Aged Leathers
Title: Kansas City Town Squire
Date: September 1970
Discovered: at Prairie Village estate sale
The cover asks: “Volker Park … Jungle
or Paradise?”
Representative quotes:
“You don’t have to be a big spender to be a successful swinger in Kansas City … if you net $400 to $500 a month, you can get by fine.” (page 60)
“Overall, Volker Park just isn’t cool at night. There are too many juice freaks, too many uptight blacks, and simply too many people trying to push their trips onto others.” (Dennis Giangreco, quoted on page 36)
Here’s the amazing thing: In 1970, Tom Leathers, the publisher of the local independent monthly Town Squire, rented a helicopter to snap the cover photo. Sure, the result is blurry and calls to mind the point of view of a bell-tower sniper, but I have to give it to him for audacity. The Pitch wouldn’t spring for such a stunt, and the only time anyone at The Kansas City Star is going to see a chopper is when one descends for publisher Mark Zieman on the last day, like the fall of Saigon.
Of course, this being a ’70 Squire, that audacity served to defend what was then called the “straights,” regular folks more tired of hippies and protests than they were of the war. Gaylon White’s lengthy piece on Volker Park — that wide, grassy expanse just south of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art — cites many troubles stirred up by the park’s growing population of freaks: drugs, of course, but also public urination, shoplifting at Midway Food Market, and “trumpets and the constant beat of drums.” White quotes Westport Trucker editor Dennis Giangreco’s claim of “three rapes at Volker within the last week and a half” but never verifies this with police. Because White points out that Giangreco’s title of “Grand Minister of Funk in the Heavy Love Tribe” is “fancy but meaningless,” I’m almost inclined to forgive.
Judy Goodman’s exposé of Kansas City’s swinging singles seems to object to all the pickups happening around the 43rd Street hot spots of Andy Capps, the Summer Deck and the Levee. But it also includes a helpful list of the metro’s swingingest bars and — good Lord! — apartment buildings.
The choicest entry: “River Hills/Mark 1: Large recreation and guest party room. Many stewardesses live here.”
The unsigned piece “Ready, Set, Go: Here Comes Pornography” captures a fascinating societal change. In 1969, Kansas City had no adult bookstores, but by the summer of 1970, the metro boasted three: The Showcase at 1010 Oak, and Swingers and the gay-oriented Showcase No. 2, both near 30th Street and Troost. Back in 1968, the Supreme Court ruled that governments couldn’t ban adults from accessing sexually explicit material. In practice, images of actual sex could still get a shop shut down, but Showcase manager Terry Girouard predicted to the Squire that depictions of “the actual act of intercourse” would be fair game within five years. By ’72, the Dove Theatre at 3319 Main would be screening Deep Throat.
Shocking Detail
A feature titled “The Ten Kids You Wish Were Your Own” celebrates upbeat, short-haired, college-age go-getters concerned about their generation. Some of them have lived up to the Squire‘s expectations. David Oliver worried about pollution and “the Indo-China war,” but says, “I’d like to change some things, yet I don’t want to go as fast or as far as some of my radical friends want to.” Today, he’s partner in a law firm and a significant donor to local arts organizations. Bert Oettmeier, now a dentist in Leawood, told the Squire, “I am completely opposed to all forms of violent rebellion,” which is a relief — this 6-foot-6-inch football hunk could have done society some serious damage.
Highlight
Tom Jones destroys Squire publisher Tom Leathers’ innocence! In a piece that demonstrates his impressive — if misplaced — tenacity, Leathers reports that he suffered some manhandling from the singer’s entourage and eventually incited a shoving match between Jones’ manager and local cops. Leathers, you see, had tailed Jones from airport (Municipal) to hotel (Muehlebach) to auditorium (also Municipal), snapping photos and trying to get an interview.
Unlike most touring performers, Jones refused all press requests. This outraged Leathers, who suspected that Jones must harbor some nefarious secret: “These guys were going to protect Tom from reporters, from the contacts with the public that could betray their man.”
In the Muehlebach lobby, comedian Norm Crosby bellows at Leathers: “No more pictures or I’ll belt you!” Leathers reports snapping away unperturbed and even attempting to get to Jones’ 18th-floor room after being turned away multiple times. Finally, backstage at Municipal, Leathers gets a shot at Jones. His big question: “How do you like Kansas City?”
A bodyguard grabs Leathers’ camera, and the manager gets up in his face. When a cop friend of Leathers’ intervenes, the shoving starts, and poor Leathers hads a story.
The loser in all this? The good people of Kansas City, who never did find out what Tom Jones thinks of our airport, hotel and auditorium.
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