The Worst Thing That Could Happen To A Teenage Baby Boomer?

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Catching hell from your parents was the worst thing that could happen to a lot of us back in the day.  Your mom would rip off you head and scream down your neck and dad would come home from work kick your head and butt around the block and that was worse then going to jail.

We had a couple of cops in our town. (Hartford, WI)  I remember Officer McGregor (Big football player type guy), Officer Fulwider,  Officer Albin, Officer Ben Day (I always thought for a long time his last name was Benday) and then Chief of Police Clem Mueller.  Officer McGregor was a mean looking guy and we never walked down the same side of the street he did.

Then there Officer Otto Albin. He was basically  nice old guy (about 55) who was part time cop on the weekends. During the week Otto worked where my  father did. In fact, Dad was his boss(foreman)  So I knew him too. 

Otto lived just up the street from us on the edge of town. While he was nice guy off duty, he usually looked gruff and stern, when in uniform.  Officer OTTO (as we called him) spent most of his time trying to be an intimidating tough guy to the teenagers who constantly drove him crazy with the cars roaring up and down Main Street, blaring rock and Roll music and doing Chinese fire drills at the town’s only stop and go-lights on Friday and Saturday nights.

It was 1967 and I was home from college for the summer, living with my parents.  One Saturday, I decided to wind out my 1959 Pontiac  (389 motor) Catalina and “blow out the carbon” in the engine    I was coming to the edge of town on Cedar street so I “punched” it and zoom down the hill toward the High school.The last house on the edge of town happened to Officer Otto’s house.

On that particular day, at that particular moment in time, Officer Otto, off duty, was on his hands and knees,working with the glorious earth, weed in in his flowerbed in  front of his house.  Like many of his peers in that day, his choice of clothes when gardening was a pair of baggy khaki pants, suspenders and a sleeveless white t-shirt (Now known as a wife beater). 

I went roaring by, not a care in the world, not seeing him.  I let up on the gas and let the glass pack mufflers rap off and finally, I turn off the ignition key and switched ignition back on saluting Mr. Cook, the Culligan man (Who was mowing his yard) with a big backfire.  Cook shook his head.  His son and I  were the same age and I'm sure he worried about his son as my folks worried about me. 

 Now my folks had recently moved down the road a bit into a new subdivision, right next to the golf course, so I was soon parked in their driveway.  No one was home, so I got my key out and unlocked the house and went on to other things.

 A few minutes later the doorbell rang.  I went to my upstairs window and there was a gray, old Dodge sitting at the curb. Who could that be?  I wondered.

 I went down to the front door and there stood Officer Otto Albin in his baggy pants, suspenders, sleeveless white T-shirt with dirt stains, sweaty looking and his Police Hat capping his head.  As I look back in time it seems like a rather crusty version of a chunky bald Barney Fife.

"Young Mr. Bowe, step outside please. " He began. "I do believe thatturquoise and white Pontiac out yonder was the vehicle I observed not only disturbing the peace but traveling about 75 miles an hour down past my house toward the high school a little while ago...And I do believe it was you behind the wheel!  Now whattayagotta say for yourself?”

I said nothing.   I was at a loss for words.  Busted was all I could think.

“ Trying to be a smart ass? Cat got your tongue?  I’m surprised at you.  I didn’t think you were one of those punks.  Your dad and mom raised to be better than this!"

I still said nothing, humble to  a puddle of mud ,staring at the ground. I rolled a gravel stone with my shoe (A Lutheran thing I have been told) Staring at and finally kicked it a foot or so out of the way I and said meekly, "Sorry."

"Sorry?” Sorry, my ass!" he roared, “What if you'd had hit the little McPherson girl who was on her bike, just about coming out of the drive way, or run up the curb and flipped that tank of yours and slammed in old lady Carrey’s kitchen, you both been killed!  That's just stupid behavior on your part.”

               

Officer continued to rain down on me, quite mad and then,  just as wished he would write the ticket and leave before my folks came home, the worst thing that could have happened in the world, happened.   My dad and mom, turn into the drive in their  “63”Chevy Biscayne 4 door.  Dad got out and walked toward us, smiling.  Mom followed with a bag of groceries.

"OTTO, what you doing here?"  Dad asked.

Otto looked a me and scowled.  I hoped dad had not seen that.  I fixed my gaze back on the ground.

“Well, Ronnie," he said. "I just saw your boy stop up the street to let old Mrs. Carey cross the road with her coaster wagon full of groceries and then he got out and helped her pull it up the curb.  Thought I’d let the boy know how nice it was that he was driving' so careful around and was being so helpful to that old lady"

With that I excused myself and got the hell out of there. I had dodged a bullet and my parents. No ticket and the cop saved my butt and face in front of dad.

  From that day on whenever I saw Officer Otto Albin, he gave me that look that let me know I owed him one.  Needless to say that incident was a learning experience that made me a better person and much more diligent driver.  Officer Otto probably save my life and some others.  But I can't help but wonder if the politics of my father being his supervisor at his 40 hour a week full time job, hadn't worked in my favor?

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Rock & Roll: Rob and The Rest: A Rock Legend In My Own Mind

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Here are some facts about me.  I grew up in Hartford, Wisconsin, small town, population 5,000 give or take a few in 1960.  As a kid I knew I would be a star for the Milwaukee Braves or the Green Bay Packers.  I loved to sing and played the clarinet, but I would rather have palyed the trumpet.  In High I got stuck on the bass clairnet..  That sucked.

 I loved grade school, tolerated high school which got messed me up a bit as you see in a sentence or two.  I never gave much thought of going to college until the summer I graduated from high school. I loved the outdoors and going out to visit my cousins and grandparents on the farm and in 1962 I was injured in a farming accident that nearly took my life.  I spent a most of a summer in hospital or in bed, then 6 weeks in Rochester, MN getting put together again at the Mayo Clinic. I recovered and became a Rock Legend, in my own mind.

 This “Rock Legend thing” started when I was recovering from the farming accident and subsequent surgeries.   Actually, it started the day after Marylyn Monroe died and there is a vivid memory of the newspaper proclaiming Marilyn’s demise on my sick bed and a few minutes later I discovered my mother’s old Hawaiian guitar hidden away in a closet. I think I was 15.

 In mom’s day, the 1930s-40, lots of young people were gravitating toward Hawaiian music, so the big catalogue houses of the day sold a lot of guitars and ukulele’s and mom’s Harmony arch top guitar became a my new horizon.  Oddly, I never saw or heard my mother play it. She loved playing her piano instead.  She characterized her guitar interest as a passing fantasy, and the guitar had been passed around the family and had come back to her and she stuck it in the closet forgetting about it.  So I picked it up and started plucking the strings.   Next, dad took me to the Hartford Music Center and bought some me new strings and a pick.

The first song I learned, from listening to WOKY and WRIT, the hit stations in Milwaukee, was a simple lead accompaniment and the rhythm chording to the Four Season’s hit, “Dawn” which was a smash across America in that era.  I played along with that 45 until it was junk and then I bought the album played some

In 1964, with the British invasion and folk music, everybody was into Hootenannies or starting a band. I got together with a guy in my junior English class, Mark Giesheker and we performed at the first Hootenanny at our high school.  It was fun and scary.  We both played guitar (a little) and got up in front of a large gymnasium full of people and performed Marty Robbins’s El Paso then segwayed into a medley of “500 Miles” and “When I was a Little Baby-Cotton Fields”, both hit songs for a group called the Highwaymen. (The Beach Boy's also did a version of Cotton Fields.)

As we performed, nobody made a sound and I thought OH MY, we must be bad.  We finished and the place erupted in applause and cheering.  We walked off stage. I was stunned.  One of the teacher’s backstage told us to go back on and take another bow and play and encore.  Well, we took the bow but no encore.  We didn’t know anything else.

Mom’s soon gave way to a $39.95 Sears Silvertone Sold Body Electric guitar and $29.95 Silvertone Amp.  The guitar was a horrible color. I called it metallic Green Vomit.  I sanded it down and repainted it in a metallic purple/white sunburst.  That looked worse.

I was able to get together some cash and got a Gibson SG, beautiful cherry red color.   If I only had that guitar today!   Eric Clapton among others made the SG famous.

Somewhere in that time frame, I took a few guitar lessons and got together with a few guys and the first band was formed.  We called ourselves the “Caminos” Jerry Jacklin, who has been my lifelong friend, was on drums and Ricky Zimmerman* (who was a hell raiser type and who drove a hot 57 Chevy) played lead guitar while I played rhythm guitar and sang. Ricky had the “boss guitar of the day, a Fender “Jaguar” and a Fender “Twin Reverb” amp. 

 

We played at beer parties, and some school dances.  I think the first paying job we got was $15 (split 3 ways) at an under age beer party in a party house that was illegally run like a speakeasy type place behind a tavern at Addison Center, Wisconsin.  That is basically your average wide spot in the road and not found on a map in this day and age.

Ricky was perhaps the best guitar player I have ever played with but his love of cars, beer and wild times got in the way of his music. So the Caminos we very short lived.

  

By late 1965, Jerry and I had joinedJoe Strowig who had a Farfisa organ and then we met Joe Pieper who lived in the nearby small town city of Mayville.  Joe had played lead guitar with the “Scrambells” which had recently disbanded. Joe and I had graduated from high school that year but Jerry and Joe S. were a couple years younger and that was a bit of problem as the pair was still in high school.  To get into bars you need to be at least 18 to perform without your parents.  Jerry’s parents were farm folks so that wasn’t going to happen.  Milking cows came before chaperoning a kid in a bar.  So we solved that and Jerry grew up in a hurry…Fake ID.  If you’re from Wisconsin you’ll remember the “Wisconsin Beverage Identification Card” (Our next blog will be about that very subject!)  With that card, the fun began.

We found a few others who wanted to be rocks stars so Rob, Roy and The Rest came into being. Some players came and went including Roy* and Joe S, so we morphed into Rob & The Rest.  

Rob & The Rest

L-R:Joe Pieper, Jan Kaftanski, Rob Bowe, Jerry Jacklin, Larry Rosenthal  1967

Taken at "The Quarry" Manitowc, WI

Jerry, Joe and I and the Rest, who came and went, hoofed it out for a several years playing at taverns, 18 year old Beer bars, (You need to be a Wisconsin bred baby boomer to know what they were) High school dances, CYO dances, wedding dances and private parties.   Our original bass player, Dick Bell, became our manager for while and we had some wild and crazy times.  Then Uncle Sam was breathing down his neck and soon he joined the naval reserve to avoid going to Viet Nam, so Dick left. Joe and I took over booking and the world became our doorstep.

 We bought more guitars and better equipment. We dreamed.  We traveled a bit. We partied and we had fun, not to mention we did make a few dollars.  Key word in that last sentence is few.  We entered college to get student deferments and for a while I actually thought our dream of hitting it big might happen, but it never did.

In 1968, we went our separate ways, Jerry was in college at UW-Oshkosh and was looking at joining a well-established band there who needed a drummer. Joe was going to college in another town and I was attending college in Milwaukee and was offered a spot in a successful band there so it became apparent that with the distance and the fact we all needed to maintain grades to keep our student deferments and stay out of the draft, the end was at hand.  Rob drifted this way, Jerry that way; Joe became a teacher and THE REST?  They have disappeared.

Jerry went on to play in other bands, as did I.  Jerry kept pounded the drums for a number of years while Joe and I both gave up rock bands for love. Joe is still playing trumpet in an Old time German band. We are all still friends and stay in touch.  We talk about getting together again for shits and giggles, but distance is definitely a problem.

Were we rock legends?  Well, in my mind we were. Reality, it was just another bunch of guys having fun chasing a dream. It was a great life experience and I still relieve some of the memories, over and over in my mind. We had “groupies”.  We had fun. We were and I was fulfilling my senior high school prophecy that was printed for the senior class in the school newspaper by in 1965.  I don’t know who wrote.  The prophecy was I would be a “Rock Star.”   AND I was…A rock legend in my own mind. 

 

*This blog is dedicated to the memory of Roy Justmann and Ricky Zimmermann.

Roy Justmann was part of this memory.  For a short while Roy was a part of  the rock band I was in.  He is the Roy in the original Rob, Roy and The Rest. Roy was a genuine nice guy with a great voice. He recently lost his battle with I believe cancer.  He was great family man, and a County Supervisor in Washington Co. WI. 

Ricky Zimmerman passed away over 15 years ago and we fondly remember some great times with him. He was a forerunner personality wise to great comedian Steve Martin in some ways… “A wild and crazy guy.”

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