Chapter 40

At DeLong’s, I also noticed ‘Rock and Roll Cowboy’ had dropped completely off the charts. This was a mixed blessing, I hated the song after hearing it so many times, but I liked the money going to the Leukemia fund, also this would give us a tax break. I say us on the tax break because as a minor everything had to go through my parents.

We stopped at Dee’s Department Store. That place made me feel weird. It was mostly women’s fashions but had some men’s clothes, so I wanted to check them out. They had nothing that interested me. What was weird about the store as they only had one cash register. It was on a balcony that overlooked the entire store.

There was a system of tracks for each point of sale. The clerk would put the sales slip and cash in a little box and put it on the tracks. The tracks had cords turning that made a big loop.

The cords would take the box up to the balcony where you then would hear the big old brass register ring up the sale. The cords would then be reversed and a paid in full sales slip would come back. There was a whole network of these. I thought of it as a big spider web, with the cash register being the spider in the center of the web.

We left there and crossed the street to Don’s. We spent almost two hours there. Every kid who was out of school came and went. We got to Don’s about eleven-thirty so were able to get a booth.

Lunch was hamburgers, fries, and a coke. Later I had a butterscotch milkshake. Gary and Tim from the golf team joined us.

Half the kids in our high school came there for lunch that day. Unfortunately, no pretty girls asked to join us. I would have kicked Gary and Tim out if they had.

Pam Schaffer came in holding hands with Sam Shepard and she didn’t even look my way. I would have to become a big-time actor before she would notice me. But if I were a big-time actor would I notice her?

After lunch, we worked our way back up the street. Stopping by Wolfeins I remembered my original mission had been to buy several pairs of pants. Instead, I had bought a suit and a shirt.

Asking for his help Henry helped me pick out a light and dark pair of chino pants. My waist size was still thirty inches but my inseam was now thirty-four inches.

From there we stopped at Bush Electric. Tom was at the counter so he knew that I was there to pick up my order. I also placed a new order for solid-state transistors, diodes, and resistors. Tom suggested I buy the latest silicon transistors rather than germanium because they handled the heat better.

The fixed germanium diodes were still the best. The resistors that worked best for potentiometers were those made by Western Electric. I ended up ordering all Western Electric made parts.

Bush had the flux, solder and soldering iron in stock, but agreed to hold them till the other parts were in. I ordered enough parts to build ten control sets for the hairdryer. While I was doing this Tom was listening avidly.

He thought it was cool that I was trying to build something that would be of use. He agreed that anything was better than hearing his mother say, “You will catch your death.”

I now had the motor, fan, and parts to build a heating element for my dryer. I could work on proper airflow and temperatures using the variac controller.

The controller weighed about twenty pounds so I cheated and paid for a taxi to take us home. The taxi service was only half a block away so we walked there. John Sullivan was on duty.

Mr. Sullivan remembered me well. He told me that they had bought a new limo and it was booked up with enough weddings, dances and other special events to pay for the first year. It looked like a money maker. He just hoped it didn’t get lost in a card game. The ride home cost seventy-five cents but was well worth it.

When Tom and I got back to my house Mum wanted to know what clothes I had bought. When she saw the suit I was ordered to try it on to make certain it fit. I had tried it on in the store and it fit, according to Henry who did his own tailoring. When Mum says try it on you try it on. To beat a hasty retreat out the door.

The suit fit perfectly well and Mum approved of its look. She also liked the red shirt that went with it for school spirit. The other pants also fit and passed muster. Once this was out of the way, I took my other purchases to the garage.

I had already collected some vital elements; a small cigar box, a toilet paper roll, parts from my erector set, Popsicle sticks, a plugin lamp cord, and an extension cord.

Using my Barlow knife and a pair of tin snips I cut the Popsicle sticks so that I could make an “X” which would fit inside the toilet paper roll. I made two of these, inserting one at each end of the roll.