Kenneth L Utterback

When I Was A Boy...

2011-01-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

When I was a young man, I always hated to hear older people talking about the past. I particularly disliked them saying how they had it rougher than we did, and vowed to myself never to do that. Times change, I guess. (and we forget our promises)

It was forty-four years ago, that I experienced the "Blizzard of 1967", as Chicago would eventually know it. That whole event would actually encompass more than three days of that month, not only for me but for the whole city.

The band I was with at the time, "The Morning Blues" (sometimes spelled Mourning), had been playing at the Cheetah, which was an early discotheque-type club that had taken residence in the Aragon Ballroom, on Chicago's Northside. We had been hired for a multi-week stint, and played there four nights a week: Wednesday through Saturday. Thursday was usually the slowest of the four.

On Thursday the 26th of January, though, only one or two actual customers had come into the club by our second break. This was around 9:00 p.m. It had been snowing since early that morning, and although only 4" had been predicted (not unusual for the Windy City), it had not yet stopped coming down. The club owner told us he was closing for the night, and that we'd better get moving, since the whole city was starting to close up shop. By about 9:20, we were out the door.

I can't exactly remember why, but I didn't have a ride back to the suburbs that night, and needed to catch the last train out of town, which would be pulling out around 10:40 p.m. Normally, there would have been plenty of time for me to get to the Northwestern train station, but the city was starting to actually choke on all this snow. On top of my not really being dressed for the weather (we were too cool to wear winter clothes, much less winter boots), I was having to haul a borrowed Fender Twin-Reverb amp home with me that night. The amp was pretty heavy; probably over 75 pounds.

I lugged the amp up the stairs of the "L" platform, which was located right outside the club, and waited for the train to the Loop. I don't remember having to wait for long. Soon enough, the elevated train arrived on Michigan Avenue, where I would catch a bus to the train station. The scene was starkly white, and just a tad scary. The street was absolutely deserted.

After a bit of a bone chilling wait, a bus appeared down the street through the veil of snow that continued coming down, as it had since around 5:00 a.m. that morning. It was now after 10:00 p.m. When the bus arrived at the stop, I stepped in with one or two other people, only to find that it was already filled with passengers. There was just barely standing room. Since all the seats were taken, I turned the amp with the speakers facing away from any shuffling feet, and sat down on it. I remember it being plenty warm inside the bus, no doubt due to all the bodies putting out 98.6 degrees. Still, the clock was ticking, and my nervousness had it's own chilling effect on me.

When the bus arrived at the station, I literally ran (as much as one can, with a suitcase-sized amplifier in tow) the half-block distance from the entrance to the ticket window. It was exactly 10:40 p.m., but I found to my relief that the train had not left yet. I would not have to sleep in the station, or have to wait until 5:40 in the morning for the next train.

The West Line train, which would take me to Wheaton, was not nearly as crowded as the bus had been. It would be a comfortable ride, and I might even catch up on some sleep during the trip. I settled in, and expected to be on my way shortly. Back in those days, every train had a 'smoking' car. I lit up a Camel and leaned back, relaxing as much as I could. I was still feeling the effects of a serious dose of adrenaline.

Just before 11:30 p.m., I heard a conductor explaining our obvious delay to another passenger: The tracks ahead were being cleared, and things were not going too quickly. It had now been snowing for over 18 hours. At one point, either a passenger or conductor made a "snack run", and the waiting was made a little more bearable. Passengers also started becoming more sociable. Around this time, I finally resigned myself to accept whatever came next, not that I really had a choice.

I eventually drifted off to sleep, occasionally waking up and looking at my watch. It was now hours that were ticking by. At about 2:25 in the morning, I awoke to that unmistakable feeling of the train lurching forward, and knew that we were finally getting underway. I calculated that I would arrive in Wheaton some time between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m., though the trip normally only took about 40 minutes. I was a little off.

At nearly 7:30 in the morning, the train squealed to a halt at the Wheaton train station. Plows had been busy all night, but in the brightness of the morning it was obvious that traveling by car would be dicey at best. There were no cabs available. After a short phone call to my folks' house, verifying their immobility, it was clear that I would need to trudge the last mile-and-a-half on foot. I dreaded the thought of toting that heavy amp the whole way, but I didn't worry for long. The larger storage lockers at the station were just big enough for a suitcase, and in this case the heavy Fender amplifier. After securing my load, for just two quarters, I headed off on the last leg of my journey.

The next couple days were spent digging out. The family car had been buried to the rooftop, with the drifting, and there was a whole lot of driveway and sidewalk to clear. We took our time. We also took quite a few snapshots, a few of which I still have.

I revisited my childhood a little, by doing things like repeatedly jumping off the garage roof into the deeper drifts of snow. I was nearly 20 years old at the time, but during those few days I felt half that age. There was a great feeling of freedom, for some reason. It was also a time for small adventures. At one point, we needed some groceries and it fell upon me to take our old childhood sled and pull it to the store, load it up, and pull it back home. It was almost like going back in time.

For the rest of the weekend, we did the few things that we were able to, and just enjoyed being snowed-in. By Monday, things had more or less returned to normal and Chicago went back to bravely facing the rest of the Winter the way it always has.

A New Ploy To Extract More Money From The Consumer?

2010-10-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

(I just copied this from another of my blogs, since I wanted to make sure it got read by maximum people)

Is "Out Of Stock" the latest in the lame bag of tricks that companies will be using, since outright heavy price increases don't go over too well in this economy? I'd say being on the lookout for more of this, might be in order. Not so clever re-wording (or re-framing) of the situation, does not help it fly, at least in my book. Here's a recent email exchange, for an example:

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Gillette
To: klutterback@aol.com
Sent: Thu, Oct 21, 2010 4:25 pm
Subject: kava kava

Thank you for your continued loyalty to Whole Health Products. We are writing because an item you have on your Convenience Plan, Kava Kava Extract 200mg, 150 capsules is out of stock and we do not have a tentative date for its return.

However, we do have the 60 capsule bottle in stock. This product is identical to the product you have been receiving, except for the different capsule count per bottle. The current price for the 60-capsule bottle for our Convenience Plan customers is $14.98. Because you are a loyal long-term customer, we will give you a discount of 15% off that price, reducing the price to you to $12.73 per bottle.

Your Convenience Plan order was set up with 1 bottles shipping to you every 75 days. If we do not hear back from you before this date, we will automatically change your shipment to the new size bottle and leave the quantity of bottles the same.

Please let me know if you need to change the quantity of the order to correspond with the new capsule count. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you,

Whole Health

866-381-7693

To: greg@wholehealth.com
Sent: Fri, Oct 22, 2010 7:35 am
Subject: Re: kava kava

Gillette:

So, out of the goodness of your heart you are going to give me 60 (60% less) capsules for the exact amount (to the penny) that I have been paying for 150 capsules? Does 'out of stock' mean you can't find a slightly larger bottle in which to put 90 more capsules, in order to honor our original agreement? Or perhaps this is actually just your way of increasing the per capsule price to me by 250%, and then attempting to explain away the increase with this unsatisfactory excuse. In any case, this is absolutely unacceptable to me.

Do NOT attempt to charge my card for anything other than what I agreed to originally, which is 150 capsules at the price of 12.73 per bottle plus shipping. That is my reply to your email.

K.L.Utterback

I guess I should be thankful that they weren't waiting outside my home, with a loaded gun, to rip me off, eh? Maybe this is a kinder, gentler robbery technique that we are expected to accept without complaint.

What a world.
---------

And now, boys and girls...the thrilling conclusion to our story. It seems that niceties have been excluded in this reply to my last email to Greggy-poo.

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Gillette <greg@wholehealth.com>
To: klutterback@aol.com

Sent: Fri, Oct 22, 2010 9:36 am
Subject: RE: kava kava

The Kava Kava raw material price has gone up tremendously in price. Our price went up and thus, our customers’ price did as well. I will cancel your convenience plan for the kava kava.

The lack of salutation, or signature for that matter, indicates that somehow I'VE become the asshole. I guess telling the truth first, instead of deceptive (I'm sure they would say "creative") wording, is something that really isn't in the marketing strategy here. My take is that they really aren't "sorry for any inconvenience". Ya think?

I read once that if you steal $4 from someone, you are a thief and liable to receive punishment. On the other hand, if you sell a widget that cost 10 cents to make, and charge $4.10 for it, you a the marketing genius of the week and liable to appear in Business Genius Quarterly.

In a brick and mortar world, what I did was probably something like pushing the sales-kid against the wall, slapping the crap out him, and making him say the truth out loud. He didn't really sound too happy, did he?

Black Cross

2010-04-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

by Joseph S. Newman

"Black Cross" was published in 1948 by Joseph S. Newman in a collection of poems entitled It Could Be Verse. The poet was Paul Newman's uncle, not his grandfather. He ran a sporting goods store in Cleveland, and wrote and published both as a poet and as a local journalist. His collection was published with an appreciative introduction by the critic Louis Untermeyer, so it was hardly unrecognized in its time, though it is hard to find today.

Lord Buckley probably met Newman at some time. He recorded two of the other poems in his collection, "Jehova and Finnegan" and "Leviathan" as well as one, "Shah's Embroidered Pants," that does not appear in the book.

"Black Cross" was also performed by Bob Dylan and has been preserved in bootleg recordings.

The original reads as follows:

Hezekiah Jones of Hogback County
Lived on a hill in a weather-beaten hovel
And all that he owned was a two-acre plot
And a bed and some books and a hoe and a shovel.

Hezekiah, black as the soil he was hoeing,
Worked pretty hard to make ends meet;
Raised what he ate, with a few cents over
To buy corn likker that he drank down neat,

And a few cents more that he put in the cupboard
Against what he called "de rainy season,"
But he never got to save more'n two or three dollars
Till he gave it away for this or that reason.

The white folks around knew old Hezekiah...
"Harmless enough, but the way I figger
He better lay off'n them goddam books,
'Cause readin' ain't good fer an ignorant nigger."

Reverend Green, of the white man's church,
Finally got around to "comin' ovah
To talk with you-all about the Pearly Kingdom
An' to save yo' soul fer the Lawd Jehovah!"

"D'ya b'lieve in the Lawd?" asked the white man's preacher.
Hezekiah puckered his frosty brow,
"Well I can't say 'yes,' so I ain't gonna say it,
Caze I ain't SEEN de Lawd... nowhere... no-how."

"D'ya b'lieve in Heaven?" asked the white man's preacher,
"Where you go, if you're good, fer yer last rewa'hd?"
"Ah'm good," said Hezikiah, "good as Ah'm able,
But Ah don't expect nothin' from Heaven OR the Lawd."

"D'ya b'lieve in the Church?" asked the white man's preacher.
Hezekiah said, "Well de Church is divided;
Ef they can't agree, than Ah cain't neither...
Ah'm like them... Ah ain't decided."

"You don't b'lieve nothin'," roared the white man's preacher.
"Oh yes Ah does," said old Hezikiah,
"Ah b'lieve that a man's beholden to his heighbash
Widout de hope of Heaven or de fear o' hell's fiah."

There's a lot of good ways for a man to be wicked...
They hung Hezikiah as high as a pidgeon,
And the nice folks around said, "He had it comin'
'Cause the son-of-a-bitch didn't have not religion!"

2010-02-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

I've gotten the following in an email before, and at the time thought that it made a lot of sense. Maybe I've gotten older by just the right amount for it to strike home, but today it seemed worth repeating. Actually, no matter what one's age, I think it applies to most everyone I know.

Will You Dance With Me?

READ THIS VERY SLOWLY.... IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have c clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain.' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect !

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet... We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord..

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-Decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home , I would have died happy.

Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to.....not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand and why I sent this to you.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butter fly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask ' How are you?' Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow.' And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say 'Hi?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away..... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

It's National Friendship Week.. Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends...

To those I have sent this to... I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do.

Life may not be the party we hoped for... But while we are here we might as well dance.

A Little Love Story

2010-01-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

Actually, I submitted this to Classmates for last year's Valentine's Day story contest. How it didn't win, I just can't imagine. I thought it was pretty damn heart-warming.

Mackinac Proposal

Being a little skittish, after my first marriage, my unofficial engagement to my 'eventually-to-be' second wife was rather long--seven years to be exact.

After holding off for six years, I decided to officially and traditionally spring the question while we were on vacation at our favorite place in the world; Mackinac Island. We had vacationed on the Island, known for it's tranquility and absence of motorized vehicles, for all of those six years and it seemed the most appropriate spot for my proposal. I purchased the nicest custom diamond ring I could afford, months in advance, and began to plan my presentation.

When Summer was just about over, we left on our yearly excursion to the island. I put the ring, in it's elegant, velvet lined box, in one of the shoes that I had packed in my suitcase. My plan was starting to crystallize, as we took the catamaran across the straits from Mackinaw City to Mackinac Island. I decided that when we got to the island I would put the ring in my camera case, which I took with me everywhere we went, to maintain the secrecy of my plan.

When we got to the hotel, I was notified that most of our luggage had been misplaced. Panic set in. Every negative scenario ran through my mind, including the loss of an expensive, and irreplaceable custom made diamond ring. Our favorite employee at the Iroquois Hotel, a great fellow named Keith, got on the problem immediately. He assured us that he would locate the luggage and have it brought to the hotel quickly. His confidence was infectious, and I left the matter in his hands.

Very soon after, the luggage was in our room (it had gotten on the wrong boat) and, when my Bonnie was in the washroom, I put the ring in my camera bag.

Traditionally, we took long walks from our hotel to St. Anne's Church, on the motor vehicle-free streets, taking time to stop by a small general store for a drink or snack. Across from the store, was a little green bench in front of the old Congregation Church. I told Bonnie that I needed to rest and get something out of my camera bag. When we sat down on the bench I took out the little box and handed it to her, without saying anything. My proposal of no words was immediately accepted by the surprised and pleased look on my Bonnie's face.

For the duration of our stay, it was a perfectly idyllic and serene vacation.