Someone in an earlier post mentioned there was probably a story somewhere about my younger self and a Playboy magazine. The thought actually startled me because I couldn't muster any memories of any social mayhem caused by a magazine. But that seemed so odd....given the fact that Pops had a subscription to Playboy. This lapse in memory made me question my older brother Holden the other day. I asked him if Pops' Playboys ever got any of us in trouble. Other than getting yelled at for stealing them from Pops' bedside lamp table (and not properly returning them) Holden couldn't think of anything either. Then, almost as an afterthought, Holden asked me, "Didn't you get in trouble once for taking one to school?..."
I had a brief palpitation. My mind was flooded with the memory. I couldn't speak as my mind tried to put the memories in order. Holden sat back in his chair at his kitchen table where we sat, sipped his coffee cup and offered his thoughts, "You always did stupid things like that." I still couldn't muster a sound.
Once a month the magazine would come to the house wrapped in brown craft-paper with nothing on the outside save a delivery address and a PO box in Chicago as a return address. Momma Cash hated the magazine so much she would ask one of us boys to retrieve it from the mail box out at the street. She wouldn't even touch it. After Cole became active in the church he sided with Momma and he wouldn't fetch it from the mailbox. That left Holden and me. I do remember Momma smacked Holden real good with the kitchen broom one day really good for taking it out of the wrapper and looking at the magazine as he sauntered up the driveway. She was using the bristle end. We all knew Momma wasn't really all that mad unless she used the broomstick end...
Now Pops was a complicated man. He was a civil engineer and a land surveyor. He much preferred working in the field. To the point I think the first time I ever knew he had a suit was the day we buried him. Other than his ability to toss a horseshoe with deadly accuracy, complete complex hydraulic calculations in his head and the fact he filled the oxygen bottles on the Enola Gay before it took off from Tinian, he was a simple man on the exterior. In my memory he had few real interests except for Chevrolets, Montgomery Ward, Alfred Hitchcock, Jim Beam and Old Granddad, Playboy and Scientific American magazines.
I had a project I was putting together for a science fair at school. A few of us had been picked to "come up with something" and then make our presentation to the class...which would then vote on which project to place in the science fair. I had picked some experiment I had seen in one of Pops' Scientific American magazines. I had prepared a brief blurb and explanation and planned on using the magazine article as a prop in my presentation. I had placed my notes inside the magazine the nigh before and planned on toting it to school with me the next morning in a worn-out leather file satchel I used. I don't know what happened (I really don't). Everything went as I had planned that morning until the teacher called on me to give my presentation. I carried my satchel up to the front of the class and opened it to retrieve my notes....
At first I couldn't see my paper notes so I set the satchel down on the teacher's desk. I pulled out the "Scientific American" to see if my papers were in the bottom...I didn't even look at the magazine...I was suddenly aware that silence is deafening...and you can actually hear all the oxygen leaving a classroom. Then the class erupted in laughter. I was holding a Playboy with some lady standing behind a fogged glass shower door wearing nothing but a smile. She had drawn the Playboy Bunny motif in the condensate on the door...I realized my life was probably over at the age of 13.
In my defense, both magazines were about the same size and weight back then. I had no idea what had happened, but I needed to do some damage control quick. I tried to stuff the mag back in the satchel but I wasn't quick enough. My teacher, Mrs. Davis, grabbed both me and the mag in one snatch. She sternly noted, "That will be all of that!" as she ushered me out of the room shaking me wildly with a death-grip on my arm just below the shoulder. In a few seconds I was in the principal's office. I figured I would probably get the electric chair for my transgression.
I remember spending the whole afternoon in the principal's office. I think the principal could tell how distraught I was and maybe believed my story. Pops had to come pick me up and talk to the principal. He was pissed. Momma was pissed at Pops. It was a bad deal all around. Except for the fact I was elevated to "hero" status among my fellow male classmates. And, in an almost ironic turn of events, my project was still voted to win the science fair contest.
Kathy Keating's baking-soda and vinegar volcano idea flopped. Phil Miller had a good idea with two fans showing how one would blow and make another spin. My experiment involved a white cardboard disk that had on it only black and white lines. Spinning the disk (with the aid of a modified old portable record player motor) at different speeds would produce the illusion of colors. Different speeds meant different colors. I can't remember the name of the French guy for which this effect was named.
Nor can I remember the name of the young lady on the cover of Pops' Playboy. 😉
paden cash, post: 449488, member: 20 wrote: Nor can I remember the name of the young lady on the cover of Pops' Playboy
Sounds like a research project. You know the approximate date and obviously remember the composition of the photo.......The Google knows everything......it's bound to be there somewhere.;)
C. E. Benham
My Mother actually liked my Father, a lot, so he had no interest in Playboy :-(.
My Mother remembers my Father, sometimes she forgets that he is no longer a part of this life, she'll ask me, "did you know, Charlie?" Yes, Mom, he was my Dad. "Oh that's right," she'll say as if to recover from the faux pas. There is no suspicion otherwise because I look and sound like my Father.
Thanks Paden! I just knew you had a story involving PB. 🙂 Jp
Good ol' e-bay.
October 1963, originally 75 cents
https://www.ebay.com/p/Playboy-October-1963-Back-Issue/85172163
You can thank me later.
Holy Cow, post: 449577, member: 50 wrote: Good ol' e-bay.
October 1963, originally 75 cents
https://www.ebay.com/p/Playboy-October-1963-Back-Issue/85172163
You can thank me later.
An advert from inside said magazine:
Holy Cow, post: 449577, member: 50 wrote: Good ol' e-bay.
October 1963, originally 75 cents
https://www.ebay.com/p/Playboy-October-1963-Back-Issue/85172163
You can thank me later.
That was the one.
I had to sit outside the principal's office for a good half hour before I went into his office to plead my case. He had the magazine on his desk. I wanted so bad to ask him, "looked at it, didn't ya?"...but I kept my mouth shut.
A perpetual regret I will carry with me forever. 😉
Paden took his Teddi to school with him. How embarrassing!
pg 236
Holy Cow, post: 449590, member: 50 wrote: Paden took his Teddi to school with him. How embarrassing!
She would only be 75 now. Just a spring chick compared to Barbara Eden who is now 86...
[USER=20]@paden cash[/USER]
Delilah Henry (later Teddi Smith) from Hastings, Nebraska moved into the Playboy Mansion while underage and was introduced to "antiques". There's something funny about that comment of hers.
Holy Cow, post: 449597, member: 50 wrote: [USER=20]@paden cash[/USER]
Delilah Henry (later Teddi Smith) from Hastings, Nebraska moved into the Playboy Mansion while underage and was introduced to "antiques". There's something funny about that comment of hers.
That is funny.
"Miss September" - a wee ditty....
[MEDIA=youtube]zKgq_4RfFoc[/MEDIA]
Someone told me once there were articles in Playboy in between the photos and comics. Some people will lie about anything.
This past Sunday's NYTimes Op-Ed page had a scathing condemnation of Hefner and his life.
Never saw anything like that before for someone.
Alvin Tostick, post: 449641, member: 13000 wrote: This past Sunday's NYTimes Op-Ed page had a scathing condemnation of Hefner and his life.
Never saw anything like that before for someone.
Douthat didn't pull any punches; I saw that column described as "every sentence was like a rattlesnake strike"
There was a guy in my army band that had every PB ever published. Had his room wall papered with centerfolds. This was 1973.
Our farm stead growing up was about 600 feet from the town dump which was on a hill across the highway. My older brother and friend introduced me to such magazines probably at age 10 to 12, we had quite knowledge of what people put out with the trash. Boys can make a playground anywhere.
LRDay, post: 449801, member: 571 wrote: There was a guy in my army band that had every PB ever published. Had his room wall papered with centerfolds. This was 1973.
Our farm stead growing up was about 600 feet from the town dump which was on a hill across the highway. My older brother and friend introduced me to such magazines probably at age 10 to 12, we had quite knowledge of what people put out with the trash. Boys can make a playground anywhere.
In the early '60s at Buena Vista, CO the city dump was at the east end of Main St...at the Arkansas River. It was one of our favorite "playgrounds". Plinking at rats and bottles with a J.C. Higgins single-shot .22 was standard procedure. It wasn't uncommon to find the one city policeman (named King) down there shooting also.
I just looked on GE and it's now a ball diamond and the "Buena Vista Whitewater Park". We use to 'shoot the rapids' down there if we were lucky enough to find a salvageable inner-tube in the mess.
Man that place smelled bad. I guess it's good they've cleaned it up.
paden cash, post: 449804, member: 20 wrote: In the early '60s at Buena Vista, CO the city dump was at the east end of Main St...at the Arkansas River. It was one of our favorite "playgrounds". Plinking at rats and bottles with a J.C. Higgins single-shot .22 was standard procedure. It wasn't uncommon to find the one city policeman (named King) down there shooting also.
I just looked on GE and it's now a ball diamond and the "Buena Vista Whitewater Park". We use to 'shoot the rapids' down there if we were lucky enough to find a salvageable inner-tube in the mess.
Man that place smelled bad. I guess it's good they've cleaned it up.
In my first year as a paid construction surveyor, I did a landfill module our company was doing at the Salt Lake City Landfill. The new module was next to a operating module. The Seagull is the Utah State Bird, goes back to the first white pioneers which had their crop saved by a bunch of gulls gorging themselves on crickets taking them to the lake and throwing them up and returning for more according to the story (probably grasshoppers). I've never looked at a seagull the same after I observed thousands of them fighting over, sorting through, and eating the most rotten stinking garbage imaginable. Dogs like sweet stuff compared to what those gulls were eating. Every critter has a purpose I suppose.
