BY Jack Boardman – Guest Author

Farewell old friend

I knew the day would come; I didn't know when. He'd been my constant traveling-companion for nearly fourteen years. Oh, the places we went and the sights we saw…

Countless trips to the North Shore of Lake Superior; Duluth, Two Harbors, Castle Danger, Knife River, Little Marais, Grand Marais and the back-roads and back-waters thereabout.

Park Rapids, Brainerd, Mora, Rochester, Winona; scouring the highways and back-roads of Dodge and Wabasha Counties looking for cemeteries and ancestral homesteads.

To the Ozarks of central Missouri; running the mountain-ridges like a moonshiner and exploring Route 66.

To LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and on to Historic Galena, Illinois, Saint Louis, Missouri, Chicago…

But we mostly explored our beloved Saint Paul—Seventh Street from the remaining bits and pieces at Fort Snelling on the bluff and the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers to the opposite end on the East Side.

Summit Avenue from its current eastern terminus past the majestic Cathedral of Saint Paul and curving past the former Weyerhauser and Forpaugh mansions; stopping at Ramsey Street and the continuing on until stopped finally at East River Road and the Mississippi.

We explored broad University Avenue its entire length from the northern suburbs past the University of Minnesota, Midway industrial areas, the small businesses and shops and past Regions Hospital to to its end at Lafayette Road…ahh the roads we have traveled.

But alas, all relationships must end, and I've found another traveling-companion; she's younger and better-appointed than you are, old friend. I've known her for a few years and we have occasionally gone out together—nothing serious—until now.

Now, my friend, Lumpy, we have come to that fork-in-the-road where my path and yours are not the same. Farewell, old friend; it's been a great ride.

BY Jack Boardman

I became licensed to drive in July 1964 and my father, not wanting to part with the family car, purchased a 1956 Ford 2-door Ranch Wagon with a standard transmission and unbeknownst to him a Thunderbird engine under the hood. The car was purchased in the winter and the evening of that day, my parents went out on a date, leaving me home with a car. Parked outside. Just a few steps away. The key hanging from a hook in the kitchen. And it was snowing.

BY Jack Boardman  

The fifties were a very-different time here in Saint Paul, and the country writ large. Many look back on those years through rose-colored glasses, you know the “Ozzie & Harriet” view of the times. As a kid, I was oblivious to at least one festering sore of that era.

At school we kids would hang with other kids without regard for color.

When we picked teams for softball it was strictly in order of ability and when we just hung out on the playground before school we were divided by gender only—girls not allowed [ugh!]. But after school?

One day I suggested to Grant (called “General” as in General U. S. Grant) our school patrol lieutenant, that maybe we could get together after school sometime. He declined the suggestion but wouldn't say why. He just said he couldn't come to my house and I couldn't come to his. That same day when my parents came home from work, I told them of what Grant said. Dad tactfully explained explained why and I was astounded and appalled—it just didn't seem fair! You see, Grant was African-American.

If my parents were racially biased, they did a fine job of hiding it from me. I once used the “N-word” repeating what one of my neighborhood friends said and was thoroughly schooled by my father to not EVER use that word again. I haven't—lesson learned!

I was completely unaware of “Redlining,” a practice of ensuring a certain portion of the city's population remained contained for the most part in a specific neighborhood. It wasn't a law, but it was practiced. I once saw a map showing the redlined area of St. Paul and if I remember correctly the area was bounded by Lexington Parkway to the west; University Avenue to the north; Dale or Western or perhaps Marion Street to the east and Marshall Avenue to the south (I'm a little fuzzy on the eastern border).

During the mid-seventies I flirted with being a Realtor® for about five years, and by then redlining was illegal. That really didn't completely stop redlining, I can't tell you how often people would ask me to show them homes in “good” neighborhoods. I also can't tell you how often those same people stopped working with me. I eventually left the Real Estate profession, not because of that, but because I wasn't all that good at it.

With the Civil Rights Act of 1968 Title VIII as amended, “…prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status (including children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women, and people securing custody of children under the age of 18), and handicap (disability),” one might think redlining has gone away…although this city has a richness of cultures that I celebrate; some, unfortunately still wish for a return to the fifties, and not the Ozzie & Harriet fifties!

BY Jack Boardman

 Since beginning to post here I have been asked a number of times how I remember things in such detail. I really have no good answer except, perhaps, that as I write memories of my childhood here in Saint Paul, more memories are triggered.

Sense of smell is supposed to be the most potent of memory-triggers; I don't know for certain how true that is except for an experience I had a few years ago when a condo came up for sale at the mansion on Summit Avenue near the Cathedral of Saint Paul my parents once owned. It was a light-housekeeping apartment building then. My brother Jim and I were both interested in seeing how the building had changed inside since we lived there, so we arranged a showing of the unit that was for sale.

As we entered the front vestibule, the slightly musty odor struck me immediately as we entered; it smelled exactly as it did the last time I was in the building more than forty years ago! Memories of living there flooded back as if they were yesterday and not decades ago.

Another memory-trigger for me is old photos. Saturday morning I was uploading a few family photos onto my Facebook page and one of the photos is the one above. It is of my dad and me when I was probably less than a year old. I don't remember the photo being taken and I only know I was sitting in a “Teeter-babe” because my parents spoke of it when I was older. It was when I was tagging the photo that I noticed the toy my father is holding in the photo.

It was a tan & brown rubber puppy that would squeak when squeezed. I know this because that Squeaky-Puppy remained in a corner of my toy box for years after I had no interest in playing with it. Until the moment I saw it in the photo, I had forgotten all about it.

Periodically I was required to go through my toy box and get rid of toys I no longer played with and somehow that Squeaky-Puppy escaped; remaining securely at the bottom of the toy box. For some reason, unknown to me still, I could not get rid of the Squeaky-Puppy.

Except…maybe how it smelled. It had a not unpleasant odor of it's own. And maybe, just maybe it brought back memories then that I wanted to retain.

It's long-gone now. At least I think it is.

Maybe I'll go check the bottom corner of my toy box.

BY Jack Boardman

 Like almost any other kid in my neighborhood in Saint Paul, or anywhere else I suspect, I had one significant hero among many to choose from. For my friends the heroes were sports figures, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider and Ted Williams were among those attaining hero status.

For me my hero-worship centered on my oldest brother Bob. I have two other brothers, Jim & Billy, but although they were 14 & 12 years older than me, I knew them too well and both were known to tease me without mercy. That was hardly a way to acquire a position in the brain of a very-little brother as “hero.”

I didn't know Bob all that well, he was after all nearly thirty years older and he seldom visited us. But for my five-year-old brain, that was enough. From the very first Sabrejet that flew over the neighborhood during the Korean Conflict, I was hooked on flying and aircraft and learning my brother not only flew such airplanes, but was an air force Lieutenant-Colonel immediately propelled him to hero status.

Robert Lawrence Boardman was born December 3, 1918, the son of Paul Karth & Anna Swendner. On January 26, 1921 after her divorce, Anna married my father who adopted Bob August 2, 1921.

He graduated from Johnson High School on Saint Paul's East Side and went on to the University of Minnesota.

In 1937 he enlisted in the Minnesota National Guard's 109^th Air Squadron as an aircraft mechanic, and in 1940 was accepted in the Flying Cadets. He received his commission as a second lieutenant on May 30, 1941 and became an instructor in advanced pilot training. During World War II he flew 432 combat hours in a B-25 in the Alaska-Aleutian Theater while assigned to 11th Air Force.

After the war he served in various positions and was promoted to Colonel in 1960. He retired from the air force in August of 1969. He died suddenly at age 51 November 29, 1970 of a massive heart attack. He spent nearly 33 years in service to this country during some of the most dangerous times we have experienced.

Thank you for your service, big brother; rest in peace, you've earned it.

BY Jack Boardman

Saturdays in 1950's Saint Paul were for household chores in our family.   Dad, being the family cook would set out for Klein's Supermarket on Grand Avenue (now Restoration Hardware) and Mom would do the family clothes washing.

When we first moved to our home on Ashland, Mom had a wringer type washer. Wringers were renown for their ability to get clothes clean without having to beat them with rocks in an available stream or the more modern wash tub, washboard & Fels-Naptha soap.

Using the wringer washer required several steps: 1. Fill the washer with water and add detergent. 2. Add clothes. 3. Wash the clothes. 4. Run the clothes through the wringer, taking care not to run fingers through the wringer. 5. Rinse the clothes in the adjacent sink. 6. Wring again. 7. Place washed, wrung, rinsed and wrung clothes in the wicker basket. 8a. Haul clothes to the basement clotheslines (or) 8b. Haul the clothes upstairs and outside to the back yard clotheslines. Repeat.

Mom was pretty happy when they purchased a new “Easy Spindries” washing machine (similar to the one in the photo above). No more wringer or the danger of flat-fingers, although to my knowledge she never ran her fingers through the wringer.

The machine consisted of two tubs: one for washing and the second smaller tub for rinsing and spin-drying the clothes. What a time saver! Of course it didn't actually dry the wash, it just made it less wet, much like today's automatic washers. The biggest difference she could rinse a load while washing the next load. There was still the issue of drying the wash.

A large portion of the basement and yard were devoted to clotheslines. During the summer months on wash day one might look up and down the block and see bed sheets and clothing gently blowing in the breeze. In the winter the basement was dedicated to slowly drying wash and wicker baskets filled with clothes waiting their turn on the line.

It wasn't until 1960 when we moved that the first automatic washer & dryer appeared in our basement. Not long after I learned to do my own wash.

BY Jack Boardman

In 1950s Saint Paul one of the highlights for us kids was going to the movies. We had to go to the movies, because though it may surprise you to learn there were no VCRs, DVDs, Blue-ray or Netflix back then.There were no multi-plex suburban theaters, or if there were, I was not aware of them. Then again, I didn't get out to the 'burbs of the 1950's all that much.

My parents were not the most avid movie fans, but there were two movies that I remember attending with them and curiously enough both were released in 1956: “Around the World in 80 Days” and “Seven Wonders of the World.” I think we saw “80 Days” at one of the many first-run theaters in downtown Saint Paul, but for “Seven Wonders” we had to journey to downtown Minneapolis to the Century Cinerama Theatre as it was filmed in the new-fangled Cinerama three strip format; the screen more or less wrapped around the audience giving a kind of 3D effect. Pretty amazing for the time.

More often we kids would save our allowances or gather soft-drink bottles and collect the refund pennies at Weiss' Grocery on Selby at Milton until we had enough to each buy a ticket for a movie matinée at our local neighborhood theater, the Uptown Theatre, then located at 1053 Grand Avenue (today a parking lot).

There were five of us who most often hung out together and we would work together to accumulate the bottles for refund and would pool our earnings in a jar, sort of an all for one – one for all venture. It was no fun if we all couldn't participate.

As it took some time to accumulate the necessary financing for an afternoon at the theater, we didn't go as often as we would like, but when we did, we'd stay through a couple of runs of whatever was showing on that day, as long as the ushers didn't mind. Usually they didn't.

Walt Disney provided much of our entertainment: Davy Crockett—King of the Wild Frontier, Old Yeller (yes, I'll admit it—I cried when Old Yeller was shot) and Lady and the Tramp were among many movies we saw.

It was particularly great on a hot Saturday to go to the movies; the Uptown was air conditioned!