I went to see Jersey Boys the other night. It’s about the rock vocal group the Four Seasons. Great show, wonderfully presented, great choreography, and of course the songs were great (daughter’s Christmas present to me). This isn’t about the show, however. Watching the cast perform “Sherry,” it sort of took me back to the fall of 1962. I was 12 years old and was convinced that I was just about grown up. I got a transistor radio for my birthday in July. That meant that like everybody else, I could listen to music anytime I wanted and anywhere I went. I would listen to music on my radio in my bedroom. A new AM radio station had started broadcasting that year. WIFE Radio 1370 on your dial. Lucky 13! Joe Light was the evening DJ and he was the first Indianapolis radio personality to go after the teenagers. You just were not cool if you weren’t listening to Joe Light on Lucky 13 Radio. I can’t stress enough how much WIFE radio changed the music scene in Indianapolis. My friends and I were listening to the Beach Boys and their songs about surfing, and hot rodding. Never mind that we had never been to the West Coast or had even seen a surfboard, let alone that none of us were really teenagers. The Beach Boys would become America’s greatest rock band and 409 and Shut Down would start the trend of car and drag racing songs. The surfing songs would lead to the Frankie and Annette beach party movies. Elvis was still the king of rock with Return to Sender and Good Luck Charm being big hits that year. Little Eva was doin’ The Locomotion, Dee Dee Sharpe sung about Mashed Potato Time but it was Chubby Checker and the TWIST that had everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) movin’ and groovin’ and throwing out their backs — even the grown ups. Rolf Harris Tied His Kangaroo Down, Sport and Booker T and the MG’s were chompin’ Green Onions. Even Walter Brennan had a Top 40 hit with Old Rivers.
The Four Seasons, with Frankie Valli, as the lead vocalist had their first hit with “Sherry.” It was released in September of ‘62 and featured Valli singing much of the tune in a falsetto voice. Everybody was singing She-e-e-e-ery baby. Two of the older guys in my hang out group thought the falsetto sound was “sissy stuff” but I really dug it. Going into October of 1962 life was good. The music was great, and movies like Lawrence of Arabia, Hatari, The Longest Day, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and The Premature Burial were showing at the Arlington, Emerson, Hamilton, Rivoli, and Irving Theaters. A buck would get you an admission ticket with enough left over for popcorn and a candy bar. All seemed right with the world and I thought I was on a roll.
I knew about Cuba and Castro, Khrushchev and the Berlin Wall, but they seemed remote and didn’t affect a kid living in the middle of Indiana. We had done the “Duck and Cover” drills in school and we were convinced that in the event of a nuclear attack all we had to do to survive was roll on the floor under our desks and not look out the window. In realty, of course, all anyone could do in such a case was bend over and kiss their hind end goodbye, but nothing like that was ever going to happen, or so I thought.
And so it was that on the evening of October 22, 1962 I was walking from my bedroom through the living room toward the kitchen. My Dad was sitting in the living room staring intently at our B&W television set. This was unusual because my Dad worked the night shift which started at 11 p.m., so he was usually in bed at this time. President Kennedy was on screen delivering what seemed to be a rather grim message to the American people. The President looked tense, indeed. “What’s going on?” I asked my Father. “We may have to go to war with Cuba and the Russians,” answered my Father.
I thought he was joking or at least putting me on, but the ashen look on his face told me he was dead serious. I felt a cold chill run up my back. I sat down and listened to the rest of the broadcast without really comprehending what was going on. At the end of the broadcast my Dad got up and went to his bedroom without saying anything. I was in bed by the time he got up to go to work.
The next few days went by without any comment about the situation in my home. Little was being said at school, either. I suppose if it happened today there would be doctors and grief counselors to help us deal with our fears about the situation. But in 1962 it seemed everyone dealt with it by trying to maintain an image of normality throughout their day. Still, there was an unreal quality about everything like we were all living through a strange dream. My father even told me not to worry because everything was going to be okay. Still in my private thoughts, visions of mushroom clouds danced in my head.
On the 28th of October the situation was diffused or at least postponed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and moved on. A nuclear war was never going to happen. Our leaders were too smart to ever let anything like that happen.
Over the years we found out that we came much closer to an atomic war than anyone realized at the time. We came just that close to becoming a pile of radioactive rubble, even here in the Heartland. Because of the Naval Avionics Plant, Indianapolis was a targeted city. I’m really glad I didn’t know that at the time.
As the crisis abated, things really got back to normal. Halloween was coming up — my favorite time of year. The ghosts and goblins would chase away the specter of a nuclear holocaust. As to the Four Seasons and Frank Valli, maybe their advice “To Walk Like a Man” was the best that any of us could follow.