Junior was another guy that hung out with us. Ever the ladies’man, he was dating a girl named Michelle. He was in my grade, and our sophomore year they broke up. She took an interest in me and soon asked me out and I readily agreed. However, I was a bit naïve and innocent for her, I think. Two weeks later she wrote me a nice note saying she did not want to hurt my feeling because I was a real nice guy, but she really did not know me that well. I wasn’t who she thought she was looking for. I did not take it too hard, because we really did not know each other very well, and there had been no physical relationship. I hadn’t even kissed her. The most I had done was awkwardly pat her head affectionately. I was very naïve, and my cheeks feel a little hot just remembering this embarrassing incident as I write this.
As for Junior, during this time he was in the hospital with pneumonia, and The Family and I all went to visit him. He asked me if the rumor was true that I was going out with his ex, and when I confirmed it, he grinned real big and shook my hand. There was absolutely no hostility on his part toward her or me either one. He was a really good-natured person.
He owned a little black sports car, which he eventually wrecked beyond repair. I was riding with him on our way to the twins’ house one winter, and he took the corner near Francka Bridge too fast. We did a full 360° turn. A few more miles down the road, we were in and out of the snowy ditch. We were a reckless bunch, and that was one of numerous car incidents and accidents, often involving Junior, that I was involved in.
He was big and broad-shouldered, and I had grown up with him since kindergarten. He, Brandon, and I all played football, though I dropped out after our freshman year. He was a mild-natured guy, and I really liked him. I can still remember his best intentions on one rather wild occasion.
Evon said she wanted to get drunk, and I thought it sounded like a good idea. I told her I’d drink with her. Bobby, an acquaintance of ours, lived across the field from her house and had invited us over. We told him we wanted to get drunk, and he had some Blue Maui and Canadian Mist. At the very last minute, however, Evon changed her mind but not me; though she had asked me not to drink, my mind was firmly set.
I was the only one drinking and was getting extremely drunk. The rest of The Family was there too, and everyone was sitting around watching pornos. I was sprawled at their feet, trying with great difficulty to lift my head to try to see the couple on the screen.
I remember seeing bits and pieces and hearing the twins’ embarrassed and shocked comments that these people were really having sex and had allowed themselves to be videotaped. In a lot of ways, they were pretty innocent, and I wasn’t too far behind them, though we were all taking a crash course in decadence.
I do not know what happened between then and later, but apparently I was copping a major attitude and getting really mean and hateful. Hard liquor often affects me that way, anyway. I somehow managed to climb up on the roof and refused to come down. They were afraid I would hurt myself.
The exact story of what happened is a secret only they know to this day. However, if my memory serves me correctly, I think they told me they were coaxing me to come down, and I was cursing them. They tried nearly everything to get me down. I was threatening to jump if they tried climbing up after me. I don’t know why I was acting so insubordinate. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t have Evon and disappointed I was drinking with my own lonely company.
Apparently someone, I believe the owner of the house, climbed up on the backside of the roof and snuck up behind me, tackling me to the ground. I was so, so drunk. Usually, even after getting really drunk, I could remember everything later, but this time I can only vaguely remember what they told me about it later, much less the actual moment.
We did not have a ride back into town, though this wasn’t unusual, so good-natured, broad-shouldered Junior slung me over his shoulder like a bag of feed. He was going to carry me, because I was too drunk to walk. The problem was that my gut was pressed right into his shoulder, and Blue Maui and Canadian Mist did not mix well with me.
I slurred something like, “Junior, Manz. Junior, you’s bezztter putz me daown. I’s gettning sinck, Manz.” Fortunately for him, he understood my drunken vocabulary and quickly put me down. It wasn’t a moment too soon. He narrowly missed having me spew down his back. Instead I puked all over the road and all over myself. After a quick discussion, they decided I needed to sober up, so back to the twins’ house I went.
I heaved several times along the way and when I finally got there, I vomited all over the floor. Evon was MAD! She had to clean me up and clean up after me, not to mention that I threw up on her. “KEITH ERIC KNICKERBOCKER!” she bellowed. “I told you not to drink! But do you listen to me? Of course not! You have to go off and be stupid!”
And on and on she raved. She sounded more like my mother or my wife. And I was so drunk I cursed her for cursing me. Nothing is ever a drunk’s fault.
It took her nearly a week to get over that one, but she finally forgave me. I don’t blame her a bit. It’s a wonder I ever lived to tell the tale; she was ready to carve me a new one!
The twins had made fast friends with a girl from Pleasant Hope, Missouri named Jenny, who I really did not care for. She had convinced them that Niangua was the utopia of the state, talking about all these guys that she knew. It was about a forty or fifty mile drive. Evon was infatuated with an older guy from there by the name of Kevin she’d met through Jenny, and she and Eva wanted me to check it out with them.
The chance finally came one week. Mom and Dad were vacationing in Michigan, and I was instructed that I could use their Chevy Custom Deluxe half-ton pickup in the case of an emergency. I was bored and soon decided to visit my friends. On the way there I came around the corner too fast at a place we hung out and partied at called Mockingbird Hill and dinged up the undercarriage on the rocks next to the guardrails there. I had a bit of a time getting it unstuck, but was soon on my way again.
The next evening I once again decided to visit my friends. The twins begged me to take them to Niangua. I had knocked something loose the previous evening at Mockingbird Hill, and the truck kept loosing power, becoming difficult to start. Knowing its sickly condition, I somewhat reluctantly agreed to take them, and Joe went along for the ride. I knew we were running out of daylight, and the headlights were growing dimmer and dimmer. I finally just turned them off to conserve power, relying on the light from the beautifully moonlit night.
As we traveled along the truck was in a state of steady decline, the motor becoming increasingly unresponsive, sputtering badly at times. Soon we were barely crawling down the road. Several times, I suggested we go back, but we were more than half way there. We joked about not making it back.
We were nearly to Springfield and just when we’d about decided that we could go no further, we got a flat. We were next to the neighborhood where the porno shop called Bolivar Road News is located, and the twins managed to convince some of the nice residents there to let us use their phone. They called a couple of their uncles collect, and they came to our rescue, arriving half an hour later. After listening to our troubles and doing a quick check under the hood, they tightened the alternator belt. That was what I’d knocked loose. The truck quickly purred to life with full power, but they did not have a spare tire that would fit, and neither did I, so they gave us a ride back.
The next day, I called Pastor Friend from the Church of God and Carl, the church friend of my family’s, to take me to go get the truck and change the flat. On the way back it started to rain, and they were following me to make sure I did not have any further trouble.
We were just past Brighton, a small town about seven miles out of Bolivar when a group of Mexicans in a luxury van slowed way down in front of me. The truck was driving crazily, as it was out of alignment and hydroplaning badly. I panicked and hit the brakes and went swerving just as they pulled off to the side of the road.
CRASH! I slid right into them, the sickening sound of crunching metal reverberating in my skull. I totaled their van, and it cost the insurance company seven thousand dollars or more. It busted the grill and headlight on the truck, and by now it was in pretty sorry shape.
I was badly shaken and did not have a cigarette. I bummed one from one of the Mexicans and did not care at this point that these were church people with me. They looked a little concerned, and they weren’t the condemning sort anyway. Plus, both of them smoked before they were born again, so they were even less critical.
I asked the pastor if he minded my smoking in the truck on the ride back. He said it was cool. For that matter, he always was. He owned a boat, and The Family and I had gone with him to the lake several times, which was a lot of fun. Some of the others also water-skied, but I never learned how. I usually just rode an inner tube he pulled along behind the boat at speeds of over fifty miles an hour. What a blast: especially the time I “lost” my shorts. He was always pretty lenient with us, never judging us for smoking, or making us put them out.
My folks weren’t very happy. I stammered my explanations, fearing the worst. They did not tell me until after I finished, but Carl had called them ahead of time to forewarn them, which made it a little easier on me, as they had a chance to chill and process the news.
I was sick. I think they were, too, though my dad said he’d had a premonition that something like that would happen. He handled it with the attitude that there really wasn’t much that could be done about it, and there was no sense in making it worse by blowing it out of proportion. I was grateful to him for that.
Eventually, I did end up going to Niangua with the twins. It was a little town, and I was grievously jealous of Kevin, Evon’s wannabe fling, though I did think the black bass guitar body he was working to build was pretty cool. Otherwise, I did not know anyone.
We had very little to eat and nothing to drink. The first day was intensely hot and muggy, and we had no money. I remembered seeing Beverly Hills Cop II where Eddie Murphy tipped over a soda machine and got pop out of it. There was one in front of the little county store, so I suggested we try it.
The twins really did not want to, and I normally wouldn’t have either, because I was basically honest. I told them that we really weren’t stealing. I pointed out that it was extremely hot, and I ordinarily wouldn’t do that sort of thing, but we had no money, no hope of getting anything to drink, and we had to get something, or else we were going to have a heat stroke.
We waited until the local sheriff circled past on schedule, and then we tipped it forward, punching the buttons. We did it quickly and only a few sodas came out. It was a bit of an adrenaline rush trying to orchestrate it perfectly without getting caught. We did not all get our preference, but it was cold liquid.
Once they experienced success the girls changed their song. Evon told me recently (nearly eight years after this incident) that they had felt guilty and borrowed money from their mom to pay it back, but I personally felt no remorse whatsoever. In fact, I thought it was a lot of fun.
As I recall, we ended up tipping it several more times that weekend, each time hitting the jackpot: one person would be the lookout, a couple of us would tip and somebody else would catch the cans pouring out the bottom. One time I was alone, and it worked out beautifully, since the rail around the store kept it from falling completely over on me, and I was able to set it up without incident. Since you had to push the buttons to get the pop it wasn’t like I had cans falling all around my feet.
I put my neck out a little, but I had a bad back anyway from playing football and being in so many car accidents. I think that is why I tend to be a little stoop shouldered today. Anyone who knows me, knows I walk with a characteristic, telltale saunter that is distinctively my own, like it or no.
Then there were the sleeping arrangements. I did not know whether I was supposed to crash on the couch or what, and the twins and Jenny were off doing their feminine things together, so I climbed up on the roof of the high school to try to get some sleep. I was very irritable, and the black tar was hot and rough, making for a very uncomfortable mattress.
Finally, after about three sleepless hours I climbed down and came back in the house they were staying at, steaming. I did not even know whose house it was, and I was sick of being in a bunch of strangers’ dirty, smelly places. All we had done since we’d been there was visit place after place on foot.
I was jealous of Kevin, and the girls were usually gossiping and talking about the guys, so I was feeling really out of place and acting all bitchy. That just caused them to alienate me more, and Evon told me I was acting like a baby. I longed for a change of clothes and a bath or shower. We weren’t supposed to be there for very long, but the twins were enjoying themselves and called their mom, talking her into a few more days. (Groan!)
I came up the stairs and forced the door open as it stuck on the uneven rug to see if the girls were up, and there they all were, sound asleep on the carpet in their panties and tee shirts. I angrily pulled the door shut and went down the stairs, spying a couch. I did not know if I was supposed to be there or not, but after debating with myself, I disgustedly lay down.
I did not sleep worth crap, and soon I was jarred awake by the blinding daylight. Some stranger was gaping at me from the kitchen, a younger blonde girl I’d seen the night before, but did not know. She was staring at me kind of funny, and I felt like a fool.
I just got up wordlessly and went about my business, pilfering some of the food she was cooking for her breakfast. I don’t know what she thought. She did not seem to mind, and I was so remote I wouldn’t have cared if she did. This was to be a sign of the times, as this sort of thing seemed to happen to me a lot in the future. Ah well, who said my life was ever dull?
When it came to feeding ourselves, it was mainly a case of foraging in strangers’ refrigerators eating things I wouldn’t normally have considered edible from dishes seriously in question of basic sanitary guidelines. At that point I wasn’t complaining and was grateful to get anything. When their mom finally showed up three days later, I was greatly relived, and when I got home to my own bed I slept half the day away like a baby. Looking back, it was certainly an experience, and this I can say with total certainty.
Kate decided she liked Junior, and soon they were going out. The youngest out of the three girls, she was the first to lose her virginity. They had a fairly lengthy relationship and were not always the most discreet.
On one occasion, there was a party at the twins’ house. They were practically right out in plain sight, going to town. We were all too wasted to care. This was one of a number of really crazy parties. Such sights were not so uncommon.
Some time later, Junior needed a place to stay for awhile, and he moved in with the girls and their mom. He helped pay the bills, and their mom would let him borrow her little car. He always enjoyed going swimming, and he, the girls and I would all pile in and drive near Stockton or Pittsburg on our way to the lake.
Though I cannot recall exactly where it was now, somewhere along the backroads there was a small concrete bridge that flooded easily, and the water would pour over the road. A little ways away from the bridge was a rope swing along the bank that was secured to a large tree overhanging the stream. That particular spot was deep enough to jump in without fear.
Junior, Kate, Trish and Leah (a couple of sisters who were friends of Kate and the twins), me, and maybe even a few others, went down there one evening when the water was overflowing the bridge. It was a bright moonlit night, and it was beautiful. The place was filled with peace and serenity, and the sound of the water flowing over the bridge added to the tranquil atmosphere. We were all in high spirits, and it seemed like such a magical evening. I could have easily stayed there all night.
On our way back, Junior and Kate saw a baby raccoon in the glow of the headlights. We stopped, and it was one the cutest little night creatures I’d seen. I think they turned it in to the Conservation Department. At any rate, they were not able to keep it, though they really wanted to
I heard Junior complain many times of how tired he got of living there and putting up with the twins. That is usually true no matter who you live with. The ironic thing is, the last I heard from Junior, he had married and some of his wife’s relatives were living with them, and he was getting extremely sick of them.
I don’t know how it came to be that Junior and Kate split up, but they had been having some rocky times. Soon, she went out with Brandon. They had a fairly short-lived relationship, though they kept it together for quite a while. I don’t remember too much about it.
One day during summer vacation June, Sylvester, and I were all cruising in her mom’s Audi. Sylvester and I spent quite a bit of time over at her place, and that particular day she drove over to Sandy Lanes near her house. The place has since been turned into subdivision.
She was driving, I was riding shotgun, and Sylvester was sitting in the back. Pulling over, she took a “pinner” out of her cigarette pack. She apologized to me and offered to burn it with Sylvester. He turned her down, saying he had quit doing that. I shocked us all. I said, “I’ll try that.” I don’t know what possessed me.
It did not do anything for me, though they both thought it had, because I apparently looked stoned. The next time she had some, I tried it, and it hit me in waves. I loved it. The third time, Sylvester gave in, and all three of us got baked. I loved the feeling.
After that time, Sylvester, June, and I got stoned together a lot. Sometimes it was all three of us, sometimes it was just her and me, and sometimes it was just him and me. I had come a long way from that naïve little kid.
We would often smoke in The Attic, as the upper portion of the Dunnegan Memorial Park in Bolivar was so called by the stoners. One day all three of us were getting blazed there, and I remember watching the light on the car stereo and thinking it had a “friendly” glow to it, a thought I connected to a Pink Floyd song from The Wall. I commented about it and my enthusiasm was met by an incredulous, “Whatever you say, Eric.”
I thoroughly enjoyed going to that section of the park, as it was reclusive and scenic. I was smoking heavily, and June commented that she did not think I could breathe without smoke in my lungs. That’s not a real good sign when a fellow smoker tells you that. I was especially bad after getting high. I was continuing on my downward spiral, and everyone knew it, though I still had a lot of good left in me.
There was a really cool spot right down the gravel road from Brandon’s house, near Francka Bridge and the twins’ old house called Mockingbird Hill, the same spot I wrecked Mom and Dad’s Chevy Custom Deluxe half-ton pickup. We spent a lot of time there getting high under the bright moon. I was often with Sylvester, Junior, Brandon, or any combination of the three, though there were more of us who went down there from time to time.
My sophomore year June graduated, along with Violet. Though I was older than the twins by a month and a half, they were a grade ahead of me, as was Joe. Joe graduated with flying colors, and the twins limped through despite being absent a lot. Junior, Brandon, Sylvester, and I all graduated the same year, though I was nearly a year older than they were. Kate dropped out, but she would not have graduated for another two years after I did.
Bolivar High School offered a Vo-Tech program in cooperation with other area schools. Trade school was for half the day, and the other half of the day was spent in normal classes in Bolivar. The trade school, Dallas County Area Vocational-Technical School (AVTS), was located in Louisburg, Missouri, a good twenty miles away.
The program also had a Radio Broadcasting class that was taught and operated from the radio station KBFL, 99.9 FM, in Buffalo, Missouri. Buffalo was about twenty miles away from Bolivar as well and about ten miles south of Louisburg. Both were in Dallas County, and Bolivar was in Polk County. In addition, there were several other counties that participated in the program, as the area is rural and most did not offer the classes on their own.
I wanted to get into as many classes with Evon as I could, and my junior year I changed my entire schedule to fit hers. I originally had Spanish first hour and enjoyed the three days I was actually in the class. However, the twins decided they wanted to take Radio Broadcasting, so I had my schedule changed.
I don’t know what happened to them, but they never ended up going. They were out sick a lot, sometimes for weeks at a time. Truthfully, I think they had cabin fever more often than not.
I got the morning schedule and caught the Vo-Tech bus out in front of high school every morning, right next to Smokers’ Corner. The bus took us to Louisburg, and then I would catch another one to Buffalo. When class was over I’d catch the bus back to Louisburg and then ride the Bolivar bus back.
It made for some long rides, but I enjoyed it and struck up a pretty good friendship with the Bolivar driver, Dave. He’d let us get out and smoke at the corner store right before we got to the trade school. He’d sometimes go in and buy himself some Skoal and wore Wranglers, boots, and a black Stetson hat. He was probably in his late thirties and a really personable guy. He had been a bit of a rebel when he was younger, but had since really mellowed out.
I saw him a while back, and he had given up his Vo-Tech run, though he still drove a regular route. He said the kids were getting too rowdy, and he got tired of it; I can definitely believe that.
I thoroughly enjoyed Radio Broadcasting, or “broad-chasing” as Mike, our instructor, would call it, and I did really well. Occasionally, I’d duck out and walk down the street smoking a cigarette. One day he called me aside and asked, “Why did not you tell me you were going to go out for a smoke? I would have covered for you.” I was one of Mike’s favorite students, and he kept his promise in the future when I needed to satisfy my nic fits.
He had worked in television for years and was going through some tough times in his marriage. The last I heard he got it all patched up. He was pretty lenient with me, and I think he liked me because I was a bright student and the rebel he wished he had been (or could be). I did pretty much as I pleased and did not back down.
I had always enjoyed tinkering with circuitry, and the class included a course in basic electronics. I also enjoyed using the equipment in the control rooms and spent a lot of time hanging out in the studio listening to the 45’s or cassettes from home and talking with other students. Each week we had to write and record two thirty-second commercials and two sixty-second commercials. Mike put a good curriculum together, and I learned a lot.
We learned how to stretch the copy (the cue sheet for a commercial) with music or jingles, or shrink it if it did not fit into the allotted time slot. I would often use the studio to record some of my guitar playing after hours and then use that behind my voice for my commercials. I consistently scored ten out of ten week after week, as I had a good speaking voice and a natural aptitude for broadcasting.
We learned how to splice and though I had previously done some splicing with standard cassettes, I learned a lot from splicing reel-to-reel tapes. We learned how to use a patch bay and work the phone lines on-air. We learned a lot of broadcasting terms and how to figure frequency rates. We learned how to troubleshoot and monitor our signal to ensure we were within FCC regulations. In short, we learned everything we needed to know to become a commercial disk jockey and were all fully licensed as such.
Naturally, the year I started into broadcasting the licensing fee went up to $35.00. It had previously been free. I would still be a fully licensed DJ today if I hadn’t lost my wallet a few months before the writing of this paragraph. Of course, if I had pursued a career in the field I wouldn’t have to worry about it, because my license would have been posted at the radio station where I worked. (See Mike, I really was listening.)
We had to work four-hour shifts one night a week, or on the weekend. The format consisted of country from sign-on at 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM and then rock from 6:00 PM until the sign-off at 10:00 PM. I managed to get on the rock shift on Monday nights.
Once every Monday I would borrow Mom and Dad’s car and drive to Buffalo. I would often take my guitar and invite Sylvester, the twins, or some of the rest of The Family. They thought it was pretty cool. It was a really neat class for that matter and to think, my fellow students back in Bolivar were slaving over the books when I was sitting in a studio listening to music—and I was getting credit for it, too.
My first time on the air I was very nervous. Though it smoothed out quickly, my voice quaked really badly, and I had a lot of dead air (silence) between some songs and played a few commercials on top of each other. The listeners heard a lot about technical difficulties that night.
To practice our vocal inflection we would record our on-air time and critique it, perfecting the flaws. It is always interesting to listen back to the tape and realize that the voice you are hearing really belongs to you. I must have been doing something right, because occasionally in my regular classes students would compliment me, or ask me what time my broadcast started.
Like so many things I now regret, I wish I still had some tapes of those days. I don’t think I saved any. I might still have a commercial, though. I’ll have to look when I get a chance. Hmm.
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