JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

The Eagle Scout Tribute Fountain, pictured here, has a special place in my memory.

The fountain and monument are located on the northeast corner of 39th and Gillham, just a few blocks from where I rented an apartment when I first moved to Kansas City in 1969, a year after the monument was completed.

But it wasn’t the proximity to my apartment that makes it stand out in my memory. I associate the fountain with a particular story I wrote back in the early 1970s and with a certain photographer who took the main photo that accompanied the story.

So let me tell you the story behind the story — and a few other stories about the photographer.

The photographer was George “Wes” Lyle, who was legendary at The Kansas City Times (the morning edition of The Star) before I arrived. He was a handsome, leathery-looking guy who had a beautiful shock of white hair, even then, when he was in his 30s.

Wes was an outstanding photographer. He took big, bold pictures that captured mood, personality and setting. But he was just as devoted to his vices — drinking, smoking and sex — as he was to photography.

He not only indulged himself in all three categories while off duty but also during and at work.

Of course back then you could smoke in any and all office buildings, and at 1729 Grand some employees kept bottles of liquor in their desks or, in Lyle’s case, in the photo lab. And some employees, including the then-managing editor of The Times, would drink their evening “lunch” at a bar/restaurant named Labruzzo’s, on Grand Avenue just south of 18th Street. (It’s now the Green Lady Lounge.)

**

When I arrived at The Star, I had less than a year’s experience in journalism and had no idea how things went at a big-city newsroom. Wes Lyle showed me one dimension of it.

Often back then, the night city editor — an erudite man named Don D. “Casey” Jones, who collected art — would send reporters out with photographers to “cruise,” that is, look for news. It’s the dumbest way in the world to try to find news, but, in Casey’s mind, it was better than having reporters sitting in the newsroom with their feet on their desks and photographers lounging in the lab.

One of the first times I went “cruising” with Wes, he said, “I gotta make a stop at a friend’s house.” I thought that a bit odd, but then the photographers always drove so they were in charge of the cruising expeditions.

Straightaway, we headed for a house on a street just east of Theis Park, where, Wes said, a lady friend lived. Now this was before long before cellphones, so Wes had either called her from the office or was just dropping by on the expectation she was home. She was.

So, for about 45 minutes, I sat in the car doing absolutely nothing while Wes was inside getting his jollies and undoubtedly downing a few more drinks. When he came out, he said nothing, and we proceeded to drive around killing time. He was relaxed, though…

Turned out Wes, who was single, had other lady friends he’d pop in on, and, in addition, he was sometimes on the make at work. I remember hearing one day that he’d had sex with a newsroom receptionist on a back-of-the-building elevator. Seventeen-twenty-nine-Grand had only three stories, so no ride was ever very long, but I presume either Wes or the receptionist depressed the “close door” button until that particular ride was over.

Knowing him, and the receptionist, I have no doubt it happened.

**

Now, onto the story behind the Eagle Scout Fountain story…

In frequenting the Midtown bars, around which my social life revolved in the early ’70s, I had come across a band called The Stoned Circus, led by a guitarist named John Isom. (Many years later he had a band called Johnny I and the Receders.)

I wanted to do a story on the band and pitched the idea to the Star Sunday Magazine editor, who went for it.

The Stoned Circus frequently played at a bar called the Inferno Show Lounge at 40th and Troost. That’s where I first approached Isom and asked if he would be game for a story about the band. He was.

Wes got the photo assignment, and one night I agreed to meet him at the Inferno so he could take photos. It was smokey in the bar and so dark, as I recall, you had to watch every step. The only part of the decor I remember was red velvet wall covering.

Wes had had a few drinks before he arrived, and then he sat down and drank a few more while listening to the band and taking in the scene. After a while, I said, “Wes, when are you going to take some pictures?” He looked at me with a long face and glazed eyes and said, “I can’t do it; I’m too drunk.”

“What?” I said. “We’ve gotta get these pictures!”

“Not tonight,” he said. “I can’t do it.”

Right there, for some reason, I thought of the Eagle Scout Fountain. I proposed that we meet there the next day and take the main photo there. The next morning, then, everyone showed up at 39th and Gillham (Wes was sober), and we situated the band members around and among the figures in the monument.

The photo was fantastic. It was on the cover of the Feb. 28, 1971, edition of the Sunday magazine. All these years I have kept a copy of that story but not of the cover itself. I wish I would have asked Wes to make me a print of the photo.

**

I’ve been thinking a lot about that story, and about Wes, the last couple of days. When I went to The Star’s online obituaries Sunday morning — as I do every Sunday morning — I saw that Wes had died Feb. 21.

For years, he’d lived in the Cathedral Square Towers Apartments downtown, where, for years, he shot photos of the morning sky out of an apartment window.

He was still drinking, I feel sure. He was, anyway, the last time I saw him, which was at a KC Star reunion at the Kansas City Country Club several years ago. I had chatted with him for a few minutes after he arrived, when he suddenly excused himself, saying, “Gotta get a drink.”

Somehow, Wes made it to age 86. Here are two photos — one from the obit and one from 2019. Former KC Star photographer Ginzy Schaefer took the 2019 photo. (Thanks, Ginzy!)

Below is an image of a secondary photo Wes took for that Sunday Magazine story…We had gone back to the Inferno at some point for this photo, which ran inside the magazine, with the text.

The caption that went with the photo read: “THE STONED CIRCUS…Members of the group pose stoically on stage. From left to right are Joe York, Donna Isom, Robin Davis, John Isom and, at bottom, Nancy Lake.”