My View from 1958

Year: Circa 1970

My Favorites Songs in 1970

“Let It Be” by The Beatles…really anything by the Beatles.

“Raindrops Keep Fallin on My Head” by B.J. Thomas.

“American Woman” by The Guess Who.  My brother had this album, so I listened to it quite a bit.

“I’ll Be There” by The Jackson 5—yea, the J5 was popular then.  Remember “Puppy Love”?  You do!

“Iron Man” by Black Sabbath. My brother also had this album.

“Mama Told Me (Not to Come)” by 3 Dog Night- Lots of Radio play.

“All right Now” by Free.

“They Long to be Close to You” by The Carpenters……yea I liked the Carpenters. Be honest, you did too.

“Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image. I can remember singing this as I cruised on my mini-bike around town. Funny how I remember that.

Seems like Grand Funk should be on this list and yes, my brother had many of their albums.  I still like all these artists…..well not the J5….but all the others. And yes, I listen to The Carpenters from time to time. Good sound.

My Favorite Movies of 1970

Patton—still a favorite

Little Big Man

Tora, Tora, Tora

Love Story (yea I watched it, and I’ll bet you did too.  I did not cry though.  Did you?)

Beneath the Planet of the Apes.  Ridiculous movie, but at that time it was cool

My Favorite TV Shows of 1970

Flip Wilson- What you see is what you get! The Devil made me do it!

Hawaii Five-0 – Book ’em, Danno!

Bonanza on Sunday Nights, right after……

Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Colour….family favorite!

Adam 12

Laugh In

He Haw…. Dad loved this!

The Partridge Family

Mannix

Major World Events of 1970

Paul McCartney announces his “break with the Beatles.”

Singer-songwriter-guitarist-musician Jimi Hendrix dies of drug overdose.

Singer Jim Morrison dies of a drug overdose.

President Richard Nixon orders an invasion of Cambodia.

Four protestors at Kent State University in Ohio are killed by National Guard troops. “Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s coming….four dead in Ohio”

American Top 40, hosted by radio personality Casey Kasem, becomes the first successful nationally syndicated radio program featuring a weekly countdown. I loved this weekly countdown. I mentioned this in other posts. I still listen to the Top 40 archive. There was something magical about the music combined Casey Kasem’s voice and on-radio presence.

The Evening Sentinel was the local town newspaper during my youth.  The paper reported local events of course, but also sports, weather, had a classified ads section, comics and a segment called “Chatty Items”. This was basically a gossip column. When a family event occurred in the lives of the local population you might see a short summary in the Chatty Items section of the paper. Nothing scandalous.  Mom would always submit an article when she hosted a family dinner or had special company. For example, “Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Vermillion, Mark, Mike and Janette hosted a family dinner with Porter and Phyllis Vermillion of Omaha and their sons Tim and Paul, Dean and Margeret Vermillion of Atlantic and their children Mary, Kathy and Joe and Mrs. LA Vermillion of Shenandoah.  She served Beef Stroganoff over rice, a side salad, fresh cooked carrots, homemade bread, a 5-layer salad, and cherry cobbler with ice cream.”   This kind of thing really interested people.  You might see similar articles about somebody taking a trip, a birthday party, or church event. Harmless, but in small town America everyone wanted to know what everyone was up to.

The sports section was outstanding. Great pictures of the sporting events and in-depth coverage of the Mustangs and Fillies. I have often (and will continue) to show pictures and articles from the sports section in this Blog. Our class was very lucky to have such great sports coverage, excellent game write-ups, statistics and very nice action pictures from the games. I was an average athlete in a small school, and I recall my picture in the paper multiple times for football and track.

Below is a clip of my brother Mark (on the left) from 1973. He was Player of the Week for the Mustangs in their 14-7 loss to Red Oak. This may give you an idea of the types of sports articles that were in the paper at that time.   I still have many newspaper clippings thanks to my mom. We didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it’s really great that she saved these clippings. I enjoy looking at them from time to time. Mom actually made me a nice scrapbook which I still have.

The paper also included wedding pictures, engagement notices, and of course death notices. I was pictured in the Sentinel a couple of times in my youth when we hosted an exchange student from Japan and one time for sledding down Mustang Hill with my friend Steve Emge.  Just fun, human-interest stories. I believe it was a huge loss when the local paper was sold to a conglomerate that seemed to ignore the local population interests. It became the Valley News for a while, but they in turn were gobbled up by a large publishing company. The paper started to publish syndicated stories from places like New York which nobody really gave a crap about. Needless to say, paper no longer exists.

 I had the largest Evening Sentinel paper route in Shenandoah. No brag, just a fact. I inherited the route from my brother, but it expanded when new housing was established on Johnson and Longman Drive. My empire got even bigger when another paper boy’s mom would not let him cross the highway to make deliveries, so I took over that area. I delivered the Sentinel Monday through Friday to about 101 customers (using Google Maps I counted the houses based on my memory of the route).

My route was comprised of Southview Blvd, Southview Circle, Pioneer Ave, Johnson Drive, Longman Dr, Linden Drive, Vista Ave, Swanson Drive, a few stops on South center street and Sleepy Hollow. Almost every resident on these streets subscribed to the Sentinel. See the map below. It was about 1.3 miles in length. It seemed longer back then.

Famous People on my Route:

Frank Field: Local KMA  AM Radio Station and TV personality. He had a morning radio show that my mom always listened to. It came on at 7:15 am with the sound of a steam locomotive clanking down the tracks and of course the whistle blowing. That was my notice to get out of bed and ready for school.  Frank gave the weather forecast, but I mostly recall the sound of his papers rustling in the background. He was on the air for 48 years!!!! I guess I forgot about this, but he was also on TV, where he hosted a garden show. Frank gave me a nickel tip every week for putting his paper in the mail slot. When I stopped by his house to collect the weekly paper dues, my 55 cents (50 cents for the Sentinel, 5 for me) was always in a small white envelope on the coffee table by the front door.  In an earlier blog I wrote quite a bit about the nurseries in Shenandoah and how people came from miles around to tour the flower gardens and other related attractions. On occasion a large bus full of tourist would pass by our house on the way to see Frank Fields house just up the street.

My next notice to get out of bed was at 7:30 when the program “Back to the Bible” came on the radio:

 “We gotta get back to the bible,

 Back to the bible,

Back to the word of God”……if I was not out of bed by the time this song was playing on the radio, I was in big trouble.  Ironic.

Picture of Frank Field at his last Broadcast

Sherman Family: I forget their first names, but she was the daughter of Earl May and heiress to Earl May Seed and Nursery, KMTV and KMA radio empire. It’s hard to imagine now the impact the Seed and Nursery Industry had on Shenandoah. There were at least 4 major Nurseries located in Shenandoah: Earl May to include KMA Radio and KMTV, Henry Fields to include KFNF Radio, Lakes and Mount Arbor Nurseries. My class alone had at least 14 families that were directly employed by the Nurseries.  That is almost 15% of my classmates parents earned their living through the Nursery business. Imagine the impact when all but one Nursery shut down a few years later.  

Earl “Bergie” Bergland– Local town celebrity I guess you might say. He was one of those guys that knew everybody, every event going on and everyone knew him. He was Santa Clause at the Christmas Parade and the local Santa’s Workshop, a strong supporter of Shenandoah sports and the Cornhuskers, a devout Methodist, community activist and just a great guy. He lived two doors down the street from us. I remember my brother and I used to beg him for soda.  Having soda back then was a big deal. Today it is as common as air. Everyone has soda in their house and kids today drink it like water. In those days it was a real treat. I don’t remember having it around our house so my brother and I would go begging. Bergie did not have any kids so I guess he thought of my brother and I like his surrogate children. He always had treats to give or would always stop by the house for a chat.  Wonderful man. I haven’t thought about him for years. He passed in August of 1985. He was a WWII Veteran.

Below is a picture of Bergie, on the left, with the local policeman Jerry Caulkins. Best I can tell they are holding a petition of sorts wishing good luck to a local sports star Van Bronson, who was a standout high school athlete and later earned a football scholarship to the University of Nebraska. This picture was in the Evening Sentinel.

Vince Valentine– He did not live on my route, but he worked at the Sentinel. Among other things he dropped off the papers at my house for me to deliver. He would drive by our front yard slowly and then throw out a bundle of papers that landed with a thud. Seems like he was always late with the deliveries. If customers didn’t have their paper by 6:00 pm they started to call. Sometimes I did not get enough papers delivered so I would have to call the Sentinel and have them bring me more. I guess they miscounted when they bundled them up. I learned to hate Wednesday’s as that was the day the paper would also have the weekly ads which made my load just that much heavier.  I also dreaded the Friday delivery as the weekly invoice was attached to my bundle. The invoice would let me know how much money I needed to collect from the customers to pay for the papers. Anything left over was mine….my salary you might say. It always seemed odd to me that the bill changed from week to week. Sometimes it was $20.00, sometimes $26.00 and so on. No consistency. When the bill was over about $22.00, it was a good sign that I would not make much money that week.

 The picture below is a pretty good example of the newspaper bag I used to haul my load. You can imagine 100 newspapers was quite a burden for a 10 year old. The Sentinel supplied the bag, but new ones were hard to get. Mom had to sew holes in the bag from time to time as the newspapers wore right through it.

Only after doing a bit of research for this post did I find out Vince fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Has was Awarded a combat promotion to the rank of Sargent for his heroism.  He was just one of those guys who did his duty, came home and tried to lead a normal life. He never (nor did anyone else) mention his role in the war. He had a son in my high school class (David) who served in the USAF. He passed away in 2010.

Dr. Williams– Town Veterinarian. I guess that was kinda a big deal. He had a huge house, so I assumed he was important. I remember having to walk through what seemed to be a dark forest to get to his house to deliver the papers or collect the weekly paper dues.  I was always on the lookout for some kind of monster. My brother used to mow his yard. It was huge even by today’s standards. Hilly, lots of trees and plants. He used a push mower. I can’t imagine mowing that yard with a push mower today.  Mark said that Dr. Williams always tipped him with a shiny dime that had been dipped in mercury to bring out the luster.

Gabby and Millie Goodrich: Owners of the local Skateland roller-skating rink.  Great entertainment and a fun place to hang out with my buddies. Not only was there roller skating but also billiards, pinball, skeet ball and other games. Gabby and Millie were fun hosts and always kidding around.  The skating rink was a safe environment. I still remember Gabby on the skate floor policing the activity. I think he had a whistle and would call people out when they were being rowdy.  They sold every kind of sweet treat under the sun. I spent a lot of my paper route money there. Best snow cones in the world ……and mom spent a lot of money at the dentist in turn. Gabby and Millie have passed, but their daughters Mary Ann and Marcia ran the skating rink for many years until just recently.  I believe they closed it down maybe 3 or 4 years ago. It was a good run and created a lot of memories.

Picture of Skateland Circa 2020

The paper route offered me a chance to earn some cash, learn a little bit of responsibility but also created many memories. In Part 2, I will talk about some of the special memories and the excitement of taking my paper route earnings, hopping on my bike and riding to Woolworths to splurge on a Matchbox car or other amazing sources of entertainment.  I had many jobs during my youth; walking beans, detasseling corn, shoveling pig shit (yup), putting up hay, mowing, working at the nursery and helping dad. I guess looking back, I could not image NOT working. It seemed natural and of course fed my need for more Matchbox cars, BB’s and other wonders waiting for me in the local 5 and Dime stores. These were good days.