priest must have heard this same scenario a thousand times, and then, in a spooky, disembodied voice, he would dish out my penance: “Say ten Our Fathers, ten Hail Mary’s, and make a good act of contrition.” (As opposed to a bad one?)
Leaving the confessional, I felt that I had been purged, and then, yippee, I was free to go out and sin again! It was like putting gas in the tank of eternal salvation; you had to do it every couple of weeks or face eternal damnation. I have to admit I felt cleansed at least until real life dirtied me up again.
The negative influence of guilt in my life manifested itself in far-reaching ways. In those days they didn’t have initials for what I suffered from as a child. Nowadays my behavior would probably be called obsessive-compulsive disorder. Back in the day, I was just “a boy trying to find himself” as my sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Hull told my folks at the dreaded parent-teacher conference. I was also “a chronic worrier.”
“Jimmie, don’t you be’s a worrier!” my mother would often intone, lapsing into a peculiar soulful dialect. I obsessed about everything: the test coming up on Monday, the project due on Tuesday, and even way back in kindergarten, I stressed out about how I was going to button my smock in art class (finally my mother installed snaps on it, thus saving me the humiliation of not knowing how to button a button).
After watching Dr. Kildare (starring a very young Richard Chamberlain) or Ben Casey (featuring Vince Edwards), two very popular medically based dramas, I contracted whatever disease was diagnosed that particular episode. One week I was convinced I looked pale and, of course, I concluded that I must certainly have leukemia.
Another week it was cancer. It was the disease du jour. I staggered between fear of tornados, earthquakes, thunderstorms, and, after I watched the terrifying TV drama On the Beach, which depicted the world after nuclear annihilation, I had nightmares of mushroom clouds on every horizon.
In my later years, I worked on divesting myself of this guilt—unlearning all the BS. We’re all sinners and we’re accepted anyway. Jillian, a Christian artist who I produced, was a great influence, and a great source of consolation.
She would preach the word of the Lord to nondenominational churches all over the country. One day in the car on the way to the studio she asked if I had accepted Jesus into my heart.
I told her that I went to church almost every Sunday. Jillian again asked me if I had accepted Jesus, and I responded that I wasn’t good enough; that I’m a sinner and I don’t feel worthy enough. She essentially told me that that was nonsense! She said, “We’re all worthy of having Jesus in our hearts. Jesus knows we are imperfect. We are forgiven the moment that we sin.”
I’m not crazy about the phrase “born again,” but in that moment I felt lighter than air. I felt a new energy come over me. I felt like a child again.
We’re not perfect, but we’re loved anyway. This epiphany eventually formed the basis for my new way of thinking. But religion was not the only influence in my early life; I was also entranced by American popular culture.
When I was about eight years old I was drawn to Charlie Brown, the self-effacing main character in Charles Schulz’s comic strip, “Peanuts.” Whenever I tagged along with my mom on boring shopping expeditions, I would get lost in the book department of the upscale Marshall Field’s department store in Oak Park.
There I was, laughing out loud at the antics of those comic strip characters. Charlie Brown was the underdog, an ordinary kid who tried harder but often fell short. I identified with him, and later the message that I clearly stated in “Eye of the Tiger” reflected his belief system.
Like many kids, I loved Captain Kangaroo, who was an iconic father figure. He was a stocky, kindly man with blond bangs that looked like they had been chopped short with pinking shears around an upside-down cereal bowl. The Captain’s soft, reassuring voice was something a kid could count on every morning. The jingling of his keys as he walked was music to my young ears. My other faves were Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Ding Dong School, Garfield Goose, and a bit later the hilarious Rocky the Flying Squirrel from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
Despite my love for those innocent television characters, music still held the trump card. On Halloween, as a kindergartener, I dressed as a pirate, complete with charcoal mustache and plastic sword.
The following Halloween, my dear mother, seeing my infatuation with rock ’n’ roll as a whole and Elvis in particular, took it upon herself to apply the name “Elvis” on the front of my ukulele in white surgical tape. When she showed it to me I didn’t react the way she expected. I told her that there was no way I would go as Elvis. I felt terrible (and still do) for destroying her expectations after all the time she took putting on that tape. But no matter how she begged me, I was not gonna be a rock pretender. I’d rather go as a pirate again than fake being a rock star.
Every year Hiawatha School would have a Halloween parade. As we would snake through the different classrooms, I felt special because, even though I was just one of the crowd, I had experienced what it felt like to be in the public eye. I liked that feeling—a lot.
Although I looked forward so much to the Halloween parade with my schoolmates, I had other friendships. In my Berwyn, Illinois, neighborhood, I hung around with a pair of great kids, Binky Cihak and Johnny Babinak.
Every kid should have a Binky and a Johnny. Sure, they were a little older, but they were my buddies, and not only did they know a heck of a lot about the opposite sex, they would always bring home new records.
Once Binky sent away to the Beechnut Spearmint Gum Contest, and through the mail came a recording of “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis. Unfortunately, when it arrived, we found that the record was cracked. The rockabilly singer repeated “great balls of fire” over and over because the record repeatedly skipped. But the message and echo on Jerry Lee’s voice rang loud and clear.
When the chorus would hit, Binky and Johnny would lead a sing along, “Goodness gracious, my balls are on fire!”
My parents didn’t like these boys one bit. “They’re a bad influence, Jimmie. Stay away from them!” They were actually really great kids—just a bit more mature, and sexually aware.
We collected marbles and played them endlessly at the empty lot at the end of the block that we dubbed “the prairie.” I still remember the feeling of those babies in my hands as I thumbed them toward the valley we dug in the mud: cat’s eyes, cat’s eye boulders (the bigger ones), purees (no colored glass inside), puree boulders, and the heavy steelies and steely boulders. The colors dazzled me: turquoise, coral pink, yellow, orange, and purple.
One day, Binky and Johnny organized a night bike ride. All the boys in the neighborhood made plans to go out in a pack that evening. I could barely contain my excitement until my mother informed me that I couldn’t go because I didn’t have a light on my bike like the others. I was disconsolate. When my dad got home and was told the situation he quietly affixed our family flashlight to my handlebars with electrical tape, and off I went into the starry Berwyn night. At that moment he reaffirmed his status as my hero.
But our main compulsion was cars. We built scale model, plastic cars, which we raced down the sidewalk. I still remember the somehow seductive smell of the Testors glue we used and the slick flame decals we’d lick and apply carefully to the fenders. Some we would purchase at our local hobby shop, already built, that contained a friction mechanism that kept the car in motion when you gave it a good shove. It wasn’t about how fast you could go, but how far we could get them to coast down the sidewalks of Wesley Avenue in front of our houses. If your car made it to the Dandas’
