Sixty years ago, Norman lost a race at the Norton track and found himself living aloft for months in a wooden box while trying to break a world record.
The adventure began on Memorial Day 1950 when Norman and another driver, the Masked Mad Man of Daytona Beach, Fla., agreed to a 50-lap duel. According to the bet, the loser had to climb an elevated platform at the speedway and attempt to set a record for flagpole sitting, a popular fad at the time (although no one really understood why).
The masked man won by a car's length.
''I didn't think I'd lose to that other guy,'' Norman confessed.
After taking a week to settle his affairs, the red-haired Norman, 34, bid farewell to his pregnant wife, Gladys, 23, who deserved an award for spousal
understanding, and shinnied up a wooden pole June 7 near the track on Clark Mill Road.
''I think the whole thing is dumb,'' Gladys admitted.
Attending the pole-climbing ceremony was Cleveland grocer Charley Lupica, who held the record that Norman coveted. In 1949, Lupica sat atop a 60-foot flagpole at East 108th Street at Wade Park and vowed not to descend until the Indians clinched the American League pennant.
The Tribe didn't cooperate. Lupica stayed aloft for 117 days until the season ended.
Norman, a native of West Virginia, was a naval veteran who had served aboard a minesweeper in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. He knew how to live in cramped quarters.
Atop the 30-foot pole, Norman took shelter in an 8- by 8-foot shanty built out of wood and fiberboard with canvas walls. In addition to a sleeping bag and mattress, he equipped the shack with a radio, television set, electric fan, waffle iron, electric stove and telephone, much of which had been donated by local businesses.
''Just a home away from home,'' he joked.
That wasn't much of a stretch, since he and Gladys lived in a small mobile home in a trailer park off Home Avenue in Akron.
Barberton Speedway promised to pay Norman $50 a week (about $450 today) for as long as he sat on the flagpole. He hunkered down for the long haul.
Every morning, his wife brought him breakfast, which he pulled up in a basket. He cooked bacon and eggs and other vittles on a hot plate. The Dixie Steak Station and Paul's Restaurant donated meals for supper.
Norman stopped shaving and used a small tin tub to bathe with washcloths. Other bodily matters were not explained, although they probably involved the lowering of a basket.
The flagpole sitter endured sweltering days, frigid nights, mosquito bites, swooping birds, bouts of flu and scary thunderstorms. The leaky shack was no place to be during cloudbursts.
''In a storm, it wiggles all around and I really get groggy,'' Norman said.
He dreamed of writing a book called Flagpole Philosophies and tried to keep a daily diary, but it got wet, and he gave up.
After Norman was in his treehouse for a week, Beacon Journal reporter Helen Waterhouse donned spurs and an Ohio Bell harness to climb halfway up the pole to shout questions.
She asked the driver how he was sleeping.
''Oh, all right, I guess, except on the nights when the races are here,'' he replied. ''Then everybody keeps hanging round and coming out all hours of the night to bother me.''
Norman didn't appreciate it when people threw rocks at the shelter to see if he really was up there. After the bars closed, some well-wishers arrived at 2 a.m., offering free bottles of Scotch to keep him warm.
''I'm always here, all hours of the day and night,'' Norman said.
Waterhouse asked him if he would still be there when his baby was born in September.
''Let's wait till we get there,'' he said. ''I might just feel I'd got to come down and race over to see it.''
After national newspapers published articles about Norman's flagpole sitting, strangers from across the country arrived at the speedway to observe him.
''I guess I'm getting famous,'' he said.
Norman caught wind of a man who was living underwater that summer in a glass-and-steel tank in Lake Shafer, Ind.
Paul Abbott, 39, was protesting federal taxes and promised not to emerge until Congress agreed to assist ''the little men.''
Norman sympathized with the cause, but vowed to outlast his underwater brother.
''Abbott can have his fish bowl,'' he said. ''I'll take my eagle's nest.''
The Indiana man gave up Aug. 27 after 10 weeks.
Months passed for Norman. The weather turned much cooler. He was about two weeks from breaking the pole-sitting record when his wife went into labor in late September.
As Norman prepared to give up his quest, Gladys insisted that she was OK and told him to stay atop the flagpole. She gave birth to a 61/2-pound boy, Rick, just before midnight Sept. 21.
A week later, Gladys and her red-haired baby left the hospital and rode in an ambulance to Barberton Speedway. She held up the infant for his dad.
''I looked at him through field glasses, but I could not see him very well,'' Norman said.
The racer learned that he had to stay on his perch a little longer than expected. An adventurer named Thurmond J. Ward had descended from a flagpole Sept. 17, 1950, after sitting for a record 119 days in Savannah, Ga.
''I hate it up here,'' Norman groused.
More than 1,500 fans cheered Oct. 7 at Barberton Speedway when a long-bearded Norman climbed down the pole, kissed his wife and cradled his son.
He spent 122 days on the flagpole, shattering the world record by three days.
''My feet feel like they've been asleep,'' he said. ''My legs still tremble when I walk.''
It was back to reality: ''I'll have to get out looking for a job this week,'' he said.
Norman's fame was fleeting. San Francisco resident Irma Leach, described by the Associated Press as ''a shapely blonde flagpole sitter,'' was in the catbird seat. She kept her perch for 152 days, ending a four-month vigil on New Year's Eve 1950.
Mercifully, the flagpole-sitting fad slid to the ground.
The record peaked at 439 days, but most people had stopped paying attention.
Red and Gladys Norman moved their family to Pensacola, Fla., where he worked for more than 20 years at a junior college.
According to the Pensacola News Journal, Red Norman enjoyed a sideline as Freckles the Clown, a red-wigged entertainer at hospitals, benefits and parties.
He was 88 years old when he passed away in 2004, leaving behind sons Rick, Mark and Karl. His wife, Gladys, died in 1998.
Sixty years ago, Norman was on top of the world, but he was much happier when he came back down to earth.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
