dress up and go dancing on the weekends. I was booking bands from around the area. 

Combining my studentship and entrepreneurship, I spotted four upper classmen at Bradley University who had formed a band called The Trademarks and I thought they had real potential. 

Now my work schedule was to work the Captain’s show and then get ready for the local news program and stay until the 10 pm news cast was finished, I clean up and went home.

At that time, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was 90 minutes long. After the Tonight Show was over at midnight George Buhsillyun would read the closing sign-off announcement for the station. Then the station would run a film of the National Anthem and the engineers would shut off the transmitter. 

I saw this as a great opportunity to get The Trademarks to come into the big TV studio and get recorded. Something they hadn’t been able to do. I became friends with one of the engineers at the station and he agreed to stay after the station signed off to record the band.
 (INSERT RECORDING) I have the only recording and it was a very was educating night.   

Now for the rest of the story, the story that I set out to tell.

It was a Friday night and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson had just started and the switch board started getting calls complaining about the signal of the station was coming in and out.  That was scaring all the engineers because they were checking all of the dials and meters.  The signal strength of the network coming into the station was strong.  That wasn’t a problem.  

The calls kept coming.  Another round for system checks began.  The only people in the station were the person taking all the calls, the four engineers, myself and George B.

But the calls continued coming.  Finally, one of the engineers decided to go behind the studio building to observe the tower. The base of the tower sat in the middle of a field next to the building.  The tower was guyed-masted. 

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I wasn’t drunk, but I was staring at the bottles so neatly stacked on the shelfs in front of me on the other side of the bar.  As I was staring at the bottles, my right hand was draped around a glass of Budweiser.  Ken was by my side. 

It was a quiet place where you could be alone.  The Trust Me Tavern in Mossville, Illinois was located between my hometown of Chillicothe and Peoria on Route Twenty-Nine, but it was far enough away from someone noticing us. Jill the bartender didn’t card us. We looked older than we were. Ken and I had graduated from High School a couple of years earlier. 

When you opened the door to walk in you felt the smoke in the air lingering on the walls and ceiling.  The floor felt sticky and tacky as each step got you closer to your favorite bar stool and you could feel comfortable. This was long before they thought smoking was bad for your health. 

I really thought I was ‘feeling my oats’ at the time.  Drinking hadn’t been something that occurred in my home.  Neither of my parents even thought about drinking.  My grandfather on my mother’s side was always kidding about drinking but he never did … I never saw him drink.  

Ken was smoking a cigarette, it made you look older. I emailed Ken to see if he remembered any of this and all he remembered was that he had a 1963 Split Window Corvette. The corvette got us to the Trust Me Tavern. I was not impressed with the ride and thought it was like riding on the ground.  My 1959 VW rode a lot better.  I haven’t been in a Corvette since that time.

Since we were underage at that time, we had been meeting on these bar stools for the last several weeks.  I was working but I’m having a hard time remembering where I was employed. But sitting on that bar stool I know, I was pondering my life, I was coming to realize that my life had no purpose.  Just sitting on that barstool.

So, life gets a little fuzzy here.  One person that was influential in my life was Earl Nightingale. I was nineteen years old driving home from working the overnight shift at Caterpillar Tractor Company in East Peoria, Illinois. The radio in my VW, was tuned to WMBD AM and there was a daily motivational feature from Earl Nightingale that I listened to: 

INSERT EARL

“Life should be an exciting adventure, it should never be a bore, a man should live fully … be alive.  He should be glad to get out of bed in the morning  … he should be doing a job he likes to do because he does it well … - - - … the architect of the universe didn’t build a stairway leading nowhere … and the greatest teacher of all the carpenter from the plains of Galilee gave us the secret time and time again … as ye believe so shall it be done unto you.”
 
MUSIC UNDER 

 … That got me thinking about what I wanted to be …  what I wanted to become. 

As I think back on the life and times of people who have influenced and inspired me, the first name comes to me is Reverend Ken Yocum.  He was the pastor at the small Methodist Church in Sparland, Illinois.  I got to know him at my father’s dry-cleaning business. He was a customer. I pressed his pants and waited on him at the front counter as I was working for my father through high school. 

A couple of years later, I was working as a production assistant at Bradley University in the ETV department that was in four-converted classrooms in the EE Building.  It’s amazing the year before I was a freshman at Bradley University skipping classes so I could learn more about television production.  Now the next year I was employed by Bradley University, and I was getting firsthand experience with television equipment.  My job classification was listed as a faculty member.  From dropout student to faculty in

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