[00:00:00] Speaker A: That led to a whole other aspect of my character, the band playing, that was detrimental and destructive in the end, but it opened up a new door for my life.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome to Golden Tidbits, the podcast where we explore the rich lives of everyday people, but with a unique twist. Each of our guests brings at least 70 years of life experience, with most having over 75. Together, we'll journey through their childhoods, friendships, education, and family dynamics. We'll travel down memory lane, twist through nostalgia, and arrive at a bygone era. Not all of these stories will be seen through rose colored glasses, but they're always real, honest, and deeply human, something we could all use a little bit more of in our modern times. I'm your host, Molly B. Let's dive into today's episode.
Hi, listeners. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to give you a quick heads up. This conversation briefly touches on some sensitive topics, including illegal gambling activities, sex work, exploitation, and sex crimes. We believe that these stories are important and worth sharing, but we also understand that some of these subjects might not be suitable for all listeners. If you're sensitive to these topics, please feel free to skip this episode or listen when you're in the right frame of mind. Thank you for being a part of the Golden Tidbits community.
Before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to take a moment to share a heartfelt message I received from a listener that really touched me. Pat from Grand Prairie, Texas wrote in after listening to part one of our interview with his dad. Here's what Pat had to say. Listen to your podcast about my dad, Tom. Love the show. You are very talented in eliciting all of those stories that bring back many memories for me. Great job. Looking forward to part two.
Thank you so much, Pat, for your kind words. It's truly special to hear that Tom's stories are resonating with you and bringing back cherished memories. I can't wait to share more. So let's get into part two.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: All right, so we've had a conversation in the past where you told me what it was like to get some new things. And I think, too, for me that I find fascinating is you grew up.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: In Deadwood and it was really a.
[00:02:40] Speaker C: Hub for many, many years. That was the place to go. That was the nice town that you went to for commerce and things. Could you tell me about getting new things, like what did new clothes purchases look like? And maybe we could talk about shoes and any other things I'm curious to learn about.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Well, we had department stores in Deadwood we had an amazing shopping district.
There was a Montgomery ward and the JC Penney and a couple of ladies apparel stores, or actually more than a couple, and shoe stores, and they were all there. And, of course, everybody had a Montgomery award and a JC Penney catalog.
And particularly at Christmas time, when the Christmas. The toy catalogs came. Oh, enormous. Oh, big, big, big thing.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Kids these days have no idea what they're missing.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: No, no. Couldn't wait for that catalog to come. But anyway, so, you know, we always had.
My mother was very fastidious in her personal life. Never quite got that across to me.
And I suppose my brother would have been the same, but.
And so we always had good stuff. We always had nice stuff. And when we went anywhere, she wanted us to look good, you know, church or school. School.
You know, I had jeans when I was a little kid, and as soon as I could, I took those off and I didn't wear another pair of jeans until I was in my thirties.
And the reason was, is because my mother would starch my jeans.
And literally they could stand here all by themselves.
And so when you put them on. Oh, gracious sakes.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: It was like, I don't like stiff jeans as it is. I can't imagine starched ones that are really stiff.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And then ironed.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: Right, right. And they've got. Did she do the front?
You know, the iron along the front?
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: Seam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm picturing it all and miserable to wear.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Stiff as a board and.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Very uncomfortable.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. But the one purpose they served, and maybe this was the whole point, was if you wet your pants.
Oh.
They would rub on the inside of your legs where your pants were wet. Oh, they would rub. Just practically rub the skin right off. That was.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: That was her plan then.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Must have been.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh, that's so funny.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: But anyway, as soon as I could make my own choice about those kinds of things, I never wore another pair of jeans until well into my thirties.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: Wow, that's fascinating. So you just wore slacks then, or.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Linda said, don't you want a pair of jeans? Oh, lord, no. Oh, no, no, no, no.
She said, well, they're not like how your mother was when she was, when you were a kid. They're really quite comfortable. She finally talked me into it one time and, oh, I found that to be just delightful.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: It was a funny story about meat in my family that was the same, you know, type of thing. My dad didn't like this certain kind of meat. And then he found out his mother had been overcooking it for ages and just dries a bone. No wonder he didn't like it. You're supposed to be moist. He said yes. Didn't know.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you don't know, you know, you assume, you know, growing up in Deadwood, we assumed that everybody grew up like that.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: And so when we. When we were gone from there and we would tell a story, people were like, what?
No.
Yeah, you gotta be making that up.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: Right?
[00:07:10] Speaker A: They couldn't imagine that people actually did those things live those things, saw those things growing up, but we did.
[00:07:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
It was, um.
It kind of. Edward kind of operated at two levels. There was the. There was the public level where if you just came to town, you would see people just doing normal things. And it looked like a fairly normal little community, you know?
But then there was another level to Deadwood that was very dark and most unusual, as it turns out. As it turned out, that other communities, that was the part that other communities weren't aware of, didn't really. Didn't really know about life like that.
[00:08:05] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: But it was that way.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: I mean, it's fascinating to me, like you even said the prostitution and how long that went on in Deadwood, that, you know, that was pretty normal, I suppose. I don't know. I mean, I think it was supposed to be hidden, but it was.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: It was entirely normal.
And this. This was one of those things that mess with your head kind of, you know, you knew that was an awful thing and it was illegal, but yet it was normal. See, and people, the business people supported it because it was good for their business.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Right, right. So it all comes down to money in that way.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Every deer hunting season, probably at least half of the people that came to Huntley didn't come to hunt animals at all.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Right?
[00:09:04] Speaker A: And so when Bill Janklo shut it down, oh, there was anger.
They even did the law officers actually justified it by saying, well, it keeps the level of sex crimes way down.
Well, I know why they thought that. I understand why they thought that. But of course, they were absolutely wrong, because prostitution has nothing to do with that at all.
You know, rape, assault on a woman is not a sexual thing, it's a power thing.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Right.
And it's more about control and fear than.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: You're not going to go and give a business transaction for that.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that was a. There was a. The prostitutes, you know, that was never an issue. But as times went on, you know what we didn't know at the time was, most people didn't know at the time was there was a, you know, there were drugs moving through Deadwood. Not really getting distributed in Deadwood at first, early, early on, but Major Deadwood was a major stop on the route of heroin from the east coast to the west coast.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Back and forth like that. See, and so the prostitution was a chain, wasn't just a localized thing in Deadwood. There was a chain of prostitutes through Wyoming and up into Montana, Deadwood. And the ladies who were trapped in that horrible life moved back and forth, went on a circuit.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Okay, sure.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
And it was. It was a horrible life for them. Just horrible beyond imagining for them to have to be treated the way they were.
[00:11:13] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. And my dad said that, you know, he was aware at, you know, he. When he worked at the mine, he was aware of some stuff establishments back, I think it would have been in the seventies that he. He worked at homestake. I believe so, yeah. I mean, that's kind of a fascinating. I think you can normalize about anything if you're surrounded by it all the time and everybody else goes with it and says, this is what's normal. And like you said, everybody was propping it up between the law and the businesses. And, you know, and probably people were, you know, really bought into a lot of those arguments. So.
Okay, I gotta ask you, tell me about the shoes.
What. What was buying shoes like when you were young?
[00:12:00] Speaker A: It was.
I feel badly for children now because they don't get to do this.
[00:12:05] Speaker C: I know, right?
[00:12:08] Speaker A: It was, yeah, I look forward to it. Not because. For new shoes, but because it was such an interesting experience. Because when you went to the shoe store, the salesperson would have you, would have you.
There was a machine here in the middle of the store, and you stood up against the machine, and there were places down at the bottom where your feet went in, and there was a screen there. And when they turned it on, you could see your. Your feet and your bones on that screen.
Oh, it was just. It was like being transported to the moon. It was just such an astonishing thing because you could actually go there and see what was on the inside.
And it was a sales tool for them, of course, wasn't for a medical purpose. And I think it did serve a purpose.
They could look and see, here's the outline of your shoe, and here's your foot in there. And if your bones and your toes are all crunched up and everything, well, that's not the right shoe for you.
But of course, for kids.
[00:13:23] Speaker C: The only thing I can think of is it's a little bit equivalent to the carts at the grocery store that have the cars in them or whatever, where the kids get to drive the carts.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: That kind of excitement.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: He's like, is it time for new shoes, mom?
[00:13:38] Speaker C: Right?
[00:13:39] Speaker A: That was last week, you know.
Well, and of course, if you got to know the shoe guy and dated his daughter or whatever, then you could go get your. You could go looking anytime you wanted to, just stop in. They would do it for you. See? And so that was a badly abused.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: But you ever wonder about your feet? And like, hmm, I wonder if I'm having issues because I got my feet x rayed in a Norman amount of time when I was young.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Well, that, you know, that was the. That was the issue then why they all went away was because apparently, medically speaking, it wasn't a particularly good thing to do.
[00:14:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Certainly not on a regular basis. Right. Yes.
But blessedly, I didn't end up with wrecked feet because of the x ray thing. But it was a lot of fun. Oh, so very, very interesting. And we had endless shops in Deadwood. It was. Just thinking back on it now, it was amazing. When you asked about. When you asked about the shopping, I mean, it was all there. Everything. Everything you could think of could be purchased on Main street in Deadwood.
[00:15:03] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: And it's just not like that anymore in many towns.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: No. Well, Deadwood particularly, you know, because, you know, Deadwood was literally falling apart economically in a full on wreck. And the question was, what do we do? You know, the infrastructure was just horrible and no money. The city had no money to do anything with. And so then that was the idea of gambling. And, of course, there are those who say, and hard to argue with them because we'd never tried the opposite.
There are those who say it saved Deadwood from just becoming a nothing town and turned it into whatever it is today. Whatever it is.
It's a hybrid kind of a town. And little by little, retail shopping has come back just here and there. But for the most part.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: My dad, he always had something.
It makes me laugh.
He said, online shopping, all it is, is. Is a Montgomery Ward catalog in a digital format.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Oh, amen.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: We went backward. We went, you know, we went from the catalog and we saw it in the store. And now we go back and we're getting the catalog. We just get it on a screen, you know?
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:16:31] Speaker C: Yeah. Costs less to distribute the catalog, I guess, is what, you know. And they can change it faster.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Online shopping, of course, is death on, you know, where there were 30 employees in the Montgomery award store.
Now it doesn't require any employees at all. If you want to order, I don't know if you can order from Montgomery Ward anymore, but, or whatever it is.
[00:16:54] Speaker C: That you order from, it's moved. And people could say, well, someone else has those jobs, but they're not in your community, so that's the difference.
So tell me when you're friends like, friends like things that you did. So it sounds like you went downtown a lot, you checked out the shops a lot, but did you have games you played or did you have, what kind of things were you and your friends getting up to?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Well, as our ages progressed, you know, as youngsters, we played at each other's homes, just normal kids things.
But we always had one eye on what was going on, and we wanted to get older so we could participate in the older things.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: You know, the more interesting.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: And surely more fun.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: Right. And then you get older and you yearn for that youth back.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You get older and you go through that period of time and you realize what it really was and the wreckage it produced. And, you know, it was just, it was just such a unique situation, Molly, because we, what we wanted to be able to do was drink.
I told you from the age of 13 on, I was a part of it.
I didn't have to wait until I was 21.
And of course, I thought that was a very big deal.
And I realized after the fact that it was a trap.
You know, if you're going to be in the liquor business, you have to create a customer base.
And so, you know, with all due respect, and I'm not, you know, I'm not angry with any of the businessmen who did make a living with alcohol, not a bit.
You know, no one ever comes out and grabs you and forces you to come in their business and pours alcohol down your throat. That's all of your own accord.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: But there had to be an element to it that was attractive, cool and hip and. Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:18] Speaker C: If you're anybody, you're doing that.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And so women were a big part of that.
And gambling, of course, even though gambling was illegal, and of course, prostitution was illegal, both, both were going on.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: You know, not, you had to know when the bars were to go in, the bars in the back to find the gambling places.
But. So it wasn't evident to the normal customer that just came in and ordered a drink.
[00:19:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: You wouldn't have known that there was any gambling going, but.
[00:19:55] Speaker C: And it's so, that's so contrary because, you know, all of my life, I remember, I mean, I know I was, it was sometime in the nineties, you know, and I. So I was a kid, but, so I don't remember Deadwood being any other way than having all of these gambling places. You know, that's just my deadwood. That's always what it is. But I remember learning about the fact that, you know, there were all these shops and that's where you went and, you know, and people and, you know, either family or whatever said, oh, yeah, you know, I think they're in the old Montgomery Ward building. And I'm like, what?
You know, so all of those kind of little conversations and stuff. So fascinating.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Hey there, listeners. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Golden Tidbits. If you're loving the stories and insights from our incredible guests, I've got some exciting news for you. Did you know that there's even more to these conversations than what you're hearing right now? That's right. By subscribing to our extended episodes, you'll get access to our full, uncut interviews, where we dive even deeper into the lives of our guests. We explore their stories in more detail, uncover more wisdom, and share those priceless moments that don't make it into the free version. Plus, as a subscriber, you'll enjoy these episodes with no interruptions like this one, completely ad free. It's a perfect way to immerse yourself fully in these rich, nostalgic tales.
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[00:21:45] Speaker C: Okay, your dad had a business, a small business. And so I'm guessing you guys didn't travel as a family much for vacation.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Oh, great. No. No.
[00:21:54] Speaker C: Did you, do you remember ever really leaving home much to do, you know, maybe visit family back in California or.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: My mother and I. My mother never drove.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. When she and my father got together, he said he would teach her how to drive. This is in Leed.
[00:22:17] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: And so she was driving and they came to a four way stop, and she neglected to stop and drove right into the side of the local police car.
[00:22:31] Speaker C: Of all things, to train.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: That would be very stressful.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: So.
So, you know, most people would say, well, I'm sorry I did that. I hate the fact that I did that. But I, you know, I have to learn from it. But my mother didn't work like that.
She got out of the car she was driving, announced to my father, I will never drive another car, ever.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: And she was a woman of her word, I take.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: She never drove again.
[00:23:01] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: My parents and my brother all died young, but she was true to her word. She absolutely never did drive a car again. And, of course, that created a certain hardship in our family.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: I bet. Yeah. Cause your dad, I mean, if he was working all day, all the way into the night.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Now. So, wait a minute. Did your mother pack meals for him to take, or did you guys go and bring it to him?
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Initially, he took a lunch, and then sometimes I would take it down to him.
And then later on, as he got employees, that he didn't have to be there all the time. Then he would come home at lunchtime, but.
And then my mother decided she wanted to go to work. Oh, yeah. You know, I had grown up and no longer lived under the roof, and my brother was gone. And so then she had to be at work at such and such a time, and he would have to leave the station and come up and get her and take her to her workplace. She worked at the courthouse in Deadwood, and then come and get her at lunchtime and bring her home for lunch, and they would have lunch and then take her back to the courthouse.
Then at the end of the workday, you have to go get her again and take her home.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Huh.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: And so, you know, the logical thing would be, well, Wilma learn how to drive, girl.
[00:24:47] Speaker C: Nope, nope, nope.
It was. She had had enough of that, and she didn't enjoy it.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:54] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: If she said something, there was another occasion when. Oh, I'll tell you what, Molly. She a dear old friend of hers. The details aren't important, but at a moment in time, things didn't go well. My mother was exhausted from a unusual situation, and something was said, and it hit her wrong. And I remember this as though it happened last night. I was at the house. I was still a kid. And all of a sudden, I heard my mother go out the back door of the house.
And my father said to the couple that was visiting us, I think you should probably go.
And so they did.
And that lady, the whole couple were close, close friends of my folks. And the lady and my mother chatted probably almost daily on the phone. They lived in Leed.
And to the day that lady died, she proceeded my mother in death. But to the day that lady died, my mother never spoke to her or of her again. Wow. Yeah.
Wow.
[00:26:15] Speaker C: And do you even know what. What happened? Or. It just. The woman said something and it just wasn't.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: I do know what the lady said. And it was, on the surface, completely innocuous.
[00:26:28] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: But.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: But then it kind my mother was.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Because of a most extraordinarily difficult situation.
My mother was completely exhausted. She had had a friend die, and the lady had a child, infant.
And the house situation where this lady lived and her husband was drunk and abusive and older than the average lady would have been to have a baby. And when she died, my mother took the baby. And so we had that baby at our house. And my mother was caring for that baby, and she was older too.
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: And so it was just exhausting her. And this lady had just made mention.
Wilma, you just look exhausted.
That didn't hit right.
And that was it.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: Mm hmm.
I mean, I guess good on her for setting a boundary might seem, you.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Know, but, yeah, it was extreme as far as everybody else was concerned. But it was how she did business. I mean, it was how, it was how she lived her life.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: She wasn't gonna let people treat her a way that she didn't want to be treated. And maybe there was more to it that we, you know, we would never understand.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: But however, when it came to my brother and myself, she wrote us a blank check. Oh.
That aspect of her never came into play.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: She got plenty mad.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Plenty Madden. Phew.
But it was over again.
[00:28:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: And it was back to normal.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: But she didn't hang on to those things.
But for other people, that was that.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: Right.
What kind of things did you do for entertainment? You know, did you. Did you guys listen to a radio program or at what point did you maybe add a tv or, you know, what kind of things did you do to occupy your entertainment side?
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Sure. Radio, of course.
[00:28:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: At first, right. And it was just a. It was just an ongoing part of the day. My mother listened to the radio all day long. It was playing all day long.
[00:28:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Soap operas on the radio, you know, huge thing.
[00:29:04] Speaker C: Right. Not really music. You're listening to radio programs. Right?
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. And then, in fact, I have a vivid memory. Memory. My mother was keenly interested in politics.
Why was she interested in politics? And she and I listened to the election results from the Truman Dewey election in 1948.
Stayed up late at night listening to that on the radio. I can remember that.
[00:29:37] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
And she also.
[00:29:40] Speaker C: You were about five.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Pardon? You were about five, and she also. And where this came from, I haven't the slightest idea. In the room. She had a keen interest in college football. Huh.
When that dawned on me, I thought, who are you, for goodness sakes?
Where's my mother?
[00:30:07] Speaker C: That is interesting.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: It is. The local newspaper every. Every week had a. Had a thing in there that you would fill out your guess of who would win these football games.
[00:30:19] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: And then. And then hand them in or send them in or whatever. And there was a weekly winner. What they won, I don't have any idea. But she entered every single week.
[00:30:31] Speaker C: Wow, huh?
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It was just so interesting to me. She was born and raised in Nebraska, so she was a huge Nebraska football fan.
Never saw Nebraska game in her life, of course.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: But nevertheless, that's. That was a. That was a big, big part of her life, huh?
[00:30:54] Speaker C: I know. So did you have a. Were you a fan of football or did that kind of just. Was her thing.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: That was her thing. My brother played football.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: And she. And my dad liked that. My dad, I think, liked it more than she.
And I was. I was the.
I was so grateful for another young guy in my class because I ended up being the second slowest runner.
[00:31:27] Speaker C: Sorry, I just caught up with what you were saying.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: That's okay.
[00:31:30] Speaker C: You were thankful that he was the slowest.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Okay, save me from that.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: You didn't always get picked last. You got picked second to last. Yes, but you were friendly and you were enjoyable, so maybe you got picked sooner.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: No, I did not. Not for that. No. I was notorious.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: That's funny.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Steve and I were always the last once picked.
[00:31:58] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: The coach would say, pick sides. You and. You pick sides. Yeah.
[00:32:03] Speaker C: And you're like, oh, no.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: And so we sat there on the bench until everybody else was gone, and then, okay, Martin. And you were there. So that part of my life which I longed for, I just ached to be an athlete.
[00:32:21] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Yes, I did. But it was not to be.
[00:32:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: I mean, just zero coordination.
Not quite to the degree of Steve, but poor Steve. Yes.
But this lady that I told you that my mother got crossways with and was eliminated from her life earlier on, music was not much of a part of our family life. We didn't listen to music on the radio.
[00:32:57] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: We listened to other things. News and soap operas and things of that sort.
And one year, this lady from Leed, she and her husband bought me a record player. And, you know, again, grace of goddess, I had never thought of it. This was not a thing that I wanted.
But they bought a record player, and so my mother said I could buy a record. Well, she was thinking of a 45 revolutions per minute record or even a 78 revolutions per minute record.
And I went downtown to buy a record, and I bought an lp. Long playing record.
[00:33:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Brand new thing at the time.
[00:33:39] Speaker C: Oh, trendy.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: And she said, how much was that?
Cause it's big, right? You know, I said, $2.98.
Oh, she was just horrified, really, for one record. Wow. I said, but, mother, there's 14 songs on this record, so it's really a bargain.
She wasn't sure about that. But anyway, that was the start of my introduction to music, because nobody sang in my house. Nobody played an instrument.
[00:34:16] Speaker C: How old were you, do you think?
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Oh, I would have been probably 1011, something like that.
[00:34:23] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: And, of course, the first time I listened to that, I thought, oh, I just loved it. And so it turned out that music was a huge factor in my life, and I could do it right. I could play. I played instruments and I played. I sang in the choir and I played in the band. And that led to a whole other aspect of my character. The band playing that was detrimental and destructive in the end, but it opened up a new door for my life that just really changed my life quite a lot.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: Right?
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:59] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: In school, I was so inept in gymnasium class that one time, and I'll tell you the story if you're interested in it, but I ended up injuring myself quite drastically.
And the result of that was from then on, the gym teacher, who was the coach, of course, said, tommy, let's do this. When gym time comes, why don't you go on down to the band room and practice your horn instead of having to come to gym class?
[00:35:42] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: I went right for that, you know?
[00:35:47] Speaker C: And what horn did you play at that time?
[00:35:50] Speaker A: I played the baritone horn.
[00:35:51] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Okay. Which I played the rest of my life until I couldn't physically play it anymore.
But. So that's what I did. And nobody said. Nobody said, what are you doing? What is this? Yeah, you're supposed to be in gym. Why aren't you going to gym? But I would watch my watch, and I would play in the band room until gymnasium class was over, and then I'd go back up and.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: But. So how did you get a grade for Jim? Did he just put you in for a grade?
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah, he put me in for Abab.
[00:36:26] Speaker C: Oh, a b. That's a pretty good grade for not being in class at all.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:30] Speaker C: So, I mean, I'm kind of curious what this injury is, but are you. You want to share?
[00:36:36] Speaker A: Oh, well, every time we had any kind of a competitive activity in gym class, I was last.
So we had a.
In the. In the gym, in the school, we had a race, kind of a, where we had to do different kinds of activities.
And then the last one of the activities was in our gymnasium.
You're not going to know the term snow bars. No.
These were wooden bars built out from the wall like a ladder, except the bars were much longer. Several sets of these, and you could climb them.
And the top two bars were out farther from the wall than the rest of the bars were. So when you got to those, you had to climb over them and then down inside the bars.
It was part of the exercise. Well, anyway, early on, as my optometrist put it, when I went to have my eyes checked when I was in the 6th grade, when he was telling my parents, after he had examined my head, he said, tommy has an abnormally large cranial cavity.
And some of you people say your kid has a big head.
Anyway, I knew enough about language that I knew what a cavity was. Cavity was empty space or something was supposed to be, but it wasn't.
So I thought, he's telling them that I have a big head and it's empty.
[00:38:36] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: But anyway, I did have a big head.
On this particular activity this day, I had to climb up the stall bar, over the top, and down in behind, down to the back, down to the floor, back up again. See? Oh, my gosh.
And when it got to be my turn to do it, I got over the top without falling off. It was amazing.
And then my head wouldn't fit between the wall and the bar.
[00:39:11] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
And of course, you're on full display, right? And there's all your friends laughing.
[00:39:22] Speaker C: Oh.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: So on the crucial day of the test, that part of the activity was taken out. We still had to climb the stall bars, and where we had to climb up the stall bars, then right there at the top of the stall bars was a balcony that went on two sides of the gymnasium, and you could get from the stall bars onto the floor of that balcony through the protective canva fence that went around on the inside and climb under it and up onto the floor of the balcony. And then the last part of this race was erased down to here and then down to the far end of the gymnasium. When you got to that part, you would get back down underneath the railings. The protective railings. Hang from the floor of the.
And drop down to the gymnasium floor.
[00:40:25] Speaker C: I'm getting hurt just even listening and thinking and picturing this.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: So I was just so determined, Molly, not to be last. I was just so determined.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. And you wanted to be an athlete, and this was just so.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Here we go. And I'm. The second slowest kid was actually ahead of me in this race, or the slowest kid.
[00:40:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Right, right.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: And so he's about three or four steps ahead of me, running down on the. On the balcony. So he got to the end just a few seconds before I. And he was getting down. He was. He was awkward like I was. You know, he couldn't just.
He was getting down and on the floor and then trying to hang from the floor like he was supposed to hang. So when I got to where he was, I just jumped over the rail.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
And.
[00:41:23] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. From this balcony ledge.
That didn't go well. Then.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: It didn't go well.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: Maybe if you would have snuck out more of your house, you could have been more of an expert in landing.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: I tore loose all the cartilage and ligaments in my chest.
[00:41:45] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: And some other things. And so there I laid on the gymnasium floor, and, of course, that's when the coach made his decision.
This kid's gonna kill himself if I don't get him out of this class. Wow. So he suggested to me after that, after I got out of the hospital, oh, my gosh.
[00:42:09] Speaker C: How long were you in the hospital then?
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Oh, a few days. I don't remember for sure, but wow. Oh, it was a horrible day.
[00:42:15] Speaker C: Do you remember after you got out of the hospital, were you able to go right back to school, or did you have to be at home for a while?
[00:42:20] Speaker A: I think I went back to school then it was hard to breathe because everything hurt.
[00:42:25] Speaker C: Well, I can't imagine you splatted yourself against the floor. Those were usually really good wood floors back then, too.
[00:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah, really. Go. Give.
So, anyway, that was the end of that issue, and then it was just a clear setting for me to be in music. And there I was able to accomplish some things, and I got very, very good at it.
Played an all state band.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: And anyway, if you find value in this show, you can support by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Even better, you can tell a friend.
Thank you for joining me on this journey through time with today's guest. I hope this story touched you as much as it did me. I'd love to hear how this episode resonated with you. If a particular story or memory struck a chord, or if it reminded you of your own experiences, please send in your thoughts or stories. Find us on the web at goldentidbits dot castos.com. or you can send us a message on our fan
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