35. The Television ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

The television brought people face to face with a world far larger than Pine Village: a world that had hidden in the shadows of the imagination as farmers of the late 1940s and 1950s had listened to their radios and a world that, despite being described in detail in the dailies and the fat newspapers on Sundays, remained aloof. In the beginning, television’s limited news coverage imitated the highly crafted newsreels viewed in movie theaters, but, gradually, that coverage became better adjusted to breaking news with its raw qualities and lack of polished shapes. With televisions in more and more of the homes in town and on farms, the world no longer lay in newsprint on the kitchen table. There was the world! There, on the television!

Granted, the news occupied only fifteen minutes on weekday evenings. Joe and Ida’s Zenith TV brought in two of the three networks clearly enough. Although the networks already had a commercial stake in ensuring high numbers of viewers, the journalists who read the news, often taken from wire stories, strictly avoided opinion and, in perfect spoken English, offered only the facts as those facts could best be understood at the time.

Broadcasts and telecasts told of the agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to establish a hot line for the leaders to forestall nuclear war, and Charles, Robert, and their classmates were led in drills to kneel beneath their desks in the event of an exploding nuclear bomb, perhaps in Chicago, which was too close to Pine Village for comfort. In Joe Dan’s Restaurant, veterans of both World Wars openly speculated about World War III. They had seen the world and were wary of it.

The daily news increments may have been tiny, but television sets showed that troubles were not illusions. Radio news had enabled listeners to picture troubles in their minds, and, not infrequently, the troubles as pictured in listeners’ imaginations became either magnified or tinged with a fancy bordering on unreality. Televisions and the evening news came to be trusted as living room repositories of the stark truth: a truth not contaminated by the imagination and not shaped into newsreels. Turn on the set for the evening news, and there they were: true troubles in spoken words illustrated by pictures only a few feet away—just past the footstool! At first—with journalists that had undergone rigorous training and with exacting adherence to high ethical standards—TV news programs could legitimately claim to encapsulate the truth or whatever was carefully considered to be the most likely truth at the time. Little by little over several decades, entertainment with its penchant for shock value would nudge truth aside. Unfortunately, the trust would remain, even when the truth had vanished.

No one was so deluded as to dream that the rural community had been the Garden of Eden before TV sets arrived. The Great Depression had dealt poverty to many families that had no means of recovery. Lives lost in Europe, in the Pacific, and in Korea had left behind broken hearts that could not be comforted. In spite of their vigilance, some farmers had fallen victim to accidents that left grievous injuries. All the same, Pine Village had succeeded in giving its residents a foundational stability: the bedrock of continuity. The television was sending tremors through that substratum.

The television seemed to pose difficult questions. What was Pine Village to do with the threat of nuclear annihilation? What was Pine Village to think about the varieties of unrest that began surfacing in cities across the nation? What was Pine Village to be in a troubled world?

Meanwhile, Ida’s friend Mary Akers dropped her boys, Matt and Lon, in the yard, where they and Robert and Charles played cowboys and Indians with their Western toy guns while she entered the kitchen. Ida switched off the TV set.

“I brought my books,” Mary said, waving her right hand filled with several booklets, then waving her left hand filled with sheets of S&H Green Stamps, “and my stamps.”

Mary was younger than Ida, but they were fast friends. That spring, both had sunburned necks from driving tractors to help their husbands in the fields. They sat at the oilcloth-draped kitchen table and attached stamps to the pages of their booklets. Clerks handed the stamps to customers in grocery lines and at the checkout counters of other stores; the stamps could be redeemed for discounts on goods at a wide variety of establishments. While they affixed stamps to fill their booklets, they swigged instant coffee and chatted about events on the farms and in the town.

“Did I tell you what I did?” Mary asked.

“What did you do?” Ida returned.

“Last weekend, I came around the school driveway past where they’re building the new tennis court on the corner right across the road from you. The workers had left for the day, and I saw three Coke bottles lying in the grass. So I parked and picked up the bottles. I needed just that many to fill my last carton. That way, I had four cartons full.”

“You don’t say.”

“I felt inspired, so I drove straight to the IGA in Oxford and redeemed all four cartons. While I was there, I picked up a box of Crispy Critters for the kids and a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup for me.”

“What did Don get?” Ida wanted to know.

“He doesn’t need anything!” Mary joked.

Ida laughed.

That evening, Joe and Ida took Charles and Robert to Columbian Park to the ball diamond, where they sat on bleachers to watch a demonstration of traditional dances performed by members of the Miami tribe. Men and women, boys and girls, were attired in the clothing of Indians—not the often ridiculously flamboyant costumes of Hollywood Indians but the authentic dress of the various peoples of the Miami, such as the Wea and the Piankeshaw.

As musicians struck the deep-toned drums, a circle of dancers formed. Slowly the circle revolved as the men and women shuffled sideways. The dance was intended to ensure a good harvest. As Robert was enrolled in the 4-H gardening project, he hoped the dance would be effective.

Robert watched in fascination as the circle inched around and around. He wondered if Charles might be enjoying the performance as much as he was, but, when he glanced at his brother, Robert could tell that Charles was bored. Robert stayed focused on the dance after that.

In between dances, an announcer explained to the audience that, long ago, the Piankeshaw and Wea had lived on the land where Lafayette and West Lafayette stood. Robert suddenly felt transported back in time. He felt he was witnessing a culture that had arisen from the rivers, creeks, marshes, prairies, and woods that he knew. The circles formed by the dancers were cementing bonds among the performers and members of the audience while honoring not only the land but also what could not be seen but what could be profoundly felt: the spirit flowing around and through the water, the soil, and the air.

At the end of the exhibition, the audience gradually began applauding. It was not that people were reluctant to clap their hands to show their appreciation—it was that nobody quite knew whether applause was appropriate after such dances that the announcer had carefully placed in the context of Indian spiritual concepts. It felt as if a congregation were applauding after a church service. All the same, the children in the tribes smiled, as did several of the adults.

While Joe drove home, Robert pondered the dances and their meaning. For many days thereafter, Robert slipped away from the evening news telecasts. When he was by himself outdoors, he tried to perceive the natural world in front of him with enough precision to sense its vast spiritual backdrop. A rhythm—a music—lay within the wind. It was faint and came from far away. What was the meaning of that music? Robert tried shuffling sideways in imitation of what he had seen the Miami do, until he had traced a circle in the grass.

30. The Summer Plays ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

For several years, Charles and Robert had been enrolled in Mrs. Elizabeth Clements Sharpless’ Children’s Summer Theater at Columbian Park in Lafayette. Robert would never forget the first day that he attended. Back then, he was not yet in first grade.

With hopes that Mrs. Sharpless might help Robert to finish overcoming his inability to “say his r’s,” Ida had deposited Charles and Robert at Rush Pavilion overhanging the lagoon.

Columbian Park was a magnificent facility sprawling over a triangular area in between Scott Street, Park Avenue, and Main Street. A zoo with a large animal house occupied one end. The animated conversations of monkeys often rose above the tranquil lapping of the water in the lagoon. Buddy the Chimpanzee frequently accompanied the engineer of the miniature locomotive that pulled a train on the well-built tracks weaving around the park. Zebras roamed a fenced enclosure.

In the main room of the pavilion, Mrs. Sharpless reigned. Her dynamic personality was constantly in evidence. On that first day, she assigned one of the Best sisters to teach Charles and Robert the words to “Frère Jacques,” which they and other children would sing while dancing in a circle as part of one of the stage productions. Breezes from the lagoon wafted through the large open windows of the room, otherwise faintly redolent of the leotards and ballet slippers that the children were required to wear during rehearsals.

A painter widely recognized for her watercolors and her oils, Mrs. Sharpless was also a gifted musician and director. Over the years, Robert’s appreciation of her enormous talent only grew. In Robert’s second-grade year, Jenks Memorial Rest Center, otherwise known as “Jenks Rest,” was built. It was a new facility with ample room for rehearsals of the large-scale productions for which Mrs. Sharpless was revered. A winding walkway dividing the lagoon connected the pavilion and Jenks Rest. Robert and another budding actor also named Robert—Robert Eugene Pechin III, to be exact—collected the green, heavy seed pods from the lilies that filled the edges of the lagoon with spectacular colors. With the other Robert’s penknife, they and their friend Tim Funcheon carved out part of the pods to form canoes, which they set afloat. They watched their miniature boats drift lazily away until the Roberts were called back to rehearsals.

Mrs. Sharpless had assembled a vast staff. There were set designers, lighting and sound experts, costume designers, seamstresses, and musicians. One pianist among them could play as well as Jo Ann Castle on The Lawrence Welk Show. The beloved Mrs. William F. McDill, whose children Sandy and Sherry were cast members, worked wonders with costumes, which she oversaw while assisting Mrs. Sharpless in the countless other ways that a schedule of five plays per summer demanded.

Young people who were really young adults customarily performed the major roles, so the theatrical productions often attained the stature of full-blown plays and musicals.

Each summer featured three or four large productions, and Robert found himself memorizing lines for the next show while still polishing lines for the current show.

Over the years, he absorbed and learned volumes of information from crew members. For a production set in Arabia, the artists on the staff painted many plywood cutouts in such a way that they appeared to be three-dimensional vases, some of them taller than a human being. Robert paid attention to the shading and the highlights that made the vases seem to be glazed pottery.

He was taught how to project his voice toward the microphones, some of which hung above and others of which were amid the footlights.

During one afternoon rehearsal when the lead actor was called away, Mrs. Sharpless asked Robert to read the actor’s part from the script, thereby helping the rest of the cast to practice the scene. Robert thought that this was his chance to show Mrs. Sharpless how well he could do in a lead role. He reached a moment when the character was taken by surprise. Robert gave a shout into the microphone. He heard his exclamation reverberating from the speakers around the park. “No, no!” Mrs. Sharpless snapped. “He would not scream like that! Quite the contrary! He would remain silent! Always remember that less is more!”

On the evenings when the shows were presented on the great outdoor stage that was on Memorial Island at some distance from Rush Pavilion, electricity was in the air as performers changed into their costumes and the aroma of greasepaint filled the porches of the pavilion, which served as headquarters. As the lights on the great outdoor stage came up, the large audience grew silent, and the music (either live or recorded) began, Robert’s heart beat fast.

Dennis, one of Robert’s friends in his class at school, often visited an aunt who lived near Columbian Park, and he could be found in the audience. Robert always tried to do his best to entertain everyone, including Robert’s parents and his classmate.

Tom Sawyer featured scary scenes. The graveyard was so realistic as to be downright spooky, and the cave with Injun Joe was truly frightening. The actor who performed Muff Potter looked nothing like himself in real life. For his role as the drunken misfit, he had wild red hair and a scraggly beard, thanks to the excellent make-up artistry that Mrs. Sharpless could command.

When talented singer and actress Roberta Preston donned her elaborate mock turtle costume for Alice in Wonderland, Robert knew that the production would be a huge hit.  

Babes in Toyland offered enchanting sets with fascinating effects of lighting. Robert’s big line was “Oh no! It’s the water from the Laughing Water Well!” Then (as scripted) Barnaby made the mistake of drinking the water!

Poor Ida drove the twenty miles to and from Lafayette at least once a day and often twice a day almost every single day during those summers when Charles and Robert were in Mrs. Sharpless’ plays.

There were many amusing moments backstage. During the Mikado, the minstrel was in the midst of a story he was telling to crew members when he heard out front the music to the song he was supposed to be singing to the audience. Robert never saw someone run so fast! In that same production, Robert carried a bamboo umbrella above the emperor, ably—and nimbly—performed by Kevin McGuire. Robert’s job was to keep the umbrella high above the actor’s head, no matter where he walked. At one point, the emperor began to dance. He flung his hand holding a fan straight up, and the fan struck against—and broke—several of the thin wooden arms supporting the umbrella, which suddenly folded down around the emperor. He ducked from beneath the ruined umbrella and adlibbed a look of displeasure before resuming his dance. The audience roared with laughter. Robert felt the deepest chagrin, but, as soon as the number was completed and he carried the collapsed umbrella backstage, Mrs. Sharpless ran over to Robert and said, “Did you do that on purpose, or was it an accident? Never mind! It was brilliant! We’ll rig the umbrella to collapse that same way every time!” Robert abruptly felt huge relief.

One night, Mrs. Sharpless walked onto the stage shortly after the show had begun. No one—not even the performers—knew what she was doing. She gestured for a staff member on the ground level to hand up a microphone over the footlights. Then, in a measured voice of reassurance, she said, “We have received a report that a tornado is approaching Lafayette from the southwest. We ask that you calmly walk to Jenks Rest, where you can take shelter. Everyone needs to vacate this facility at this time.”

Robert and Charles met up with their parents. As they strode briskly toward the building at the end of the winding walkway, Joe said to Ida, “We’re parked near Jenks Rest. Why don’t we go to the car and drive home?” Ida agreed, so the family hurried to the Chevrolet. As Joe was driving through Lafayette, the evening sky turned a greenish black. Ida kept looking up through the passenger window. Joe decided to head south, rather than west. He made the right choice, as the car passed quickly from beneath the threatening wall cloud. Fortunately, the funnel did not descend on Lafayette.

For the bright lights of the stage, relatively heavy makeup was deployed. Once, Mrs. Sharpless was running past where Robert was having greasepaint applied. She whirled around and said, “Make him darker.” She rummaged among the tubes and found a particularly dark one. “Use this one,” she told the makeup artist. “He’s so bloomin’ fair, he’s a ghost on stage!”

Robert long remembered those summers at the park with billowy cumulus clouds almost motionless in a sky of vibrant blue, the actors in small groups rehearsing lines outdoors, the vivid orange and yellow and purple flowers everywhere, the exotic ducks preening beside the rippling waters of the lagoon, the indolent warmth, and the faraway chatter of monkeys.

Spare Moments at My Folks' Farm 3

West Lafayette and Lafayette, Indiana, offered my parents many opportunities. We attended concerts and plays at Purdue University, and we frequently ate at the Union Building on the Purdue campus. In Lafayette, I took lessons on piano and clarinet. (I wound up passing my audition for the Indiana University School of Music as a piano major, although I later switched majors to English, and I played clarinet in the IU band program for nine years.) When I was very young, I performed in plays at Columbian Park. As we were often in Lafayette or West Lafayette, Smitty’s was a frequent destination. It was an independent grocery store that was big for its day. Following my parents up and down the aisles felt like being in a spacious state-of-the-art facility with every food on earth conveniently displayed.

My Photograph of Miss Ella Beegle

My First Piano Teacher

In Front of Her Home in Lafayette, Indiana

One of my childhood memories is having seen Purdue freshmen wearing beanies (a tradition at the time). In the throngs of people that crossed State Street were numerous international students, often in clothing from their countries. I was conscious of the fact that the world had come visiting a campus so near to my home. I knew I was destined to attend college. My mother insisted on my doing so. But I never dreamed I would earn three degrees, including the PhD in literature and would teach in a university for thirty-four years!

At Top Left, One of Miss Ruth Jamieson’s Windows

Above the Bank Designed by Louis Sullivan (1914)

When Ruth’s Father, George Andrew Jamieson, Was Cashier

As Well As County Auditor

And on the Board of Trustees of Purdue University’s School of Pharmacy

My first piano teacher, Miss Ella Beegle, had a studio at the top of a building that housed Allen’s Dance Studio across from the Journal & Courier newspaper headquarters. She was considerably older than my parents and was a kind, gracious woman who could hardly bring herself to correct a student. Eventually, she offered lessons from her home in half of a large, white house opposite the public library. While my brother took his lessons, I read books by Gene Stratton–Porter while seated in a deep window at the back of the library stacks. When Miss Beegle retired, I still had two years of high school ahead of me. (My brother was already attending college.) She recommended that I continue my training with Miss Ruth Jamieson.

Miss Ruth Jamieson’s Photograph of Me

Playing the Piano in Her Apartment in 1972

What a huge change! Miss Jamieson had a small apartment above a men’s clothing store near Purdue. I trudged up several flights of stairs that snapped as if they would break. In the gloom at the top, a dim light bulb, yellowed with grime, hung with no shade at the end of a dirty cord. I knocked, and Miss Jamieson swung open the door with her characteristic impulsiveness. Her piano was a reddish upright, nothing like the twin grand pianos that Miss Beegle owned. Miss Jamieson’s reading material lay wherever it fell on the sofa or on the carpet. Strings of beads separated her tiny living room from her kitchen, and, every now and then, she unexpectedly leapt up from her rocking chair, dove through the beads (which tinkled against one another), and returned with a heavily scented hand cream that she rubbed vigorously between her palms. For the first year of lessons, she negatively criticized every facet of my playing. Quite often, as I stood on a windy street corner waiting for my parents to pick me up after a lesson, I thought about quitting. At the beginning of my training under Miss Jamieson’s sharp tutelage, I could hardly have predicted that she would occupy the same place in my affections as a dearly loved aunt or that she would build me back up after tearing me down, transforming my playing until I was one of two students out of twenty accepted into the prestigious School of Music at IU on the day that I auditioned.

Photo of Me on Stage in Recital Hall

At Indiana University

Photograph by Randy Prange

In the beginning of my studies with Miss Jamieson, I often stumbled. At my first recital in Duncan Hall, I became lost in the movement of the Beethoven Sonata that I had memorized. My fingers flailed around, striking wrong notes in all directions. Instead of feeling horror or shame, I smiled. Why? Because, in my mind’s eye, I could just see the dramatic Miss Jamieson backstage, groaning, swooning, and falling to the floor.

Miss Jamieson designed separate exercises for each of my fingers, and she coined fascinating expressions to help me overcome difficult passages in the music. For a rapid run in a Beethoven Sonata, she said, “It’s like small monkeys scurrying up trees in the jungle.” Somehow, that description made it possible for me to play the run accurately every time. When she was young, she had studied in France for a lengthy period, and she affected a French manner, calling me “Ro-BAIR,” instead of Robert. As I look back, I think, “What a character!” She has been gone for many years, and I wonder how the earth can get along without such a powerful personality!