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2004
 

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I’m not doing that!

Retired man reminisces on his life and times but continues to stay active and on the go.

By SIERRA CLOPPER

Journalistic Writing

Spring 2004

HARRISBURG, Pa. - He won’t eat chicken, vegetables, pasta or Chinese food. The retired James C. Kleese II also hates seafood. Is there any food he does like?

Kleese is 76 years old and was born in Michigan City , Ind. He currently resides in a small town in Nebraska called Fremont which just got it’s first restaurant, Applebees. Next to McDonalds, it’s his new favorite place to wine and dine although he says it’s a little expensive.  Kleese said he’s very stuck in his ways, which is also very obvious to those around him.  He attributes most of it to his upbringing among other things.

In the seventeen years growing up with his parents and sister, his family moved a lot. His father tried to keep food on the table by keeping up with the changing times.  This had quite an affect on Kleese’s later life and familiarity.  “We moved from Michigan City, to Minneapolis, to Kansas City, Missouri, to Detroit, back to Michigan City, to Chicago, to Hammond Louisiana and then to Ames, Iowa, where I graduated from High School,” Kleese said.  He graduated a year early because he had to skip the 7th grade due to the class being too full.

After graduation, Kleese traveled with his family to Fremont where he briefly attended Midland College. He was forced to drop out to help make money for the family.  He began working for his father, James Sr., at the family’s store.  It was called Fremont News Company.  “It was a magazine outlet store.  I remember there were hundreds and hundreds of magazines,” Kleese said.  Around this time, right after his 20th birthday, he met his wife, Geraldine.  In 1954, they had a daughter named Krisan, his only child.  They have now been married 56 years. 

In 1956, the Kleese’s turned the magazine outlet into a travel agency.  “A booming business in that day and age,” Kleese said. “Now they hardly exist cause of that internet, but it made good money back then.”   Kleese managed to buy the agency just before his father’s death in 1969.  “I was proud it could stay in the family.  My dad liked that,” he said.

Kleese finally retired from the business just over 12 years ago last February. 

Still residing in Fremont , he enjoys retirement because he said, “I can do whatever I want, well at least until my wife starts squawking’ at me, but most of the time. I like being retired but I miss talking to people and so forth, but I’m happy, I have my things I do.”

Retirement seems pretty predictable to Kleese, and it’s obvious he likes it that way.  Kleese gets out of bed around 7 or 7:30 a.m. and says “getting out of bed is my least favorite thing to do each day.”  It’s followed by 100 sit ups, 50 push ups and a shower.  It takes him 45 minutes to get ready in the morning, most of which is spent on his hair which he remarkably still has most of.  Next on his daily list of activities is breakfast while watching LIVE with Regis and Kelly.  “I’ve eaten the same thing everyday for 53 years...Unless I’m in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hilton buffet. Raisin Bran with bananas and blueberries,  tomato juice, coffee, two slim fast bars, and three oatmeal cookies,” he said.  It is also followed with ten vitamins ranging in variety from Centrum Silver for “old farts,” (as he calls it), to odorless garlic and hair growth supplements.

The rest of his day consists of going to the YMCA, smoking cigarettes, and drinking either wine, martinis or beer.  “I got to be careful when I drink martinis these days,” he said.  “The last time I drank three, I went outside to smoke a cigarette, fell off the porch and knocked out my front choppers,”  (referring to his false teeth).  His other hobbies are watching sports and going to casinos.  “I got to stick around,” he said.  “I got to stick around to see the Bears win another Superbowl, and see Notre Dame win another National Championship, and I’m probably going to have to be a hundred to see it, but I got to.  I want to stick around forever.”

Kleese and his wife, Gerri, spend 3 months out of the year in Long Beach , Miss. visiting his sister, Donis.  It’s a little over 1300 miles, Kleese explains.  They drive down in his Cadillac where they rent a townhouse.  “I want to live there,” he said, “but Grandma won’t let me.  And I don’t know how to cook or do laundry, all I can do is vacuum.  So I don’t think I’m going to get to move anytime soon.”  Kleese also said that while driving to Mississippi, he has to stop at the same gas stations.  One year, the gas station was gone and it threw his entire day off because his mileage was messed up.  Kleese has to stop at the same restaurant and hotel as well.  “I even have to request to stay in the same room every year, it drives my wife crazy,” he said.  “But she loves me, she’s a pretty good wife.”

The existence of this special senior citizen who was brought up in a ever-changing world, made him who he is today. Now he is comfortable in himself. He is a loving husband and caring father just like the man who influenced him, his father. Even though times growing up were usually tough, Kleese thought highly of his life and grateful to what he did have. “I was dependent on my mother and father,” he said.  “I respected them, they made me, me, and I loved them no matter what.”

All stories in this magazine are the intellectual property of the individual authors.

You may email comments about this story to: sfc122@psu.edu