Magnificent Melanie, episode 3

Magnificent Melanie, episode 1

Magnificent Melanie, episode 2 

It was mid-May 1978 and the weather was getting nicer each day. On a Thursday, Melanie asked Jason if he’d like to come over after school and maybe stay for dinner. “We’re just having hot dogs, so it’s nothing fancy. I’ve already cleared it with my parents, and they’re fine with it. Your sister’s been over a couple of times with Wendy, so they know her.”

He didn’t have detention that day and otherwise had no extra-curricular activities so he said, “Sure.”

“I just think you ought to meet my family. I’ve told them so much about you,” she said.

Jason was a bit taken aback. “You have?”

“Yes, really, I have,” she nodded enthusiastically. “I think you’re sort of special, okay?”

“Wow, thanks,” was all Jason could say.

When they got to her house later that afternoon, her brother Mark, a lanky 20-year-old with feathered brown hair and a mustache, was in the open garage with his friend Steve as they worked on a rusty 1967 Plymouth Barracuda. There was a hint of marijuana smoke in the air along with the Old Gold Filter cigarettes, while an FM rock station played.

“This is my brother Mark,” she said. “Mark, this is Jason, the guy from school I’ve been talking about.” Then she said back at Jason, “And that’s his friend Steve.”

“Hey, dude,” Mark said as they shook hands, and then Jason shook Steve’s hand.

Jason asked about the car they were working on and after a few minutes of discussion between the three of them, Melanie took Jason’s hand and said, “Okay, I think we should go in the house now. I gotta introduce you to my mom.”

“Later, dude,” Mark said to Jason, adding, “Just remember, when you marry the woman, you marry her whole damn family,” and laughed out loud. Jason got a slightly uneasy look on his face.

“Oh shut up, Mark,” Melanie retorted. “Are you trying to get him to run away?”

Melanie led him to the front door of the split-level house, telling him, “I also have an older sister named Donna. She’s married and lives with her husband,” adding, “Obviously.”

Through the front door they went up the stairs to the living room where Melanie’s mother was sitting on the couch drinking creamed coffee and smoking cigarettes while watching the Mike Douglas Show on TV.

“Hi, Mom. This is Jason, the boy from school I was telling you about. He’s Tami’s brother.”

“Hello,” she said, momentarily taking her eyes off the TV. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Yes he is,” Melanie responded.

“Okay, well dinner will be ready in a little while. I hope you don’t mind we’re having hot dogs. It’s just a lot easier when the kids have friends over,” Melanie’s mother said to Jason.

“No, that’s great. Thanks,” he replied.

“We’ll be in my room, okay?” Melanie said.

“Okay. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

She brought Jason to her room, leaving the door open, explaining, “To be honest with you, I’ve never had a boy over, at least not since I was maybe eight years old. So I better leave the door open so my parents don’t think there’s anything nefarious going on.”

She turned on her record player and said, “Okay, you’re probably going to think I’m really dopey, but this is one of my all-time favorite songs.” She put the Atlantic 45 on the turntable, which was “Honey, Honey” by ABBA.

“Oh wow, I haven’t heard that in a long time,” Jason said.

“Yeah, really! It was played on the radio for like about two weeks in late ’74 then it was like you never heard it again. And ABBA has had a lot of big hits. I’m glad I went out and bought this when I did.”

Her mom approached her room and said, “Melanie, if you’re going to play music, please keep the door closed,” and closed the door.

Melanie’s eyes perked up and she started laughing. “Okay, Mom,” she said.

The next “favorite song” she played was “Turn the Beat Around” by Vickie Sue Robinson. “And my name is Melanie Christina Robinson! I like to think we’re distant cousins,” she told him. She held up the 45 sleeve, which had a picture of the artist.

“See the resemblance? We both have brown eyes, anyway!” she laughed, adding, “She’s prettier than I am, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t know, I think you’re cute,” Jason said.

“Thanks,” Melanie responded. “But do you think I’m pretty?”

“Sure, yes,” Jason told her. “Very much so.”

“Oh thank you,” she said as she hugged him. “I’ll stop now before I get to beautiful. I don’t want to push my luck.” Jason wasn’t sure what to make of that.

As they played records, talked and looked at pictures in her room, Melanie’s dad came home, so her mom went to the kitchen to boil up the hot dogs while her dad read the Newsweek magazine that had just come in the mail as the network news droned on from the TV.

A while later, her mom knocked on Melanie’s door and said, “Dinner’s ready.”

“Okay, Mom,” Melanie responded. They got up and went to the kitchen. Her dad was seated at the table while Mark and his friend Steve were in the basement scrubbing the grease off their hands with Boraxo before coming to the table.

“Dad, this is Jason, the boy from school I was telling you about,” Melanie said. They greeted each other and shook hands before Jason and Melanie sat down.

Melanie’s mom commented, “It’s usually Wendy she has over for dinner.”

Her father added, “Just don’t ask if he can sleep over.”

Melanie laughed while blushing. “It’s okay, I won’t,” she responded.

Jason thought to himself, “Hmm, what if she did?” Melanie thought something similar.

The table was set up with hot dogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, relish, baked beans, potato salad and glasses of grape Kool-Aid with ice.

“Well, I made this myself,” Melanie said as she held up her glass. “I made it this morning before school and added the ice to the pitcher and kept it in the refrigerator until now so it is good and cold and it tastes better than the tap water taste it has when you first make it.”

“Did you add a shot of vodka,” Mark asked.

“NO!” Melanie shot back.

The family talked about what they did that day as they usually did around the dinner table, as Jason listened while munching down.

“You seem rather quiet,” Melanie’s mother commented to Jason.

“Well,” Jason responded with a shrug, “I’m like Mister Ed. I never speak unless I have something to say. While people yackety-yak a streak and waste your time of day.” Everyone at the table busted out laughing.

Melanie put her arm around his and leaned into him, commenting, “Slowly but surely I’m getting him to open up more.”

After dinner the family watched “The $100,000 Name That Tune” on TV in the living room followed by “Welcome Back, Kotter” as Melanie and Jason sat together cross-legged on the orange shag carpeting. After Kotter, Melanie told Jason, “Okay, I really hate to say this but I got to get to my homework. I’ll walk you outside.”

On the step outside the front door, Melanie thanked him for coming, hugged and kissed him and said, “Bye, Jason. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.” While waving to him as he left, she said, “Love ya!”

Melanie went back inside with a smile, humming to herself as she washed up and went to her room to do her homework. Meanwhile, as he walked home, Jason, who wasn’t used to this kind of attention from a girl, wondered what he was getting himself into.

Magnificent Melanie, episode 2

Magnificent Melanie, episode 1

It was the spring of 1978, and new friends Melanie Robinson and Jason Lundgren were gripped with Spring Fever.

Melanie and Jason saw each other for the first time since their Saturday Pizza Hut date at school Monday morning, although they talked on the phone for over an hour on Sunday. She was a grade ahead of him, they didn’t have any classes together, so they didn’t have a whole lot of opportunities to see each other in school. Mornings before classes started were usually the best time. She hugged him and they chatted, as Jason ate something from a small plastic sandwich bag.

“What are you eating,” she asked.

“Apple Jacks cereal,” Jason replied. “I like to sleep in as long as I can, so I don’t have time to make breakfast, so I’m eating my breakfast now. Plus, it makes me look tough. If I take a bunch of them and put them inside my cheek like this…I can look like a bad ass dude with a plug of chewing tobacco.” Then he said, with his right cheek bulging out, pretending to be such a character, “Yew don’t scare me, Mister!”

Melanie laughed, and said, “ACK! Chewing tobacco! Gross!”

The other kids in school were noticing. Until then, nobody ever linked the two, but now the story was going around (thanks to Wendy and Tami) that they went out together.

Melanie enjoyed the newfound attention but was coy when asked about it out in the student smoking area behind the school. “Hmm…maybe,” she’d say when asked if there was anything between them, or “Wouldn’t you like to know!"

Jason (who wouldn't go near the smoking area) didn’t think it was anyone’s business but tried to handle it with humor. “I will not answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me,” was his response to such questions.

*****

The following Saturday, late in the morning, Melanie called up Jason and asked if he wanted to do something that day. “I have to babysit at six but I have the afternoon open,” she told him 

“Well, a friend of mine, John Rafferty, is going to be broadcasting live from the Goodyear tire store on Bellington Avenue on KPRA this afternoon. I was thinking of seeing him. We could do that.”

“A tire store? How romantic!” Melanie responded jokingly. But she knew who that disc jockey was and said, “Sure, and maybe we can check out some of the other stores around there.”

Melanie came over, her brown hair in a ponytail tied with a white ribbon. She was wearing a short-sleeved top she purchased from Casual Corner, jeans and sandals, with her ever-present leather purse over her shoulder, which she had also purchased from Casual Corner, while Jason was wearing a white T-shirt with a red Levi’s logo, non-Levi’s jeans and his blue and yellow Kinney NBA sneakers.

They walked to the tire store. The blue “920 KPRA” van was there with John Rafferty talking to people casually when he was between live cut-ins on the top-40 station. Jason came up and said, “Hey John, how’s it goin’”

“Jason! Glad you could make it,” he responded and they did a high-five. Jason introduced him to Melanie, who seemed impressed that they knew each other so well. Jason explained that he used to call in on John’s “Boogie Check” joke line segments when he used to be on another station, G/106.

“I used to call in on Boogie Check,” Melanie told them. “I was ‘Magnificent Melanie.’ I was usually babysitting and would tell some silly joke from the joke books I’d bring to my babysitting jobs. The kids just loved hearing me on the radio.”

“YES, I remember you,” John told her. “I could hear the kids in the background.”

“THAT was you?” Jason asked. “Oh wow, I never made the connection. Did you say, ‘What’s green and sings? Elvis Parsley’ one time?"

“Umm-hmm,” Melanie responded, nodding her head.

“Then I called up later and told the same joke but with the punch line ‘Frank Sin-ot,’ which sounds like snot.”

“That was YOU?” Melanie replied. “Okay, I’m going to have to give you girl germs for that!” She put her arm over his shoulder and kissed him while purposely stepping on his left foot with her sandal, over his sneaker.

“Wow! Glad you two found each other,” John Rafferty said 

“It must have been fate,” Melanie replied.

*****

After leaving the tire store parking lot, they wandered around the area, stepping into various shops, mostly just looking. Then they came to a Woolworth store, which still had a soda fountain inside.

“Hey, do you want to share an ice cream sundae with me?” she suggested. “I can’t eat an entire one myself, or at least I shouldn’t eat an entire one myself. My treat.”

“Sure,” Jason said, and they went to the counter and sat down.

As they consumed spoonfuls of ice cream and chocolate syrup together from the same glass, Jason commented, “That’s wild that you were ‘Magnificent Melanie’ on Boogie Check. I feel like I’m in the presence of a celebrity.”

Melanie laughed. “Oh, shut up! And anyway, you actually know John Rafferty. That’s pretty impressive.”

“Well, maybe we have more in common than we realize,” Jason replied. “I’m surprised you listened to G/106. I’d peg you more as a soft rock person.”

“I like all kinds of music,” Melanie told him. Then she confided, “The thing is, I don’t at all consider myself magnificent, I’m not. It’s something I made up to sort of be a character on the radio and to entertain the kids I was babysitting. I’d like to be special but I’m not. I’ve never been popular even though I try to be nice and try to please people and fit in. I think I’m reasonably smart but I’m always told I’m a ditz or an airhead or whatever. Or a goodie two-shoes.”

“I don’t give a shit about being popular with those assholes,” Jason said. “If they don’t like me, fine, I don’t care. They can just leave me the hell alone and I won’t bother them. But some of them won’t leave me alone and they harass me every damn day and I’m sick of it. So I kinda get what you’re saying. I’m only in school because I have to be.”

“I generally like school,” she said. “I like learning, I have some good teachers who have been really helpful and encouraging, and I want to go to college and learn as much as I can. But I’ve had some teachers who are just as condescending to me as some of the students are and I don’t understand why. Because I’m too nice? I’ve actually been told that.”

“You’re Magnificent Melanie. The hell with what they think,” Jason told her.

Melanie laughed but was taken aback for a moment. “Hmm. I guess that’s one way of looking at it." 

*****

As the flirtatious friendship between Melanie and Jason continued to blossom, Melanie’s girlfriends seemed to be getting a little jealous, or something. When they were together in Melanie’s bedroom one day, Wendy commented sarcastically, “Well, she doesn’t have a picture of Jason on her nightstand anyway.”

Melanie responded, “Hmm, I hadn’t even thought of that. That’s a good idea. I do have a couple of pictures of him I could put in a frame and set there.” The girls weren’t sure if she was being serious or sarcastic.

“Jason’s my younger brother,” Tami said. “There’s just something weird about it.”

“Well hey, some day we may be sisters-in-law. Can I call you Sis?” Melanie retorted.

Tami opened her mouth, stuck in her finger and went, “ACK!” Then she asked with a bit of disdain, “Do you really think you’re going to marry my brother?!”

“Anytime soon? No. In the future? Who knows. Never say never.” She dragged hard on her cigarette, exhaled and said, “Anyway, you’re the ones who set me up with him. You’re the ones who kept saying I needed a boyfriend…”

“We set you up with him as a joke,” Tami replied.

“Well I guess that joke backfired on you,” Melanie shot back. “He’s nice, he’s funny, he doesn’t push anything with me, he’s not offended that I’m usually babysitting on Saturday nights, he even enjoys hearing my babysitting stories, and I enjoy being with him. If you’re bothered by that, oh well.” Tami and Wendy looked at each other, stunned. They had never seen the usually passive Melanie get that bold.

Finally, Wendy stepped in. “Okay, girls, can we, like, talk about something else now?”

“Fine with me,” Melanie said.

“Whatever,” huffed Tami.

Melanie cracked a smile as she thought to herself, “I’m Magnificent Melanie. The hell with what they think!”

Magnificent Melanie, episode 3 

Magnificent Melanie, episode 1

When Melanie Robinson was in high school in the late 1970s, she was torn between wanting to fit in with the crowd and wanting to be her own unique self. She was considered cute with her brown hair and eyes, and her five feet, two inch stature. She had a few girlfriends but didn’t really date. Guys she knew wanted something more serious than she felt ready for and besides, she was often too busy babysitting. She was creative and artistic, and something of a kid magnet, so she got called on a lot to babysit as she saved up money for her own car. 

Her personality tended to be upbeat and positive, which annoyed some of her more cynical peers. She learned to take criticism in stride. If somebody called her “weird” or “strange,” she’d retort, “I’m just slightly unusual, okay?” She was smarter than people gave her credit for, and she had a great sense of humor, so she’d often have some hilarious comebacks to petty criticism, always with a smile and without viciousness.

She was the youngest in her family with a married sister named Donna, who was in her mid-20s and had a tendency to be a bit condescending to her, and a brother named Mark, in his early 20s, with whom she felt closer. Her father was a somewhat grumpy cigar-chomping factory foreman who dismissed her as a “goofy teenager with her head in the clouds all the time” and her mother was a homemaker who smoked a lot and tended to be aloof. She was much closer to her paternal grandmother who encouraged her artistic side and was often accused of “spoiling” her when she was growing up.

Her bedroom was her refuge. She had her bed and her vanity table, and a wicker chair she liked to sit in while reading or listening to music on her small stereo or the radio. There were candles and a soft pink bulb in her lamp and plants by her window. There was a John Travolta poster on her wall along with a few drawings she made and pictures of actors and pop stars cut from the pages of teen fan magazines. Her bookshelf still had the Little House and Nancy Drew books she grew up reading, but one of the books she was reading in high school was “It’s Okay If You Don’t Love Me” by Norma Klein. She also had stacks of Seventeen, Glamour and Vogue magazines in her room. 

As a teenager, Melanie was trying to figure herself out. Outwardly she seemed like a really nice girl, positive, upbeat, vivacious, idealistic and attractive, with an almost angelic voice. Inwardly she had a lot of insecurities and self-doubt. 

She started to come into her own in the spring of 1977, around the time she turned 16. Her hair used to be long and straight, usually pinned down with barrettes, but she got a more fashionable fluffy and bouncy hairdo around that time. She also started wearing more makeup and perfume, maybe even overdoing it a little, and she started to experiment with smoking to fit in more with her friends.

Her best friend was Wendy Jenkins, a blond, blue-eyed popular girl who was protective of Melanie. She befriended Melanie when they were in third grade. Melanie tended to be picked on and Wendy stood up for her. The boys “hated” the girls at that age and the two girls realized “girl germs” to them were like kryptonite to Superman, so they would chase after the boys, grab and kiss them on the playground, which landed the girls in trouble at school. Over the years, “girl germs” continued to be a running gag between them.

One of Wendy’s other friends was a girl named Tami Lundgren, who wasn’t all that crazy about Melanie. She thought Melanie was too much of a goodie-goodie, a little too nice and cutesy, which Melanie found rather perplexing, but took it in stride. Tami had a brother named Jason who was less than two years younger, and the more she complained about how much she couldn’t stand Melanie at home, the more curious he was about her.

Jason had his own “uniqueness.” In school he was considered a cut-up, a class clown, a smart-ass who didn’t give a damn about popularity or school for that matter. But he was actually shy and had endured a lot of bullying himself growing up. Being a class comedian was a way to endure it. At home, if he wasn’t watching TV he spent a lot of time in his room playing records and reading everything from Mad magazine to books about beer can collecting. His small group of friends were also beer can collectors, with pyramid-shaped displays of old empty cans in their bedrooms.

***** 

Melanie and Jason crossed paths for the first time on a Saturday afternoon on a winter day in early 1978. Jason was in the living room watching TV when Tami, Wendy, Melanie and a couple other girls came through the front door, talking and laughing loud, making a lot of noise. Jason was annoyed by the intrusion and turned the TV up louder so he could hear it over them. Then one of the girls came in and said “hi” to him. Jason returned the greeting but was taken aback. Tami’s friends almost never acknowledged him. Just then Wendy said, “Come ON, Melanie!” as the girls made way to Tami’s room.

“So that’s Melanie,” Jason thought to himself. The lingering scent of her perfume made him continue to think about her. About an hour later, as the girls were getting ready to leave, he tried to get another glimpse of her but they were out the door before he could say or do anything to get her attention.

But it wasn’t long before Melanie came over again as she tagged along with Wendy and the group. When she saw Jason she would say hi or at least wave to him, and sometimes they would chat briefly before “the girls” dragged her away. “The girls” thought her interest in that “kid” was another example of her weirdness.

“So, do you like him?” Tami asked, somewhat incredulously.

“Yeah, I guess so. He’s nice and sort of cute.”

The girls busted out laughing. “Oh, my god, really?! He’s too young! And anyway, girls mature faster than guys,” came the responses.

“He’s only a year or so younger and he seems more mature and smarter than most of the guys our age,” Melanie retorted. The girls didn’t have much of a comeback to that.

*****

On a particular weekend early in the spring of 1978, the girls were in Tami’s room and Jason was in his room playing records on his small stereo. On this occasion he was playing his old 45 r.p.m. singles that he had been collecting since he was six years old. 

Meanwhile, Melanie excused herself from Tami’s room to go to the bathroom. After some 60 seconds she emerged from the bathroom but instead of returning to Tami’s room she was drawn to the closed door of Jason’s room where she heard a song from about a decade earlier, “Bend Me, Shape Me” by the American Breed. When the song ended, she knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” Jason said through the door.

“Hi. Um, this is Melanie. Can I come in for a minute?”

Jason was a little taken aback. “Sure…”

“Can you play that again? I haven’t heard that song since I was, like, a little kid!”

“Okay,” Jason said and he put the needle back on record.

As the song played, she asked to look through his stack of 45s. She went through the stack, occasionally pulling one out saying, “play this…play this…play this…”

Meanwhile, after about fifteen minutes, the girls started wondering where she went. Wendy came out to investigate. She saw the bathroom was wide open, and then heard Melanie’s voice coming out of Jason’s room while the music played. Wendy went to the door, almost knocked, but decided to return to Tami’s room.

“Melanie’s in your brother’s room,” Wendy told Tami. “They’re listening to ‘60s music.”

“Ugg! Should I get her,” Tami asked.

“No, she’s okay.” Wendy responded. “I think she’s in love.”

Tami, who was sitting on the floor, busted out laughing and started to roll over. “They deserve each other!”

Shortly, Melanie returned. “So, did anything happen,” Wendy asked sarcastically.

“Hmm…maybe,” Melanie responded with a smile. “I think I need a cigarette,” she added, going for her purse. Both of the girls busted out laughing again.

“Oh, it was that good?!” Wendy chided.

“Did you know Buddy Holly wrote and recorded ‘It’s So Easy’ back in the fifties,” Melanie asked. “I had no idea. I thought that was a Linda Ronstadt song. It’s like he knows everything!”

A few days later when the girls returned to Tami’s house, Jason wasn’t there. Melanie held off a bit before finally asking, “So where’s Jason?”

“I don’t know. Out with his friends or whatever,” Tami responded.

“Oh.” Melanie said no more but her disappointment showed.

Later that evening, after Jason was home, Tami told him, “Melanie was here and she was asking about you. I think she likes you. I don’t know why, but she does.”

Jason smiled and said, “Wow, really? Cool!” It was the most interest any girl had shown in him, let alone an “older” one.

*****

On a Saturday in April 1978, the girls were once again at Tami’s house, making plans for an outing to Pizza Hut with their boyfriends. Melanie didn’t have a babysitting job that night so she was invited by Wendy to come with, but she was the only one who didn’t have anyone to go with.

Tami said sarcastically, “Maybe we should set her up with Jason. I’m sure he’s not doing anything.”

Melanie perked up. “I’m open to it! Do you think he’d want to go with me?”

“Well we could ask him!” Tami got up and walked in the direction of his room, where he was playing the “Desolation Boulevard” album from the British hard rock band Sweet. Melanie put her hands over her face and just said, “Oh-my-god, oh-my-god…”

Tami returned and Jason followed, not sure what any of this was about.

“We’re all going to Pizza Hut but Melanie doesn’t have anyone to go with. Do you wanna go with her?” Tami announced to Jason. He looked over at Melanie, who was turning beet-red and still trying to hide her face.

“Yeah, right,” he said as he turned around and started walking back.

“No, really! She wants to go with you!”

Jason looked over to Melanie skeptically and said, “Really?” Melanie nodded her head in the affirmative.

“We’re friends, right?” she asked. “It’s not like I’ll ask you to go steady or anything. But I do have a reputation for giving girl germs so you better be careful.”

She totally disarmed him. Jason started laughing and now he was the one blushing a little bit. “Okay, then. Sure. But I don’t really have any money.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tami told him. “I just HAVE to see how this is going to turn out!" 

At about twenty after six (they were supposed to be there at six), Lenny and Chuck, who were Wendy’s and Tami’s boyfriends respectively, pulled up in Lenny’s bright orange van. They didn’t bother coming to the door, they just honked the horn.

Jason followed the girls to the van. As they piled in the back, Lenny saw Jason, and asked, “What’s he doin’ here?”

“He’s Melanie’s date. Can you believe it?” Wendy told him.

“Oh. Okay.”

Jason, who was already wondering what he was getting himself into, had a worried look on his face, wondering if he should just bow out, but Melanie took his hand as they squeezed into the back seats and sat close to him. “Count On Me” by Jefferson Starship came on the radio as they made their way to Pizza Hut.

The six teenagers walked in to the restaurant, and sat down at one of the larger tables with the checkered tablecloths. Soon a waitress brought out their soft drinks in red plastic tumblers with straws and took their pizza order.

As they waited, different conversations were taking place around the table. Lenny and Chuck mostly talked about sports, particularly football. Wendy and Tami tried to engage them in other topics but soon just bantered between themselves. Meanwhile, Melanie was attempting to break the ice with Jason by telling him stories about antics she and Wendy had gotten into and some of her adventures while babysitting.

Being the youngest and the only non-smoker at the table, Jason felt a little out of place. He was a bit surprised to see Melanie light one up. (There were ashtrays right on the tables in those days.) She told him, “I only started fairly recently and I don’t smoke all that much, not nearly as much as those girls,” as she gestured toward Wendy and Tami.

Wendy chimed in. “Oh, shut up, Melanie, you smoke up a storm and you know it.”

Melanie retorted, “Oh, shut up, Wendy, I do not!” They made faces at each other and laughed. “She’s been my best friend since third grade,” she told Jason.

Jason started opening up a little more. He told her of how he had gotten into trouble a couple years earlier when he was in eighth grade for the “Bicentennial poem” he wrote. He put his hand over his heart and recited, “In seventeen-hundred-and-seventy-six, we kicked the shit out of the Brits. A nation was born, it was made clear, from George Washington to Paul Revere.”

Melanie busted out laughing. “You should write a poem for me,” she said. “On second thought, maybe not!”

Finally the pizza came. Everybody got slices on their plates while Lenny, Chuck and Jason all sprinkled hot peppers on their slices, much to the repulsion of the three girls.

*****

At the end of the evening, Lenny and Chuck dropped everyone off at Tami’s and Jason’s house. Wendy and Melanie lived within walking distance, but Wendy said to Lenny, “Hey, you could drop us off at our houses!”

“We’ve got shit to do,” he told her, and away they went in the orange van.

Before going in, Jason told Melanie, “Thanks, this was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it, more than I thought I would actually. Well, see ya.” He waved his hand and started to walk away.

Melanie grabbed his arm, pulled him back and planted a kiss on him.

“Now you’ve got girl germs,” she told him.

Magnificent Melanie, episode 2 

Magnificent Melanie, episode 3 

Darrell & Glenn, the With-it Guys

 

Turning the clocks back to 1973, year of The Dry Look…

“Darrell and Glenn, the With-it Guys” was a single-panel comic feature syndicated to newspapers and used mostly as filler content, appearing in dozens of dailies and weekly papers in 1973. It was distributed by American Mutual Syndicate, known primarily for third-tier comic strips like “Neal the Mean” and “Swamp Rats,” and third-tier columnists such as grumpy elderly commentator Leonard Rodney Ford and a beer can collectors’ column by someone calling himself “Jacob Keglined.”

“Darrell & Glenn” featured two young men with wire-rim glasses and mustaches, with Darrell always appearing on the left side of the panel wearing short hair and sideburns and Glenn on the right with longer hair. The same images were used in every panel.

The guys mused about things going on in the current culture, staying away from heady topics such as the Watergate scandal and abortion, instead focusing on things like the Energy Crisis, interior decorating, pop-top cans, Shell No-Pest Strips, rock ‘n’ roll records and Geritol commercials.

“Darrell & Glenn” was aimed at the young adult newspaper reader at a time when newspapers tried to have something for everybody. Promotional materials from American Mutual Syndicate sent out to newspaper editors said the feature appealed to “the with-it, Now generation—men and women between the ages of 18 to 35, a target consumer of many of your advertisers. Those with-it people know what’s happening and know where it’s at. Darrell & Glenn talk to them. Straight to the point without any bunk or bull. In addition, children and teens look up to them and little old ladies think they’re ‘nice boys.’ Are you with the With-it Guys?”

It was an interesting glimpse into what was conventional wisdom in 1973, some of which hasn’t aged so well.

Remember when pay phones were important and necessary? And local calls were only ten cents? (Click the panels to enlarge.)

How the incredible, edible egg stood in what was the Year of Shortages.

 

 

Conventional wisdom in interior decorating. 

 

 

Yes, the J. Geils Band had been around for years before they recorded "Centerfold" in the early '80s.

A few newspapers that published this one received some critical letters to the editor pointing out there is no mention of the environmental hazards of those "convenient" pop top cans. Another letter writer took offense that Glenn seemed to be excluding women in his comment about them.

A since-banned insecticide product marketed by a major oil company dangled from light fixtures and ceilings in early '70s homes.

 

Referencing a controversial commercial for an iron supplement called Geritol that featured a husband saying, "My wife. I think I'll keep her." 

Another pick hit of the week. Longtime Motown artists the Four Tops had recently switched labels to Dunhill/ABC.

Confronting the Energy Crisis with a 55 MPH speed limit. This one actually received a lot of praise at the time.

Kathy and the Kid

 

Audio book version can be found here

  It was March 1986. Kathy Johnson had just moved in to a small but comfortable unit in the Manor Royale apartment complex. At age 22, her marriage to "Mister Wonderful" had fallen apart. When she couldn't take the drinking, verbal abuse, controlling and running around by her husband anymore, she packed as much as she could into her small car and left, getting away as far as she could. They had no children, so it was easy enough to break away.

     As she slowly got settled in, she had lots of mixed emotions. She was now completely alone. She didn't miss her estranged husband too much, and she liked being able to finally do things for herself and make her own decisions, but she was also lonely. She didn't really know anybody in the city she moved to, and she wasn't ready to start dating again. She landed a second shift job at a factory doing light assembly and packing boxes, which kept the bills paid, but it was a rather dark, depressing, restrictive work environment where the people weren't particularly friendly. She wasn't Kathy, she was Employee #2281.

     She would get home at around 11:30 at night, watch some late night TV for a few hours, go to bed, get up again the next day and if she didn't have to go grocery shopping or run some other errand, she'd sit in her apartment, watch TV, sip black coffee, eat, and smoke cigarettes. Lots of them. Then, later in the day, go back to work at her less than thrilling job.

     There were a lot of kids at the Manor Royale apartments where she lived. Some were from in-tact families but a lot of them were from divorced or otherwise single parent households. Like 12-year-old Jacob Petersen, who lived with his mother a couple floors down.

     Technically he was living with his mother but in the grand scheme of things he was fending for himself because she wasn't home very often. She got up early for work and came home late, and she had a social life too. But Jacob was rather mature and responsible for his age, and could get up, get dressed and get to school on time, and then come home and heat up his own frozen dinners in the oven. He had a few friends that he sometimes hung out with after school, and for the most part they stayed out of trouble. A big motivation for Jacob to stay out of trouble was to prove to his mother he didn't need a stinkin' babysitter at age 12.

     Kathy started to notice Jacob a lot when summer came, and school was out. Sometimes he and his friends were coming and going in and out of each other's apartments or roaming up and down the halls or doing something outside, but a lot of times Jacob was by himself, especially during the day on weekdays, because his friends had other activities going on.

     Kathy knew nothing about the kid, but she wondered about him. She sensed he was neglected and maybe as lonely as she was. Seeing him around stirred some maternal feelings in her, thinking about how nice it would be to have a son or daughter and how she would be a much more loving, nurturing parent to this kid than his own mother apparently was. She found herself thinking about him while engaged in her tedious, redundant tasks at work.

     Finally, when she saw him late one morning hitch-hiking on Highway 612 about a half-mile from the apartments, she hit her breaks.

     "Get in here! Now!" she ordered.

     "Okay," the kid said with a relieved smile as he opened the door and went into the front passenger seat. But Kathy only pulled up a little further to the side of the road while traffic zoomed by.

     "Just what do you think you're doing," she demanded.

     "I'm just trying to get home,” Jacob said. “I live at the Manor Royale apartments. They're just over…"

     "I know where you live,” Kathy interrupted. “I see you around there all the time. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to hitch-hike? Any idea?! You could be hit by a car, or, you don't know who's going to pick you up, or where they're going to take you or what they might do to you. You could be kidnapped, you could be slaughtered or who knows what could happen to you!" She pulled a Benson & Hedges cigarette from her purse and lit up.

     "Sorry!" the kid said.

     Kathy took the cigarette from her mouth and exhaled. "Oh, you're sorry. Is that all you have to say? If you were my kid you'd be getting a spanking from me and I don't care how old you are!"

     She shifted the car into drive and got back on the highway. "So, is your mom home right now? Or do you even have a mom?" Kathy's voice dripped with sarcasm as she asked this.

     "My mom is working. She won't be home 'til at least six."

     "Oh, of course. Why am I not surprised?"

     After about a minute, Kathy finally started to calm down. "I'm Kathy, by the way. What is your name?"

     "Jacob."

     "Have you had lunch yet, Jacob?"

     "Not really…"

     "I'll tell you what. I'll make you lunch. Do you like grilled cheese?"

     "Sure."

     "Good. So do I."

     It was coming up on noon when Kathy brought Jacob up to her apartment. She fixed him and herself a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk, and while he wasn't real talkative, she got him to open up a little.

     "So are your parents divorced?" she asked him.

     "Yeah, for about three years. I was nine, I guess. I don't see my dad much at all anymore, and my mom works and goes out a lot and stuff. But I can take care of myself," he told her.

     "Well, I'm sure divorce can be pretty hard on a kid,” she replied. My parents are still together but I'm in the process of getting a divorce. I'm glad I don't have kids because of the circumstances, but I also wish I had kids, if that makes any sense?"

     "So why are you getting divorced?"

      "My husband is such a turd," she laughed. "He would tell me he loves me so much, then he would come home drunk and start screaming at me about what a stupid bitch I am, how I don't satisfy his desires as much as I should and I'm just so lucky he married me. Then he'd go sleep with some co-worker or pick up some chicky-babe in a bar. He could be mean, he could be sarcastic, but he could also be charming, and I fell for it. Well I hope he's happy now!"

     She finished her glass of milk and lit a cigarette. "He also got me smoking. I never smoked until after I started dating him when I was 19. I was always one of the good girls in high school who didn’t smoke."

     All Jacob could say was "Wow." She had gone from talking to him like a child when she picked him up, to talking to him as if he were another adult. But she was desperate for someone to talk to and confide in, and Jacob was pretty mature for his age.

     Jacob in turn told her about his life, his friends, and his mother who wasn't around all that much, either working or going out and sometimes coming home drunk. He then said facetiously, "I wonder if my mom has met your husband."

     Kathy laughed. "Well she can have him! I would gladly trade him for you. If you were my kid, I would put you first in my life, and love you, and take care of you and be there for you."

     They continued to talk until Kathy glanced at the clock on the wall. "Oh my God! I'm going to have to get ready for work right now or I'm going to be late. Thank you so much for talking to me, Jacob. I've really enjoyed this."

     She walked him to the door. "I work evenings but I'm usually home during the day. So if you want somebody to talk to, I'm here for you." She hugged him, and then looked him in the eye. "And don't you dare ever hitch-hike again!"

     It would be another week before Jacob took Kathy up in her offer to visit her, but they did say hi to each other when they saw each other in and around the apartment complex. On one occasion, she greeted Jacob while he was hanging with a couple of his friends.

     "Stop by and see me some time," Kathy said as she walked off.

     "Who was that?" his stunned friend Joel asked. "She's nice!"

     "Oh, just the lady in 308," Jacob replied.

     The next day, a little after 10:30 in the morning, Jacob came up to 308. Kathy invited him in and gave him a hug, and a kiss on the forehead. They sat in the living room and talked, and then Jacob asked with some trepidation, "Can I sit with you, Kathy?"

     Kathy's eyes widened. "Well of course." She patted the spot next to her on the couch. "Come over here."

     Jacob found that Kathy was willing to give him something he was lacking in his life and didn't realize he craved, and that was physical affection. His mother was not a particularly affectionate person and tended to push him away when he was younger and tried to get close to her. Kathy was very touchy-feely and was craving it herself.

     As summer rolled on, Kathy and Jacob were spending more time together. She would make him lunch, or at least a snack, and they would spend a few hours together in the air-conditioned comfort of her apartment unit during the hot, humid summer. They cuddled together on the couch, sometimes rocking back and forth like a mother and baby, or he would lay his head in her lap while she read a paperback or watched TV or talked on the phone, with her free hand stroking his chest. Sometimes she’d lean over and give him a kiss.

     When she would talk on the phone to her mother or friends from the old neighborhood while Jacob was with her, they commented that she sounded more relaxed and contented than she had been for a long time. She would just say that things were getting better and she was meeting new friends, without elaborating.

     Then around late August, Kathy casually mentioned to Jacob that her soon-to-be-ex husband got her number and was starting to call her. "He wants to have dinner with me," she said. "I'm not really crazy about it. But I don't know. Maybe I should just meet up with him once to hash things out as the divorce becomes final."

     Jacob thought that sounded a little fishy, but as negative as she was about her husband, he assumed that would indeed be the extent of it.

     Then, after a while, Kathy didn't seem to be at home as much. Jacob would knock on her door or call her only to get no answer, or if she did answer, she never had much time.

     Finally one day, she invited him over. He came to her apartment to find much of her belongings boxed up. It was obvious she was getting ready to move.

     "I'm getting back together with my husband," she said enthusiastically. "Isn't that great?"

     Jacob was stunned. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Why? I thought you said your husband was a big turd. That he was mean to you and liked to get drunk…"

     "He promised he would change for me because he really does love me, and that's all that matters. I have to change for him too, that's the deal, but he said he loves me!"

     "Well…" Jacob said, and then paused to collect his thoughts. "Can I have your new number so we can still talk? Or your address so we can write to each other. I love to write letters…"

     "No, I don't think that's going to work out," she told him. "I mentioned you to him, and he wasn't too happy about you coming over, even if you are only 12. He says it's another one of my dumb ideas that I need to stop, and I guess he's sort of right."

     Jacob felt like he had just been punched in the gut. "I'm a dumb idea?!"

     "I didn't say that, Jacob."

     "Going back to your husband is a dumb idea, Kathy. A stupid idea! Why are you doing this?"

     "Well I'm sorry you feel that way," Kathy responded. She lit a cigarette as she tried to mask her own feelings. "Anyway, I'm going to have to let you go now. I need to finish packing," she said.

     She walked him to the door and gave him a brisk hug. "Bye, Jacob. It's been fun." She pushed him out the door and locked it behind him.

     A few days later, the unit where Kathy dwelled for six months became available for rent again, even though she had to pay a rather high fee for breaking her lease. Her renewed relationship with her husband only lasted a few months until she moved out again, and moved in with a new boyfriend. A few years later, with a different boyfriend, she became pregnant and nine months later gave birth to a son. She named him Jacob.

After School Special: Down at the Junk Yard

Around the summer of 1974 there was a vacant lot just off of 59th Street and Halifax Avenue South that was something of an eyesore in an otherwise nice, quiet residential neighborhood. It was referred to as "the junk yard" by local residents, as junk had accumulated in the lot over the years. An old mattress, tires, wooden pallets, pieces of broken down furniture, car parts, tin cans, bottles and lots of other crap. There was even an old steel garbage can there, filled with garbage, naturally.

A wooden fence directly behind the lot was plastered with old advertising posters for local businesses, political candidates from elections past and whatnot. "Enjoy the fabulous Neuman Burger. Exclusively at Neuman's Drive-In," read one prominent billboard. Neuman's Drive-In had gone out of business a few years back when McDonald's moved into the neighborhood. "Drink Col. Davenport, the 100 proof whiskey" read another. "Vote No on Proposition 21" urged yet another. No one even remembered what Proposition 21 was. There was even an old, outdated poster of Reddy Kilowatt promoting a local utility, saying "Electricity is penny-cheap." The electric bills people were getting from that same utility by that time indicated otherwise.

A group of neighborhood boys, classmates at the nearby school, most hovering around the age of 12, adopted the junk yard as their "official headquarters." The boys were Darren Armstrong, Don Russell, Todd Edwards, Mark Erickson and his brother Chris, who was a couple years younger. With school out for the summer, these boys were spending a lot of time hanging out "down at the junk yard." It might not have been the most ideal playground, but it was a place they could call their own (or so they thought), with lots of "neat stuff" lying around. Their parents didn't object, as long as they would "be careful" and were home by suppertime.

On a warm, sunny, somewhat humid late morning in June, the five boys were hanging out there, two of them sitting on an old, rotting couch, another on an old chair and the others on a tire and a pallet, all drinking from a six-pack of Seven-Up and eating from bags of candy procured from the nearby corner store as they enjoyed their summer vacation. And what would be more appropriate to consume in a junk yard than junk food?

"I tell you, man, this is the life," Don said. "No school, no rules, and we're drinking pop, eating candy and sitting amongst all this beautiful junk. It doesn't get any better than this."

The other guys agreed. "Yeah! That's right!"

Darren spoke up, holding up his can of Seven-Up. "I have a proclamation to make. I proclaim we are the Junketeers. All for junk and junk for all!"

"Yeah! Right on!" the other boys cheered, raising their fists.

Little did the guys know that some girls they went to school with had their own designs on the junkyard. Mrs. Dorsey, a longtime community activist who lived a few blocks up on Emily Avenue South, was organizing her 12-year-old daughter Lorna and some of her friends into Mrs. Dorsey's Neighborhood Beautification Committee. Their mission was to clean up and beautify the neighborhood, especially the junk yard over on Halifax, which Mrs. Dorsey called "blight on our community."

From the committee's official headquarters in the family dining room, Mrs. Dorsey got the girls fired up in a crusade to clean up and beautify the neighborhood. Over the course of a week, they went out carrying bags and picking up litter in the streets and sidewalks. They drew up leaflets at the dining room table promoting their cause, printed them up on the Mimeograph machine Mrs. Dorsey had in the basement and handed them out all over the neighborhood, chatting with people about their mission. They even took a set of acrylic paints and painted up the old red fire hydrant on the corner of 58th and Emily in pinks and yellows and greens and purples to make it "more pretty." It was illegal, but who was going to stop them?

Then they decided to stroll on over to Halifax Avenue, where the boys were playing a game of "junk baseball" using a wooden stick for a bat, and an old sparkplug for a ball.

"Oh no, here comes Lorna and her friends," Darren said. "So what's up Fore-lorna?"

"Don't call me that," Lorna responded. “We're in my mom's neighborhood beautification committee, and we're gonna clean this place up and turn it into a community park. It will be a place of beauty for everyone to go."

"The hell you are," Don protested. "This is our junk yard!"

"It's not 'your' junk yard," Lorna retorted. "And anyway, why do you even want to play around all this junk? Somebody could get hurt here. My mom says it's unsafe, and an eyesore and an ugly blemish on the neighborhood."

Jessica chimed in. "After we get rid of all the junk, we have to paint this fence and get rid of these ugly billboards." Pointing to the Reddy Kilowatt character on one of the posters, with his electric bolt body and light bulb nose, she said, "That thing looks creepy!"

Debbie pointed to the Col. Davenport whiskey sign. "Eew! My grandpa drinks that! It makes him talk funny."

"Hey, wouldn't it be nice to have flower gardens along the fence, and maybe a fountain over here as sort of a centerpiece…" Lorna suggested.

"Oh, and maybe a little playground over here," added Nancy.

The boys finally had it. "All right, that's enough. Get out of here," Darren told them. "Go vandalize another fire hydrant. This junk yard is ours!"

"Oh, we'll be back," Lorna giggled. "Tooteloo, boys!" The girls waved to them as they walked off, laughing.

Later that afternoon, the girls had a discussion with Lorna's parents about how to proceed. "You could just bring your pickup truck, Dad, and we could all help clean up the junk and then it could be hauled away," said Lorna.

"Just hold on there," interrupted her father. "It may be a good idea, but you've got to get permission from the property owner before doing anything like this. You can't just walk on his property and haul things away. It's his stuff and his land."

Seeing the disappointment on the faces of his daughter and her friends, he said, "I'll tell you what. I will contact the owner of the property. I will tell him we will volunteer to clean up his property if he gives his permission. He might say no but he could say yes too. It couldn't hurt to ask." The girls became enthusiastic again.

The next day, after coming home from work, Mr. Dorsey announced that he talked to the property owner and he gave them permission to clean up the junk yard if they do it that weekend. The owner told Mr. Dorsey, "I was going to hire a firm to clean it up. But if your neighborhood group is willing to do it for free, have at it."

Lorna jumped around in excitement and immediately called all of her friends to tell them the news.

That Saturday morning the Dorseys and Lorna's friends arrived bright and early at the junk yard. Mr. Dorsey brought his pickup truck, junk was tossed into the back of it and several trips were made to the city dump. Passersby stopped to chat, thanking them for doing it, and people driving by honked their horns in support. When most of the junk was cleared out, they began working on the fence, pulling down or scraping off the old advertising posters, and spreading several gallons of latex paint over it, making it look new.

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that the junk yard boys arrived only to find their beloved junk yard was…gone! They made a lot of noise about it, but there wasn't anything they could do about it.

"We got permission from the property owner to clean it up," Lorna boasted. "We're gonna turn it into a community park. But we'll let you play here too, if you're nice to us."

The boys just grumbled and stormed off. Meanwhile a reporter from the neighborhood newspaper interviewed the girls about their effort and took pictures, and the article appeared on Tuesday when the weekly paper came out and was delivered to every doorstep in the neighborhood.

But the girls' ambitions to build a community park were short-lived, as they returned a few days later only to be met with construction crews in hard hats and bulldozers. As it turned out, the property owner had already intended on building a new office building there, and took advantage of their offer to clean up the property for free.

Before long, the office building was up and the junk yard forgotten about. The junk yard boys and the girls of Mrs. Dorsey's Beautification Committee set aside their differences eventually. Lorna and Darren even dated for a time in high school, and she worked as a clerk in the office building a few years later while she was attending community college.

Decades later the old neighborhood has changed a lot. The office building is still there, expanded over the years, taking out nearby houses. The community is much more diverse now than it used to be, many of the smaller houses have been replaced, and franchise stores and big retailers have come in, replacing the corner stores and service stations that used to make up the business district of the neighborhood.

Darren, Don, Lorna and the others have moved on and most of them have kids of their own. And there is no way they would ever even think of letting their own kids play by themselves as they did as kids, much less in a junk yard.

Dr. Tim and the Subliminal Seductress

Dedicated to Deanna Love Burgess.

In 1971 a pirate radio station called WUCK-FM was broadcasting from the top floor of a three-story Victorian-era house located at 2737 Halifax Avenue South that was rented and inhabited by four young men in their early to mid twenties. The radio station was strung together by a long haired, bearded 24-year-old engineering student who called himself "Doctor" Tim Treeman, with a hand-built makeshift transmitter set up in one of the third floor rooms, a studio in an adjacent room that included a hand-built mixing board, microphone, two turntables and a reel-to-reel tape deck all set up on two old wooden desks, all of this wired to a rooftop antenna that could broadcast from a radius of several blocks to a few miles, depending on conditions. The station broadcast on the 107.3 frequency and didn't interfere with any legitimate radio stations, so it stayed under the radar of the Federal Communications Commission.

Programming was mostly progressive album rock. Everything from Mott the Hoople to Frank Zappa to Quicksilver Messenger Service to the Grateful Dead was played. But program director/operations manager/disc jockey Dr. Tim didn't have any real set limits on music, as he also played obscure pop singles and B sides if he liked them, plus a little jazz and blues. Music was supplied by a local store, Karma-Mantra Records, in exchange for frequent mentions on the air. In addition to music, Dr. Tim would do a little psychedelic poetry, much of it jotted down moments before he read it on the air. There was also editorial content about such things as the Vietnam War (against), pot (for), the draft (against), the brotherhood of man (for), the Establishment press (or "pig press") (against), the Underground press (for), plus public service announcements for such services as the free clinic and suicide prevention hotline. All in all, it was a pretty professional-sounding operation.

"This is WUCK-FM, I'm Dr. Tim and I'm here to play phonograph records," he would say in his deep voice, up close to the microphone, before hitting the start button on an already cued-up record on one of the turntables. When that song played through and ended, he'd go straight to another cued-up record on the other turntable, put a different record on the first one and cue it up, and so forth. At least once every half hour came an announcement that would go something like, "Music on WUCK-FM comes courtesy of Karma-Mantra Records, 1605 Roosevelt Avenue. Karma-Mantra is now your eight-track headquarters with the widest selection of eight-track tapes, plus eight-track car stereos. Get an eight-track stereo for your car. It's what's happening, baby!"

Elsewhere in the house on Halifax Avenue, there was usually a party going on. Dr. Tim and his roommates Barry S. Wilson, Kevin Leer and Eric Carlsberg turned it into quite a psychedelic mansion with colorfully mismatched furniture on the hard-wood floors, colored lighting, posters on the walls and a constant supply of beer and booze, and maybe some decent marijuana and other substances to make guests feel at home. And if somebody brought their own stuff and wanted to share it, that was beautiful, man.

There were other voices heard on WUCK-FM besides Dr. Tim. Barry, Kevin or Eric would often go up there and do a show for a couple hours, or a houseguest who was interested in trying it out, or someone who wanted to say something to the community at large. And then there was a mysterious, sultry female voice who would take over the airwaves from time to time, calling herself Renee the Subliminal Seductress. People within listening range of WUCK-FM wondered who she was, and whether she was affecting their subconscious minds broadcasting subliminal messages. Rumors began to spread that she, in fact, was.

The mysterious Subliminal Seductress was actually Renee Swensen, the 21-year-old youngest daughter of well-known local businessman, Larry Swensen. Renee was blonde, blue-eyed and gorgeous, and in case you didn't notice she was gorgeous, she'd tell you so. She enjoyed a comfortable upper-middle class upbringing in a lake front home, although she was sent to public school. Growing up, she was close to her father and coddled by him when he was home, which usually wasn't often enough with all the business trips, conventions and long meetings he had to attend. Meanwhile, her mother was more aloof, and was the one who kept her in line.

Renee was going to college with the goal of becoming a school guidance counselor, mostly at the behest of her parents. But upon getting there and being away from home for the first time, she felt the need to rebel, at least a little bit. Her new friends in the women's dorm, mostly from well-off families, introduced her to such things as alcohol, cigarettes and parties. She was much enamored with 1920s-era art deco fashion and so she liked to wear twenties-style dresses and smoke using a cigarette holder, fancying herself more as a modern-day flapper than a contemporary hippie. She had helped her father campaign for Richard Nixon in 1968 and continued to share his Republican leanings.

It so happened she and her college girlfriends went to a party at the house on Halifax Avenue, where she met Tim Treeman, and she immediately found him alluring. He was so completely different from the kind of guy her parents envisioned for her. He had long hair, a beard and wore dark glasses. His background was blue collar, his education was from trade schools, and yet he was a deep, intelligent thinker. She listened intently as he spoke on a wide range of subjects while most everyone else there was babbling nonsense. When she saw the radio station he built, she was all the more impressed. She quickly became infatuated with him and she was coming over to see him as often as she could. Tim's roommates started referring to her as his groupie.

It didn't take long, however, for her to win them over. When she saw how little food they actually had in the house, she started bringing some over and making them dinner, and if she spent the night, she'd make breakfast. Soon, she talked the guys into letting her host a fondue party at the house, making her very popular with the crowd that hung out there. She was also rather artistic, and so she brought paints over and started painting colorful flowers, hearts and other designs on the walls, putting her feminine touch in the bachelor pad, and giving everyone something fun to look at when they were using recreational substances.

The "Subliminal Seductress" thing came about the first evening Dr. Tim had Renee in the studio with him as he did his radio program. They talked together while the records played, and when Tim put on the headphones and started speaking on the air, she continued to talk in the background and it was picked up by the microphone. In an attempt to go with the flow, Tim told his listeners, "Renee the Subliminal Seductress is here, sending good vibes into your subconscious mind."

"I'm so sorry," Renee said after Tim removed his headphones, as another record was playing.

"No, that's cool, baby," Tim told her. "It adds to the atmosphere." A bit later, he opened the microphone while a record was playing, and had her say in a soft voice at a distance, "Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex." First at an even pace, then slower, then he told her to pick it up and say it faster and faster with more breath. Then he turned off the microphone and they busted out laughing.

Before long, Renee talked him into letting her do her own radio show. Women disc jockeys were fairly uncommon then, and Dr. Tim thought of it as another "revolutionary" thing for his station to do. He advised her to speak slowly and softly to sound a little less like a bubbly teenybopper, and he let her select the music she wanted to play. Her musical tastes leaned more toward Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins than hard rock. She called herself Renee the Subliminal Seductress on the air but refrained from whispering too many messages during the music because, Tim figured, "it might get us into trouble."

"Subliminal Seductress" was intended as a joke, a social satire on allegations being made at the time that marketers were slyly slipping sex-related subliminal messages into advertising to influence the subconscious minds of unsuspecting consumers. But to some people, just the suggestion of anything subliminal was no joke and from there, things started to snowball.

A few WUCK-FM listeners were claiming the broadcasts were having a strange effect on them, causing everything from weird dreams to desires to do things they wouldn't normally do. A man who was arrested in a home invasion just a few blocks from the house on Halifax Avenue blamed it on subliminal messages being sent over the airwaves by the station. Police, who knew the man, chalked it up to his mental illness and drug use, and being unaware of the existence of WUCK-FM, assumed it was part of his hallucinations as well. But the call-letters did appear in the police report.

Then a letter to the editor appeared in the daily newspaper mentioning the call-letters and expressing outrage that an unlicensed broadcaster somewhere within city limits was corrupting the minds of unsuspecting citizens with "subliminal messaging technique," suggesting it was a communist plot.

As city officials and law enforcement slowly became aware of WUCK-FM, they started monitoring broadcasts. The station did not broadcast on a set schedule, only when Dr. Tim felt like turning on the transmitter, and when it was on, the signal could only be heard in certain parts of town, which somewhat confounded attempts by authorities to investigate. When they were able to pick up the signal, officials listened closely for any potential subliminal messaging, as well as to song lyrics and spoken commentaries on the station for any obscenities or promotion of drug use and other illegal activity, such as draft dodging. Every questionable bit of content was jotted down in a log book, along with the date and time.

A complaint was filed with the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, DC, which promised to investigate. But other priorities for the government agency took precedence over some tiny unlicensed radio station run by a bunch of hippies that wasn't causing interference with other stations. So the police, in conjunction with the city council and mayor's office, decided to take things into their own hands.

On November 16, 1971, under the pretenses of complaints of a noisy party, police raided the house on Halifax Avenue. They arrested everyone they could get their hands on, while many others ran out the back door. They made their way up to the third floor of the house and confiscated the broadcasting equipment, as well as drug paraphernalia and other items found elsewhere in the house as "evidence." TV film crews were there and the raid made the top of the local Action News and Eyewitness News broadcasts.

Tim, Barry, Kevin, Eric and Renee were taken downtown, booked and charged with a number of alleged crimes, including disorderly conduct, conspiracy to provoke unrest, conspiracy to promote unlawful activity, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, and "broadcasting obscenities in violation of city code, using subliminal messaging technique."

The raid became an even bigger news story when it came out that the daughter of Larry and Lois Swensen had been among those arrested, and that she was, in fact, "Renee the Subliminal Seductress." People who knew the Swensens shook their heads in pity. "And she seemed like such a nice girl, too," they said.

The raid stirred a tremendous amount of controversy locally and on a national scale, as the story got picked up by the Associated Press, and thus made it into newspapers across the country, and film footage from the local affiliates appeared on the ABC Evening News, and on the NBC newsmagazine program "First Tuesday."

Ultimately, most of the charges were dropped, at least those pertaining to the radio station. Tim Treeman got his equipment back, but by that time he had received a warning letter from the Federal Communications Commission threatening fines if the station returned to the air, not because of the content of broadcasts, but because the agency's investigation found that it was an illegal operation, operating without a license and at higher power than would be allotted for such a station.

By 1972 the house on Halifax Avenue was vacated and the guys all went their own ways. Renee returned to a more "normal" life, graduated from college and became a school guidance counselor, until she realized she could make a lot more money with far less stress as a commercial voice talent. Her experience as a disc jockey at the underground radio station paid off quite comfortably in the end.