In Part l, I
had begun working as a volunteer at The Whole and was really enjoying meeting
many new friends. This volunteer ‘job’ was one that lasted all 4 years of my
time at the University of MN.
During the
Winter of 1970, my brother Mark was killed. I immediately moved out of the
rooming house I had been renting and returned back home to Fridley. This was a
very tough time on me and our whole family. By this time I had sold my ’57
Chevy and had purchased a ’62 MGB and commuted back and forth to campus with
it. It had no heater to speak of, and each commute, to and fro, was cold and lonely.
This was a very bad time, probably the lowest point in my life. My mom and dad
were devastated. My brothers and sister were lost. None of us really took
charge of our family. To me, we all seemed to be alone in our sorrow. I wept
often. Mark and I had gone through so much together. The only thing that made
sense to me was something a family friend said told after the funeral. Mr.
Filipczak said, "John, there is no doubt that Mark's death is going to
change your life. Right? You owe it to him to make a change for the better.
Don't you?". I was so weepy I couldn't reply, but I kept this thought for
a long time. Even to today. Yes, I need to do as good a job as I can. Mark would
expect no less of me. Even 45 years later, my brother Mark is still only 18
years old and I'm still trying to make changes for the better.
I resolved not
to let my friends down and continued my work at The Whole as best I could
during this time. Working like that did much to take my mind off my sorrow -
much better than my schoolwork did. My grades slid somewhat, but my friends at
The Whole did much to drive me to do good work at the coffeehouse. My friend
Brian helped me get a job for the summer at the company where his dad worked,
the distribution warehouse for 'Our Own Hardware' hardware stores. It was a
good job and I did well there. I started dating an attractive young women that
worked in the front office, and all the old farts I worked with were green with
envy. Cool. My job was to 'float' around the different departments of the
warehouse when the full timers went on vacation. Pretty soon everyone in the
company knew who I was and I was well liked.
That Fall of
1970, Brian Carron 'retired' as Manager of The Whole, and I was elected by the
crew as the next Manager. What a thrill that was. I continued the same
management style that Brian had put in place and kept many of the same
committee chairpersons. I set up a couple more committees including a Public
Relations Committee, chaired by my buddy Rick Rukes. He was a smooth operator and
a 'way cool' person who could talk to anyone about any subject that came up. I
did change the chair of the Booking Committee to Jim Anderson, who knew more
about music than anyone I knew. We both had the same taste in music and Jim
booked as many of our favorite artists as he could. We expanded our weekly
concerts from Friday & Saturday nights to two more evenings on Wednesday
and Thursday. Wednesday's were open stages for local artists that wanted to
have an audience. On Thursdays we had pretty good luck booking bigger names
that were busy on the weekends. Being a University sponsored venue, we only had
to break-even, so we were able to charge only $1 - $5 for most acts that
performed.
By that time, I
was a Junior in the School of Business, and was able to practice many of the
things I was learning in class while managing The Whole. Three or four times
over the two years while managing, I earned credits for writing papers on some
aspect of management or marketing. Managing a group of volunteers is different
and in many ways more challenging than managing a paid staff; if they were not
enjoying their work they simply wouldn't show up again. So I made working at
The Whole as fun as I could, including organizing some off-campus, overnight retreats.
We always got some work accomplished, but my main goal was for everyone to have
fun. They did. The staff increased even more.
Due to the size
of the audiences we were attracting, we decided to tear down the first office
and move our 'headquarters' into the Graffiti Room. We should have done this in
the first place. We painted the new office and the girls fixed it up really
cool - in the style of the day; hippie like. The largest room was the meeting
area and one of the smaller spaces was a lounge area for the artists to keep
their gear and get 'fixed up'. The other small space, about 8 feet square was
my personal office, although the door was rarely closed. This office was my home
away from home for almost two years. I did all of my homework there and my
entire social life was right outside my door. Life was good; very good.
During this
time I fell in love with a girl named Helen. She and I became extremely close,
and since she worked in Coffman Union as a Receptionist, she was never far
away. Ours was a passionate, and at times, turbulent relationship. We really
were not much alike, me as a Business Student and she as a Theatre Major. We
disagreed on most subjects of significance, but in most cases they were
considered, considerate discussions.
However,
sometimes we would get into extremely heated arguments, seemingly with no way
out. During one of these heated arguments, I was driving her home after a late
night concert at The Whole, to Highland Park where she lived with her folks. It
was a very heated argument, and I just wanted to get her home and out of my
car. Being after midnight, it was pitch black with small snowflakes being
blasted down sideways by a driving wind. It was extremely cold. Driving was
treacherous because my MG wasn't designed for that type of weather and there
wasn't much tread on any of my tires. The damn car didn't even really have a
heater; I'd flick a toggle switch for a small fan and some lukewarm air would
come out of two defrost ports - only if the weather wasn't cold. As I was
sliding up the exit ramp onto Vandalia Avenue at about 60 mph, I thought I saw
a person walking back toward the freeway, back down the ramp. I stopped talking
for a second, then asked Helen if she had seen anybody. Nope; she hadn't see
anything.
I stopped the
car before I got to Vandalia and, because I couldn't see through my scratched
up rear, plastic window, I got out to look. In the dark I could barely see
anything, but I did see the shadow of a person walking toward the freeway.
Something was wrong. I jumped back into the MG, put 'er into reverse and
managed to back up without getting stuck. When we got to the person, Helen and
I could see in the headlights that it was a very old man dressed in a thin,
short jacket. He didn't look at us - he was looking down, and just kept
walking. I asked Helen to crawl behind the seat of the two-seater MG, got out
of the car and walked up to the guy.
"Hi buddy.
Where are you going?", I asked in a friendly tone.
The guy stopped
walking and looked at me stiffly, "I'm just walking along here. I'm
walking home. I'm not sure if I'm going the right way. I'm getting cold.",
he said, but his mouth was freezing, slurring his speech.
"Well why
don't I give you a ride home in my car? It's right here, and I can have you
home is just a few minutes. What do you think about that?", I asked him.
He looked
around at the MG, and began shuffling toward it without saying anything else. I
opened the door on Helen's side and helped him in. He was stiff, freezing
stiff. I realized from the light on my dash that he was deathly grey and in
real trouble. After getting him situated, I closed his door and ran around to
my side, got in and drove up to Vandalia. I had to turn either right or left.
"So where do you live?" I asked.
"St.
Paul."
"My name
is John and this is my girlfriend Helen. What's your name?"
"Carl."
"Do you
know your address Carl?"
"I've been
thinking about it but I can't remember."
"What's
your last name Carl. Mine's Mickman. John Mickman."
Carl thought
for a moment then said, "I can't remember right now, but it will come to
me."
"That's OK
Carl. Don't worry about it", I said. I was worried about it though. This
was going to be a big deal, and I didn't have any good ideas as to what to do.
I thought about
it for a second, put the MG in gear and turned left toward University Avenue,
which would take us into the heart of St. Paul. "Carl, let's just drive
around a little bit. Maybe you'll recognize something near your house", I
suggested. He said OK.
I turned toward
St. Paul on University. Being after midnight and due to the storm, there was
very little traffic, and none of the stores and few of the restaurants were
open. I really didn't have any idea how this was going to end up. I looked back
at Helen and asked her if she had any ideas. She thought maybe we could take
him back to her folk's place. Maybe...
After driving a
mile or so I noticed that Carl was starting to shake. A lot. The 'no heater in
the MB' situation wasn't helping at all. "Hey Carl. How about a cup of
nice hot coffee? There's a dinner up on the next block, and you and I and Helen
could go right in there and get a nice, hot cup of coffee. What do you
think?" I asked him. "Whatever you think", he said. "What
was your name again?" I thought this might be a good sign. "John.
John Mickman", I said as I turned into the parking lot of the small dinner.
"Here we are. Let's go in and get a nice cup of coffee Carl."
I helped both
him and Helen out of the MG. There really wasn't room for a human being behind
those seats and she was getting stiff too, both from the cold and form being
all cramped up behind the seats. All three of us were cold, and getting colder.
We walked into the dinner and sat down at a window booth. It was warm, dry and
cozy. A nice dinner; small and welcoming. There were a half dozen other patrons
sitting at 3 or 4 other booths and they were looking at us: A young hippie
couple with a tattered old man that was obviously in trouble. I smiled at them
but didn't say anything.
End of Part ll
Find our what happened to Carl – and Helen
and me in next weeks’ eNewsletter
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