Glenna Stearman Park, Kings Drug Store

Glenna Stearman Park

After a long day of moving class to class, rushing to lockers to exchange books, and finally deciding what needed to go home for homework, a sense of relief swept over us as we waited near the east entrance of Roosevelt Intermediate School.  All or most of us left together with an occasional straggler catching up quickly.  It had been the first day back at school, and our entry to Roosevelt.

Walking home, we were a cacophony of cheerful chatter.  Brenda Benjamin, Debbie Snyder, Helen Olsen, Suzanne Porter, Patty Pierce, Mary Lohrenz, Pete Meeds, Charlie Meeds, Calvin Ross, sometimes RJ Brown and David Alldritt. The boys thinned out as track, and basketball seasons came and went.  But we all moved  east on Douglas, crossing to the north side of the street so we could stop at King’s Drug Store, just two doors before Hillside.  Daily, we girls stuffed our cancans into three booths in the drug store and ordered cherry cokes as we mixed back and forth with exuberant conversation about the day and our schedules.  But mostly we all chatted with each other for about 30 to 45 minutes, before splitting up to go home.

About those cancans:  In a response to memories about Susie Smith,  Larry Statham endearingly remarked that Susie Smith wore cancans that made her as wide as she was tall. I had a mental image of girls looking like various stages of mushrooms blooming in the school halls.  Some girls wore more than one petty coat, and occasionally a hoop skirt came along for the fun! Brenda had the fullest skirt that was about 72 yards of netting!  I had a hoop skirt that required practice as the skirt slapped me in the face when I sat on it in the wrong way.  My English teacher showed me the proper way to handle a hoop, and I eventually gave it up for a combination of a couple of cancans.  The whole memory makes me laugh as I imagined middle school girls descending on Roosevelt like invading parachuting armies.  Calvin Ross admitted that those cancans made it hard to concentrate on studies when he kept turning around to check out the girls sitting behind him.   Of course the circle skirt topped all those petticoats and had patches of Poodles sewn on top of all that fluff! (called poodle skirts). 

Seems like a revolutionary move when we switched to strait skirts (called pencil skirts). Soon dyed-to-match sweater and skirts became popular.  To identify our savvy for friendship clusters we also wore paper clip chains attached to our clothes.  Each clip represented a friend.  It was what I recall as a primitive costuming to indicate friendship status.  Some chains got very long.   These were precursors to ID bracelets and letter sweaters exchanged between emerging couples.  Of course I don’t give these the attention of a sociology study because no one ever offered me either one!

Another middle school fad was The Bob Coosey Fan Club organized by Dave Alldritt.  Fred Elder (who had also found entertainment with middle school girl’s cancans)  was taking a printing class at East and was responsible for making the very professionally printed membership cards.  Calvin Ross was responsible for handing out the “auxiliary” membership card, for girls, of course.  I threw mine away in my move to Maryland while downsizing mementos from the distant past.  (I was amazed that I still had it.)

Ah, but I digress from King’s Drug store days.  As we departed the drug store Mary, Helen, and Debbie headed further east on Douglas.   They lived within three blocks of College Hill Elementary.  Calvin, Pete, and Charley walked north north on Hillside or Lorraine with Suzanne and Patty following.  Brenda and I walked north on the east side of Hillside as we lived closer to Central and Wesley Hospital, on Vassar and Yale. 

But after Kings:  Sometimes a more leisure mood prevailed, and a second stop was a record store on the east side of Hillside, only two doors north of Douglas, just around the corner from King’s.  Various groups of us would go inside and choose a listening booth, where the sales clerk would play popular records of our choice.  Eventually we started feeling conspicuous for not buying them. We thanked the clerk and left.  Feeling cheap, we all eventually purchased records now and then—mostly 45’s.  Brenda and Debbie had 45-record players, and they had the biggest collections of 45’s.

One of my major memories from 9th grade stands out.  Calvin Ross ran for student body president.  We all assumed that he would win and went on with our social life.  However Calvin did not want to assume the role without the act of voting.  He considered it a problem that no one wanted to contest his assumption of power.  On the way to Kings’s from school he started bugging me about running against him, and I declined the offer.  I considered my self no fool , after all.  Day after day, at King’s he brought it up, but I declined until the day he said if I lost I would automatically be vice president, and that it would be fun.  Slowly, with a new hope for a good time, I agreed.  Gretchen Stoskopf became my campaign manager.  Patty Pierce’s father did a really nice commercially produced painting of me for a large poster, and most importantly, Gretchen and I went shopping together for matching blue-and-white check sailor dresses.  Debbie Snyder also bought that dress so we were acquiring supporters. 

Immediately all my teachers offered to help me write a campaign speech.  Gretchen wrote her introductory speech and I did not even think about mine.  Soon I started responding to the teachers offers to help, with a very cheerful “No thank you.  I can do it.”. I started thinking about how we would like a coke machine in the cafeteria at East (where Roosevelt went for lunch).  Then I decided that a jukebox would cheer us up at noon and promised that!  Thank God!  I cannot remember the rest of that speech, and years later dug it out of a box from the past and burned it in the fireplace to keep my 3 boys from ever seeing it!

The day came.  Calvin and his campaign manager, Jim Davidson, presented the best campaign program any of us ever saw!  I have no clue what either said, but the power of their presentation was in the replication of our national election process, where home rooms, like states, had a representative stand and say something like:  “The great home room of 306 casts all of their votes for Calvin Ross.” Then everyone cheered and the next home room representative stood up.  That was a Jim/Calvin work of pure art.  We all knew that Jim Davidson was an incredibly intelligent student with a wicked sense of humor.  Personally he was one of my favorite characters in school.  Even in high school, any class that included Jim was always going to be a saucy and hilarious time.  After that delightful presentation, Gretchen introduced` me and I GLEEFULLY promised a coke machine and jukebox at noon.  God knows what else I said, and that speech made it into the ether as I burned it many years later. 

That same time, My Dad was taking me driving on country roads outside Wichita.  I was 13 when he started training me.  By high school, I had a restricted driver’s license and a car. I remember driving past King’s as I pushed on to East’s “American Graffiti.”

I invite to other classmates to write about a favorite moment or place.  Those who entered East from different elementary and intermediate schools shared different experiences. I hope to read more as you add to this collection of memories.

Glenna