By Duncan
I attended high school in the late ’50s and early ‘60s. I say I attended because I'm unsure I was engaged in any meaningful academic activity. So, let’s just say I was attending. Or at least that was what my report card said.
It was a wonderful time, even for me. The class was small; the school was out in the country. There weren’t a lot of distractions—unless you want to call corn and soybean fields a distraction.
Yes, there were the typical high school distractions for a young man like myself. Like watching my female classmates, who began experimenting with ruby red lipstick and crinolines under their big and bold full skirts. What is under those skirts that makes them stand out like that? Dare I ask a teacher, Mrs. Brown (Algebra), for the mathematical calculation?
No, I think not. I had to travel that road alone without Google Streets and Maps. Google wasn’t a “thing” yet. Oh, the joy of an occasional pit stop—to stop and ask questions, “What’s it all about Alfie?”
It was must-see TV after school to turn on American Bandstand, hosted by Dick Clark, and watch Justine Carelli, Joan Buck, and Mary Beltrante, spinning and twirling to the Top 40 music across my small black and white Sylvania television set.
What was I missing? The world was bigger than my front yard. On American Bandstand, the norm was to wear suit coats, ties, and polished shoes. Holding a girl in your arms and dancing was acceptable after-school behavior daily, Monday through Friday.
Laura Lee Harvey and John Flick pose for the Indianapolis Star.
I wanted to be Dick Clark. I bought a lot of audio equipment and asked if I could provide the music for the sock hop after the football games on Friday. I was compensated with a ten-dollar gift certificate to the Ayres department store.
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
MIT, Harvard, and Yale were not on my radar. I was more interested in how to become Humphrey Bogart. I joined the band, played the trombone, tried out for the school plays, and created skits for the talent shows.
One lazy, dark summer night, John Flick (Classmate) and I were experimenting with a package of Salem cigarettes. We were trying to figure out how and why to smoke. While blowing menthol-flavored smoke into the night air, we began talking about the upcoming talent show.
What could we come up with that would be a hit? I suggested we steal one of Elaine May's or Mike Nichols's comedy skirts and perform it for our little talent show. Most of the audience likely would not know who Elaine May or Mike Nichols were.
I wrote to New York and asked permission to perform the skirt about a man who loses his last dime in a coin-operated telephone. The man pleads with the operator for a free call because he has no more dimes in his pocket.
The letter came back: NO! You are not allowed to perform this skit.
John and I decided to change a few lines and perform a skit about a man losing his last dime to a pay telephone. Which of us would be the operator, and which one of us would be the man on the phone?
STEVE DUNCAN - JOHN FLICK.
We found an old pay telephone and used the Yellow Pages as a prop for the operator. I would be the operator. The hardest part of the costume was wearing the hose. The skit was received as being funny, but one never knows when you try a new act.
