Editors Note: My wife, Jackie Ives Hemond wrote the following for the 350th Anniversary of Suffield, Connecticut’s founding. It’s interesting stuff (yes, I received the lab tour).
Author: davidhemond
Dave Hemond’s Memoir of Growing up in Mystic in the 50s and 60s – “Mystic Currents”
Copyright 2008 – World Rights
Mystic Currents – A Memoir
by
Dave Hemond
Lightning bugs
I wake up drowsy and disoriented. I’ve overslept my afternoon nap and the light through the window is fading. I briefly panic. “Where is everybody?” Then I hear the reassuring cries of my cousins at play somewhere out front. I waddle down the hallway, the laces from my Keds sneakers flapping – I don’t yet know how to tie them – pulling up my home-made denim pants with the neat yellow anchor patch my mother has sewn on the pocket.
The front door sticks and I have to push hard to get out. It’s almost dark and the front lawn expands away toward Silver Street and, behind a row of trees, the Orchard Golf Course. Kids are careening over the lawn, holding glass jars and screaming “lightning bugs” “lightning bugs” and “There’s another one”.
It’s a midsummer evening in 1954 on Silver Street in South Hadley, Massachusetts. My mother, Frances Field Hemond, Fran, is sitting on the front stoop, holding an empty glass apple sauce jar with holes punched in the metal top. She hands me the jar. She has shoulder length dark brown hair, brown eyes, an attractive, appraising look. She has quickly checked my forehead (why, after all, have I slept so late?) and tied my shoes, and now she is pointing. “There,” she says, “fireflies.” At first I see nothing but then one blinks and I see it and suddenly they are blinking everywhere. I charge off with my jar screaming “lightning bugs”. But the bugs never seem to stay where they last blinked. Soon I am panting and don’t know which way to run next.
One of the older kids, my brother Harold, or Bubbsie as he is then known, is first to catch one. The jar lights like a lantern when it flashes. My cousins, Bill, Dick, and Candy Field, and I circle my brother and his catch. We each have to hold the jar. We examine the bug. To me, the bug seems trapped and forlorn and very ordinary. But then he gathers himself and blazes. “What makes the fire?” I ask my brother. I know that Bubbsie, who is seven to my four, knows everything. His look says, “Don’t you know?” He watches the bug flash. “Why it’s electricity of course.”
Silver Street
Whatever that is. I am off to catch my own bug but can’t figure out where they are going to be when they next light. I take a break when I see that my father, Harold Hemond, Pop to me, has brought out the lawn mower. The lawn mower is often good for excitement. Pop is six feet tall, enormous to my eyes, with dark, almost black, hair and bright blue eyes. Standing a bit stiff legged, he bends over the engine, turning knobs. The lawn mower is old-fashioned. The gasoline engine is a faded scruffy, metallic gray, with hints of rust. It is mounted awkwardly over what looks like the frame of an unpowered push mower. It has a chain drive and a roller in the rear to keep it from falling over. My mother comes over to say “it’s getting a little dark, Dear …the children are playing so nicely.” But Pop is not one to be deterred. He looks briefly at the sky to acknowledge her concern. Apparently it’s light enough. He unwinds the frayed starter cord from the handle bar, inserts the knot in the bracket on the flywheel, wraps the cord, and waves me back a respectful distance. I watch expectantly as he heaves. The engine chunks a couple turns, but doesn’t start. He fiddles with the “choke” and “needle valve”, winds the cord, and pulls again. He cranks it ten more times. Nothing. He steps back.
The lawn mower won’t start! I think it’s exciting. My Uncle Kesson, Ken Field, has been watching from his ladder leaned against the eaves of his house next door. He climbs down holding his paint bucket and comes over to help. Ken is in his mid-thirties. He is shorter than my dad and his hair is already thinning. He has an amused look in his eyes. He flashes a winning grin – nothing we can’t fix, it says. Another time, you might catch him looking off in the distance, his eyes sober. He and my dad confer. “Check the spark, check the spark,” says my brother, who has come up to supervise. At seven, he is closer to the engine than the adults who tower over us. He looks at the spark plug where the porcelain insulation is checked by cracks. “Yeah,” I say, “check the spark.” Whatever that is. Ken cranks the engine a couple times. Nothing happens. Pop is getting frustrated – he’s likely to be wound a little tight if things don’t go according to Hoyle. But there’s also a hint of relief that the engine doesn’t start right away for Ken. “See. The damn thing won’t start.” Now they are in this together, man against machine. Once more my brother says “check the spark – why don’t you check the spark?” “The spark’s fine,” says Pop. “I think it’s the fuel line.” He unscrews the gas cap and sniffs tentatively.
Ken and my dad each crank several times and finally the lawn mower gives one anemic “pah.” It doesn’t sound promising. I can feel the tension. Pop’s going to say one of those “words”. Mom looks alarmed.
But there, rumbling down Silver Street is the Old Pie Wagon. It’s Grampa Field, KC, in the Holyoke Water Power Company truck. Grampa pulls the truck over so as not to block the driveway. He takes a moment to straighten up after he climbs out. He takes everything in. He’s wearing heavy rumpled utilitarian slacks and an almost shapeless hat with a thin brim. He puts his hand in his pocket, then pulls it out again and lumbers toward us with a shy quizzical grin. “Havin’ a bit of trouble startin’ Betsy,” says Ken. KC takes off his hat to smooth back his thinning gray hair. He gives the engine a fond, contemplative look. He can relate to a machine. KC would be as tall as my dad if he stood straight. He kneels next to the mower, flips the choke, sniffs. Without looking up, he says, “flooded – did you check the spark?” Ken and my dad exchange glances. A wrench appears in KC’s hand. Then he blows on the spark plug and tightens a lead. He rotates the flywheel while holding the plug against the engine block and mutters, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll try it like that.” He rethreads the plug. His hand looks strong, calloused. My dad winds the starter cord and cranks the engine. She starts with a throaty roar and a cloud of smoke.
KC Field with Uncle Laurence
Black Label
I think it is because they grew up with the Depression and World War II. My parents were determined. They were going to make their life work out. When my dad and my mother’s brother, Ken, came back to Holyoke, Massachusetts from the Pacific, there was a housing shortage. Pop had been a Lieutenant in the Army Signal Corp stationed at the radio facility in Manila in the Philippines. Ken had served in the Seabees all over the Pacific. Now they were home and there was no place to live. They bought adjoining lots on Silver Street in South Hadley across the Connecticut River from Holyoke. Then, without any experience, they built their own houses while they worked at full-time jobs. Ken’s house was an early modular home with an addition. My father started from scratch and built a small cape. He dug the cellar hole by hand. He poured the cellar foundation the day my brother was born. The cement truck got stuck in the lawn. Most of the cement had to be wheel-barrowed in place. Progress on the new house was slowed because basic supplies, especially nails, were scarce. If my father was unsure how to build something, he drove to a local housing development and copied a house in the same stage of construction.
Silver Street construction
Silver Street
Ken’s house next door
My father worked at the South Hadley Electric Light Company headquartered in a brick building overlooking the Connecticut River. Above the building was a billboard with a cartoon character called Reddy Kilowatt. Reddy had a lightbulb for a nose and a body made up of lightning bolts. I thought Reddy Kilowatt was neat, more important than Mickey Mouse. But I wanted to know what Reddy did. He never showed up on the cartoons.
I used to hear about power. My father, Ken, and KC worked for power companies. “Power” made the world run. It came in electrical lines that ran down our street and into our house. Electrical receptacles held “power”. But “don’t stick your fingers in”. Electricity could do amazing things. At Christmas, when my brother and I could get the aluminum tinsel used on the Christmas tree, I’d sit with him in front of a large nine volt lantern battery, he’d hook up the foil between the terminals, and we’d watch the foil smoke and smolder. Finally, the tinsel would burn through with a sudden poof. Like the poof of ants under a magnifying glass but we didn’t have to kill anything. Hsss. Pop. Wow. Let’s do it again. My brother had a flashlight he built from a cardboard tube and a couple “D” batteries. And an erector set with an electric motor that drove a crane.
My father worked with electricity. He had a climbing belt and spikes for climbing poles. He talked about lines, and rates, and insulators, and transformers, stuff that I didn’t understand. When he was home, he had ten jobs on the house to finish. He was finishing the attic, or painting a car, or fixing the washing machine. One Sunday before church, he was under the car replacing the muffler. That’s why he was mowing the lawn after dark the night of the lightning bugs. My mother read a book to us we called “The Fix-it Men”. “Fix-it, fix-it, here come the fix-it men. Down in the ground in a dark manhole, or up in the air on a telephone pole. Fix-it, fix-it, here come the fix-it men”. I liked the picture of Joe leaning back in his climbing belt on the top of the telephone pole. And the carpenter on the roof fixing the leak.
My father and Ken did everything themselves. It would be years before I learned that a man could be hired to fix a washing machine. Ken said that, if some guy working in a factory put something together, Ken sure as heck could figure out how to get it apart. But Ken had his limits. He insisted on reason in the madness. Midway through Saturday or Sunday afternoon, Ken defiantly put down his paint brush – or his screw driver – or his wrench – made his way to the fridge for a beer and turned on the television set. Ken was the first in the neighborhood to buy a TV. At first, he got two channels if he changed the direction of the antenna on the roof. The picture was in black and white. Every minute or so, someone had to fix the vertical hold. In Ken’s living room on a late Saturday afternoon, I saw the Brooklyn Dodgers play the New York Yankees in the World Series. The TV was new to the adults too. “It’s live” “it’s happening right now” the adults told me, like they had trouble believing it themselves. “There,” said Ken, “that’s Duke Snyder coming to bat.” Someone with a name like Duke Snyder had to be pretty neat.
My brother noted his similar recollection as follows:
“Watching our dad and uncle Kesson work on projects could be interesting and informative. One afternoon they were working on our Thor washer in the basement of the South Hadley house. The most likely problem, in retrospect, was that the agitator was frozen to its shaft and needed to be removed to get at some underlying part. First, they squirted something called “penetrating oil” on the washer. It was not clear to me what kind of oil that was, but it evidently did not do the job, because Ken next began hammering on the machine. This seemed a strange thing to do, since the machine was already broken and I thought they were trying to fix it. Then, as the hammering got louder and more insistent, our uncle began to address the machine loudly with some words that were quite new to me, but must have helped loosen up the stuck part. By thusly watching these weekend mechanics I added to my own repertoire three new techniques that would come in handy for many future jobs.”
On one get together before I was born, before anyone had a TV, everyone had gathered at Ken’s on an afternoon to listen to a ball game on the radio. My brother, who was almost a year and a half old, was actively crawling but wouldn’t walk by himself without a hand to hold. The adults watched him crawl and discussed whether his refusal to walk was a matter for concern. Finally, between innings, Ken looked at my brother and said, “that’s enough of that. I can get him to walk.” Ken held out his can of Black Label. My brother grabbed the bottom of the can and stood up. They started to walk across the room and Ken let go of the can. My brother continued on, holding the Black Label for support. He walked straight through the door and into the kitchen.
Ken Field, Seabees, ’43
Lt Harold C Hemond, signal corp, Philippines, ’44
Don’t Touch
The Connecticut River drops about sixty feet as it flows south between Holyoke and South Hadley. To the power-hungry engineers of America’s industrial revolution, that water-drop represented opportunity and power wasted. In the mid-nineteenth century a group of entrepreneurs bought the land surrounding the drop and built a dam across the Connecticut River. The water behind the dam was used to power the city of Holyoke, America’s first planned industrial city. Mills were constructed along three levels of canals – the water was recaptured for reuse at each successive level down. The first dam lasted only a few hours before being swept away by the river. A sturdier dam was constructed and the city flourished with textile and paper factories.
The Holyoke Water Power Company sold the power to the mills. The power was originally delivered as water to drive factory turbines. The turbines, through systems of belts, mechanically drove the factory machinery. Later, when most manufacturing equipment was being electrified, the Water Power Company installed turbines to drive electric generators at a hydro-electric plant at the dam. The hydro power was supplemented by coal-fired boilers with steam driven generators.
My grandfather, KC, Kenneth Coy Field, was at the heart of the Water Power Company’s electric power system. KC climbed poles with his line crew, designed circuits for the power grids in the mills, and led the teams that cleared ice from the turbines. He received company mail as “Superintendent of Lines”. But KC was a hands-on man, not someone that you would think of as supervising others. When Grampa drove the Pie Wagon, the power lines up on the poles were his. He drove with his head canted, looking up through the windshield to check the wires. If he was driving home from the Farm in Montague and he spotted a branch on the wire, he’d pull over the Pie Wagon. In his Sunday best, he’d clear the wire. It didn’t matter if the line wasn’t technically a Water Power Company line. He knew and worked with all the surrounding companies. My grandmother thought this was excessive. If she was with him, she would sit and fume in the cab.
Grampa was always on the clock and his family saw the business from the inside. Ken, his oldest son, “the kid”, was at the Power Company clearing ice in the river or chinks from the steam boilers, learning the nitty-gritty of the business, when other Connecticut Valley kids were picking tobacco. Cleaning out the coal chinks was hard dirty work, crawling in a narrow space with the ash and coal dust blackening one’s face and lodging in the pores. Ken’s younger brother Laurence tagged along with KC into the depths of the mill factories, over catwalks and among the high voltage transformers. He recalls one occasion when he stopped to summon up courage to edge through equipment covered with DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE signs. He pointed to a transformer where there was barely room to slip by and asked his father “What happens if I touch that?” “Don’t touch that,” said KC.
Fey
More than half a century later, in 2004, I’m sharing stories with Laurence, who is my uncle. We’re sitting on a picnic table at Cold Brook Farm in Montague, Massachusetts. The Farm has been in the Field family since after the Civil War. Nourse’s strawberry plants cover our field to the west. A line of trees beyond the field marks the Connecticut River. The white three-story farmhouse is at our back; the barn, a faded red with a new metal roof, encloses the yard to the north.
Cold Brook, c 1910
The family has gathered for Labor Day. Laurence has been showing my cousin Robbie, Ken’s youngest daughter, how to “dowse”. He has a wire coat hanger bent in an ell in each hand. “They’re crude ones,” says Laurence. “Just to give you the idea – I have nice ones at home.” He has crisscrossed the backyard looking for the pipes from the long lost septic system. As we watched, the wires moved apart, or crossed, movements that Laurence “verified” by moving away, then back. He is almost eighty, with thin, unruly, silver hair, a short, not quite trim, beard, and, not unlike Ken, an amused look in his eye. Putting down his coat hangers, he pulls out a pipe which he fills and lights. “Scoop showed me how to dowse,” he says, taking a thoughtful puff. Scoop was KC’s brother Franklin who last operated the Farm. “Of course KC thought it was a lot of crap, not that he’d call it that.” He puts down his pipe, grabs a handful of dirt from under the table, and holds the dirt up in a fist. “Unless you could feel it,” he holds the dirt to his nose and sniffs, “unless you could smell it, KC didn’t believe it.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues, pointing with the tip of his pipe. “KC was brilliant. Like your brother. If you’re out in the car and it breaks down, there was no one better to get you home. But some of us in the family are fey. It’s all crap, but I think you know what I mean.” Some family members, Laurence would say, experience psychic phenomenon. We have home-grown ghost stories.
I try out the coat hanger wires. Why not? I feel foolish, really. I’m pretty sure that nothing will happen. But now of their own accord and to my surprise, the wires pull apart, then push together. I try them where I think there’s a water line out to the barn. They part determinedly along the line that I believe marks the axis of the pipe. “Like a ouija board,” I suggest. I don’t like ouija boards because they seem to work.
Laurence smiles. “Crap,” he says again.
Of course, KC, I think, wouldn’t have given it the time of day. Go dowsing as long as you want but don’t waste his time with it.
“Did your mother ever read your palm?” asks Laurence. Mom has read palms at family gatherings since she was in high school. “A nice way to meet people,” she says. She doesn’t believe in it. Except that she does. Mom has come up behind me and replies to Laurence “not today.” She sits with us, her hair silver mixed with brown. She’s in her eighties. Her cardiologist tells her to her delight that she looks sixty. She also looks tired, stressed. She’s scheduled for tests on her heart after a bout with angina and a rush to the hospital. Robbie, an acute care nurse, has flown in from Texas to make sure that the rest of us handle things right. My mother would prefer to think nothing is wrong. She feels fine and, now back at home, is inclined not to do anything. Dealing with the doctors is a pain. Why bother them if she feels fine, she says. She could just as well say, “why fix a hole in the roof if it’s not raining?” But I don’t need to say anything because I know that Robbie will deal with it. I also know that, before the afternoon is out, Mom will be reading someone’s palm.
“You know about Alice,” Mom says. I shake my head but, in fact, I have heard stories from my grandmother. Mom adds, “She was my grandfather Bliss’ sister. George Bliss’ daughter. They said she was psychic. She saw at a distance.”
When George Bliss came back from the Civil War to Boston, the war was in its final days, but not yet over. He’d been in a Southern prison camp, then an army hospital. He was in rough shape. The army gave him discharge papers as proof that he wasn’t a deserter and sent him home. The papers were in a carrier called a Boston bag. When he arrived in Boston, the papers were gone. He looked everywhere. Finally, he asked his sixteen-year-old daughter Alice who was said to have “second sight”. Alice closed her eyes. She saw the papers in a baggage claim office in New York, in a back room. She described the Boston bag sitting on a shelf. George took the train to New York, went to the baggage claim office, and found his papers where she said they’d be.
George Bliss, civil war soldier
My grandmother had other spooky Alice stories too but she always liked the one about the discharge papers.
“You know about the witches?” Laurence smiles. He likes to hold forth and be eccentric. Paranormal phenomenon are right up his alley. If he could turn the discussion to get my mother’s goat, it would be even better. But the witches are old hat. The Fields are Yankees. In Colonial times a lot of women were accused of witchery. Mom, the family genealogist, knows all about the alleged family witches. One ancestor, Rebecca Towne Nourse, was hung during the famous Salem witch trials. Another, Mary Bliss Parsons, was accused of witchcraft in Northampton. She petitioned to remove the trial to Boston. She defended herself in Boston and was acquitted. The witchcraft hysteria had calmed down after the governor’s wife was accused.
Anyway, I’m not persuaded that psychic phenomenon exist. The laws of physics, laws of cause and effect, don’t change and don’t make exceptions. Reactions are predictable – experiments can be duplicated. No divine or supernatural or unseen cause tips the scale or distorts a reading. Science – computers and nanotechnology – works its own magic. Besides, we like to trick ourselves and believe something because we want to. I enjoy reading Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winning pioneer in quantum physics. In his book, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,” Feynman discusses our infinite capacity for self-delusion.
The problem is that spookiness is difficult to totally dismiss. The laws of physics, at the smallest levels, themselves become spooky and counterintuitive. Scientists have proven the existence of spooky phenomenon like particle entanglement at a distance. Perhaps, psychic spookiness and science are not wholly incompatible. Feynman had a role in explaining the cause of the Challenger disaster. That topic brings up my own spooky story. I worked for the Connecticut legislature in the State Capitol in Hartford drafting legislation. One day before lunch, I headed out of the office to pick up a book at the book store. I’d spent the morning reading statutes and documents. Out of the blue, people in my head were screaming. They were seated, shaking, in an airplane. And then I had a vision of a rocket exploding in a fireball. A shuttle. The image was nightmarish. I stood by my secretary’s desk and rubbed my temple. Wondered what that was all about. “Hey Sibyl,” I said. “Was there a shuttle launch today?” She didn’t know. Feeling shaken, I muttered something to her about “NASA pushing the envelope”. I left the Capitol building and walked across Bushnell Park toward Huntington’s Book Store. At Trumbull Street, a crowd was gathered outside a shop window, watching a TV display. As I came closer, I saw the TV play and then replay a picture of a streak across the sky shedding flashes. The streak broke up in a ball of fire. I felt a wave of anxiety. But the picture could not be a shuttle. I had just imagined a shuttle exploding and knew that was not a believable coincidence. Then a lady standing up by the window turned to me, her face ashen, and said, “It’s Challenger.”
Renie
My strongest memory of South Hadley is of walking the Tar Road.
My grandmother, KC’s wife, was Irene Bliss Field – Renie. Nana to us. She told her kids that she was not at their beck and call to babysit. She was available for emergencies only. It had been their decision to have kids. But she was around anyway. KC would drive her over to Silver Street for the day in the Pie Wagon. She would gather the cousins – my brother and I, Bill who was a year older than me, Dick, who was my age, and Candy, a little younger. Chip, Ken’s oldest son, might be there too. And she’d take us on walks up the Tar Road, a gravel road off Silver Street that ran through a meadow and woods up to undeveloped pastureland. I don’t know why it was called the Tar Road. I never saw any tar. Maybe it was oiled to keep down the dust. For me, it had an aura of mystery. I looked forward to the wonders I would see on the next trip.
The roadside meadow was filled with wildflowers and birds. Further up, the road cut through a grove of trees full of poison ivy. Renie taught us. “That’s Queen Anne’s Lace – it’s a wild carrot.” “What’s this Nana?” “Anyone know? It’s a Blackeyed Susan.” “Look here – leaves of three, let it be.” An elderly lady with fine, gray hair and wire rim glasses, old fashioned ankle-high laced ladies shoes. A shade stocky. Like Granny in the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. She’s walking up the gravel drive surrounded by blond rugrats. She holds out a buttercup. It reflects yellow under your chin. Now she has a daisy. She stoops for a hayscented fern. Pointing, she says, “See that Bluebird – that’s a thrush just like a Robin.” There’s a look of wonder and pleasure on her face. Look, there, on the old cedar post. I can’t see it – oh there. The bluebird ruffles the russet feathers on his breast, cocks his head, and sings a soft churri.
Renie – Irene Bliss Field
Renie grew up in Boston – the Hub – the center of civilization. New York was crass. That went without saying. With a Boston high school education, she was well-read. Biased toward the Massachusetts enlightenment – Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Longfellow. Near Patriot’s Day, she would pull out and read “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”. “One if by land and two if by sea.” She wanted us to be inquisitive, to share her sense of wonder. Nature was full of marvels. People were interesting precisely because they were different. She told us about her childhood, walking to school with her Gypsy girlfriend when she was a young school girl in Allston. She visited the Gypsies camped in a vacant lot across the street. The Gypsy queen lived in an ornate wagon and told fortunes. Renie recounted her adventurous train ride across the country during the War. The expanse of the country, the people she had met. Mom was concerned about the trip and anxiously met her at the train in San Francisco. Renie climbed down from the train escorted by two Lieutenants she had met along the way. But Renie’s family had seen tragedy. Her older brother Raymond, who she revered, was killed young, knocked off a train one night as a brakeman on the Boston and Albany Railroad. He was leaning out from the train on a hairpin turn looking down the train for hotboxes, bearing seizures that could cause fires. He was struck by a pole planted too close to the track. Her uncle, another railroad man, was killed the same year, struck by a train while crossing a track in the railroad yard. Her father also died relatively young, struck crossing a street while walking home from work. So we were to learn that life had its wonders, but also that one had best seize life now. Each day was a gift. “Don’t wish your life away,” she’d say. Don’t waste your time wishing things were different. I told her once I wanted a horse. Without missing a beat, she told me, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Ray Barrows, Renie’s older 1/2 brother, killed on the railroad
Her marriage to KC was difficult. They were second cousins but their different backgrounds and temperaments caused tension. She was a city girl – schooled in music, the arts, the humanities – the “finer things”. She took voice training to sing professionally. After a church service she would critique the latest soloist. She wrote poetry. One night my brother made a fuss when she started to throw out a leftover potato. It can’t be wasted he said. Someone grew it. Fertilized it. Picked it. Transported it to market. Bought it, peeled it, cooked it. It was a perfectly good potato. Now you’re throwing it out. She set the potato aside for him, put it back in the refrigerator. Then, she sat down on the spot and penned “The Tale of the Spare Spud”. It was great. I wish I had a copy of it. Mom, however, stopped cooking that extra potato.
KC was a farm boy, schooled in harsh pragmatic realities. The original farm at Montague where he grew up burned to the ground in 1904 when he was a teen. Rebuilding had been difficult. Never enough money. Too much to do, too little time. Farm work was constant and never ended. And farmers were at the mercy of Mother Nature and the market. Even in a good year, the crops might not pay. As a high school student, he drove a team of horses for the school bus before attending school himself. After high school, he attended Bliss Electrical School at Tacoma Park in Washington, D. C. Returning to the farm, he installed a hydroelectric plant in the mill pond dam. The farm had electric power before it was available in town. His first job, in the early days of electric transmission, was building high tension towers and stringing wire through the New York mountains. My mother asked him about the heights and why he worked in the towers. It paid better, he said.
Original farm house before 1904 fire
The pre-1904 barn and mill
KC was brilliant, intuitive, and deeply cynical. For Renie, the social graces – how you behaved toward your fellow man – provided a good measure of culture. KC might have agreed in theory. But his priority was getting things done. A social grace was misplaced if it got in the way.
So there could be friction. Renie stewed if KC drove her to church in the Pie Wagon rather than in his car. KC’s car, a ‘52 Chevy with a used Pontiac side-door was itself a sore point. KC kept the car going with junkyard parts. More than once, he took my brother on a scavenging run to show how it was done. They’d come back from the dump and Harold would regale us with the wonders that Grampa had found. Good stuff, stuff that worked. For nothing. Someone had actually thrown it out! Renie was less impressed. She preferred that KC pay more attention to appearances. One cold winter Saturday morning Renie entertained us in the living room at their house on Pearl Street. She was strangely reticent to let us in the kitchen. Finally she burst out. “He’s in there fixing the starter motor. On the kitchen table!”
Stubborn
My parents and grandparents pinched pennies. Even today, my mother broods over the electric bill, hesitates over the cost of a stamp. Depression kids didn’t pay to eat out – they packed a picnic lunch. They didn’t buy clothes “off the rack”. My mother hand-made our clothes. She was quick to adapt a pattern, competent with the sewing machine. My brother wore the hand-made clothes. Then I wore the same clothes. The whole country was in that boat. “Waste not, want not”. My father budgeted his income to the last penny. He took his job at the Light Company because his teaching job didn’t pay the bills. But they weren’t poor. My mother saved my father’s Lieutenant’s pay during the War. Mom worked in a defense plant herself, then taught school. My parents had their own house – built with a construction loan – and their own car – a second-hand special from Uncle George Hemond’s lot. We had warm clothes, and Sunday morning there might be real maple syrup, picked up at the Farm, for waffles. When things were momentarily tight, my mother really did open a can of beans for supper. But at Silver Street, my parents fostered a sense of normalcy that insulated us from harsher realities.
Fran – living room Silver St
In 1953, my father came down with rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever was generally a childhood disease, typically following a case of strep throat. My father had a rare and serious adult case that was initially diagnosed by an osteopath that he consulted for a sore ankle. As the disease progressed, Pop became increasingly disabled; so sore and lame that he couldn’t walk. He got to the bathroom by rolling himself out of bed and crawling onto a square furniture dolly. Then he pulled himself across the floor with his arms. I walked into my parents’ bedroom one morning and saw him sitting on the dolly in his underwear. I was puzzled. But he greeted me with a big reassuring grin and made a joke. I walked away not knowing that anything was wrong.
That fall my brother had begun first grade and came down in succession with measles, chicken pox, and mumps. Before vaccinations were available, kids got those diseases in the early grades, if they hadn’t gotten them younger. It was a rite of passage. In this case, each disease was in turn passed to me. When my father had rheumatic fever, I had chicken pox and mumps. I spent days in the bedroom with the curtains drawn, hot, itchy, and sore, but getting more than my share of my mother’s attention. I had fun cutting up her magazines and pasting the pictures of cars on a shirt cardboard with musilage, that glue in a little glass bottle with the orange rubber flap.
The pediatrician who came to see me heard that my father had rheumatic fever. He was perfunctory reviewing my case. He’d seen plenty of chicken pox. He was much more interested in examining my father. Adult onset symptoms of rheumatic fever were rare and difficult to recognize and treat. In the meantime, my mother consulted friends in the medical community and located a doctor who had been at Harvard to study treatments for rheumatic fever using the new drugs, penicillin and cortisone. The effect of the drugs was miraculous. Within half an hour of the cortisone injection, my father was walking. The doctor told him, “you have to realize that you only feel well”. Recovery was going to take much longer. But once the cortisone was available, my father was freed from disability. The episode abated. With the new treatment, my father recovered without the heart scarring that was often a legacy of rheumatic fever. In the months that followed, we frequently hiked up the local “mountains”. I was first to the top of Mount Sugarloaf in Deerfield. I ran ahead and gazed out amazed at the Connecticut River Valley stretching into the distance. My parents had curiously lagged, taking their time with the climb. My brother brought up the rear, less than enthused. I thought we were climbing for fun. But Mom told me later the climbs were to strengthen Pop’s heart.
The real world for me was at Silver Street. I heard about the Korean War but it didn’t mean anything. My father paid unusual attention to the McCarthy Hearings, which were being broadcast on our new TV. Pop got upset but I didn’t know why. They should have never fired MacArthur, said my father. And Ike was okay. Pop didn’t trust Richard Nixon. He was a Red-baiter. But all that talk was over my head.
Our world, the kid’s world, revolved around the backyard. One afternoon we saw Ken’s wife Althea, slim, dark haired, athletic and determined, charge after a group of hunters in the backwoods. Someone had fired a rifle within sight of her children. I could hear Althea shouting at them from my sandbox. And one day my mother spotted a baby phoebe dangling by its leg from a nest high under the eaves. Althea rescued the phoebe by stretching precariously from the top rung of a rickety wooden ladder. She gently disentangled the bird from a string entwined around its leg. Mom caught the bird in a basket and put it on the garden house. An audience of concerned children watched the phoebe rest, then rejoin its family.
Every afternoon, Althea knocked heads with her stubborn three-year-old daughter Candy. Althea was not one to tolerate any nonsense at home. In her house, “if she cooked it, you ate it”. Althea’s other children ate the last spoonful of peas or carrots. But Candy set her jaw. She didn’t like peas. She hadn’t eaten them yesterday. Here they were again. Neither Althea nor Candy gave in. So late each afternoon, Candy was still sitting in front of her plate, with a little pile of peas pushed to one side. And she was not going anywhere. Over time, Candy won sympathy from the rest of us. She was a tough kid. Even Renie, if she was over, might smuggle a tablespoon of peas from Candy’s plate. But Althea was nobody’s fool. If she cooked peas tomorrow, Candy would be expected to eat them.
Cousins – Dick and Candy Field, Dave, Harold, Bill Field
My brother Bubbsie had his own house in South Hadley, a four foot by four foot playhouse that my father helped him build. I enviously watched as my father and brother built a frame for it, cut boards with a hand saw, nailed the boards up, and made a real door with hinges. The piece de resistance was the electric light bulb with a pull chain. My brother went in, turned on the light, and shut the door. Boy was I jealous.
Dave, Harold – Silver St Christmas
It’s midsummer of 1954. I’m sitting on the dining room floor playing with a Lone Ranger action figure from a cereal box. I can look up at the underside of our dark solid oak dining room table, with the heavy curved legs. The sunlight hits the dust motes by the curtained window. My father comes in, shutting the front door with unusual emphasis. My mother stops cooking in the kitchen and comes out to check. Pop is steaming. They talk. I hear my father say, “So he says ‘If you don’t like it you’re fired’ and I tell him ‘You can’t fire me, I quit.’” Pop throws his hat on the table.
On a Sunday afternoon, my father had driven by a one-car accident that half-severed the base of a telephone pole. The pole swayed dangerously over the road, held in place by the power lines. My father called in a Light Company line crew to stabilize the pole. When he went into work the next morning, he was berated for bringing in a line crew on the weekend and costing the company time and a half. The pole could have waited for Monday. Pop was not going to stand for that.
That incident marked the beginning of the end of South Hadley as home. To me we had lived there forever. Living there was how it was supposed to be. My cousins and I catching fireflies or playing croquet. Walking the Tar Road. But in fact, we lived in South Hadley for a mere blip in time. Once we left, there would be no going home.
Catalyst for move to Mystic
Let’s flip it
Pop was hired in September 1954 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut, the country’s leading submarine builder. The Cold War with the Soviet Union was intensifying. The nuclear arms race threatened holocaust. Nuclear scientists made bigger and bigger fission and fusion bombs. They also learned to control nuclear reactions to generate power. Some scientists said that power would be unlimited.
Nuclear power had a special potential for use in submarines. Submarines played a major role in the two World Wars. German U boats had nearly brought Great Britain to its knees by cutting off vital supplies. But conventional submarines were vulnerable to countermeasures. They were tethered to the surface. They needed oxygen for their diesel engines. They had a limited range and speed underwater under battery power. A nuclear reactor didn’t need oxygen. A submarine powered by a reactor could travel submerged at high speed for great distances without refueling. The Electric Boat Company launched the world’s first nuclear submarine, Nautilus, in 1954.
Pop was hired because Electric Boat was looking for engineers that had worked with alternating current (AC) power. Previous, conventional submarines used a direct current (or DC) electric system that drew power from the batteries. The new nuclear design used electric power from AC generators driven by steam heated by the reactor. An AC system was thought to be more flexible and efficient. So Electric Boat needed engineers familiar with AC. Pop had an electrical engineering degree and worked with AC at the Light Company.
He was hired by Lock Seneff, one of Electric Boat’s prominent designers. Seneff was being transferred for a year to Idaho to work on an early reactor prototype. He offered to rent my dad his house on Library Street in Mystic, a twenty minute drive from Electric Boat.
Mom explained to Harold and me that we were moving. I found moving hard to grasp. I knew it wasn’t good. I didn’t want to move. I was from Massachusetts, not Connecticut. Bill, Dick, and Candy were my only friends. “You’ll have new friends,” Mom said. “You’ll see your cousins when we visit.” Her reassurance confirmed my fears. I didn’t want new friends.
My parents drove us to Groton to see the Electric Boat Company and to scout out housing. We drove by the company’s big brick buildings. Long sleek gray submarines were tied up at the docks. My father hadn’t yet accepted Seneff’s offer to rent his house and we drove by two houses with “for sale” signs in the City of Groton. On that afternoon, Pfizer Drug Company, located south of Electric Boat, reeked of mycelium – a fungal growth medium for penicillin. An overpowering earthy musty odor permeated the Shennecosset residential area. I wondered how anyone could live with the smell. My mother rolled up her window. Pop looked unhappy but said that Lock Seneff’s house in Mystic, several miles to the east, was beyond Pfizer’s range. Mom agreed that Mystic might be okay.
The move now seemed real and imminent. I saw everything at Silver Street in a new light. Would I forget what the rooms in the Silver Street house looked like? I looked closely at the pictures hanging on the wall. I made a mental note to myself to remember the fireplace. Fifty years later, I remember making the mental note but not the fireplace. It seemed strange that I wouldn’t be able to go back. That I wouldn’t see Dick. My brother asked about his playhouse. Can’t we bring it? Pop said it was too big but that he would move it into the backwoods. Maybe we could get it later. I didn’t see how they could move it at all.
Silver Street heatilator fire place
But my father was an engineer. He had decided to roll the playhouse on wheels. He tried the furniture dolly. That was too small. He and Ken set the house on a garden wagon. The wagon tipped over. They tried a wheelbarrow. Same problem. Finally, several log rollers appeared. Pushing the house over the rollers, my father and Ken moved it over the back lawn. Foot by foot, the house lurched, surrounded by excited kids, my brother watching closely as my father and Ken grunted and heaved. Every few feet they replaced each roller in turn. Then, more slowly, the house inched into the meadow, now over planks laid in deepening muck. The meadow was wetter than they had expected. Halfway to the woods, the playhouse bogged to a sucking halt. Kids circled the house, stomping in the mud. Ken and my dad stood panting, my dad red in the face. They examined the ground, looked at the house, walked further down the path. My brother encouraged – “let’s just push it more – we’re almost there.”
Ken’s face said, “No, I don’t think so.” “Let’s flip it end over end,” he suggested. The idea appealed to Pop. “Won’t hurt the house a bit,” said Pop. Bubbsie looked skeptical. But Ken and my dad put their backs to it. The playhouse tipped, then began to roll. Off they went, quicker now. The house flipped once, then again, and yet again, topsy turvy. “Wow, look at that,” I said.
Lightning Storms
On a late Sunday afternoon, with the threat of building thunderstorms, the families gather in the living room of our Silver Street house for a last get together. Dick and I are playing hide and seek. I see the sky darkening through the picture window, and hear thunder in the distance. For a moment the window lights up. My brother says, “Wow fork lightning.” I’m scared of storms. During the last storm, my parents reluctantly allowed me to crawl into their bed. And now, it’s my turn to hide. While Dick counts, I squeeze myself under an armchair. I think the chair is going to protect me from the lightning.
The flashes and thunder had been distant, but now lightning bolts are coming closer and more often. My father and brother, who are standing by the fireplace, guess how far away the lightning is. “How far was that one?” asks Pop. “Sound moves a mile in five seconds,” says seven year old Bubbsie, “but the flash is instantaneous – speed of light. I counted two. Its just under a half mile.” FLASH BANG. The room lights up. I cower under the chair. I have no idea what a mile is, or what instantaneous means. “A mile’s over 5000 feet and sound moves about 1000 feet a second,” says Bubbsie. I still don’t know how far away the lightning is, just that it is near. FLASHBANG. “Wow that was close. I didn’t even count it. Let’s time the next one with your watch.”
Ken and my mom are on the other side of the chair talking about the time KC was knocked off a 50 foot pole by a lightning strike. I hear about Grampa getting knocked off the pole every time there’s a good thunderstorm. “Never let his men go up a pole in a storm,” says Ken. “Had to do it himself.” “Remember when he checked himself out of the hospital? He could barely walk,” says Mom. “He was riding that Indian motorcycle and he could barely get out of bed.” “Ha, ha, ha,” says Ken. “That’s KC alright.”
FLASH BANG. Really loud. The window shivers. I press down under the chair and squeeze in tighter. Maybe the chair won’t protect me after all. Lightning found Grampa on a 50 foot pole. I look up and see Dick. “Hey, what’re you doing down there?” he says. “I quit playing a long time ago.”
Cops
I’m riding in the back seat of the old Packard on the way home from church. My mother has dressed me in the itchy good gray pants with the pressed leg seams, and a stiff starchy white shirt. I’ve spent the previous hour squirming in the church pew where my mother has admonished me to “stop wiggling for goodness sake.” My brother is sitting with his leg over on my half of the seat. To see what I’ll do. We pass the South Hadley center Atlantic gas station, which is my favorite. “Atlantic keeps your car on the go,” I start to sing. I hear a siren behind us. My father looks in the rear view mirror, says “What the hell?” and slows down to let the police car pass. The cop stays behind us, with his siren going, and my father pulls his car over. We had not been speeding. It’s a Sunday morning and we were positively putsing along.
But the cop comes up to the car window. He’s big and pudgy, with his cop uniform, hat, shiny badge, real gun in his holster. He says, “Sir, you were doing 40 in a 25.” I’m scared. Pop’s in real trouble now. It’s a cop.
For several long moments, my father stares him down. “I was not. Who the hell do you think you are?” he finally growls. “Can’t you see I’m bringing my family home from church? What’s your name? Who’s your supervisor?” The cop takes a step back, taken aback. I remember this scene later when Pop tells me how he drilled troops during the war. He wasn’t intimidated by the cop. Now it’s the cop who backs down.
The cop sheepishly mutters, “I’m just giving you a warning,” and walks away with as much dignity as he can muster. My father sits silently a moment before restarting the car.
A few days later, we hear that a hurricane is coming. Mom tells me it’s a big storm with lots of wind and rain. I think it’s an old man with a straggly white beard and a big cane with the wind and rain whirling around him.
Then Hurricane Carol does roar through town. The rain pours down in sheets. The windows shake in the gusts. The trees outside bend. Debris flies over the front lawn. My parents are up and down the stairs looking for leaks. Rain water pours under the front door and pools in the basement by the old washing machine with the hand wringer. My mother plugs the gap under the door with sheets and towels.
Mystic
Route 1 runs down a steep grade coming into Mystic, Connecticut from the west. The Baptist Church sits up on the left on a bluff towering over the village. Further down the hill, a left on Bank Street goes up to Academy Lane and Mystic Academy. The building on the corner of Bank Street houses a laundry, a narrow corridor of change-eating washers and dryers on a worn bare wood floor. Ted’s Pizza – later the Mystic Pizza, named after the movie – will locate in the other half of the building. Then on the left is the Hartford National Bank, classic Greek revival with a pillared facade, and across the street, the modern brick Groton Savings Bank. Further down, on the corner with Pearl Street, is Oliver’s Music Store, with its big shop window filled with eclectic musical instruments – a tambourine, a drum set, a guitar – blaring Frank Sinatra – a little scratchy – from an outside corner speaker. Across Pearl Street is Kretzer’s newsstand where Pop bought the Sunday New York Times, and a 10 cents comic for Harold and me if we came down with him on a Sunday morning. But he wasn’t going to pay 12 cents when the price went up – that was outrageous. And when I finally picked a comic I wanted, Sgt. Rock charging the pill box with his gun blazing, Pop would say, “You don’t want that – here, how about Uncle Scrooge.”
Dick Neff ran the Sporting Goods store across the way. Then Moonie’s Grocery store, which has more narrow aisles and bare wooden floors. A couple doors down, the Modern Grill Restaurant was the local greasy spoon. Further on the south side was a clothing store and the Five and Dime. And on the north side was Maxwelton’s paint store, Nat Nowak’s clothing and shoe store where Nat, the local scout master, sold cub scout and boy scout uniforms, and Rexall’s pharmacy, where Mom bought Bayer aspirin.
The main block buildings on both sides of Main Street ran down to the Mystic River. The last few stores on the north side were built on pilings. The river is crossed over a silver-gray bascule drawbridge which is dominated by massive counter weights that hang imposingly over the street. The bridge is a standing lesson in physics – we will examine its exposed mechanisms, it’s bearings recently smeared with yellow grease, patches of rust demanding another coat of paint. Crossing the bridge, one goes from the town of Groton, on the west, to the town of Stonington, on the east. It is still Mystic, the important fact to the locals. Across the bridge on the south side is the Strand movie theater. Its marquee hangs out over the sidewalk almost to the street. I watch my first movies sitting in the balcony at the Strand, eating popcorn and drinking a coke. And on the left is the Western Auto and a hardware store with brooms stacked out front. Behind the Strand – which also sits out over the river on pilings – is Cottrell’s Lumberyard. We go there each Christmas to see the local Santa.
In 1954, the trolley tracks still run through the center of town. My mother grumbles when the tracks catch her car tires – but the trolley itself is a distant memory. The town periodically paves over the tracks which then slowly reappear as the asphalt wears through. Gravel Street to the north on the Groton side runs along the river by the Captain’s houses – reminders of Mystic’s heyday as a shipbuilding and whaling port. On the Stonington side, the Mystic Seaport is not yet a major tourist attraction. The last square-rigged whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan, is stuck in its berth in the sand to keep it from sinking. The grounds are filled with antique wooden boats and old sailing ships, some in desperate need of maintenance. The Seaport buildings are crammed with a hodge podge of maritime memorabilia, not yet sorted out by a modern curator’s sensibilities. The wooden ferry Brinckerhoff sits run up on the river bank south of the museum exhibits, rotting and waiting to be broken up. For years, I see the ferry in my dreams.
Gravel St. c. ’57
I had fallen asleep in the car driving down from South Hadley to Mystic and woke up when we pulled into Seneff’s driveway behind the moving van. Neighborhood kids were sitting on the top of the van waving to us excitedly. Seneff’s house, on Library Street, was a red two story colonial. It was larger than our Silver Street house, with a big apple tree out back and a view across a field to the south to the Battles’ estate and northwest, across Allyn Street, up Windy Hill to the Lathrop place. Library Street ran down Windy Hill from Allyn Street, by Seneff’s house, then, on the left, past Dr. Edmonstone’s – his kids Jimmy and Bobby were sitting on the van – and the Welts – Bob Welt, tall and skinny, was now standing on the van roof jumping and waving. Further down the street the Wheelers and Leonards were on the right. Crossing Elm Street, the Mystic-Noank Library is on the left and then the Baptist Church, the intersection with Route 1 and the descent into the village.
Lock Seneff’s, Library St – Packard on left in drive
I took a hurried, excited tour of the house – upstairs and down. Hooray there’s a fireplace. There’s a faint funny smell coming from somewhere. “Just an old house smell,” I am assured. My father says that there is storm damage to see from Hurricane Carol. Would we like to take a ride? Besides, the moving men are still unloading. So we pile into the car to look around. My father drives us as far as Misquamicut, Rhode Island, about a half hour ride. Everywhere along the shore, boats have dragged anchors. Some now sit awkwardly, ashore on their side, or sunken, stove-in, or without transoms, or with gaping holes. In low lying areas, they sit misplaced in backyards or parking lots. At Misquamicut, the summer beach houses are devastated, knocked off their foundations, roofs torn off, walls collapsed. Looking out from the beach, I see one house, a small white cape, sitting awash, grounded a hundred yards offshore.
Bluefish
Mystic faces the sea. The ocean air feels different – on a good day the air is crisp and fresh with a hint of saltiness. During summer, approaching the coast, I can feel the change for several miles inland – the oppressive inland stuffiness suddenly relieved, lightened. In the winter, the ocean moderates the cooler inland temperatures. It’s more than cliche that it gets in your blood. Living inland, I think often of a morning I stood on Lighthouse Point gazing out at the breaking white caps and watching a flock of raucous gulls trailing a homecoming lobsterman.
But my first impressions of Mystic are unsavory. On the Monday morning after we move in, Pop is off to work, carrying a shiny silver lunch box, wearing a gray overcoat and his business style gray Stetson hat. He hugs my mom, flashes us a smile, says, “toodle-oo”, and is out the door to where the carpool is waiting, the car idling in the driveway out front.
Then Harold is off to school – second grade at Mystic Academy – and Mom is back to getting things in order. The Seneff house is strewn with unpacked boxes. She is measuring windows for drapes. She pauses, sniffs the air, and says, mostly to herself, “Where is that smell coming from?” The smell, faint the day before, has gotten stronger – something is rotten. I point to the cellar door. “I think it’s worse over here.”
She opens the door and a waft of foul air surrounds us. “Whoa,” I say and cover my nose. I had no idea anything could smell so strong and bad.
My mother flips on the cellar light and goes down the stairs. The smell is awful but I am curious enough to follow. The smell gets worse. I run back upstairs, take a deep breath, run back down. My mother is poised in front of a large white freezer, her expression a mixture of distaste and puzzlement. She opens the freezer door and there lays a large rotting bluefish. An overpowering stench is released when she opens the door. I bolt back up the stairs gagging and run outside through the front door gasping for breath. Several moments later my mom charges out the door holding the bluefish in a tray at arms length. She unceremoniously dumps the tray on the lawn. Even outdoors the bluefish reeks. I back away. My mother is white and has tears in her eyes.
The full story comes out later. Lock Seneff had taken a day to go fishing at the end of summer before he headed out to Idaho. The bluefish were running – he caught several – and in a moment of inspiration he left one of the fish in his freezer as a present for his new tenants. His generosity has misfired on several fronts. For a start, my father hates fish – any fish – the smell of fish – even the sight of fish. Maybe he was forced to eat fish on Catholic Fridays. I will never know. Living in Mystic, he becomes an avid yachtsman. But he will always scrupulously avoid the fishing docks. Still, no harm would have been done except that Lock has not anticipated the hurricane. Electric power was lost for over a week. To make matters worse, when the power returned, the old freezer start-up blew the circuit fuse. When we arrive at the house, the bluefish had been rotting for days.
Somewhat later the same day, Mom drives with me down to the local A & P. As we cross the drawbridge, we are again assailed by foul odors. My mother closes the window and mutters “low tide”. For my part, my nose is twitching. Mycelium, rotten blue fish, low tide. Just why are we leaving South Hadley?
But there are no more fish. The low tide smell – from untreated sewer outfalls into the river – is relatively rare and worst only when tides are at their seasonal lowest. Even Pfizers, over the years, slowly cleans up its act.
Good Birch Fire
Fess Parker is playing Davy Crockett “King of the Wild Frontier” on TV. I know from the popular Davy Crockett song that he killed a “bar” when he was only three. I’m older than that, four, almost grown up. For Christmas that year I get a Davy Crockett outfit complete with fringes and a “coonskin” cap. Life doesn’t get any better as I gallop off to show the outfit to my new friend Bobby Edmonstone.
Davy
Just a block away, on Allyn Street, the carpenters are building us a new house. We have only a year lease at Library Street until Seneff returns. My father has wasted no time buying a nearby lot. It was available I suspect now because of its tendency to marsh. But water, after all, can be drained, right? The house design is a modern fifties ranch. I watch as my parents choose between two models shown on blueprints my father rolls out on the dining room table. They choose the larger ranch with the master bedroom and walk-in closet. “I’ve always wanted a walk-in closet”, says Mom, vetoing Pop’s preference for the slightly smaller, less expensive plan.
With the tail from my coonskin cap dangling in my eyes, I watch the carpenters, roofers, and plasterers at work on the house. Bobby and I run in and out between framing studs, over discarded waste. We are tolerated and largely ignored by the workmen. Maybe, in retrospect, we weren’t supposed to be there.
3 Allyn St under construction
Pop hired an Italian mason, Mr. Carlucci, to build the fireplace. Mr. Carlucci, an elderly gentleman, was stooped, with thin gray hair and gnarled fingers. The fireplace was unorthodox; it was raised off the floor and set in a large brick wall. Mr. Carlucci took a while to warm up to the plan – he’d never built a fireplace like this one. But he was a perfectionist. When he agreed to build it, perhaps his last, it was going to be a work of art. I remember the smell of the mortar and the precise, rapid way in which his trowel flew. There was one moment toward the end of the job when he stepped back, wiped his hands on his apron, and surveyed the finished firebox with a look that could only be love.
Mr. Carlucci topped off the chimney late one evening under a threatening sky and promised with a self-satisfied smile that he’d be back the next afternoon, a Saturday, to try it out. The afternoon arrived with great expectancy. Mom, Pop, Harold and I gathered with Mr. Carlucci in the as yet unfinished living room to watch the demonstration. Mr. Carlucci opened the flue. “Very nice mechanism”, he said, showing us how the flue could be adjusted not only for open and shut but for intermediate open positions. He meticulously laid in newspaper, kindling, a couple nice white birch logs, on the new andirons. “Birch burns fast – good for show.”
Finally the moment came that Mr. Carlucci struck a match, lit the paper, and stepped back with a smug smile of pleasure.
Immediately, smoke poured into the room. Mr. Carlucci’s face fell. “No, no,” he said, “I don’t understand.” He dropped to his knees and reached up to double check the flue. He stood up dancing in agitation, on the verge of tears. We backed out of the room and my dad opened the front door for air. Then, Mr. Carlucci looked up and his face brightened. “Of course, you dummy,” he said to himself. “I covered it against the rain.” He ran outside to climb on the roof and remove the tarp. In moments, like someone pulling the plug on a drain, the smoke in the living room funneled back into and up the chimney.
Dave, cat, Mr. Carlucci’s fireplace
Upside Down
It’s early, still dark, when my mother wakes me up and places me, in my pajamas, under a blanket in the backseat of the aging and cranky black Packard. We are going “on vacation” to Cape Cod, a long drive from Mystic in the days before the interstates. The Packard is big and roomy. I can almost – but not quite – stretch out on the seat without kicking my brother. The back of the front seat has an upholstered cord that is fun to grab and pull. We can use the cord to tuck a blanket into when we want to make a fort. It’s years before seatbelts and the backseat is a playground. There’s also a built-in ash tray that I think is for gum wrappers. My father passes out sticks of Wrigley’s when I wake up. The gum is a treat to keep us quiet. He gives it to us under the disapproving gaze of Mom. She knows where that gum ends up.
The trip is a family adventure. We get lost in downtown Providence, where the route signs inexplicably are missing at vital intersections. Despite our early start, we run into a traffic jam approaching Sagamore Bridge and the Cape Cod Canal. My father complains of the sun reflecting off the chrome bumpers, then pulls over when the Packard overheats in the traffic. As we cross the canal, I am awed by the size of the freighters, and by the height of the bridge. Despite the announcement that “We’re on the Cape”, it takes another hour or longer before we pull up at Chequesett Neck in Wellfleet, where my great uncle George Hemond runs a real estate office. George has built cottages on the hill behind his home and office. In later years, my father rents a cottage each summer for vacation until his kids get too old to enjoy his family programming. This year, my grandfather, Grampa Hemond, has rented a large old farmhouse for an extended Hemond family gathering. But we first meet his brother George and George’s wife Helen. George is as tall as my dad and has a family resemblance. He takes time to show my brother and me his shell collection. His shells are displayed like art, polished, shiny, smooth, spiked, pinks, grays, and blue hues. To the consternation of Mom, he lets us hold them. He gives me a conch to hold and says, “try this one – if you hold it right you can hear the ocean.” I put it up to my ear, hear the roar, and am puzzled. I ask, “How come you can hear the ocean through this?” Everyone laughs but no one tells me how it works.
Helen and George – shells on display – Chequesett Neck
Grampa Hemond’s Welfleet farm house rental
We drive up a long clamshell-covered driveway to the white farmhouse where Grampa comes out to meet us. Like my father, he has dark – almost black – hair, that will thin somewhat but remain dark until he dies in his 80’s. His face is craggy. He looks like the old photos of Indian chiefs – Chief Joseph, perhaps, or Geronimo. He takes a moment with the kids before catching up on the gossip with my dad.
My dad’s brothers Connie and Robert and their families are also coming to the Cape. I don’t know them very well, so the vacation is an introduction to the family. I also learn about the ocean beaches like Newcomb’s Hollow and Marconi Beach, with their bluffs and stretches of sand and surf; the fresh water kettle ponds of Gull Pond, Long Pond, and Great Pond; the shell beaches with moon shells and slipper shells; and the night sky. Harold and I run up and down the bluffs. I get knocked over in the surf and think it’s fun. For several years after, I urge, “Let’s go to Newcomb’s Hollow” anytime we are on the Cape.
Newcombe’s Hollow
For breakfast, my father has taught me to eat a combination of Wheaties and Cheerios. The Wheaties, I have learned, go on the bottom, the Cheerios have to go on top. That’s how my father pours them and that is how I like them. Otherwise the Cheerios float up through the Wheaties and they get mixed up. Which is bad.
One morning in midweek at the farmhouse, I get up early, before my parents, and stumble down the hall in my pajamas to the kitchen. My Uncle Robert is sitting there in a purple bathrobe. He looks like a taller, thinner, younger version of my father. He has the same dark hair slicked back and the same smile. As the youngest of the three brothers, he seems less serious. He is irreverent and teases my mom. But he’s friendly. This morning he sees a little nephew looking for breakfast. He pulls out a bowl, a spoon, and a jug of milk, and asks, “What’ll it be? Shreaded wheat? Corn flakes?”
I know he won’t know how to pour the Wheaties and Cheerios. Only my dad does that right. I tell him I’ll wait, I’m not hungry. Uncle Robert won’t take that for an answer. “Come on,” he says. “We’ve got everything – how about Cheerios? Wheaties?”
“Well,” my stomach is growling, “I guess I’ll have Wheaties and Cheerios.”
Robert raises an eyebrow, like it’s an old family favorite. “Wheaties and Cheerios coming right up.” He smiles and straight away pours the Cheerios into the bowl. “Wait,” I whimper. I knew he’d get it wrong. Now Robert has the Wheaties in his hand and he’s pouring them into the bowl, right on top of the Cheerios. I start to cry.
“What’s the matter?” asks Robert. He looks puzzled. He tries to hand me the bowl of cereal.
“I can’t eat that,” I wail. “You poured it upside down.”
Allyn Street
We move into our house at 3 Allyn Street. My father has done most of the finish work, painting, paneling, checkerboard ceiling, hardwood flooring, and counter-tops. He works all weekend and on nights after work. As my mother describes it, the closer the deadline gets to moving out of Seneff’s, the more skilled she was said to become with a paintbrush and a hammer. After a final push, the house is “close enough” for us to move in. My father’s house projects, however, are unending. And he conducts a running feud with the local building inspector, who does not like do-it-yourselfers.
My brother notes the following incident as they rushed to get the house livable – not the first, or last inspector tale:
“Pop wired the house himself, but when it was ready for connection to the utility lines, the utility company inspector balked. The ground connection to the meter box was not to his satisfaction. Pop had installed a thoroughly adequate network of three ground rods and several heavy copper wires. Perhaps the inspector wanted to see the more typical, single, larger ground rod. But electricity was needed for the house, so when the utility refused to install the meter, Pop wrapped the handles of his lineman’s pliers with electrical tape so he could handle live conductors, made some jumpers of heavy copper wire, and energized the house wiring by bypassing the empty meter socket. The inspector was furious. “You’re stealing power!” he shouted. “I demand service,” Pop shouted back. The inspector left, and a while afterward a meter appeared in the socket. We had electricity! And I still use those lineman’s pliers, their handles wrapped in now-brittle electrical tape.”
The living room, on the front side of the house, is paneled with redwood and has a corner with two large picture windows looking out over Allyn Street. The front door opens onto a poured concrete porch with an exterior redwood wall under the overhang.
The family room and dining room are paneled with tongue and groove pine, the three bedrooms are plastered, and two baths are tiled. As the wood panels darken with age, the living spaces will get dark despite the numerous, large Andersen windows. And the plastered walls are painted, and later repainted, a variety of colors. My bedroom is an unappetising light green that shows up my hand and finger prints next to my bed. The house has an attached garage on the north – from which the neighborhood kids, unsupervised, discover they can climb up a ladder into the attic. The furnace is on the first floor hidden in a “closet” next to the kitchen, its walls lined with asbestos sheeting to meet the fire code.
3 Allyn St, Mystic
Because of the high water table, the only basement is a damp crawl space that my father covers with rolls of tar paper. When I get old enough, he will impress me into insulating the underside of the floor from the crawl space with rolls of fiberglass insulation. I spend a week tortured by the itchies from the fiberglass as I crawl on my back, staple gun in hand, stapling the insulation over my head up between the joists. Because there is as yet no sewer system, my father installs a septic system with a tank and several dry wells to drain the overflow – as well as drains through the yard to lower the standing water. His designs prove inadequate. For years, until sewers are put in, my brother and I dig holes for “just one more” dry well or drain pipe.
Years after we moved in, I discovered that in the final push, my father had inadvertently cut the formica for a curve in the breakfast bar backwards. He then patched the formica up well enough so that I had never noticed. The error was plain to see if one looked. It was an indication of how hard pressed he was and of how tight the budget was. He didn’t feel that he could afford to throw the damaged piece out. I always felt that Pop was a perfectionist. For years I felt a twinge of inadequacy when I screwed up and mickey-moused my own projects in the interests of getting them done. Pop was always meticulous. He wouldn’t do that. He did things right. Yet, in this case, Pop had erred, then cut a corner. It came as a revelation.
Good Doggie
For most of kindergarten through second grade, I went to Mystic Academy, the public elementary school that sits by Academy Lane on a bluff overlooking Mystic. The building was old, three floors, brick facade, wide steps leading to an imposing entrance, high ceilings, high windows, restrooms in the basement with a cement floor and an old-fashioned communal trench urinal.
My classmates were local kids, friends. We had considerable freedom to roam at recess. There was only one supervising teacher. She was young and single and stood by the entranceway smoking cigarettes and looking spaced. She couldn’t see anything once we got around the corner of the building. The playground had a great merry-go-round, an insurer’s nightmare the way we played on it. And there were bushes, and boulders, and nooks, and crannies where we played cowboys and Indians and struck from ambush.
Some days we played marbles, making little cups in the dirt. The bigger kids played “keepsies”. If you won, you got to keep the other kid’s marble. Soon we were all playing keepsies. After twice having my little stash of marbles wiped out, I started playing better. Then I had a hot streak and ended up with a large bag of marbles, cat’s eyes and moonies . Years later the bag disappeared from my room. My father appropriated the marbles to fill the base of a glass lamp.
My friends at Mystic Academy included Stevie Smith, who was the most popular and had the biggest gang at recess. As a musician, guitar player, cellist, in high school he would tour with Dave Campo, later coach of the Dallas Cowboys, playing Kingston Trio hits. There was Paul Hibbard – we’d jump into the hay from his father’s hayloft, and Kenny Oliver, and Hal Thompson, with whom I would one day hang out on the street corner smoking cigarettes. And there was Howie Sebastian, who had dark skin, kinky hair, and broad nostrils. I had no racial consciousness. I knew that I could tan pretty well myself in the summer, but nothing like Howie. I did notice that his palms were white like mine. Howie was one of us. He had a neat fringed cowboy shirt and he preferred being a cowboy when we played. But he also made a good Indian, whooping and jumping off the rocks.
To meet expenses, my mother took a job teaching first grade, my first grade. I thought that was great. But, for my tastes, she was too concerned not to show me any favoritism. I couldn’t get away with anything. However, since her hours were longer than mine, she often let me walk by myself to and from school. The walk was about half a mile – zigzagging down Library Street, across on Elm, down Burrows, over on High Street, crossing by the crossing-guard, then down Academy Lane. Most days when I walked, I ran into friends. One day on my walk home, I caught up with Dick and Larry Desillier. Their dad was my dentist, their mom ran my cub scout troop. They were older than I was, in fourth or fifth grade. They were competing jumping back and forth over a hedge on Burrows Street and they started showing off for me. The hedge looked pretty high, but they were both athletic and successively picked higher points to jump. I was appropriately impressed. I finally asked Dick, “Wow – how do you do that?” Dick showed me how, if I led with one leg and rolled over the hedge, I could jump a lot higher. I jump-rolled over the hedge a couple times myself. I remembered that day one afternoon in the late ‘60s during the Vietnam War. My mother stopped in my room to tell me that Dick had been killed during a helicopter assault in Cambodia.
What scared me walking to school was passing the white house on the corner of High and Burrows Streets. An elderly lady there kept a large German Shepherd-like dog staked out near the street. The dog was too dark and shaggy, frankly too wolfish, to be a pure Shepherd. He had grown fierce and protective. The kids walking to school teased him, standing just out of range, shouting and throwing sticks and stones. The dog would go wild barking and straining at his chain. I once, ineffectually, told a bigger kid to cut it out, the dog wasn’t hurting him. I was reminded of that kid years later watching Jean Shepherd’s “Christmas Story” and the bully Scott Farkus. By now, the mere sight of a kid set the dog off. Most days, I hurried warily by, hugging the far side of the street. I thought that he wouldn’t get loose when I was there. I didn’t tease him.
Turned out I was wrong. On a cool dark November afternoon, I walked home alone, a few minutes later than the first wave of kids. The earlier kids had gotten the dog excited. He barked and jumped hard against his chain as I jogged by. I was climbing the hill about a hundred feet beyond the house, when I heard a snap like a cap going off, and noticed the tone of the dog’s bark change. Turning, I saw the German Shepherd charging up the hill after me. I had a head-start. I ran as fast as I could. But it felt like I was running in molasses. In seconds the dog was on me. I tried to fend him off, but he knocked me over and bit me in the thigh. I thought I might die right there. There was no one in sight – no one to save me. The dog was big and strong and faster than me. He was on top, his teeth bared, and really mad. But the dog’s owner, the elderly lady, had been listening. She flew out of her door looking like the witch in Hanzel and Gretel, her housecoat and silver hair flying. The dog, mean, wild-eyed and frothing, obeyed her shouted command to come. I was never more surprised than when that dog backed off me and trotted down the hill to her. I ran most of the way home, trickling blood from two small puncture wounds, but more frightened than injured. I trusted less to chance after that.
Apple Hill
Route 91, the north-south interstate highway, hasn’t been built yet. The drive from Mystic up to Holyoke is along the old state highways. Route 1 takes us through Groton and across the Gold Star Memorial bridge. The bridge has a toll booth on the Groton side and my father keeps a ticket book stuck in the car visor. Then we drive up Route 85 through the cigarette towns, Salem, Chesterfield, Marlborough, over the New London turnpike into Hartford where my father gets mixed up down behind the G. Fox building and grumbles “where’s the damn sign?” Out of Hartford finally, up Route 5 and the commercial strip in West Springfield. We stop at 174 Pearl Street in Holyoke and Nana Field greets us in the hallway with the fine dark woodwork, a lace curtain over the cutglass window in the door, and the baluster leading up to Uncle Laurence and Aunt Sylvia’s apartment upstairs. We go in through Nana’s Victorian parlor. There’s an upright Steinway piano with a hole in the fabric backing. My mother stuck her finger through the fabric as a child. KC is coming in through the kitchen, but his hands are greasy from working on the car out back. He stands awkwardly, smiling his hello, and turns to go wash up. But the warm air in his lungs from coming inside triggers a coughing fit. He bends over racked by coughs, reaches for the atomizer in his shirt pocket, a glass flask filled with a vile looking liquid, takes several puffs, and makes his way into the bathroom still hacking. He has emphysema and asthma.
174 Pearl St, Holyoke, MA
My cousin Chip says KC damaged his lungs pulling an electrical worker out of a transformer fire. The worker died. As a kid, Chip, who is several years older than Harold and I, would ride up to the Montague farm on weekends with KC in the Pie Wagon. One afternoon when Chip was twelve, KC had a coughing attack while they were at the farm. When the attack didn’t subside, KC handed Chip the Pie Wagon keys. “Here,” he said, “you drive.”
It’s the weekend before Christmas and there are a few Christmas cards displayed on a marble table top, a few decorations, but no tree. Renie is preparing a Sunday dinner. Before we eat, Pop takes Harold and me over to see Grampa Hemond, whose house is several blocks away at Fairfield Avenue. Fairfield Avenue is upscale for Holyoke. The road has a wide grass median divider. We drive beyond Grampa’s house to a break in the divider, then come back. The houses on the street are larger, with bigger yards. Grampa’s house is bigger than the Pearl Street house, with a Dutch-style gambrel roof and post-Victorian design. A large Silver maple tree stands out front.
A framed collage of a smiling Scotsman with kilt and bagpipes intertwined with $10 and $20 bills hangs inside the front door. “Your grandmother gave it to me for a new suit,” Grampa says, “but I liked it so much I hung it up.”
My grandmother Hemond, Agnes, died a couple of months before I was born. The house has been kept the way it was. “That’s Bobby’s room,” I remember my dad saying. The bed looks freshly made up with a blue checked quilt.
Down in the living room, Grampa has an armchair where he sits in front of the TV. On one wall is a large framed print of square-rigged frigates, guns out, in a down-wind chase. Grampa has a collection of model cars on the fireplace mantel. He has trouble getting to his feet when we come in, steadies himself, then leads us into the dining room where he offers us nonpareil chocolates from the sideboard. Back in the living room, Harold and I play on the floor with the model cars while Pop and Grampa talk politics or football.
Grampa used to play semi-pro football. He talks about football and Notre Dame. It will be years before I understand that he is Catholic and that there is a connection. I hear about Knute Rockne, the famed Notre Dame football coach. Grampa tells me about the Four Horsemen, the famous Notre Dame running backs, who he names. He talks about George Gipp, the Gipper, long before I hear about Ronald Reagan playing him in the movie. I root for Notre Dame, too, and know the Notre Dame fight song.
Joe Hemond, back row, 3rd from left, Capt ’11 Holyoke High football
My grandfather, and my dad as well, have an extraordinary intuition about sports contests and elections. When my father was twelve or so, he won a regional newspaper competition to pick the most football games in a season. They ran his picture in the paper. Grampa, talking football, predicts that Archie Manning will be the next great player. Archie Manning is still in high school. He hasn’t yet gone to Mississippi. “That kid’s got a sixth sense,” Grampa says. I never figured out how he knew about Manning. Before Manning, he talked about Roger Staubach. “Have you seen that Staubach kid down at Navy?” he says. I watch Roger Staubach through his career at Navy and at Dallas, wondering what exactly my grandfather was able to pick out. Grampa has a similar political instinct. Before George Wallace is elected governor of Alabama, he says, “They’d better watch out for that fellow George Wallace in Alabama. He knows how to move a crowd. He’s trouble.” My father says something similar about Ronald Reagan when he’s still hosting “Death Valley Days.”
Grampa has spent his life writing for the local newspapers and as Secretary to the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce. He hung out with the local politicians and knew everyone. In the ethnic melting pot of Holyoke, he spoke French in the French bars and edited a French newpaper. He spoke German in the German part of town. For some reason, Grampa had attended “German school” as a kid. His wife Agnes Crean was part Irish, so I assume that he drank green beer with the Irish as well. He ran a weekly radio show – Speaking of Holyoke.
But in his 30s, he suffered a heart attack – from too many cigars his doctors said. When I know him, he is diabetic and increasingly infirm. And he laments the decline of Holyoke. The mills were fleeing for the South. He didn’t need to be prescient to see it happening. At the Chamber of Commerce, he was fighting the decline his whole career. One afternoon, he complained about the swath that Route 91 was cutting through the hills west of Holyoke. To me, he seems to be a lonely man. He can no longer easily get around. His world is slowly contracting to visits from family and the next season at Notre Dame.
Back at Pearl Street, we eat Sunday dinner, with roast beef and potatoes and gravy. The clock on the mantel chimes three o’clock. Mom and Nana are catching up on the various Bliss and Field cousins. “How is Esther?” KC, finished, is sitting at the end of the table, his asthma quiet. He’s looking antsy. He still has the car to fix, time is valuable, it’s cold out and getting colder. Uncle Laurence wants to know how I like school. Sylvia passes a box of thin mints.
Outside, the sky is darkening. My father points out that it’s starting to snow. He suggests to Mom that it’s time to go. KC wants to know if he’s got chains. “In the trunk,” says Pop. “They’re hell to put on.” He’s not dressed to be lying down under the car hooking up the chains.
Renie is engrossed with Mom in the gossip and Mom is not going to cut her off. But Renie gets the drift when the rest of us cluster in the parlor by the front door. She looks out the window. “Well, it’s starting to snow,” she says. “You’d best be on your way.”
We get into the Packard which is covered with a coat of snow. My father clears the windshield. The snow is already coming down hard and the road is covered and slick. “Maybe we should spend the night,” says Mom. Pop cranks the engine over, it catches, and he puts the Packard in gear.
Packard
It is a long ride home. At first, I look at the Christmas decorations. Since we are on local highways, most of the ride passes houses with outdoor Christmas displays. The first craze in outdoor Christmas lighting has hit. House after house is outlined by colored lights in the falling snow. There’s a black house lined in green lights that I think is striking. The wipers stick and my father pulls over to clear off the ice. When we start again, the oncoming lights are glaring in the windshield. The snow mounts on the lawns, on the road. We have yet to see a snow plow. The tires slip and skid when we stop and start at intersections.
My mother starts us singing carols – Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, Silent Night, Up on the Roof Top – click, click, click – and I look out the window for Santa Claus.
A car pulls out from behind us, goes careening past, fishtailing. My father swears. “Do you think we need the chains?” says Mom. My father keeps driving.
I see something in the distance, or maybe it’s just a smudge on the side window, but I cry, ‘I see Santa, I see Santa.”
“It’s not Christmas yet. There’s no Santa anyway,” says my brother.
“Harold,” says my mother.
“Is too, is too. Isn’t there Mom?”
Mom doesn’t seem to hear me. We’ve gotten through Hartford after my father takes another wrong turn down by G. Fox. My mother asks rhetorically, “Where are the snow plows?” Now we are in Glastonbury and the snow is getting deeper and deeper still. My father stops again to clear the windshield. Steam is rising off the old Packard’s hood.
“I can put on the chains,” offers Harold. He’s eight. “What about Apple Hill?” says Mom. My father is dressed in his good Sunday clothes, suit, overcoat, business Stetson, dress shoes. When he gets back in the car, wiping off his shoes, he is followed by a flurry of snow blowing in through the door. The door thumps shut, the engine revs, the rear wheels spin, and slowly we are off again.
Traffic is down to a crawl. Pop mutters about idiots without snow tires, idiots who live in New England and can’t drive in the snow. We pull around a car that has skidded sideways with its tail in the road, now pass another car that has stopped in the roadway. We begin to climb Apple Hill. On each side of the road I see the apple trees framed like skeletons by the snow. The car in front of us has stopped but the Packard pulls out, keeps going, rear wheels sliding, fishtailing – the car is just heavy enough to keep on. We pass a second car, a third that is stopped but spinning its wheels. The hill gets steeper and Mom says, “What about the chains?” “If I stop we’ll be stuck,” says Pop. His face suddenly lights up in the headlights of an oncoming car that comes sliding down the hill toward us. I think the car is going to hit us but at the last second it veers away. We pass more cars. The Packard crawls on, at one point almost stops, but Pop works the wheel, the accelerator, feeling for the best traction, and the Packard continues to inch upwards – around yet another stalled car with a man in an overcoat standing next to it who watches us inch by. Then, at last, the road is less steep. The Packard slowly picks up speed and we are alone at the top of Apple Hill with a line of stalled cars strung out behind.
We drive the rest of the way to Groton without chains. Then, with the threat of upcoming Fort Hill, my father pulls over and cursing and struggling, puts on the chains and soaks his suit. But the weather on the coast is warmer and the road has already begun to turn to slush. The last several miles to Mystic, we drive with the chains clanking against a bare pavement.
Kemo Sabe
It doesn’t get any better than Saturday morning with the cowboy shows on TV. I camp out all morning on the floor and watch the Lone Ranger, and Roy Rogers, and Hopalong Cassidy, and Wild Bill Hickok. I’m wearing my holster with the Colt six-shooter cap gun. I’m out of caps because Trevor Bogue from across the street set off my last roll all at once between two rocks. Mom is not springing for more caps just now.
Out the back picture window, I can see my brother’s new, improved playhouse, which not only has a light bulb but an electrical receptacle. What’s neat is that no one is bothering me this morning. Mom is off on a birdwalk at the Pequot Sepos bird sanctuary with Mr. Wiley. Pop is in the backyard, painting the new garage. The new garage replaces the old attached garage, which he has turned into a guest room.
My cat, Fuzzy, a muddy-colored tortoise-shell who likes only me – ha – is sitting on my lap. She looks skittishly at a more striking tortoise-shell, the mother cat Fluffy, who is sitting on a bar stool regarding us coolly. No sign yet of my brother. This is a good thing because he will tease me about watching cowboy shows.
Fuzzy the cat
The Mother Cat – Fluffy
Close to the house, I can see the Amesbury skiff, a fourteen-foot runabout motorboat with a fifteen horsepower Evinrude motor. It is covered by a tarp and put up for the winter. Mom and Pop are getting into boating and they’re taking the Coast Guard Auxiliary course. Pop tells me that ropes are lines, not ropes. He is trying to teach me to tie knots. To tie a bowline, the little bunny goes around the tree and back into the hole.
The Amesbury, Harold – + 20 years
On TV, the Lone Ranger puts a silver bullet in his gun, turns to Tonto, and says, “I won’t rest until I find them Kemo Sabe.” Silver neighs and they ride off.
“Why are you watching that stupid stuff,” scoffs Harold, who has come up into the room. I don’t say anything. Whatever I say would sound like a whine. He looks at me and then at the TV, not altogether pleasantly, I think. Then to my relief he leaves. He goes out through the laundry into the guest room in the old garage. Behind the guest room, over the oil tank where the mother cat sequestered the kittens for several weeks, my father has set up a workshop. He shares the shop with Harold. My brother, now ten, spends his time out there, playing with his electrical stuff and building Heathkits that he gets for Christmas. He’s working on getting his amateur radio Ham license. The workshop is covered with electrical equipment, old radio chassis, tubes, a tube tester, soldering irons, my father’s National radio the “NC 47″ that picks up the Ham bands, a code key and oscillator for practicing code. Resistors and capacitors. An oscilloscope. My father, who was an Army Signal Corp officer during the War, and my brother tune in to W1AW for the code practice sessions broadcast by the amateur radio league from Wethersfield. I’m not in that world. I could really use another roll of caps.
My brother K1PHT in the ham shack tuning up with Pop WA1GFX (My call – N1GRJ)
BLAM, PZING, BLAM. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are having it out with the bad guys. “Cover me Kemo Sabe,” says the Lone Ranger and he charges out from behind his boulder. BZZAW goes the TV screen. I jump up in alarm. BZZAW. No picture, just swirls, lines – no sound, just BZZAW. “No, no, no.” I turn the channels. BZZAW. I turn the TV off and on again. BZZAW. BZZAW. BZZAW. Tears are welling in my eyes. My brother comes in. “The TV isn’t working,” I cry. “Can you fix it?”
My brother takes an interest. “Huh. Did this just start?” He flips the channels but doesn’t seem real upset. Nothing comes in. And the vertical hold is flipping. “Can you fix it?” I say again. “It’s the Lone Ranger.” He stands looking at the TV – smiling I would almost say. “Please?”
“Well,” he says, “maybe I can do something.” But then he turns and heads back out through the laundry to the workshop. “No,” I say to his back, “can you fix it now? It’s the Lone Ranger.” But he’s gone. The TV’s still going BZZAW. My world is dim. I live for the cowboy shows. Then, suddenly the BZZAW stops. There’s the Lone Ranger again, with Tonto. The TV’s back, but it’s the end of the show. “Hi ho Silver, Away!”
And in comes my brother. “How’s that?” he says.
Jenny Wren
As a kid, I suffered from separation anxiety and anxiety attacks. I have the biggest problem when I go to bed, after my parents turn out the light. Some nights, sometimes for streaks of nights in a row, I call out for my mother until she comes back in and sits with me so that I can fall asleep.
I know they found it exasperating. They experiment with a variety of strategies. A glass of warm milk or a glass of grape juice or a story before lights out. Or my father will come in instead of my mother. Or finally, they will try not responding at all. But I just keep crying out. It makes me cringe thinking about it. It must have been awful.
And I have childhood nightmares. It’s part of the same syndrome. They are like nightmares from Stephen King novels that King hasn’t written yet. I wander down corridors where doors don’t open, or open into a void. Or I find myself in a slaughterhouse where the meat-grinders are – well you get the picture. The dreams are more graphically violent than anything I see in real life. Nasty stuff.
I have an anxiety attack one night when there is an especially clear view out my window of the night sky. I tell Mom I’m scared of the stars. She shows me the constellations. One star, Arcturus, is quite bright, centered in the view through the window that night. She tells me that Arcturus is my star, my friend, and shows me how to find it. Look for it when you are lonely, she says. That strategy works. I get some comfort looking for Arcturus. But I soon discover that the night sky moves with the seasons and that many nights it is overcast.
I also have headaches from allergies and stress. When I get older I get frequent migraines that affect my vision. As a seven or eight year old, I find the headaches incapacitating. I lie immobile on the family-room couch while my mother tries possible remedies. I take Bayer aspirin from Rexall’s. No one had yet warned of Reyes Syndrome. But the aspirin does nothing. A cold compress on the forehead. A hot compress on the forehead. Here, try it on the back of your neck.
My grandmother is in the house one afternoon when I am having an episode. She is a wily lady. She reads stories to me from a Thornton Burgess book; about Jenny Wren and Bully the English Sparrow. By the time she has finished a couple of stories I have forgotten that I have a headache. Go figure. It’s how shrinks make their living. To this day, I don’t know how much of the problem was physical and how much was in my head.
But this is the late 1950s. One new and touted solution in Eastern Connecticut for kids with headaches and sinus problems is to “have their adenoids removed.” Dr. Haines has a prosperous eye, nose, and throat practice in New London, where he removes adenoids with a radiation treatment. While the patient sits back in a “dentists chair”, Dr. Haines inserts radiation rods up the patient’s nose – then leaves the room for the period of the treatment. The radiation burns out the adenoids and frees up those old nasal passages. Trevor Bogue from across the street has had it done. His mother swears by it. Mom signs me up and I go for several treatments. Dr. Haines is a kindly gentleman and very reassuring. As far as I can tell, the treatments do nothing. Thirty some years later, the medical establishment is warning of the risks of this unwarranted treatment. Oops.
What makes a bell ring?
We are having supper in the dining room at Allyn Street. I’m seated with my back to the picture window. Fuzzy the cat is sitting quietly by my right foot, confident that I will sneak her a tidbit. My brother is lengthwise at the other end of the table – far enough away so that we can’t kick each other. There’s a pork chop, apple sauce, and peas on my plate. My mother has once again given me a full glass of milk – more than I want or will ever, ever drink.
Usually, my father would fill us in on his day at Electric Boat. There’s a problem with the MG set. Or the Admiral has issued yet one more nonsense directive. But right now Harold has the floor – he has come home with a science test that his 5th grade teacher has graded down. The question he got wrong asked, “what makes a bell ring?” Harold has written a paragraph describing a doorbell mechanism – the electric circuit – the electro magnet – the knocker – the physical vibrations of the bell – the sound waves. That’s the kind of bell people use, right? The correct answer says the teacher is “the knocker strikes the bell”. Harold hasn’t written “the knocker strikes the bell” – five points off.
My father often has a sense of humor about this kind of foolishness, but perhaps he has had a bad day. This story about the bell strikes a nerve. It’s not the first time the teacher has mis-graded Harold’s paper. Harold has already told Pop that the teacher doesn’t understand rudimentary electronics. The teacher doesn’t know the difference between circuits hooked up in series and parallel. He doesn’t understand my brother’s language. Amperes, ohms, voltage, watts. Whats? The fact that the teacher doesn’t recognize and encourage excellence sticks in my father’s craw. I can see that my father’s going to flip out before he knows it himself. “What do they think they’re doing, God Damn it?” Harold is fixing old tube radios in his spare time – building his own radios for god’s sake. This guy’s subtracting points for not saying “the knocker strikes the bell”.
Maybe this incident wasn’t the catalyst for the changes my parents made. Maybe it was the rumor we heard about a teacher threatening to dangle a kid out the second floor window for talking in class.
The following year, we are no longer in public school. My mother has a new job teaching first grade at Pine Point, a growing private school in Stonington. I will be in the third grade there; my brother in grade six.
I don’t like it. I already have my friends. Mystic Academy is my school. I don’t want to go to school with privileged private school kids. Then again, nobody asks me.
Mystic kids – l to r – forgot name, then Larry Plouffe, John LaFrance, Paul Hibbard, Trevor Bogue, Bobby Edmonstone, Dave, Stevie Smith
Pine Point
Pine Point was housed in a small, one floor modern wood school building with just enough room for the eight classes – grades 1 through 8 – and a small library, small common room, and office. It sat in an undeveloped part of Stonington, on rural land, an old pasture, donated by one of the school’s prime benefactors, Jacques Wimpheimer. Wimpheimer had a local estate and owned race horses.
The move to Pine Point was traumatic. I lost my Mystic friends. I was an outsider, the new kid, in the new class, and I had trouble fitting in. I was sore about being there.
However, Anna Coit, my third grade teacher, could relate to kids. She made an effort to make me feel welcome. And she knew how to teach. Teaching is more art than science, education theories notwithstanding. We don’t know much about the best way to motivate and to convey information. But Anna had a pretty good idea. I liked the way she didn’t condescend to us. She taught like she expected that we would get it and she wasn’t afraid to breach big ideas. One afternoon, she discussed how jet engines work, diagramed the turbine, discussed the laws of physics, action and counter action. Another day she drew a picture of a cigar on the blackboard and showed how evolution had adopted the shape for its efficiency – dolphins, fish – and how man used the shape in modern submarines, and airplane wings. And by the way, how does lift for a wing work? She drew a wing and talked about air flow over the wing and air pressure. And what is air pressure anyway? Maybe we didn’t get it all, but she got us thinking. There was a world of interesting stuff out there.
She let us know when we did the routine work, when we did math drills for example, that that was why. You needed math if you wanted to build a rocket or a submarine. That was why we took the time to drill with the multiplication tables. It wasn’t her only strategy, and I’m not sure why that would stick, but it worked for me. One day I ask her about division. It’s not in the third grade curriculum. But she took me aside for ten minutes, working at my desk, to show me how to do long division and how fractions work. She wasn’t afraid that the information might hurt me or that she was violating some rule of order in teaching. She read us E. B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web”. When Anna read it, it became more than just an interesting story. It became a lesson in writing and in storytelling. Charlotte’s death was a lesson too.
Anna saw to it that I started to fit in. She cast me in a class play she had written. Pretty soon I knew the other kids and I wasn’t standing alone at recess but playing red rover or kickball. I’m not sure, but school might be fun after all.
Mom with Anna Coit – Anna will live to over 100 when, still, active, she continues her local speaking engagements
Harold is less fortunate. The students in his class are more entrenched. He is academically ahead of them. And being smart gets him labeled as unsocial. The assistant coach of the school’s football team makes a fuss that Harold doesn’t want to play football. As the coach sees it, playing is voluntary but you are supposed to volunteer. Harold wants to know why he should go out and hit somebody. Isn’t he supposed to have a choice? The Pine Point science teacher is a kindly old gentleman who doesn’t know the first thing about radios or electronics. Harold writes a couple of excellent short stories for English. I remember “The Eel and the Whippet” about a competition between two innovative car designs. But the truth is that Pine Point doesn’t know what to do with him.
Mush
It’s almost Christmas, 1959. KC and Renie come down to Mystic for the holidays. I lose my bedroom to them and sleep on the trundle bed in Harold’s room. Harold and I are obsessed by submarines. Every night at supper, we hear about Nautilus and Sea Wolf and Skate and Skipjack, the nuclear submarine fleet. We’ve been to sub launchings at Electric Boat. At one launching, the elderly lady chosen to christen the submarine stands on a dais crowded with dignitaries. When the time comes for her to break a champagne bottle on the submarine’s bow, she is unable to swing the bottle hard enough to break it. The submarine starts sliding down the ways, beyond her reach. The crowd hushes at the impending disaster of launching an unchristened boat. At the last moment, a workman hits the bow with a spare bottle he has for just such an emergency. The crowd cheers. I walk down the hill at Electric Boat to another early launching and my father is pointing out the submarines at the Electric Boat docks and across the way tethered to the subtender Fulton. He spots Nautilus, Sea Wolf, four or five others, the American nuclear fleet concentrated in New London harbor. Finally, when he realizes the whole fleet is there, he comments, “Well, we didn’t learn much at Pearl Harbor, did we?”
Nautilus
The nuclear fleet in at Groton – this is Seawolf
We’ve been to the submarine base in Groton. We’ve seen the diving tower where submariners practice escape ascents from deep water. On a day each year when the Sub Base is open to the public, we get to climb down into crowded old Fleet boats. A sailor spots us as we come down the ladder into the conning tower. We look through the periscope, spin it to look at the diving tower. Then make our way forward to the torpedo room where real torpedoes are lined up in their racks.
Wahoo off Mare Island. US Bureau of Ships photo
Harold talks about building his own submarine. He discusses the problems of ballast and compressed air for blowing the tanks. We watch “The Silent Service”, a weekend TV show about the American subs in the Pacific in World War II. It’s hosted by World War II submariner, Admiral Lockwood. We know about the rescue of the Squalus and about World War II submarines and submariners – about Wahoo and Tang and Trigger and famed skippers Mush Morton and Dick O’Kane.
When we go to bed one night neither Harold nor I fall asleep. Harold makes up submarine war stories. I think his stories are good. He catches the jargon and the atmosphere of the stories we’ve been reading or watching. I can close my eyes and imagine the scenes – the periscope rising from the well.
We’re in the South China Sea, Wahoo’s at 50 feet – below the surface and rigged for silent running. The sea is shallow, not much water below us. Sonar reports screws. “They’re closing fast, Captain.”
Mush Morton looks haggard – he hasn’t slept in days. A Japanese carrier, a big one, is in the vicinity. We’ve been stalking the sea lanes for over a week.
“Battle stations, “ says Mush, then “up ‘scope.” He’s at the eyepiece as the scope is rising – spins with it all the way around as it breaks the surface, then “down ‘scope.”
His cracked lips break into a grin through his stubble beard. “That’s it boys – Soryu class – about 5,000 yards. Headed our way with a couple tin cans as escort.” To his executive officer, Dick O’Kane, “Dick, I need the firing solution for a full spread of fish. Hit her stem to stern. Then we’ll turn tail and catch the cans with our stern tubes. No room to dive anyway.”
Dick looks at Mush. It’s suicide of course. His face is grim but he forces a smile. “It’s gonna be point blank. I’ll run the fish shallow.”
“Let’s do it,” says Mush. “Up ‘scope.”
“Cap’n”, it’s Sonar. “The screws are picking up. It’s a tin can.” The sonar man’s face is white, beaded with sweat. “Jesus, I think he’s spotted us.”
“Damn,” says Mush. “Let’s have that ‘scope. Dick – a solution on the Destroyer first. Down the throat.”
Well, Harold did it better. It was the best part of my day.
Plate Tectonics
In my first days at Pine Point, a new friend, Hugh Beach, demonstrates to me that I’m not as athletic or smart as I think. He easily throws me playwrestling at recess. He does ten chin ups from the crossbar of the swing set. I can’t even get up to the crossbar. He runs faster. I can multiply numbers in my head but Hugh does it quicker with bigger numbers. I find this really annoying. But Hugh is friendly and enthusiastic. He tells me about Jules Verne and “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea”. He’s a fan of Peanuts and Snoopy and the Red Baron. He’s not stuck up about what he can do. He thinks I can learn to do it all too. But I’ve got some catching up to do.
I come in to school one day, later in the school year, and a copy of Life Magazine is being passed around. It has a picture of Hugh and his family in the lead article. The article is about the nuclear submarine Triton circumnavigating the world underwater. Hugh’s father, Triton’s skipper, is Captain Edward L. Beach. Captain Beach is a famed World War II submariner. The author of “Run Silent Run Deep”, a best selling submarine novel and Hollywood movie. And Hugh is my friend. I think this is neat.
Ned Beach – courtesy of our worn book jacket from Run Silent, Run Deep
I meet Captain Beach when I’m playing at Hugh’s place. The Beachs’ house is an old Captain’s house in Mystic, a large white colonial on Gravel Street on a slight rise looking out on the river. Captain Beach is in his study at a rolltop desk, writing his next novel by longhand. He gets to his feet and introduces himself when we come in. He’s not as tall as my dad, heavier set, but trim with close-cut gray hair. He has the bearing of a Naval Academy graduate. We are little kids and we are clearly interrupting him. But he smiles at us; he is interested in meeting Hugh’s friend. He tells me that the novel is going to be called “Dust on the Sea”. He takes a good minute, maybe more, to talk with me before we run off. “How do you like school?” “I hear your dad works at Electric Boat.” “We’re thinking of having your class over to see the Triton. Do you think you’d like that?” Would I?
Several weeks later, Captain Beach invites our class to see his ship. Maybe eighteen of us get a guided tour of Triton. Triton is the largest nuclear submarine of its day. It is so big that it has stairways instead of ladders. The sailors have an ice cream machine. We all get a cone, but we can only choose one flavor, vanilla. I’m still eating my cone when Captain Beach leads us up into his officers wardroom. He has a mercator projection world map marked out with the circumnavigation routes of Magellan and of Triton. He starts a brief spiel on Triton’s trip. Part way through he stops. He has reached the point where Triton is passing the coast of South America. He looks at the map and says “You know what is interesting – scientists are still arguing about it, but I’m convinced – is that this coast of South America could snuggle up with Africa right here.” He shows the matching coastlines. “I think that these coastlines were joined in the past – millions of years ago, maybe – and that the continents have drifted apart – it’s like they are floating on liquid.” Captain Beach is taking a moment, there on board the Triton, to explain the then cutting edge theory of plate tectonics.
Captain Beach is the real deal. It is sobering when I learn, a year or so later, in the early 1960’s – about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis – that Captain Beach has built a bomb shelter in his backyard. Beach has seen war first hand. His close friends have died in undersea combat in the Pacific. He has endured depth charging himself. He sees the threat of nuclear war as real and does not take survival for granted.
He lives in a Darwinian world. Survival of the fittest. He acts accordingly. One night he gives me a ride home after I spend the day with Hugh. I had walked down to Hugh’s house in the morning. Hugh and I played in the snow all day, building a snowman, sledding, having a snowball fight. But now it’s getting dark. It’s winter and it’s cold. Snow flakes are falling. Captain Beach is headed over to the Sub Base. He asks if I would like a ride home with him. He drives an old worn-out Plymouth coupe with a manual choke and he has to coax it to start.
I sit in the passenger seat, a dumb, star-struck kid. He talks to me as if I am an ordinary, regular person. I’m embarrassed to say that I ask him what I am thinking, “What’s it like to be a war hero?”
The question catches him off guard. He looks at me, smiles, and decides my question deserves an answer. “There’s nothing glorious about it,” he says. “It’s hot and dirty and cramped. We’re all in the submarine sweating together.” He pauses a second, like he’s thinking back. “We’re scared,” he says, “because the other guy is good. He’s smart and he’s tough and he is trying to make us die for our country.” He pauses again. The windshield wiper is having trouble with the snow and the car’s rear tires are slipping on the hill. He turns his head and looks me in the eye. “Our job is to be smart enough and tough enough to make damn sure he dies for his country instead.”
Melody Masters
The north wall of the family room at Allyn Street has an alcove about two feet deep which my father turned into an early “entertainment center”. He built a cabinet for the TV, a counter for the record player, and shelves for the amplifier, speakers, and new fm tuner. The fm tuner doesn’t get many stations because most radio stations are on am. The amplifier, tuner, record player, and speakers are wired together. Over the years, the wires mysteriously get increasingly tangled. Antenna rotators are not yet common. Instead, my father set up two separate antennas in the attic; one adjusted to receive the Providence stations, the other turned variously to New Haven or Hartford. Before changing the TV channel, we flip a switch for the correct antenna. There’s another switch to select the speakers.
Except for the TV, the system doesn’t get much use. It’s awkward to put records on the record changer, which is recessed in a side nook. If I do play a record, I will be warned not to scratch it. “Hold it by the edges.” Or Mom will complain about the music. It’s not like the real music they listened to. She will ask me to turn it down. I find it easier to hang out in my room where I have an old am radio that picks up rock and roll from the New York stations, or on a good night, from Pittsburgh.
On the upper shelves, high up in the alcove “because this is good space – not to be wasted”, my parents keep old personal memorabilia. Photographs of the Philippines during the war and old yearbooks. I find it interesting that my parents, who I think I know so well, had these previous lives before I existed. Several yearbooks are from their years at Mass State, now the University of Massachusetts. But I am particularly interested in a 1941 yearbook from Wilbraham Academy, a prep school where my father taught before joining the Army in World War II. His picture is in the yearbook among the faculty as a teacher of Chemistry. He’s also listed as coach of the rifle team – I’ve never seen him with a gun – and as director of the marching band and dance band.
When I ask him, my father tells me that he got the teaching job in part because he promised to field a marching band for halftime at the Wilbraham football games. My father as a musician is a mystery to me. I know he has a clarinet and saxophone, but he almost never pulls them out to play. Now I learn that he had been the band leader at Mass State. We had the first majorettes spinning batons, he says. At Wilbraham, for the first football game, he came up short recruiting students for the marching band. To fill out the band, he brought in his brothers, Connie, playing the tuba, and Robert, and a couple of other friends, as ringers.
I show my father a picture in the yearbook of his dance band, the Melody Masters. Pop disappears for a minute, then reappears with his clarinet case. He puts the clarinet together while he tells me about the Melody Masters. Several of the kids in the marching band were quite talented musicians, he tells me. He names them and what instruments they played and says they wanted to form a dance band. He agreed to act as their advisor and found them a place to practice. Once we mastered a few chestnuts, he says, the kids wanted to do the modern stuff. “You know. Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.”
Pop has twisted the clarinet together and is testing reeds for the mouth piece. He has a stack of them which he rejects one after another. Fifteen years in the case haven’t helped. A lot of the tone is in the reed, he says, you need a good one. Finally he finds one he likes.
So, he goes on, the band is getting better and better. We have regular jam sessions during rehearsal. But we don’t have anyone to play for. I convince the headmaster to let us play incidental music at an upcoming drama club play. We haven’t even played at a dance. Nobody knows how good we are. And the kids are getting frustrated. Finally, the drama club puts on their play, “Julius Caesar”, and it’s pretty deadly. Intermission comes and we go on. We’re not supposed to play anything hot, just background music. The kids are going nuts. Come on. Let’s show them what we’ve got. Sorry, no can do. But the intermission gets extended. The drama club is having some kind of costume problem, and the band runs through the whole planned repertoire. Okay, I say, we’ll just start over. But after the first song, the kids are rebelling and the drama club still isn’t ready. “Come on” they say, and “no way”, to the next song I pick. I figure what’s wrong with showing the folks what they can do. So I say, okay, just one. They break off into a Glenn Miller piece and they bring down the house.
My father plays a couple of scales on the clarinet and then he plays a Goodman number he knows by heart, his fingers flying. I think wow, I didn’t know he could do that. He stops, looks at his fingers which are aching from arthritis, a legacy of his rheumatic fever. The joints in his fingers look swollen. “Hemond’s Demons,” they called us, he says. We played every Friday night after that. He disassembles the clarinet and puts it away.
Hemond’s Demons
Fire Swamp
It’s the late 1950s and I’m addicted to watching football games. On New Year’s Day, I veg out in front of the TV watching the bowl games all day. I only reluctantly break for the afternoon dinner. My brother confirms my addiction by telling me what a waste of time it is. He’s going to be outside doing something useful.
But I see a human drama in the games, a morality play. Virtue, courage, intelligence, fortitude, character, toughness will triumph. “Look at how Otto Graham has the Coast Guard Academy undefeated,” says Grampa Hemond. It’s a matter of will, of toughness. Or so I believe.
Through the medium of television, professional football is coming to prominence. It’s the heyday of the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants – Johnny Unitas, Lenny Moore, and Ray Berry against Chuck Connerly, Frank Gifford, and Kyle Rote. Y. A. Tittle. Big Daddy Liscomb and Sam Huff. And over at Cleveland, Jimmy Brown. No one can catch him, and if they catch him, no one can stop him. If they stop him, he slowly gets up and saunters back to the huddle and everyone knows he’s going to get the ball again. He gets it, and he’s off, dragging two, three, four tacklers around left end, another first down.
But Unitas is my hero. I can see how he works the game, works the field, calls plays he’s not supposed to; a passing play on a running down; a running play, a draw, on a passing down. At the end of the game, his team trailing, he gets leveled. The next play, with time running out, his nose bleeding, he steps into the pocket and completes the game winning touchdown pass to Lenny Moore. He gets off the perfect pass at the last possible moment before being buried under a pile of tacklers. There is a nobility in his grace and toughness under pressure.
About this time, I become self-aware of my own hypersensitivity. I get so tense, scared even, watching some TV shows that I have to get up and leave. The original version of the science fiction thriller “The Fly” is shown on TV. A scientist invents a device to beam himself through space but accidently gets reintegrated with a fly. Harold thinks this is great stuff. He’s right. It’s too vivid for me and I go running off to my room. Even the end of a football game can be too intense. I kick myself when I have to avert my eyes and miss a last minute game-winning Unitas touchdown. I’m smart enough to realize that this sensitivity is not helpful, or normal for that matter. But it is not something I can help.
Years later my six year old daughter Liz makes me take her out of the theater in the middle of “The Princess Bride”, a classic film I won’t see in full for another ten years. The “fire swamp”, with the big hairy rodent creatures, is too scary. Chagrined at missing the movie and the wasted ticket price, I nonetheless recognize, only too well, where she is coming from.
Church
My parents felt that routinely going to church was important. We went to the Mystic Congregational Church on the Stonington side of Mystic, across from the A & P. The church is big, white, and imposing, with pillars out front and a tall steeple. It looks like what a New England Congregational Church should be. We go fairly often. I squirm through countless sermons and know the Lord’s Prayer, and the Twenty-third psalm, and the Doxology. When I get old enough, I am enrolled in the Sunday School, which meets during the first part of the service.
I pick up on the premise of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “love thy neighbor”. But the lady who teaches my class of Sunday School is earnest. We should know what’s in the Bible, where Israel is. She drills us on the Old Testament: King David and Saul and Israel, and walls falling down, and Moses and the Ten Commandments and something about a burning bush. And on the New Testament. We’re supposed to recite the books by name. And Jesus raises Lazarus and catches lots of fish. But, after a while, my enthusiasm dims.
I can trace my bad attitude to an annual church supper meeting when, at the end of activities, the church officials handed out little keys as a morale building reward for attendance at Sunday School. Each year, it seemed like everyone except me got a key. I wouldn’t get one because I had missed one or two classes too many, usually because my parents had taken us up to Holyoke to see the grandparents. One year, even my brother got a key – I must have missed a class by being sick. Even a ne’er-do-well friend of mine, an impish kid who cut up in class and mocked the teacher behind her back, got one. I can still see him strolling up to get his key, a big smile on his face, while the parents applauded. I began to resent being in class. I was never going to get a damn key anyway. I began to listen to what I was hearing in a different way.
Just to be annoying, I suppose, after class I would ask my mother – What is idolatry? Moses and God seemed to disapprove of it but I wasn’t sure why. Why is it bad? Shouldn’t it be tolerated even if it’s wrong? What’s this about going to Heaven and what can you do there? Do you believe in it? What if your friends don’t get there? Why is it being harder to get into Heaven than through the eye of the needle? I must have been more than a little exasperating. My mom had the right sort of answers. She encouraged me to not take it too literally. Some things we just don’t know. We are doing our best to understand life’s mysteries.
But then one Sunday I failed to hand in a map assignment on Israel. I had missed Sunday School the week when it was assigned. The teacher did not think that was a sufficient excuse. So the next week, I told my mom that I wasn’t going. “Yes you are!” No, I didn’t think so. Finally I said, “Look, if you want me to learn about the Bible, I’ll stay home and read it for as long as the Sunday School class.” She agreed.
So for the next couple of Sundays, I read the Bible.
I started with Genesis and bogged down in the lists of who begat whom and how long they lived. I skipped ahead and found God was killing everyone at Sodom and Gommorah. When my mother got home, I wanted to know why the begatting was important. And weren’t innocent people, kids, being killed? How come God let everyone drown during Noah’s flood? What was wrong with the Philistines? Well, said my mother, the Old Testament can be harsh. People were trying to explain disasters in hard times. But the New Testament, which is about Jesus, is more about the redemptive value of love. That’s the real foundation of Christianity. Why don’t you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?
I wasn’t sure what “redemptive” was, but the next Sunday I started in on the New Testament. Soon I was finding what seemed like inconsistencies between the respective books. There was a lot that didn’t seem to make sense. When my mother got home, I asked her why Jesus was killed and why God let him be killed and how his dying was supposed to help us. And how do we really know Jesus came back and where did he go after that and why did he leave the second time? And anyway, what about the crucifixion? Mom, by now, was having none of it. “You’ll have to make up your own mind when you get older,” she said.
Fire
December 12, 1960. I’m ten years old. I spend a restless night tossing and turning. I dream of sirens off in the distance and of the wind blowing against the window. When my father wakes me up in the morning, I’m groggy. The sky is a dark wintry gray.
“Mystic burned down last night,” Pop says.
“What?” I say. I’m wondering how Mystic can burn down. What part of Mystic? I feel a pang of regret that I missed the fire. How could I have missed something like that?
“What?” I say again.
“Just the Stonington side,” he says. “The Strand.”
The Strand
Not the Strand! That’s where I see movies. I’m old enough so that Mom will let me go to the Strand alone. My parents hardly ever take us to New London, which has the only other theaters, the Garde and the Capitol. I realize, with a sinking stomach, that this is a real disaster.
“Maybe they can build it again?’ I suggest.
“Maybe,” says Pop.
In fact, they never do rebuild. We still see plenty of movies, usually at the Garde, and sometimes at the drive-in. But when we nag my father to see the latest release, he now responds, “Sure, we’ll see it when it comes to the Strand.”
That morning I ride with my mother through downtown Mystic on the way to school. The fire scene has a visceral reality, a shock value, that I am unprepared for. Crossing the drawbridge, we slow in front of the wreckage of the Strand, now largely reduced to charred boards and timbers protruding from the Mystic River amid the old support pilings. The other side of the street, formerly a block of storefronts, is also reduced to rubble. It’s well below freezing out and everything, including the street over which we drive, is covered with black ice, ash, or pools of fast freezing water. Fire hoses litter the landscape, which has the feel of the war zone pictures I’ve seen on TV. I wonder how they kept the fire from spreading to the adjacent Cottrell Lumberyard.
A fireman is directing traffic around the orange cones set to keep cars from driving over the rubble. He is heavy-set, unshaven. His eyes are dark, sunken; he looks like he had a hard night. He rubs his bare hands together, breathes out a cloud of vapor, barely bothers to look up as we edge by.
At school, it seems as if everyone has seen the fire. Hugh describes the scene from his house on Gravel Street across the river. “You should’ve seen the flames shooting up”. I think yeah, boy, I would have liked to have seen that.
See how he goes
I love horses. At Stevie Smith’s birthday party in second grade, I get to sit up on the Smith’s horse, Val. Val for Valentine because he has a white marking on his forehead that is supposed to look like a heart. It’s way up from the ground on Val, kind of scary, but neat too, and they let me rub his muzzle and feed him a carrot.
And then Pop takes us to the TriCounty Fair in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Fair has thoroughbred racing. We stand right on the rail where the horses charge by. It’s a small track and we are close to the horses. I feel the pulse of the hoofbeats, see the strain and muscles of the bodies, see the dirt flying up with each stride. This is the most exciting thing I have seen in my life.
At home, I start to prattle on about horses. I discover that horse racing is shown on TV. I learn about Hialeah Park in Florida, and pick up some of the racing jargon.
“What good are horses?” says Harold. “That outboard motor has fifteen horsepower and you don’t have to feed it and it doesn’t get tired.” It’s enough to confirm that horses must be good.
My mother introduces me to the writing of Walter Farley and his books about the Black Stallion and the Island Stallion. I devour the books. I start collecting any other horse books I can find. I increasingly become an indoor kid, lying around reading. If I’m not watching TV.
I’m about nine, riding home from Pine Point one afternoon. Mom takes a side trip to stop in at Dr. Ross’s house in Old Mystic, a large white mansion next to the Seaport Stables. Then rural, the area is now developed with Old Mystic Village. The current Howard Johnson’s sits about where the stables were. Dr. Ross is my mother’s dentist and he has horses. There is a party going on at his house. Before I know it, my mother has mentioned that I like horses to Dr. Ross and Dr. Ross has introduced us to Cary Williams. Cary is “a real horseman”. He’s won jumping ribbons at the Nationals in Madison Square Garden. Cary, drink in hand, says, “How’d you like to get up on Mystery?” “Go on,” says Mom. I walk with Cary across the yard to the stable. We walk down to Mystery’s box stall. Island Mystery is a large, muscled thoroughbred jumper. In the stall, Cary shows me how to step in his linked hands. I have no recollection where he put his drink in the meantime. He says, “grab his mane so you don’t fall off” and throws me up on the horse, bareback. Mystery raises his head from his feed bin and turns to look at me rather quizzically. “What’s this all about?”
I am hot to trot several weeks later when my mother brings me back down to Seaport Stables for a riding lesson. It’s going to be neat. They saddle up a sorry-looking gray plug for me, adjust the stirrups, and show me how to hold the reins. They don’t use a riding ring and no one is leading me. I’m supposed to “just take him down toward the river there to get used to how he goes.” But, “don’t let him over near those trees.” The stable man lets go of the reins and I say “giddyup” and kick the horse. The gray jogs off in the opposite direction toward a pine tree with low hanging branches. The stable-hand runs after us shouting but doesn’t catch up and the gray takes me right under the tree to knock me off. I’m smart enough to get low on the horse’s back so that I only get brushed real hard. But I feel the indignity of the old plug trying to rub me of his back. The stable-hand catches up, turns the horse around, whaps him on the flank, and sends him off in the right direction.
Dave on Yankee – Conn College Stable
Aussies
Pop introduces us to tennis. For his summer job in college, during the late Depression era when there weren’t many jobs, he and Connie contracted to run the Holyoke public tennis courts. Tennis is popular and Holyoke has fine clay courts that they roll and sweep every morning. My dad even arranges a couple of exhibitions, matches between big name players like Bobby Riggs, who will stop by to pick up a few bucks for playing a match on a Saturday afternoon.
Now that Harold and I are old enough to pick up a racket, Pop takes us to an exhibition down at the new tennis court at Williams Beach in Mystic. The match includes Chuck McKinley, who is America’s number one player and a Davis Cup hero, Dennis Ralston, an up-and-comer who is seventeen at the time, and Alex Olmeda, a Davis Cup player with McKinley. The fourth player is Bill Talbot, a veteran of an earlier day, but still a top player. We are close to the court and the players are amazing. “A little sloppy,” says Pop, “Not like Don Budge or Bill Tilden.” Still, it’s exciting and they are having fun out there. I sure would like to hit the ball like that.
Later that summer, Pop takes us down to see the National Doubles on grass at the Longwood Cricket Club in Boston. It’s 1959 or 1960 or even 1961 and tennis is largely “amateur”. Pop tells me that it’s not really amateur. He describes how the big names get “expense” money to show up – but then may, or may not, play to win. There is also a small pro circuit. Jack Kramer and Pancho Gonzalez are trying to open up the sport, but so far without a lot of success. Most of the big names show up for the National Doubles. Unlike today, the tournament schedules are arranged so that players don’t have to miss a competing singles tournament. Doubles is a big game.
At Longwood, I immediately recognize McKinley and Ralston from the exhibition. They are playing Aussies, Roy Emerson and Rod Laver, maybe, but I didn’t know the Australian players yet. In any case, McKinley’s already a hero to me. I’ve seen him close up. He’s our best player so, of course, I expect McKinley and Ralston to win. My father knows better. He wants me to watch the Aussies. Watch his racket. Look, see the way he moves, gets to every ball. There, a perfect lob, did you see how he disguised the shot?
Sorry Pop, I’m rooting for the Americans.
But McKinley and Ralston have started to lose. Now Ralston is serving. He hits a serve that is called long. He throws a tantrum, shouting at the linesman. Finally the umpire directs him to serve again. He hits it into the net, starts to sulk, and loses the game. The Aussies don’t say anything. They just keep playing hard. A close call goes against an Aussie. In fact it looks to me like a bad call, the ball looked in. But the Aussie doesn’t acknowledge it. He looks to the ball-boy for a new ball. He serves, and wins the next point. The Aussies are having fun, joking with each other between points, but all business too. One goes to his knees to hit an impossible shot. He backhands a point-blank volley between Ralston and McKinley, clipping the line. He hits another great shot. Ralston throws another fit. He’s the first of the American bad boys in a line that will run through Jimmy Connors and culminate with John McEnroe. By the end of the match, which the Aussies win in straight sets, I’ve made up my mind who are the classier players.
Missile Crisis
Kennedy has been elected President. The Cold War is in the news every night. We watch Huntley and Brinkley on NBC because Channel 10 comes in better than Channel 12 with Walter Cronkite and CBS. The Cold War has generated an atmosphere of crisis throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. The Soviets threatened to blockade Berlin. Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the table at the UN and vowed, “We will bury you.” The Russians launched Sputnik, then Yuri Gagarin circled the Earth in a capsule. The Russians led us in space. There were numerous incidents in the demilitarized zone in Korea. Castro and the communists took over Cuba and Castro was mocked on TV for his scraggly beard and long-winded speeches. Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot, was shot down over Russian and tried as a spy. The Americans and the Russians tested bigger and bigger nuclear bombs – their estimated tonnage in terms of TNT was reported with each test. 40 megatons. 50 megatons. 75 megatons. 100 megatons. Scientists warned of the atmospheric fallout, suggested that cows milk may be contaminated, and described on TV the effect of a 100 megaton bomb exploding at ground zero in Manhattan.
At Pine Point, we sit around a transistor radio to hear the reports of Alan Shepherd’s space capsule reentry. I wonder if he is going to burn up. An adult tells me that Russia, by sending a satellite over US territory, has committed an act of war. We go out in the backyard on a summer night and see Sputnik overhead. Our sixth grade class is herded into the school’s central hallway for a bomb drill. The hallway has glass doors to the outside at both ends and the building is made of wood. In earlier years, the bomb drill consisted of crouching beneath the desk. The futility of these exercises is readily apparent. Hugh Beach describes the bomb shelter his father has built in the backyard, a real shelter. It only has room for his family. That makes Hugh uncomfortable. The rest of us will get fried.
Cuban exiles, supported by the US, unsuccessfully invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Pictures are broadcast of the captured exiles confined to a soccer stadium. Kennedy is heavily criticized for refusing to send in US troops to support the invasion. He’s accused of being weak in the face of threatened Soviet intervention.
At Electric Boat, the yard is urgently constructing Polaris, then Poseidon, missile submarines. The first missile submarine, George Washington, carrying sixteen missiles, successfully fires a missile off Florida. Experts describe the range of the missiles, the size of their warheads, and where they will have to be stationed to hit Moscow. From 1960 to 1968, forty-one missile subs are built with successively longer-ranged missiles. The Russians build their own fleet of missile subs. An undersea game of hide and seek develops in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. Both countries send out fleets of attack subs to monitor the position and movements of the respective missile fleets. The stakes are high. Secrecy for the position of the missile boats is necessary if they are to provide a credible deterrent. The attack boats track each other, play chicken, and sometimes collide. The subs are noisy and can often be tracked by the sound signature of their propellers and machinery.
My father is working on Tullibee, a new experimental, super-quiet submarine that will avoid detection. At dinner, discussing the day’s work, he is tense, stressed. Decisions are being made that are compromising the design. The Russian ships are faster and dive deeper than the American boats. They have double hulls that will be more resistant to damage. He wants the American boats to be both faster and quieter. But the crews for the American boats, mandated by Admiral Hyman Rickover, are too big. A large crew requires a bigger, heavier hull, more life support equipment, more weight to drive through the water. The American weapons have not been reliably tested. My father wants a boat that can fight. His team works around the clock on the Tullibee reactor and control designs. But disagreements with Admiral Rickover, who is in charge of the construction of the US nuclear fleet, are ongoing. Rickover doesn’t like Tullibee, which uses a new all-electric drive to control noise. He issues edicts, unsupported by sound-engineering, that limit the design of the generators and electric motors, limiting the power that will drive the sub. Rickover refuses to listen to engineers who challenge his analysis. He threatens dissident engineers. As a result, Tullibee, while quiet, will be slower than other attack boats. Rickover then uses its lack of speed to cancel further use of the design. Behind the scenes, my father fights for competent designs and competitive, quiet boats. It’s a thankless job. He is perceived by some company brass as trouble-making. Electric Boat makes its money giving the government what it wants. Case closed.
Tullibee
It’s mid-October, 1962. US intelligence has provided photographic proof that the Russians are constructing a missile base in Cuba. In response, President Kennedy orders a blockade of Cuba. American hawks demand that he order an invasion. In diplomatic negotiations, Khrushchev agrees to remove the missiles only in exchange for removal of American missiles that are already based in Turkey. News accounts report an imminent confrontation between the American blockade and Soviet naval ships.
There is no face-saving resolution to the crisis. The US government cannot politically tolerate the retention of Russian missiles “90 miles” from its shores. And it cannot remove American missiles from Turkey in response to Soviet intimidation. Kennedy is already damaged by the Bay of Pigs incident. He cannot back down. The Russians, likewise, cannot back down. Removing the Russian missiles under US threats would be fatal to Khrushchev’s leadership. Rational people predict that an inevitable military confrontation will escalate into full nuclear exchanges. The danger is increased because neither country can afford to let the other strike first. I am old enough to know that I might wake up to see a mushroom cloud on the horizon.
The standoff lasted for two weeks during which an American reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba and a Russian trawler intercepted. Dinner conversation at home was sober. My father was unusually calm, unwilling to alarm us. And he was less concerned about an intentional attack than that an incident would spiral out of control. Someone might make a mistake or a rogue military officer might spark a fight. When the novel “Fail Safe” was released, Pop cited its premise of a technical glitch sparking a nuclear exchange as being all too believable.
Harold thought we should build a bomb shelter. The concrete front porch at our house at 3 Allyn Street was a concrete bunker and Harold wanted to punch a hole through from the crawl space.
My father was ambivalent. Breaking through would be brutal work without power tools. A direct nuclear strike on the nuclear facilities at Electric Boat and the Sub Base might not be survivable. Survival might mean slow death from radiation poisoning. The shelter would be in a cramped, lightless concrete hole. But if Harold wanted to beat his way through a concrete wall, fine.
I had been horseback riding for a couple of years at Connecticut College in New London, where I’d learned the basics. Horses didn’t brush me off anymore. But during the fall of 1962, I rode every week in Stonington with a classmate, Johnny Olmstead. The Olmsteads lived on Cove Road not far from Pine Point. They had a shed and pasture where they kept horses. John and his sister each had their own horse. And in one of life’s little coincidences, Cary Williams now boarded his horse Mystery with the Olmsteads. John took riding lessons with Cary and invited me to join him.
Cary, I hoped, was going to show us the rudiments of jumping. The chance to ride Mystery, a jumper, a real thoroughbred, was exciting. Most weeks I rode him. From time to time, Cary’s daughter Anita came with him and she had first dibs on Mystery. Anita was cute and fun, with dark hair and bright, mischievous eyes. I liked it when she showed up even if I had to ride a different horse.
The first time I rode Mystery, Cary put me in a riding ring where the jumping gates were set up. I was to ride around while Cary took down the gates. But as we walked into the ring, Mystery began to prance. He knew what jumps were about. I innocently shortened up the reins, just what a rider does bringing a horse into a show ring to jump. Mystery broke into a canter headed for the first gate. Cary, laughing, told me to let him go. There is a split second before a horse like Mystery takes a fence when he collects himself, a feeling of coiled power as the muscles tense. Then the horse springs and literally flies. I looked down, thrilled, as the gate passed beneath us. That was me riding Mystery over that jump.
During one lesson, Cary had us gallop the horses around a large field to exercise them. He held Mystery and gave the other horses a head-start. Mystery danced, his flanks shivering, straining to go with the other horses. The other horses, in full gallop, charged off down the path. I gathered the reins, nervous at the feeling of bottled-up force under me. Cary told me to, “let him run and hold on.” I have to grab Mystery’s mane as he explodes under me, like a race horse from a starting gate. The ground flies by as he surges into a full run, stretches out, and bears down on the other horses who are galloping a hundred yards ahead. His stride is sweet, smooth. The sense of power incredible. I let him run and think, “Mom would never let me do this.” Too soon, we catch the other horses. My heart is pounding. I have to brace myself and haul on the reins to slow Mystery down.
I’m exhilarated sitting in the car on the way home. It’s late in October, 1962, and night has fallen. Mrs. Olmstead is driving. She’s a bright, sophisticated lady with a passion for the environment. She usually talks. She likes Floyd Patterson. She hates Sonny Liston who has taken Patterson apart in a heavyweight title fight. She talks about her dogs and horses. She wants to know what we are doing in school. But tonight, she is unusually quiet. She turns on the radio. The news is about the crisis in Cuba. We have intercepted a Russian trawler. She listens a moment before turning it off. She wants to know what my parents think about the blockade and the Cuban missiles. “It’s pretty scary,” I say.
She looks distressed. Trying to hold back tears, she says, “You know, this is it. Cuba is the spark. They’re going to blow us up.” I can see that she really believes it, and it sobers me up in a hurry. That night, I dream of nuclear holocaust and wake up sweating.
But a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev resolved the immediate crisis. The Americans secretly removed their missiles from Turkey in exchange for removal of the Cuban missiles. Since the deal was secret, the American media reported that Khrushchev was the “one who blinked first”. In Russia, the removal of the Cuban missiles contributed to Khrushchev’s overthrow by hardliners.
Our media reported that Americans won by being tough and standing firm. The victory was a lesson for our policy in Southeast Asia. Tough it out.
The threat of nuclear holocaust never went away. Some evenings, I heard my brother in the crawl space whacking away with the sledge hammer at the concrete wall. Finally, he broke through. I crawled in with a flashlight. The bunker was damp and forbidding. I wonder if the current owners at Allyn Street know they have a bomb shelter down there.
Salt Water
My father bought the fourteen-foot Amesbury skiff in 1956 or 1957, second-hand. When he was a kid, Pop’s family had a summer house on the shore in Old Saybrook. He liked the yachts down at the docks. He told us that he watched the rum runners with their speed boats during Prohibition coming into the harbor late at night to off-load. But his mother Agnes was afraid of boats and didn’t let the kids on the water. Now, living on the shore, Pop was making up for lost time. His Amesbury skiff was freshly painted and looked brand-new. Designed as a utilitarian work-boat, she was set up as a runabout with a white steering wheel set on a cross-piece and with throttle and shift levers by the driver’s side. Once the engine was started, Pop drove from a bench behind the wheel. I sat up front, wearing a bulky life jacket. The jacket was uncomfortable and made moving awkward.
For the first couple of summers, Pop took us out in the skiff once a week or so on the Mystic River. The boat was docked north of the Mystic Seaport about where the Chicken Little Restaurant is today. Boating was new and exciting. At the end of the ride, Pop would “open her up” and run the boat in a tight circle to bounce her over our wake.
Moving around in a boat was unnerving. If I got too close to the side, the boat tipped and Pop told me to get in the middle. Or the bow would ride too high and Pop told me that I’d have to sit forward. No, further forward. We got in and out of the boat over the bow, which was hairy when the boat started to tip. And the boat was small enough so that when you moved in one direction, the boat went the other way. It took getting used to.
A local teenager kept a boat down at the dock and just about lived on the water. He was always there. He had a light-riding plywood runabout with a big Mercury outboard. He was tall and skinny, with dark shiny hair and worn dungarees. He was always charging along the dock to jump into his boat. He’d cast off, start the motor with one pull, and roar off up the river in a cloud of oil fumes with a roostertail kicking up behind. I thought he was cool.
When he came back to the dock, he’d grab and tie the stern line, then, with the boat still moving, quickly grab the end of the bow line and run forward to jump on the dock. The forward momentum of the boat brought him close enough to jump. He had this maneuver timed to a T and he liked to show off. He was agile and athletic, and, every time, his leap carried him to the dock. Sometimes, he’d glance our way to make sure that we noticed.
One day he came in a little slow. He grabbed the bow line and as he sprinted for the bow, keeping low before he sprung, the boat started to backtrack. He took an extra strong leap to compensate and the bow flew out from under him. He landed with a huge splash several feet short of the dock. He didn’t look our way at all when he climbed out. I figured there might be a cautionary tale there.
But, in contrast, my father’s boating was staid. Pop’s boat came with a tarp. At the beginning and end of any boating, we had to struggle hooking or unhooking the tarp, which had to be folded or unfolded just so. The boat always had to be bailed and my father wanted the bilges dry and clean. We’d have to pull off the floorboards and sponge the bilge. Pop wanted things shipshape. I wanted to get out on the water.
And there was the outboard motor, a gasoline engine, my father’s nemesis. An engine was supposed to work, damn it. He’d paid good money for it. He budgeted his time just like he budgeted his money and he didn’t have time to dicker with a motor. But gasoline engines saw him coming. With arthritis in his hands from the rheumatic fever, he couldn’t crank a troublesome motor really hard like it needed. And he didn’t have a born sailor’s balance to counter the lurch of the boat from giving a good heave on the starter-cord. There was always a tension when he ran the outboard. Would it start? Would it keep going? And since we were in the river, we would run into seaweed or run the propeller into the mudflats, and we’d sheer a sheer pin. Pop would have to lean out over the transom to loosen the propellor nut and replace the pin. He didn’t enjoy that either. Pop mellowed over the years, and Harold and I ran the motor or replaced the sheer pin. But on a bad day, he could take the fun out of boating in a hurry.
At work, Pop met engineers at Electric Boat who owned and raced sailboats. They were often looking for crew. Some weekends Pop would go racing with them. He was good friends with Joe Lewis, who lived in Noank, a Groton village on a penisula at the mouth of the Mystic River. Joe had a twenty-six foot Masons Island Daysailer, a classic wood open-cockpit sloop with a keel-centerboard. Joe’s sloop was ideal in Fishers Island Sound off Mystic. Joe sailed all his life – he had the weathered look of an outdoorsman. Many days after work he took his boat out by himself. Single-handed her. He’d scamper over the deck while the boat sailed, simultaneously handling jib, mainsail, and tiller. When he had her sailing right, he sat back and lit up a pipe. Pop crewed for Joe in several races and came home with stories of racing wile. How Joe used a wind shift, or tide change, or knowledge of the waters to obtain a vital racing advantage. And Joe scoffed at gas engines. Never needed one.
So Joe turned Pop onto sailing. Pop bought a sailing dingy, a small twelve-footer of the class sailed at the Coast Guard Academy. She was flighty and temperamental, not easy to sail. One evening, Mom flipped her trying to get over the bow to the dock. Mom grabbed the mast for support and Mom and the mast both went in the water. Mom was sputtering when they came home that evening. The dingy was not going to do for a family outing. But the next spring, maybe in 1958, a sister boat of Joe’s came up for sale. Only a few of the Mason’s Island class were built and, as far as we knew, only three remained. My father bought her.
Mom named her Zephyrus. Although she wasn’t as extreme as some of the racing sloops, she had beautiful lines, with an overhanging bow and stern. She was painted red, to the white of Joe’s boat, and had varnished wainscoting lining the cockpit. The spars too were varnished wood. She had the sweet maritime smell of old wood, and salt, and varnish, and old sails. New boats don’t smell like that in today’s world of fiberglass, aluminum, and dacron.
With twenty-six feet of solid wood and a substantial keel, she sailed like a small yacht. In a breeze, with a full mainsail and jib, beating to windward, she generated real power as she heeled and drove through the waves. The rigging strummed, the wood strained, and the water gushed past the leeward rail.
zephyrus
Single handing a Masons Islander
Pop took us on memorable sails around Fishers Island Sound – out by Mystic Island and Ram Island Reef, the Dumplings, Whaleback Rock, and Latimer’s Light. Pop showed us how to use the charts and dead-reckon and calculate the effect of tide and current. I got to trim the jib, a real job if the breeze freshened. Some days we sailed into the cove at Mystic Island and swam from the boat.
When the wind died, we dangled our hands and feet in the salt water and watched for what kind of jelly fish were coming in with the tide. Not that the sailing was idyllic. But there were moments when everything was right. The sails are full with a twelve knot breeze, we’re going to make that buoy like Pop figured, and he’s sitting back with his hand on the tiller. He can’t resist a smile. “Ready about.” And all without a motor.
Still, Pop didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into. Maintaining a twenty-six foot wooden boat was no small matter. Pop needed a boatyard to put her in the water, step the mast, and rig her. At the end of the season, he paid the yard to take her out and store her for the winter. She was old and leaked during a sail, especially if there was a good breeze and she loosened up. After each tack, we’d check the bilge and pump. Swollen up and sitting at her mooring, she leaked less. But we had to get down to her every couple days to pump if we didn’t want to find her on the bottom. Each spring, she had to be scraped and caulked and painted and Pop worried about dry rot taking hold and mildew on the sails. And she’d really leak when just put in the water before her wood swelled up.
Pop at the tiller – note centerboard – interesting keel/centerboard design
And we could have used a motor, which we didn’t have, one afternoon when the wind died. We were out by Latimer’s Light with the tide going out, being swept out of the Sound. As evening started to fall, I complained that I was hungry. Besides I was going to miss “Wagon Train” on TV, or maybe it was “Bonanza”. Pop finally accepted a proffered tow from a passing cabin cruiser.
In September, 1960, the meterologists began tracking Hurricane Diane coming up the coast and taking aim at the Groton-New London area. Zephyrus was moored in West Cove, off Noank, a fine shelter for most occasions, but too exposed to Fishers Island Sound for a big blow. Pop decided that she would be best protected if she was brought up the Mystic River as far upriver as the channel goes. So, on a Sunday afternoon, with the wind already picking up, my father, mother, and Harold brought Zephyrus around Noank and up the Mystic River, mostly under tow from my brother driving the Amesbury Skiff. I was left at home, superfluous, and to carry on the family genes if things didn’t work out. They almost didn’t make it around Morgan Point off Noank, getting by with the outboard at full throttle and ever larger waves pushing up toward the skiff’s transom.
They just got Zephyrus staked out up river when the hurricane came on to blow. Diane wasn’t as strong as Hurricane Carol in ‘54, but she was scary. At Allyn Street, I watched out the window as the top halves of spruce trees bent horizontal. I wondered what would happen if one of our picture windows blew out. It looked to me like the windows bowed inward during the gusts. During the tidal surge, a fishing boat was left downtown in the A & P parking lot. Quite a few boats in West Cove and along the coast were damaged or destroyed. Up river, tethered by multiple anchors and lots and lots of scope, Zephyrus weathered the storm.
However, the storm gave my father pause. He didn’t like events that got beyond his control. Moreover, the State was building a bridge over the Mystic River at the Narrows north of Mystic Seaport for the construction of Interstate 95. The bridge was too low to allow Zephyrus to pass. In a future storm, my father would not be able to bring her up river.
Pop got practical. The next year, he sold Zephyrus to Tom Keel, a fellow engineer at Electric Boat. I would see Tom sailing her and think, “that’s really our boat”.
To replace her, my father bought a seventeen foot fiberglass Sailstar Explorer. Fiberglass boats were only now becoming available. They were light weight and didn’t need much maintenance. The Sailstar had a large cockpit and a full sloop rig. She was big enough for the whole family. The Sailstars were so popular that there were Explorer class races. The boat sailed nicely, even in light air. In a good breeze, she might plane. She had a spinnaker for racing downwind. And, for emergencies, there was a small gasoline engine, a Seagull, pushed up under the rear deck. The salesman said it was completely reliable. “I’ve never had one fail to start.” Pop pulled it out three times that I remember. It didn’t start the first time. And it didn’t start the last time.
We had the Sailstar for about seven years. It was light enough to trailer so we didn’t have to worry about storms. In the winter, or if a storm threatened, we put her on the trailer and stored her in the backyard. She was much easier to sail than Zephyrus.
Sailstar
Pop entered her in some class races. We weren’t competitive racing at first. We never won a race that I was in; we trailed more than a few. Pop was not a born sailor. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him. Our boat was just like everyone else’s. We could learn. He loved the challenge of maneuvering to hit the starting line just right and the excitement of breaking out the spinnaker as we turned a mark for home. The racing was fun and, to those in the know, a world of its own. Still, sailing is part instinct and feel, something that can be hard to acquire coming late to boating. During one race, down by Sandy Point off Stonington, we had the boat going well in a good breeze. Everything humming. We were in the middle of the pack for a change. And we got a strong gust. Pop needed to ease the main sheet and head up into the wind. Spill the extra wind without losing headway. But he pushed the tiller the wrong way, putting the boat broadside to the wind. Her rail went right under. We shipped a cockpit full of water and were out of the race. Since the tiller goes opposite the way that the boat moves, handling the tiller can be confusing – Pop made an easy mistake. But in the stress of the moment, the sailor’s instinct wasn’t there.
As Good as College Kids
Alan Houghton, Pine Point’s headmaster, is a classicist and an enthusiast. I like him. He’s tall with thinning hair. He teaches Latin and ancient history in the upper school. He’s a regular guy at home in the private school world. He really likes his students and makes an effort to know them. Once a year, at Field Day, he challenges one of the faster students to a foot race. Hugh Beach almost beats him. In his ancient history class, he brings all six students into his office and we sit around his desk. He lights his pipe and leans back, holding forth on Plato and The Cave, or the Golden Age of Pericles. Aristotle and Alexander the Great. He lets us know that we are an elite. Not everyone will get to learn this neat stuff.
Alan Houghton
But I’m not always comfortable with his enthusiasms. Alan coaches Pine Point’s grade school football team. At the first meeting of the team, he tells us that Britain’s Empire was built on the soccer fields of Eton. We are playing football to build character. Like those kids at Eton. That doesn’t quite jibe with how I see the game itself. When I play football, I like the hitting, the contact with the other kids. The satisfying crunch making a tackle or sacking the quarterback. Winning is fun. Losing sucks. But is that building character? The football games can be nasty. The kid across the line tells me he’s going to kill me, he’s going to stomp me. I tackle someone, there’s a big pile-up, and when everyone gets up, he’s lying on the bottom with a shattered forearm. It looks like there’s a sliver of bone protruding through the skin. I get my clock rung and the breath knocked out of me. Alan tells me I’m okay and he leaves me in the game. I stand there gasping for breath, thinking maybe I should be doing something useful.
In Latin class, Alan lectures us on the importance and relevance of Latin. We are meeting first-hand the great minds of the ancient world. We read Ovid and Julius Caesar. If we do well on an exam, he is lavish with his praise, over the top. “You kids are doing college level work,” he tells us one day. “College kids can’t translate like you.” “Knowing Latin is going to set you up. You’ll have substance no one else has.”
Well, maybe. But Latin is a dead language with little direct relevance to science or other learning. There’s a certain pleasure in conjugating amo, amas, amat. It’s nice to recognize Latin roots in English words. But it strikes me that there are vast, directly relevant, fields of learning to acquire. Science, the environment, higher math, live languages of living cultures like French, German, and Spanish. Studying Latin is a luxury, a digression from the real world. Learning Latin doesn’t come easy, it requires a major effort. Maybe that effort is being misdirected or, at the least, comes at a cost.
Still, one night I read Caesar in Latin and felt a momentary empathy with him. His writing was personal. This was a real man. Two thousand years ago, he was the most influential man in the civilized world. And he was human just like me. Reading his words gave me a sense of the universality of the human experience.
I’ll say this. Alan conveyed a love of learning and an excitement about the journey. I flushed with pride at Alan’s lavish praise of our accomplishments. As good as college kids – ha. Alan knew that if he built us up to think we were good, we would strive to live up to it. Pretty clever.
On the other hand, the day after he made that comment, he handed out a mimeographed sheet of a passage from Virgil. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Deep down inside, I felt that I’d been had.
Johnny Pie
Somewhere out there, I hope there’s a copy of a short short story Bob Calhoun wrote for our English class. It’s probably autobiographical. A teenager drives the old farm truck over the fields to a barn dance. He stands around at the dance alienated, watching other people have fun. Suddenly he meets a girl and his night changes. It’s a great little piece.
Bob taught English to the upper classes at Pine Point. He was modest, self-effacing, and folksy. Something like Bill Moyers. On a mission to teach us. He saturated us with what good writing is about. If he exposed us to enough good writers, if he made us write enough ourselves, if he gave us personal feedback on everything we wrote, if he showed how it could be done, maybe something would stick. Every week, we wrote a new composition. Some weeks we wrote an assigned essay. Some weeks, we just made up a story. Every week he handed back the composition from the week before, covered with red pen markings. Sometimes he would recast a sentence we wrote to show us what we were trying to say. If, after a year, we didn’t recognize a sentence fragment or know what parallel structure was, it wasn’t because Bob didn’t try to teach us.
A student complained about the writing. Bob told us that writing could be fun. “I’ll do it myself.” A couple of days later he brought in mimeographed copies of a short short story he had written. He did the same thing the next week. His stories, like the one about the barn dance, all evoked another time and place. I could see that old truck rumbling through the field. I liked his stories better than the ones he assigned us to read.
Bob Calhoun
He often read short stories to us in class after his lessons in composition or sentence structure. He read Stephen Vincent Benet’s “Johnny Pie and the Foolkiller”, “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, and “Doc Mellhorn and the Pearly Gates”. “Johnny Pie”, my favorite, portrays a sympathetic view of the human condition – but suggests that, in the end, we are all fools. Bob read Thurber. Poe. O’Henry. You couldn’t sit through Bob’s classes and not appreciate the power of the written word.
One day, midway through class after a dry exercise diagraming sentences, he pulled out a book and began, “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” “A what?” we said, and looked at one another and laughed. No one had heard of such a creature. But Bob read us J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and soon had the class engrossed in dwarves and wizards and Smaug the Dragon. Treasure maps. My friend Geof Aronson and I found the three “Lord of the Rings” Tolkien books in the school library and read them through. Geof was a book ahead of me. When reading “The Fellowship of the Ring”, the first book, he came into school one morning, shaken, and told me, “Gandalf dies.” “Gandalf can’t die,” I tell him. I know my literary conventions. You don’t kill a central character at the beginning. “He falls into the mines of Moria,” says Geof. I am bummed, convinced that Tolkien has made a monumental mistake. Thoughtfully, Geof doesn’t tell me when he reads that Gandalf returns. For a couple of years, I am obsessed by the world of Middle Earth. I draw pictures of Glamdring and of Orcrist, the elven blades from “The Hobbit”. I cover my class notebooks and my book-covers with pictures of Smaug, and Minas Tirith, and Shadowfax, Gandalf’s horse. I scribble “Three rings for the elven kings” in a margin. I get strange looks from people who see the book covers. In the early 60’s, no one I know outside of class has heard of Tolkien. A whole genera of post-Tolkien fantasy has yet to be created.
Geof
Art
For several months when I was in 7th grade, Bob Calhoun ran an after-school art class. I liked to draw and signed up for the class. Mom had bought me books on drawing cats and horses. My mom’s aunt Rebecca, KC’s sister, was an artist. We had a bronze cast, one of Rebecca’s scuptures, displayed on a sideboard. Every year, at the Mystic summer art festival, I spent an afternoon wandering down Main Street from stall to stall. Some paintings caught my eye. A beautiful girl with a knowing glance. A sloop driving in a fresh breeze. I wanted to see how that was done. I wanted to paint like that myself.
Scupture by Rebecca Field Jones
Polo! Rebecca watercolor
Bob Calhoun was an excellent artist. He set us up with sketch pads and charcoal and watercolors. Then taught us perspective and shading. We mixed colors and painted landscapes and still lifes. Mom has a couple of my early efforts hung up at the Farm.
Dave – first exercise for Bob Calhoun class
After taking the classes, I began to sketch in my notebook, creating images of my own right there on the paper. I would draw anything, whatever urge struck me. I decorated my book-covers, homemade from brown grocery store bags. I started with the Tolkien sketches, but just about anything might show up. Submarines and World War II fighter planes – Spitfires and Mustangs closing in for the kill. When I grew up and had kids of my own I played drawing games with them, drawing dragons or dogfights. And I found that drawing a cute girl sitting in my class was more interesting than anything the teacher had to say. I wondered whether it was kosher to steal someone’s image like that. Was I invading her privacy? Nah. Once in a while, I’d get a face right and wonder at the expression I’d caught.
Experiments
My brother Harold disliked Pine Point. He didn’t fit in. Some of the families at Pine Point had money and kids with a sense of privilege. They hung out at the yacht club or vacationed in the Caribbean. We were only at Pine Point because our mother taught there. That wasn’t a big thing. One of the most popular kids was a teacher’s son. I got along fine. But the sense of class was there. Some kids could make you feel like you didn’t belong. And Harold was smarter than they were. It wasn’t good chemistry.
In his last year at Pine Point, 6th grade, he conducted a running feud with the kids from New London. One of them called the Mystic River, our river, polluted. He claimed that New London’s Thames River was cleaner. Harold told him that any pollution in the Mystic River was minor compared to the industrial pollution of the Thames River by Pfizer, Electric Boat, and the Sub Base. To prove that the Thames was dirtier, he took test tube samples from the Thames and the Mystic Rivers and boiled them down to their respective residues. The Thames River test tubes came out darker and dirtier. Harold showed the test tubes around at school. He convinced me but not the New London kids. I doubt he made any friends.
In 7th grade, my parents let him go to Carl C. Cutler middle school, a new public school in Groton. Cutler had a modern school building with a laboratory and a gym. The principal, Mildred Hastedt, was a no-nonsense dynamic educator.
I thought my brother was just being difficult by going back to public school. That he was less social, and less socially adept, than I. I knew how to get along. Sure my brother was smart, but he was so into his electronics and ham radio and projects that he didn’t care about having friends. As I saw it, Pine Point was great. I was having a good time. I was lucky to go to private school. Harold wasn’t willing to go along. Cutler would be one more disaster.
Looking back, I find it interesting that I could be so wrong.
Harold fit right in at Cutler, where he quickly made several friends who shared his interests in electronics, boats, cars, and chemistry. His science teacher at Cutler, Bill Korba, was terrific, full of energy. Bill was witty. Really smart. He cracked jokes. And he knew that he had exceptional kids. He adapted his curriculum accordingly. He had my brother and my brother’s friends conducting experiments at home. They formed a chemistry club and began meeting down at Gordon Gray’s house on the Mystic River near Old Mystic. Gordon was a lean lanky kid with a wry outlook. Like Harold, Gordon played around with radios, cars, and boats. For one project, Harold and Gordon experimented with the effect of various conditions and stimula on the growth of white mice. They began breeding mice. Harold had his mice in his old playhouse. Gordon bred white mice, then added field mice. Some of Gordon’s mice escaped. I walked into Gordon’s shed one afternoon and his mice scampered for the shadows like cockroaches with the light turned on. Over time, Harold and Gordon moved on to more practical projects.
The Grays lived in a green ranch-house that overlooked the river. They had several hundred feet of waterfront and an old dock built of wooden beams that had been almost destroyed by the most recent hurricane. A beaten wooden cabin cruiser was pulled up on the lawn next to the dock, its bottom beginning to rot. They kept a small snipe sailboat overturned by the waterfront. My brother had a twelve foot workboat with a five horsepower motor that he brought upriver and kept at the Gray’s dock. The path to his boat ran over an eight inch beam for about five feet over the water. I knew that I would fall in if I walked over it.
Harold on the Mystic River
John Gray, Gordon’s father, an active forty with graying hair, loosely supervised the chemistry club. John ran General Woodcraft, a lumberyard and woodworking shop in New London. John was irreverent and liked to joke. But he also wanted to get the work done. Get a sense of urgency, he’d say. Days when John came up short-handed, perhaps a Saturday morning when a railroad car came in with a load of lumber, he paid my brother and Gordon to help. John was always looking for sources of revenue. He had an old boathouse that he wanted to turn into an apartment. Harold and Gordon helped him close the building in, roof, wire, and plumb it, and finish it off.
John owned an unregistered worn-out 1950s Pontiac Woody Station Wagon. Harold and Gordon fixed a busted water pump, got the car running, and drove it on an old logging trail across River Road from the house. They called it the Hogster. They kept the Hogster running, then went on to work on other cars; servicing the ignition, replacing brakes, pulling the engine heads. They were thirteen or fourteen. Then they built a speedboat.
The Hogster
Harold’s old workboat with the five horse outboard was fun. But the boat didn’t plane and someone was always shooting by in a faster boat. So over the winter, Harold and Gordon made a small plywood runabout with a curved, v bottom and bought a used 25 horse Johnson motor. When the boat was finished, they painted her red and christened her Ruby Baby after a popular song. Ruby Baby with the 25 was fast. Unfortunately the cops were trying to limit boats to a 6 mile per hour speed limit up and down the river. Ruby Baby at full speed planing out made less wake than when she plowed through the water at 6 miles per hour. But try telling that to the cops. And Ruby Baby was too short to go well in the rougher water of Fishers Island Sound.
Last known pic of Ruby Baby – hull repainted white – put up for winter – with the Snark, Star class on trailer
One year, Mr. Adams, a Cutler science teacher, interested Harold and Gordon in making maple syrup. They collected sap from local sugar maples, built a large fire pit and a metal boiling tray, and boiled down a hundred gallons of sap into syrup. Harold’s syrup went great on pancakes.
Harold rescued an old English bike frame from the dump and fixed it up with wheels and a bike seat. The frame had been a shiny black but was now faded and scaled by rust spots. Only the 3rd gear – the hardest one to pedal – worked. I rolled my eyes when I first saw it. But the bike provided good transportation. The lower gears aren’t needed if you’re in shape. Harold rode the bike for a couple years until he got a driver’s license and a car. By then, I was a convert. I grabbed the bike and rode it myself.
Harold was also an active ham. When he was home, he was in the ham shack, the old workshop, talking with other hams. As K1PHT, he transmitted on his home-built Heathkit transceiver. A steady stream of QSL cards, confirming contacts, came in the mail. Harold turned the yard into an antenna farm. The first antennas were home-made dipoles – specified lengths of wire joined in the center to lead into the radio. Different antennas were needed for different frequency bands and atmospheric conditions. An antenna led from the house out to the playhouse. An antenna led from the house out to a home-built pole he erected behind the garage. An antenna led to a scavenged telephone pole that a neighbor with a backhoe helped put up.
And Harold was into photography. He turned our small bathroom into a dark-room with a red light and “fixer” and processed his own film.
Harold and I were in different worlds. I was at Pine Point, horseback riding, reading books, or watching TV. I played tennis at the community center. Weekends, Harold might be working for John Gray. And on school afternoons, he might ride his bike up to Gordon’s or to another friend’s house. So we weren’t around each other to get on our respective nerves. But I also began to benefit and learn from what he was doing. His maple syrup was great; better and fresher, I noticed, than the stuff we bought. He gave me a ride in Ruby Baby, full-throttle, flying down the river. One night, we went out on the river and he showed me how to take time-elapse photos.
But now, Harold and my father weren’t getting along. Pop wanted Harold to go to prep school where his talents “could shine”. My brother’s precocious ability in electronics was self-evident. He built his own electrical equipment and designed his own circuits. Pop was Harold’s biggest fan. Pop used to tell how Harold, at seven, on his own, redesigned a toy electric train to run more efficiently. Pop would discuss the electronics problems from work with him. As Pop saw it, Harold was going to be a first-rate scientist and should go to the best schools. When Harold was in the 9th grade, his last year at Cutler, my father scheduled interviews with several prep schools.
Harold didn’t see things Pop’s way. He had a good niche where he was. Things were looking up. He had friends. Good teachers. Everyday he was doing something interesting, had a project going. He was about to get a driver’s license. He was on the radio. Why would he want to leave home? He had already escaped the preppie environment once, when he got out of Pine Point. Prep school he argued is more about class distinction than academics. Bill Korba taught at Cutler. Who did Pine Point have like that?
The prep school visits were disasters. Pop had to drag Harold, who sulked and was visibly uncooperative. I went along on a couple of visits and thought prep schools were great.
But my father and brother were tenacious – neither gave up when he knew he was right. Every evening, beginning at supper time, they went at each other over the merits of prep school. I would go to bed and hear them going at it, sometimes shouting into the late evening. Finally, one of them blew up and stomped off or slammed a door. They started over again the next day.
The confrontations only ended when Harold, under threat, agreed to go to prep school for a year. He said that he’d go if they would let him come home after a year. Pop agreed, thinking that Harold would understand what he had been missing once he went away to school. Harold enrolled at Loomis in Windsor, Connecticut for grade 10.
On the roof with the cat
KC left the Pearl Street house in Holyoke one afternoon to walk to a store on Hamden Street. It was a quarter-mile, a fifteen minute walk down and back. Two hours later he hadn’t come home. Renie walked down the street looking for him and found him slumped in a storefront doorway. It took them half an hour to make it back to the house.
The doctor said that KC had an enlarged heart from his damaged lungs and said to Renie, “He won’t last much longer.” Renie and my mom had long talks on the phone, but there was nothing that could be done.
And KC kept on. One afternoon Renie called my mom in a huff. KC had climbed out the third floor window onto the slate roof to replace broken slates. “He’s out there now – on the roof with the cat,” she said.
When I saw him, he looked and acted much the same – maybe a little grayer in the face. I had heard my mom and Renie say that he’s dying. He didn’t look it. One afternoon I went out behind the Pearl Street house and he was in the garage. He was working in a pit that had been sunk to allow him to get under his car.
Several months later, Renie came into the living room and KC was standing in front of the mantel. Maybe he’d been winding the clock. When he heard her come in, he turned to look. There was a sudden surprised, embarrassed look on his face. His hand went to his chest and he said, “Renie,” and collapsed on the floor.
Laurence tried to revive him, but he was already dead.
There was an open casket funeral and KC’s was the first dead body I saw.
Warm and Fuzzy
My parents never spoke to me about sex. I understood, of course, that we grow up and get married, and have kids of our own. Children are always teasing, “Johnny and Susan sitting in a tree; K-I-S-S-I-N-G; first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Johnny with a baby carriage.” But I didn’t know any girls, I didn’t play with any girls. Whatever it is that girls did with their dolls was from a different universe. That didn’t bother me. Where’s my cap gun?
My view of girls changed in fourth grade when I was nine years old. Pine Point required that fourth graders take dancing lessons. The lessons were given near our house in Mystic at S. B. Butler Elementary School. Dancing lessons were a substantial imposition. I was shy and self-conscious. I knew the lessons would be traumatic and embarrassing. And I didn’t see any reason to hold sticky hands with a girl.
But nobody asked me. My parents dressed me up in good pants and a white shirt. They clipped on a bowtie because that’s what Pop wore and they wouldn’t have to tie it. Pop showed me how to polish my shoes. Pop is an old army officer and believed in “spit and polish”. Whatever I did to polish the shoes was always “getting there” but not quite good enough.
The dancing lessons were just what I expect – the redblooded American boy’s worst nightmare. We were taught that stilted fox trot that no one does in real life. The girl dancing with me was disinterested, or she was taller than me with straggly hair, or heavy with buck teeth. The afternoon before lessons, I dreaded what was coming.
The next to last lesson of the year, they relaxed the rules. You can pick your partner. This was no help. I scuffed my feet and looked at the floor.
A girl stands in front of me and asks me to dance. She is pretty, petite, with light brown hair and blue eyes and a frilly white dress, and she is smiling. I wonder how I haven’t noticed her before and say “sure”. And apparently we are now allowed to have fun, because they teach us the “hokey pokey” and the Mexican hat dance. By the end of the night, the girl and I are holding hands and I’m feeling warm and fuzzy. But the girl I danced with went to another school and I didn’t see her again once the lessons ended.
Still, I now saw a suddenly more interesting world. Pop watched the Miss America pageant. Bert Parks serenading American beauty. And Pop viewed it straight. These women were paragons of the fair sex. Miss Texas is striking this year. She’s so bright and talented. Years later, as a jaded teen, I find the pageant pretentious, cringe-worthy. But at ten, eleven, twelve, I sat with Pop, taking it all in and saying “How about Miss South Carolina? I wanna vote for her.”
Not that I know how sex works. Males and females “have sex” to make babies – like animals do. There’s something called the birds and the bees. But I don’t know what that is.
It’s a day late in May, a lunch time recess. The sun is shining and the air is warming up. I’m sitting outside on the lawn at Pine Point with Geof Aronson, my best friend. Geof is a little shorter than me, bright and earnest and a step more worldly. At home, we’re reading “The Lord of the Rings”. At recess, we’ve taught ourselves how to juggle tennis balls.
Out of the blue, Geof says, “You know how sex works, right?”
“Sure,” I lie. I’m not about to admit that I don’t know.
“‘Cause my dad told me last night about how you put your penis in her vagina. I’m still trying to figure out how that works.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s it,” I say.
Apparently that’s as much as Geof knows. It leaves me with further mysteries that I can’t find answers to anywhere.
For one thing, my penis gets hard when I think about girls. It feels good. It even gets hard when I just look at pictures of girls. I like the models in the Sears and Roebuck Catalogue. The girls in the bra displays. Although I can’t keep looking through those pages when my parents are watching.
But I don’t understand how the sex physically works. For example, I’ve heard of ejaculation. The only thing that comes out of my penis is pee. And how do you put the penis in? I finally figure out that animals do it front to back. I see a picture of a bull mounting a cow. Is that how people do it? Or do they do it front to front? What exactly is a vagina like? I read through the racy scenes in the novels lying around the house. They are never graphic enough to tell me what I want to know. So what is it? Front to back? Front to front? And what is “coming”?
The New York Times Magazine has a swimsuit issue. The model on the cover is beautiful. She’s just been swimming, she’s wearing a tight fitting suit revealing her breasts, and her skin glistens with wetness. I sit looking at her. My penis is hard in an instant, hot and starting to throb. It feels great. And, in seconds, I ejaculate in my pants. When I get over the shock, I think, “Oh, that explains a lot.” But I still don’t know if you can do it front to front.
The vet
I must have said something insensitive. Geof Aronson pulled me aside to explain that he wasn’t Christian, he was Jewish. They didn’t do Christmas, at least not like us, because Christmas was a Christian holiday. Geof explained to me the fundamental differences between Christianity and Judaism. It seemed to me that Jews lost a good holiday – Santa Claus and all – without sufficient compensation. However, I knew Geof and his family quite well. I couldn’t see how being Jewish or Christian made any practical difference. It astounded me when I grew older and learned that people killed each other in the name of religion.
The Aronsons talked about the great experiment going on in Israel and about its importance to the Jewish faith. And I tagged along with Geof once when his family went to a lecture about growing up in a kibbutz. A kibbutz wasn’t appealing to me. The kids didn’t grow up with their parents. That was hard to figure. But talking with Geof opened my eyes to the Christian dogma that I had listened to in Sunday school. I began to wonder how we knew the truth about religious beliefs.
Geof’s father, Bernie, our vet, was a remarkable man. Bernie was good-looking in a friendly way, dark-complexioned, dark thinning hair slicked back, with crinkles around his eyes when he smiled. He was self-assured and his eyes were deep and thoughtful. He had an office up in Old Mystic on the Stonington side, up behind the Aronson family residence. I had dinner at Geof’s a few times. Bernie would sit quietly, take everything in, mull it, and then drop an insight into the conversation.
I met Bernie in 1957 when Mom took Harold’s stray tortoiseshell cat to be spayed. Bernie politely explained to Mom that the horse was out of the barn. The cat was a few weeks short of delivering a litter.
Bernie had an extraordinary ability to handle animals. After watching Bernie, I assumed any vet could handle animals like he did. He had a useful skill for his profession. I have since learned that his skill was unique. Like a horse whisperer, he could always calm the animals he was examining. I was seven or eight when Mom brought my cat Fuzzy to see him. Fuzzy needed Valium. She was always an emotional wreck, in a constant state of anxiety. She was only secure if she was sitting on my lap or had a good place to hide. If someone came to the house, she scattered. Now I had her stuffed in a cardboard box. She howled pitifully and scratched frantically during the car ride to Bernie’s office. I was frightened by the prospect of opening the box. She was going to spring, claws flaying, and dive for the nearest shelter.
We opened the box in Bernie’s office, after checking first that the office doors were shut so that she wouldn’t get away. I edged up the cardboard flap and nothing happened. Bernie said, “Well, who have we here?” He reached in barehanded, pulled her out and put her on the table. She sat up to have her ears scratched.
Bernie was like an old friend with all our cats. I asked him more than once how he calmed them. He looked amused but claimed he didn’t have a special skill. He showed me tricks like how to hold a cat with one hand so that the cat can’t get away. And how to give a cat a pill. He said it was easy to do and popped one down my cat in a single motion. But it didn’t work for me at home. If a cat saw me coming with a pill, she was gone.
Bernie died much too young several years later. He had a terrible ordeal with cancer. Geof was devastated. Geof described the pain Bernie was going through and Bernie’s depression as the disease progressed. I couldn’t understand how that could happen to such a fine vital man. I still don’t get it. But his death provided me a disturbing insight into the way the world really was.
Power’s out
My father and a team of Electric Boat engineers were working feverishly on a prototype submarine reactor being built in West Milton, New York, north of Albany. The Cold War was raging. The team had numerous technical problems to overcome and was working twenty-four hours a day. Pop was away weeks at a time.
Pop stayed with four or five other engineers in the second floor of a large Victorian farmhouse. In the summer of 1963, he wasn’t getting home. Mom drove Harold and me up for a weekend to see him. Harold and I slept in a spare room. I had never stayed on a farm and I enjoyed the trip. The farm had about two hundred dairy cows. The cows were pretty neat sauntering in toward the barn, lowing to be milked.
The first evening, Mom told us that an engineer, Howie, was coming up from Groton later. We shouldn’t be concerned if we heard some bumping around in the hall in the middle of the night. We went to bed. Shortly after we turned out the lights, a humdinger of a thunderstorm struck. I’d never seen a storm that violent before. I looked out the window and saw great flashes of fork lightning. The wind gusted up so that the window frames rattled. The farmhouse creaked. At the height of the storm, there was a shattering crash. I sat up in bed. Everything seemed okay, so I pulled the blanket over my head and fell asleep. I woke up again to another crash. This crash was closer, down the hall. A strange voice, sounding increasingly panicked, cried out, “What the hell? Damn.” And finally, several times, “Can somebody please help me?”
It was Howie. He’d come in in the middle of the night. He’d never been to the farm before and the power had gone off during the storm. My dad had waited for him to arrive, but Pop needed to get to work early. So when Howie didn’t show up, Pop lighted a candle and left it on the kitchen table, near the entryway, with a note to Howie. “Hi Howie. Power’s out. Your room’s down the corridor on the left.” Something like that.
Howie staggered in exhausted after the long drive up. He found the stairs to the second floor and thumped up in the dark. He was annoyed that no one left the light on for him. When he came into the kitchen, he found the candle. He knew that he was late, but the candle was a little too much. Some of the engineers were known for their practical jokes. Howie thought he was being ribbed. “Come off it – I’m really too tired for this.” In a pique, he blew out the candle. Then he realized that he didn’t know where the light switch was. In the dark, he stumbled over the table, knocked over a chair. Finally he located the light switch. When the light didn’t go on, he panicked. The engineers kidded Howie for days afterward.
When we went outside the next morning, we found that one of the farmhouse chimneys had been knocked down. Power was still out. And the two hundred cows were bunched around the barn looking very unhappy. They had to be milked by hand.
Pop said that his top engineer on the job was Dave Dunn. Dave was in his late 20s, bright, handsome, with a sense of wonder and enthusiasm. He was tall, lean, dark-haired. Pop talked about how quick Dave was, about how he took the initiative, solved the problem. If Pop gave Dave an assignment, it was as good as done. Pop thought he was first-rate. When I met Dave up at the farm, I liked him right away.
My father had that Sunday off and Dave and the other engineers thought Pop should spend it with my mother. Dave would take me to a local fair in his open Model A Ford. I had a great time. Dave talked and laughed. What did I like? Yeah, horses are great. Boats, too. We looked at his Model A. The car had a hand crank. He showed me how to hold the crank so that I didn’t break my thumb if it back-fired starting.
Then he told me Pop was the best engineer he ever worked for – the original for thinking outside the box. Dave tells me how, one day, he was down at the yard and the job was suddenly stalled. An engineer had directed that a connection be made through the shielding but hadn’t specified how. The yard had geniuses at this kind of work – mickey mousing something on the spur of the moment. But this time they were stuck. The shielding had a different configuration and the traditional method of connecting didn’t work. No one could figure it out – the workers were twiddling their thumbs – it was a major problem. They called up Pop. Pop looked at the problem, took out a pen and paper and sketched a new kind of connector. The yard guys were reticent, skeptical. They’d never done it that way; it wouldn’t work. Why not, said Pop. Give it a try. An hour later, the yardman was back, all smiles, with a fabricated connector. It worked fine.
Dave kept talking about engineering. Science was revolutionizing what engineers could do. Computer technology and nanotechnology meant that they could do much more in the same space. Laser beams and optics were changing the world. Nuclear technology had great promise but also dangers that would have to be managed. He was excited about the coming world. It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky and he gestured broadly. His enthusiasm was contagious. “There are limits,” he said. “Not everything is possible. Maybe we can’t build laser guns like in Star Trek. Maybe the laws of nature won’t allow us to concentrate enough energy. But maybe we can. It will be fun to try.”
At the time, I wanted to be a writer. I liked Bob Calhoun’s writing assignments. Let my brother be the scientist. But Dave made me think that the scientists were having the fun.
Within a few years, Dave was dead, killed by throat cancer. I suspect the cancer was caused by radiation exposure from working on the reactors.
Crewman
Pop is contemptuous of gambling. A quick way to part a fool from his money. “How do you think they get the money to build those casinos and pay all the employees?” He makes a similar comment about the insurance industry. Not a whole lot of the money is used to pay claims. At least with insurance there’s a rationale. Risks may need to be protected against. There is no such excuse for gambling.
But Pop likes horse racing. He likes to watch the horses pounding down the stretch. He likes the game of figuring out who’s going to win. He just won’t put his money on his guess. He encourages my interest in horse racing by occasionally buying me a Racing Form to follow the races. Through the years we watch some of the top horses together. We debate the merits of Sword Dancer, Tim Tam, Bally Ache, and Carry Back.
In 1963, two of the top horses are Candy Spots, a West Coast horse with his trade-mark candy splotches on his rump, and Never Bend, a dark gray early Triple Crown favorite. Leading up to the Kentucky Derby, the word is that there’s going to be a big West Coast – East Coast match-up between Candy Spots and Never Bend. Like Seabiscuit and War Admiral. I’m rooting for Never Bend. Pop likes Candy Spots. The match-up doesn’t work out. Another horse, Chateauguay, spoils the fun by beating them both in the Derby and the Belmont. Candy Spots wins the Preakness.
But Candy Spots and Never Bend have both run well. They’re still the cream of the crop and they are entered in the Travers at Saratoga. The Travers is the end of summer equivalent of the Triple Crown races. Saratoga concedes nothing to the big three. It is one of the country’s oldest and richest races at one of the finest racetracks. The race will pit Candy Spots, Pop’s pick, against my horse Never Bend. Pop takes us to the race.
On the day of the race, the weather is too hot. The track is mobbed and dusty. Harold, who has just gotten his driver’s license, resents being dragged along – to a horse race no less! But I have my place on the rail and I’m having the time of my life. Candy Spots and Never Bend. I’ve never seen top horses race. I can barely contain myself.
It’s almost race time and the odds are posted. Candy Spots and Never Bend are prohibitive favorites and have short prices. The odds say no one else has a chance. If you bet two dollars on one of them, you get back two dollars and thirty cents if you win. Something like that. It doesn’t make sense to make such a bet. But I notice a third horse, Crewman, at forty to one. I’ve been following Crewman during the racing season. I like him. I’ve read that Crewman has the pedigree to go the Travers mile and a quarter. I know that Candy Spots and Never Bend are speed horses. It’s why Candy Spots wins the shorter Preakness, but not the longer Derby and Belmont. Candy Spots and Never Bend might hook up, run too fast early, and burn up in a speed duel. “Look Pop,” I say. “Crewman at 40-1. Let’s bet him.” I explain why.
Pop listens. I’ve thought it out and supported my argument. I’m thinking. “Sounds interesting. Let’s see what happens,” he says.
I bug him once more. “Come on Pop. Two dollars will pay out something like eighty. Just two dollars.”
He feels for his wallet. Stands away from the rail and looks at the betting lines. He’s tempted. But no. The lines are too long. What are the chances? Crewman’s 40-1. The horse-racing experts, the big money, have set the odds. They know what they are doing. Pop takes his hand off his wallet and leans against the rail. “Let’s just watch,” he says. Crewman will lose. It will be a good lesson for me.
Gate set for the Travers
The horses are off and Never Bend and Candy Spots surge to the lead. Stride for stride, nose to nose, they thunder around the first turn. The track announcer reports a blazing first split and I can’t help saying, “See, see. They are out too fast.”
Down the backstretch – Candy Spots and Never Bend still in front – a match race. Pop is into it. He’s rooting Candy Spots on and Candy Spots edges into a short lead. Crewman is far back. Now they’re rounding the far turn, they’re headed into the homestretch. The pack bunches as the jockeys make their final moves. And – who’s that? Crewman rockets around the field as the rest of the horses tire. He surges down the homestretch in full stride and wins going away.
Pop smiles and says, “Good pick.” He seems quiet on the walk back to the parking lot.
Wear these all the time
Harold went to Loomis in the fall of 1962. It was foreordained, I thought at the time, that he would hate it. At Loomis, Harold was at the top of his class. But each break, he came home and as I predicted said, “Loomis sucks.” He would then take up the debate with my father about why he was there. My father said, “Finish the year.” Harold did. Then, in accordance with the deal, he insisted on returning to public school, at Fitch High School in Groton, for the coming year.
It did not escape my attention that I could get one up on my brother. I liked Pine Point. Loomis looked pretty neat to me. Hey Pop. I’ll go.
In the meantime, I had a couple of years to finish up at Pine Point first. Pine Point had expanded to add a ninth grade. Between eighth and ninth grade, I grew four or five inches and reached 5’11”, one of the bigger kids in the school. For a year or so, with the size advantage, I got to be an athlete.
I had gotten pretty good at basketball. After school, when Mom prepared lessons for the next day, I played basketball on the school’s outside courts. Basketball was exciting. A succession of great Providence College teams was broadcast on TV with Chris Clark doing the enthusiastic play-by-play. The Boston Celtics with Bob Cousy and Bill Russell were winning. And Pop put up a basketball hoop in our driveway.
So I shot a lot of baskets. On a good day, I could sink eight of ten shots from the foul line. Now when we played basketball at recess, I was a big kid and could score. This was a hoot. I got smug about my team winning a few games. I scored the winning basket one day and came into class grinning ear to ear. One girl, who had taken a dislike to me, commented, “What’s the big deal about making a basket?” She had a point. And my basketball skills could disappear when I played against kids my own size.
Faculty – 9th grade game: I will make the foul shots, we will win, not all faculty will be gracious
I didn’t get to be smug for long. Suddenly, there was the revolting humiliation of needing glasses. I hated getting them. But in Latin class one day, Alan Houghton began writing our new vocabulary words on the blackboard. His writing was marginal and I couldn’t read them. Even squinting didn’t work.
Mom took me to see an optometrist, Lew Perkins, in New London. Lew was the previous owner of Zephyrus, our twenty-six foot sloop. In my parents’ eyes, he was a good guy. But you know what they say about hating the messenger.
Getting glasses was an ordeal. The glasses were heavy and thick-framed. Wearing glasses looked dorky and needing them felt like a personal failure. In one of the horse books I read, “The Mountain Pony”, a boy goes out west to a ranch. He’s a city kid, kind of wimpy, and he wears glasses. When he gets his pony and spends his summer riding over the mountains, looking into the distance, his vision improves. He triumphantly throws his glasses away forever. Mom tells me about how her brother Ken failed an eye test to get in the Seabees during the War. He found a doctor who taught him eye exercises. After doing his eye exercises, Ken took the eye test again and passed. And I knew that I’d never get in a military academy like West Point with lousy vision. Pop thought West Point and Annapolis were first-rate. They pay your tuition. I thought I might apply to one. But I’d tried exercising my eyes and exercising them didn’t do a thing.
So I needed glasses and it felt like a character flaw. But I couldn’t see the damn board.
Lew Perkins is nice. A competent examiner. I try to be interested in what’s going on. His optics machine is pretty neat. But he shows no sensitivity. “My, my,” he says. “Your eyes have deteriorated. We’ll fix that.” He does the tests, writes the prescription, and sets me up with thick heavy glasses with horned rims. My heart is in my stomach.
“You need to wear these all the time,” says Lew. “Otherwise your eyes will deteriorate more. They look great.” Lew smiles. Lew has saved one more soul from a lifetime of fuzzy vision. At that moment, I hate him. He brings out the mirror.
What I see shocks me. Do you remember the first time you heard your own voice on tape – or on the answering machine? The puzzlement? Is that really me? This is ten times worse. A nerd wearing heavy glasses stares back at me. I feel queasy. Then I try to stand up and walk with the glasses on. The floor is bare hardwood. I see it clearly. But it’s not where it’s supposed to be. I reach to steady myself and the table isn’t in the right place either. “Oh,” says Lew. The smile again. He wears glasses proudly himself. “Wearing glasses takes getting used to. But you’ll be amazed how fast you adjust when you wear them all the time.”
I walk down the stairs from his office, searching for each step, feeling for the rail. I get in the car. Mom is smiling at me too. I am shaking. I take the glasses off and put them in their case. At school, I carry them around in my pocket and pull them out for Alan’s Latin class. Then I cringe when anyone looks at me.
Grumble Seat
Sometime about 1964, John Gray bought an old farm on Route 100 in Pittsfield, Vermont. The farm is not far from the ski resorts at Killington and Pico Peak. John rented the house to a hunting club in the fall and to skiers in the winter.
A lot of work needed to be done first. Harold spent substantial parts of his summers in Vermont working with Gordon on John’s building projects. The farmhouse needed to be fixed-up. Harold recounted how one day, after they poured a cement floor for the back entryway/pantry, the cement chute got caught in the doorway as the cement truck pulled away. The chute pulled the wall down. John, surveying the mess, said, “Needed to be rebuilt anyway.”
They finished with the farmhouse. Then they turned the old sugar shack out back into an apartment. John bought an apartment house in Pittsfield center. Then he began building his own house on the hill in back.
My parents would drive up to Vermont from time to time to see Harold and find out what he was up to. I went with them a couple of times myself.
One afternoon, Harold and Gordon drove John Gray’s pickup truck to Vermont loaded with furniture for the farmhouse. Gordon, with his brother Donny, swung by the Allyn Street house to pick up Harold. The pickup truck was an old mid-50s Dodge, with wood 2″x 3″ carrying stakes in the truck bed to hold lumber. It was dark-green, utilitarian, with a manual transmission, manual choke, geared down so that it sounded like a truck. The truck had chrome letters on the side that said “job-rated.” We joked about the letters. What sort of truck wasn’t job-rated? But newer trucks with modern styling didn’t have the soul of these 1950 classics. The truck was loaded with chairs, sofas, dressers, tables piled high. The load rose above the cab and the lumber stakes, held together with a web of ropes.
As my brother got in the truck, Gordon leaned out the driver’s side window and said, “Hey David, why don’t you come?” I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go. I’d be tagging along. Anyway, I said, there wasn’t any room. “Sure there is,” said Gordon. “There’s a spot in the middle of the bed where I couldn’t fit anything. You should be able to crawl in.”
The ride to Vermont in the back of the truck was more fun in the retelling. It was damn cold. Leaves and debris swirled in my face. The truck didn’t go very fast. A steady stream of cars charged up behind us, then pulled out and passed. One kid threw out a wrapper as his car passed and the wrapper swirled toward me and got caught in the turbulence behind the cab. It whirled around several times as if in a whirlwind before the wind whipped it away. I’d never ridden in the back of a truck. By the time we got to Vermont, cold as I was, I had decided it was pretty exciting. I wrote a paper about the ride for Bob Calhoun’s class. I thought I was clever when I titled it “Grumble Seat.”
Ski-tow car
The Grays’ farmhouse in Vermont is at the bottom of South Hill. There’s a long pasture running along Route 100 to the South. The ground slopes up South Hill behind the house and the edge of the pasture. The Grays are enthusiastic skiers and set up their own ski slope on the hill, complete with a home-made ski-tow powered by a junk car. The car is a ‘48 Chevy. They strip it down to the frame, the running gear, and a bench seat. No hood over the straight-six engine; no fenders over the wheels.
A couple days after I rode up to Vermont in the back of the Dodge pickup, my parents drove up to inspect the farmhouse and give me a ride home. They are sitting on a picnic table up the hill by the sugar shack, having afternoon cocktails with John and Mary Gray. Harold is nowhere to be seen; he’s in the farmhouse connecting electrical receptacles. Gordon is driving the ski-tow car around a loop in the pasture, gunning it back and forth. When the tires dig in, they spray little roostertails of dirt. The car is light. The rear end bounces and dances over the ruts. Gordon spins it around in a figure eight, then spins it in a complete circle.
I watch from a tree stump by the farmhouse. I’m envious. Gordon is tall like my brother. Lean and rangy. He’s quiet and soft-spoken, the only person outside our family who my scaredy-cat Fuzzy will approach. He’s also fun. He guns the engine and spins the driver’s wheel. The ski-tow car leaps ahead, swerves around the corner, and shoots down the pasture. It reminds me of those early film clips of racing cars on dirt tracks.
After five minutes, he’s had enough. He pulls the car up in front of me and stops. “Hey David, you want to try her out?” I don’t think so. I’ve driven the family Plymouth up our driveway and never got the hang of the clutch. And my parents are watching. Who knows what they might say? The engine looks hot; oil has leaked on the exhaust manifold and is smoldering. “Come on,” says Gordon. “It’s not like you’re going to break it.” He gets out and I climb in. I sit on the old bench seat with torn upholstery. The stuffing peaks out. I start her up. Stall her the first time I let out the clutch. But the second time I get it, and I’m off. Down the pasture, first, second, third gear. The windshield is dirty and I’m not wearing my glasses. But it’s okay. There’s nothing to hit. I take the car once around the field sedately. But by the second loop, I can’t resist. I come around the curve at one end of the field and push the pedal to the floor. The engine roars and the car charges down the pasture next to the road. The next time, I take her into a spin, do a figure-eight like Gordon, with the rear wheels sliding. The car body is open. I look back and see the tires flinging dirt. It’s a trip.
After several minutes, I drive up the hill and park next to the picnic table. When I get out, my mother looks up in astonishment. “That was you?”
John asks if I want a drink. I look at my mother and she just shrugs.
Bridge
My parents played cards, mostly bridge. My father played a cutthroat game of bridge with the other engineers during the lunch breaks at Electric Boat. My mother belonged to a bridge club in Mystic. Her club met for decades until too many members had died.
As kids, we played setback – hi, low, jack – on the beach with Mom and Pop at the Cape. When we were old enough, they taught us bridge too. After supper, it was not unusual for Pop to pull out his cards and say, “How about a few hands?”
My father regarded bridge as more than a game. Playing bridge taught one how to think; how to understand nuances and strategy; and how to communicate with a partner. Playing well required discipline and focus. A good player knew every card that was played and made informed guesses as to where the remaining cards were held. He learned to play what he was dealt. With a good hand, he controlled the flow of cards.
I remember my father talking to Mom about an article he read. The Russians, it said, think like chess players. Because they play chess, they understand strategy and long-term position plays. They learn how to move a pawn to a critical position that later becomes the key to victory. Americans, this article said, are poker players. They calculate the odds for the hand that’s been dealt. Bluff, if you must. The article indicated that the Russian, chess-oriented, thinking was superior, more intellectual. Their rigorous analysis would win the Cold War. Pop thought it was an interesting argument. He like a challenging game of chess. Maybe we should play it more. But poker had its nuances, its depth too. And Americans played bridge. He wasn’t about to concede to the Russians.
When Harold went to Fitch High School after Loomis, he took up again with his friends from Cutler. He got his driver’s license and joined the swim team. And he and his friends formed their own bridge club. The club included Gordon, Don Sharp, John Walkup and several other kids. They met once a month or so. I played two or three times with them when someone couldn’t make it.
Playing with them was instructive. My parents had coddled me. They didn’t question my leads or tell me when I made mistakes. But Don Sharp and John Walkup didn’t humor me. Suddenly I had to focus and learn how to play.
Don Sharp is shorter than me, witty, quick, smart. Sharp. John Walkup plays football for Fitch. He’s taller than my brother and stockier, wider, so that his frame fills a doorway when he walks in. He’s quiet, deep, with a slow smile. They call him “Big John”, after the Johnny Cash song. When my brother has a big job to do, like moving the heavy old Maytag washer, he gives John a call.
One night I played bridge with them at Walkup’s. I was having fun. I liked my brother’s friends. Don was my partner. I bid four hearts and played the hand. I concentrated. Everyone was laughing, exchanging stories about school while they kept an eye on the play. I looked at my cards and the board and knew that I could make the bid. I control play. I know what I’m doing. Smiling, I pull in the last trick, making the bid. Don’s smiling too. He says, “Nice play partner.” Then he adds, “But if you’d finessed his queen we could have had a slam.”
My brother, Don, and John continued to play bridge when they went to college. My brother had gotten 800s on his college boards and won a National Merit Scholarship. In the fall of 1965, with Don and John, he went to Worcester Poly Tech.
I went to Loomis.
Harold and Pop, National Merit Scholarship
Election
My father was an amateur scholar of American history. He felt that everyone should understand the principles of democracy and what Americans fought for. The creation of the American republic showed that public-spirited educated men like the Founding Fathers could make democracy work. But it wouldn’t work if intelligent people didn’t participate.
He read extensively about the Founding Fathers. He was a fan of Thomas Paine, despite Paine’s eccentricities. He urged me to read “Common Sense.” He held forth on Hamilton and Burr and discussed nuances of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. He loved the virtues and wit of Abigail Adams. He liked “Miracle at Philadelphia,” the Catherine Drinker Bowen classic. Pop subscribed to American Heritage in its early days. One afternoon he entertained its editor. In 1960, American Heritage reprinted the Harper’s Weekly issues that ran during the Civil War. Each week, we received the news and commentary from one hundred years ago. Some of it was propagandistic nonsense. Zouave military regiments marching enthusiastically off to war. Sometimes there was a sober, accurate prediction of the coming carnage. I was fascinated by how people of that era saw the storm of war and by the parallels to current events.
Pop was politically active and ran for local offices. He was on the Groton School Board and the Groton Town Council. He was a Republican and member of the Republican Town Committee. Mom was a Republican too. But they voted eclectically, based on their evaluation of the individual candidates. When Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1956, he lost Pop’s vote because Richard Nixon was his running mate. A vote for Eisenhower with Nixon on the underticket meant Nixon would be President if Ike died. Pop didn’t vote for Nixon in 1960 either. In Pop’s eyes, Nixon had disqualified himself during the McCarthy era. Pop thought party levers were bad – you should vote for a candidate, not a party. Registration drives were bad too. You didn’t need voters who couldn’t bother to be informed.
In 1964, he liked Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was an Air Force officer and a ham radio enthusiast. Pop said that Goldwater was a straight-shooter. You could trust him. Pop convinced me. I read the election articles in Time Magazine and in the New York Times. I knew that Goldwater was the best qualified candidate. Pop picked up campaign pamphlets. Harold and I distributed them door to door in the neighborhood.
But Pop was leery of the Republican right-wing that provided a base for Goldwater’s candidacy. At the Republican convention, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York and a moderate East-Coast Republican, rose to address the delegates. The Goldwater delegates booed and wouldn’t let him speak. Pop’s face clouded; his lips pursed. He stood up and left the room. I don’t know how he voted.
I didn’t understand these nuances. I’d been out stumping for Barry. Barry called a spade a spade. Johnson made broad and conflicting promises to different constituencies. He was a wheeler-dealer. I had trouble understanding why the public didn’t see that Barry was the good guy and that Johnson was a manipulator, ambitious and not to be trusted. In the end, Goldwater let himself be painted as a right-wing reactionary and lost in a landslide. His defeat by Johnson was taken as a lesson by the right-wing. Their subsequent candidates like Ronald Reagan were much more politically skilled at spinning the media.
Loomis
At long last, I went to Loomis. I couldn’t wait. Didn’t Alan Houghton tell me how smart I was? Harold finished at the top of his class. I was going to do just as well and have fun too. I packed my tennis racket. I played tennis all summer and thought I would make the team.
I feel a twinge of separation anxiety when my parents drop me off. But I’m a big kid now. My roommate seems cool. His sister stops in our room when he is moving his stuff in. She is real nice. Pretty.
The first few days of classes, I think things are fine. It’s exciting. Some of the kids are really smart. But I discover that something is rotten. My roommate hangs out with a group of kids that started at Loomis in ninth grade, a year earlier than me. Starting in tenth grade, I’m a new kid. And somehow word gets out that I’m a dork. It takes me a while to realize that there is a problem. There’s a meeting down the hall, but I’m not invited. When I walk down to see what is going on, they stage a conversation for me to overhear that I need to use more deodorant. A kid hits me with a water balloon when I’m reading in my room. When I go out in the hall, everyone acts innocent, trying not to smirk. My bed is short-sheeted. Then someone dumps acne medicine on my sheets. I start to get the message.
I sign up for tennis. I show up excited. Fun at last. But the tennis coach tells us that we can’t wear “basketball shoes” on the tennis court. “Like you, Hemond. Don’t you know those are basketball shoes? Look at the tread.” I don’t know. I turn red and feel like I’m an idiot. I’m the only one who doesn’t know about “tennis shoes”. I can’t play until I have “tennis shoes”. Pop’s never heard of them either. When my parents get a chance, they bring me up a pair of tennis shoes so that I can play.
At least I know that I’ll do well in class. But when I hand in my first essay in English, on “The Once and Future King”, it comes back with a D. The teacher says that I didn’t follow the directions. Rereading the directions, I decide that they were ambiguous.
Once a week, French class is in a language lab. We sit in booths and listen to French tapes through earphones. The French teacher interrupts the dialogue in French to correct our pronunciation when we repeat phrases. The lab is disorienting. I can’t tell whether I’m listening to the tape or to the teacher. I don’t understand his French and get flustered. The French teacher holds me after class to explain that I have to work harder. “This was easy stuff,” he says.
I screw up in the chem lab too. My lab report is in the wrong format. And the math teacher, a nice guy, is so boring that I almost fall asleep in his class. Then, I do poorly on his math test. He pulls me aside, wondering aloud why they put me in the advanced placement class. “It’s not your fault. I’ll keep an eye on you,” he tells me.
By Thanksgiving break, I feel isolated and I’m reeling. I don’t have friends. I don’t get it in class. I don’t know what has happened.
Finally, I get to play tennis and win against all the kids on the intramural tennis team except one. And the English teacher singles out my essay on “The Grapes of Wrath”. He reads it, without saying who wrote it, not only to my class, but to his other classes as well. My paper is handed out for the class to critique. He says that it was the sort of paper he was looking for. I feel for a moment like I’m turning a corner. But then, back in my room, my roommate, who has the same teacher but a different class, pulls out a mimeograph copy of my essay and asks if I’d seen it. I see that it’s mine, with my name blocked off. “Why?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he says. “The teacher made us read it today and we thought it really sucked.” Now, I wonder if my paper was picked because it was so bad, an example of what not to do.
I sign up to play intramural basketball. I know for sure that I can play basketball with these kids. I’m assigned to a team where the kids already know each other. I sit on the bench for most of the game. They let me in for a play and I lose the ball. They put me back on the bench. That is the only time I ever get in a game.
One of my roommate’s friends is assigning partners for a mixer with a girl’s school. I hear my roommate and him talking about assignments. They laugh and look at me. At the dance, the girl I’m with is very nice but has a serious weight problem.
Afternoons, when I have a little free time, I walk by myself into town. I look through the magazines at the newsstand and pick up a listing of the top 40 pop hits. Sometimes I walk to a restaurant and order a hamburger and a coke because it feels so normal. But by December, these walks are cold.
I have one interesting moment. There is a kid on the floor who is an athlete, a star on the football team. He’s a loner but he doesn’t shun me like some of the kids. He talks to me and he seems like a genuinely nice guy.
We get talking about Vietnam. President Johnson is sending in more troops. “I don’t know why we don’t go win it,” I say. Hell, Barry Goldwater would lay a radiation boundary to keep the commies in the North out.
He looks disappointed at my comment and says, “What do you think is going on over there? Do you think Communism or Democracy means anything to peasants in a rice paddy who don’t have a penny to their name? They are Asians. Do you think they feel safer if a foreign soldier, a white man or black man with a submachine gun, walks by their field? Or do you think they feel invaded? What would you think if Asian soldiers were here? Think about it.” He walks off. I start to think about it.
Before Christmas break, the students are gathered in the quadrangle singing Christmas carols. I’m looking forward to going home. But I’m enjoying the singing. A side of me still thinks that I can make Loomis work. We’ve sung maybe three songs. A kid comes up behind me and puts his sneering face nearly in my ear. I don’t see him right away. I’m startled when I notice him. When I turn my head, he keeps his face right there – right in my face. I back off and ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. “Just wondering where dorks like you come from,” he says. His friends giggle. I don’t hit him like I should and regret the fact that I didn’t to this day.
When I return to school after Christmas break, it’s more of the same and I can’t take it anymore. I feel isolated, homesick, and humiliated. I call my parents and ask to come home. When they argue with me and tell me to stay the course, I cry into the telephone.
My father picks me up, gives the Dorm Master a piece of his mind about the money he has wasted, and drives me home. I will go to Fitch like Harold did.
Raspberries
Mom makes great pies. In the fall, it’s apple and apple-cranberry pies. She knows which apples are best at which time of the fall. Sometimes she mixes Northern Spy and Baldwin or throws in a couple leftover russets. She measures the sugar with a magic cup. How much sugar to use depends on the fruit. But the magic cup knows. In the summer, there’s rhubarb, strawberries, and blueberries. The pies are all exquisite. But the best is the first summer raspberry pie, cooked just right, sweet with its juice beginning to seep up through the flaky crust. I take some credit for the raspberries.
The history of our raspberry patch begins with the lawn at Allyn Street. When we moved in, Pop had a couple dump trucks of topsoil brought in. He graded the yard himself. He dragged a large roller behind the car, back and forth over the yard to smooth it out. Then he seeded it. Kids ran around throwing handfuls of grass seed from a big burlap bag. And when the grass came up, Pop organized frequent sorties to dig up the dandelions and ragweed that kept sprouting up.
Pop wanted a “House & Garden” manicured lawn. Our lawn should look like a putting green with well-trimmed foundation plantings and neat trim edges.
For a while Pop did the lawn himself. He bought a brand new rotary mower and kept it immaculate. He’d scrape out the grass clippings from the bottom of the deck each week and even wipe down the engine cover. Each fall he brought the mower to the small engine shop to get it checked out and the blades sharpened. But the lawnmower had a gas engine and was pretty cranky. His actions were mostly in vain. I can see him stooped over the mower in frustration as I write. After a couple of years, he bought a new “easy-start” Lawnboy. It had a cord that pulled straight up so that you didn’t wrench your back starting it. It started for the salesman. This was going to do the trick.
Pop showed me how to prime it. He cautioned me to run the carburetor dry so the gas wouldn’t stick up the carburetor with varnish.
But, really, it didn’t matter.
Before long he couldn’t start the damn thing. Harold was watching. It was KC all over again. Harold fiddled with the mower for twenty seconds and BRRROOOM. Off it went. Since Pop thought we should do chores to earn our keep, cutting the lawn became our job.
Pop didn’t miss tangling with the Lawnboy. But there was a new tension. Harold and I didn’t read “House & Garden”. We didn’t feel bad if the lawn didn’t look like the country club. There was always something more important to do than mow the lawn. We split the mowing. Harold mowed the front and side yards while I mowed the back. But we had a common goal of cutting as little and as infrequently as possible.
We have both noticed that, after we mow the lawn, the grass just grows back. Pointless really. And Pop’s not easy to please. I miss an episode of “The Man from Uncle” to mow the yard. Pop complains that I missed some tufts and didn’t edge around the dogwood trees. It occurs to me that you don’t see Napoleon Solo out mowing the yard. At dinner, Harold mentions that the Grays keep sheep. “They don’t have to mow at all.” Well, I know that’s not going to fly.
So, how does this relate to raspberries? Back when we went to Mystic Academy, my brother helped some PTO ladies clean up after a fund-raiser. The ladies sold flowers and garden plants. When they put away the tables, several forlorn raspberry plants remained sitting in the corner. “Why don’t you take those Harold,” one of the ladies suggested.
So Harold planted three or four of the raspberries by the south side of our house and a couple more out by his old playhouse. The soil conditions were perfect, just moist enough, but not so moist that the raspberries rotted. The next couple of years, the plants produced a few handful of tasty raspberries for two or three days in the summer.
Then the raspberries began to spread. Harold and I were careful not to cut down the new canes. A few more plants meant a few more raspberries. And one summer evening, Mom served a raspberry pie from raspberries that she picked that day. The pie was delicious. Harold and I devoured it and fought over the juicy crumbs in the pie plate. Mom was pleased.
And raspberries were suddenly important. More raspberry plants meant more pies. I encouraged the young raspberry canes to grow. In fact, when I cut the back lawn, I noticed that the spread of the raspberry plants made the area that I mowed smaller. More raspberry plants meant more pies and less lawn to mow. I could do the math. And by now Pop has mellowed. We have him beaten down. The raspberries spread like wild-fire into the backyard.
When we picked the berries, Mom made the pies. There was never quite enough pie. After seconds and thirds, Harold and I fought over who got what was left. Finally, my mother devised a system. One of us cuts the last piece, the other chooses. The rule provides a framework for the continuing struggle over the last pie crumbs. Not letting my brother get more than his fair share requires guile. A ritual develops. Eventually even a vocabulary. Where else have you heard of “rightful scrapings?”
Bad Attitude
The way in which Loomis blew up in my face changed me. I felt humiliated. I didn’t have much self-confidence before and I have less now. I’m also bitter about the experience and carry a grudge against snotty elitists. And there’s a new chip on my shoulder. I have an urge to punch somebody in the nose and get in a good fight, and to hell with the consequences. I should have punched that kid back at the Christmas caroling.
This wasn’t all bad. Before I went to Loomis, I was something of a “goody-two-shoes”. Phrases like “Truth, justice, and the American way” and “Motherhood and Apple Pie” didn’t carry that tinge of irony. Now I was a cynic, a skeptic – distrustful, even resentful, of authority. I already felt compromised in the eyes of my parents. The new attitude gave me some freedom I didn’t have before.
I was suddenly aware of all the little strictures in my life. Ways in which I was supposed to act. Expectations my parents were placing on me. Rules began to seem suspect, arbitrary. One of the Fitch teachers stands in the hallway telling kids to get a haircut. Why should they? I’m standing at the bus stop. Hal Thompson pulls out a cigarette. My parents don’t smoke. They would be shocked if I did. So what? Hal offers me a cigarette and I take it. Lighting it up is a heady feeling. To hell with it.
Since Loomis has confirmed that I’m a nerd, I’m not expecting much from Fitch. I don’t expect to make friends there. At least I’ll have my own room and won’t be hit by a water balloon while I’m doing my homework. I spend a week or two wallowing in self-pity, determined to show that I’m miserable.
But the misery doesn’t last. Pop is on the School Board and knows the ropes. He calls Betty Wheeler, who is a Fitch guidance counselor. Betty is also a member of Mom’s bridge club and a family friend. She sets me up at Fitch in the best classes with the best teachers. As a new kid at Fitch, I find that people are interested in who I am. I’m not trying to make friends, but friends find me.
It’s hard to put my finger on the difference from Loomis. But, for example, the kid next to me in home room, the first kid I talk to, is living in a completely different world from me. The real world. His girlfriend has just had his baby, he’s getting married, and he tells me how he works after school at the Stop and Shop. “You should see my baby,” he says. “She’s a beaut.” Say what? I haven’t kissed a girl yet. But talking with him feels natural. He hasn’t pegged me as something. He’s friendly. He wants to know what I’ve been doing. On the other side of my desk are two black girls. They are both smiling, talking with me. One is chewing gum. She offers me a stick. “Where are you from?” “Cool.” “You were in prep school?” “Wow – ha -ha.” I go to phys ed and we play basketball. My team is losing but then I score. Next time down the court, a kid throws me the ball and I score again. Suddenly I’m in. There’s a bad egg or two at the school, sure. But most of these kids are nice to me.
I have Lorraine Santangelo for English. My brother, who had Lorraine as a teacher, spoke fondly of her. She recognizes that I’m Harold’s brother. Lorraine is attractive, petite, dark-haired, friendly. She is also direct, brooks no-nonsense, and has eyes that look into your soul. She catches a couple of girls passing a note. Without breaking stride in her lecture, she grabs the offending paper, shoots the girls a look, and drops it, without reading, in the wastebasket. Nothing is said. It won’t happen again.
Lorraine submits the first two essays that I write for her class to the Hartford Courant writing contest. I win two awards. She gets me in the National Honor Society even though I’ve only been at Fitch for one marking period and probably don’t qualify. She teaches enthusiastically. She is letting us in on really good stuff. We are reading “Julius Caesar”. She points out classic passages, one after another. Pretty soon we are walking around reciting “Friends, Romans, Countrymen,” and saying “Et tu Brute.” I look forward to her class. Her test on “Julius Caesar” is unique. Memorize as many lines as you can and write them down in class. “I’ll grade you accordingly.” When I hear this, I’m anxious. The most I had ever memorized was ten lines or so. But when I go home and work at it, I find that I can memorize whole passages. When the test comes, I write down something like a hundred lines. The lines keep coming out. I am amazed. And I realize that I only learned I could recite like that because Lorraine made me.
For her final exam, however, Lorraine is testing the class, including me, on the whole year. I’m asked to read the material for the first half of the year. I don’t think this is fair. I did my own first half of English at Loomis. However, I read some of the material and skim. But Lorraine’s tests want detail. I realize that I can’t answer the questions on the first half material. I start to write, then decide the hell with it. I leave that part of the exam blank. Lorraine sees that I haven’t written any of the first half. She says, “I told you it would be on the exam, didn’t I? I expect you to try.” I say, “I know. But I don’t know the material. Give me whatever. I don’t care.” I really don’t care. I feel strung out by everything. I tried to read it, I don’t know it, fuck it. I don’t know what Lorraine’s thinking was, but she gave me an A for the exam.
Lorraine Santangelo – Fitch High
Coatroom
When I graduated from Pine Point, my mother took a job teaching high school English at Norwich Free Academy. She’d tied one shoelace too many getting first graders out to recess. She no longer needed the tuition break for me at Pine Point. She’d been an English major in college and had taught high school briefly during the War.
Norwich Free Academy, NFA, is a private school that contracts with the city of Norwich and surrounding towns to teach their high school students. The school has a campus of old buildings and an affiliated art museum containing plaster castings of classic sculptures. Some people think that old school buildings are obsolete. I thought that the old buildings at NFA gave the school gravitas. You walk through archways, down corridors with high ceilings. That architecture works for Yale and Harvard.
NFA had a Correspondence Club. Members of the club had pen pals. When the club met, kids talked about who they were writing to. The club sponsored programs and outings and provided an excuse to get together. They always had a good-sized group. Mom was their advisor and she worked hard to make sure that they had an interesting program every month.
Several weeks after I came home from Loomis, the club held its annual dance. Mom was the chaperone and she took me along. I’d been moping around the house too much. And the club attracted girls. By bringing me, she was providing another guy for the dance. I was reading a James Bond novel, “Dr. No”, and didn’t want to go. I didn’t know anyone. I’d stand against the wall. And my mother would be right there. Not promising.
But she pressured me, I didn’t have an excuse, and I rode up with her to NFA on a cold winter night in our Plymouth Barracuda. There was a layer of crusty snow on the ground. Snowflakes sputtered down off and on.
When we got to the dance, Mom introduced me to Margaret, the Club President. Margaret was in charge. She had dark brown hair, warm twinkly eyes. Attractive, vivacious, popular. The Tom Jones hit song “What’s New Pussycat” had come out. “You and your pussycat nose.” I thought, “that’s Margaret.” She had me moving chairs, setting up tables, hanging coats in the coat room. The dance was held in an old gym with wooden bleachers pushed back against the walls. A student played records. When Margaret caught me leaning against a wall, she asked me to dance. I danced with her most of the night. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. After the last dance, Margaret and I snuck into the coat room and kissed. At fifteen, I’d never kissed anyone. It was awkward. Our teeth bumped. I had trouble getting my nose out of the way.
But it was a revelation. My knees felt weak and the night spun around me. It was snowing hard when we left. Mom gave Margaret a ride home. I held hands with Margaret in the back seat, dreading the moment when her house would come into view and she would be gone.
I saw Margaret a couple times more and talked with her on the phone. But I didn’t have a driver’s license or a car and Norwich was a twenty-five minute drive away. I didn’t have the self-confidence to figure out how to keep the relationship going.
But I wanted to. I’d never had an experience like being with Margaret in the coatroom. I was a romantic at heart. I’d fantasized about girls for years. Had crushes on Haley Mills and Patty Duke. I wanted to go out with girls. But I didn’t understand the power of the emotions involved.
And my parents conveyed the impression that sex was a little crude. Sex had a place in a loving relationship, in marriage. But “it’s just not a big thing,” Mom told me earnestly one night.
Dancing with Margaret, holding hands with her, kissing her, I knew that love and sex were deeper and more compelling than I’d appreciated. It seemed like a big deal to me.
I dated several girls over the next several years. None of those relationships lasted. But they were all remarkable in their own ways. I’m reminded of a class Bob Calhoun taught on Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”. Someone is away from home and has a passionate relationship. She comes home and breaks it off. Bob asks us if the break up said anything about the relationship when it was happening. Did she think, during the relationship, that she was in love? I know I was in love that moment when I parked with my girl. A full moon shines through the windshield. I brush her hair from her forehead and gaze into her eyes. She’s the one.
Driver Ed
My father, more than once, told how he got his driver’s license on his sixteenth birthday. “I did too,” my mother said. “And that week I took my mother for a trip up in the White Mountains.”
When Harold and I turned sixteen, they couldn’t discourage us from getting our license right away too. At sixteen, Harold had been driving the Hogster in the backwoods at the Grays’ for a couple of years. He had a license in no time.
On the other hand, when I turned sixteen in May 1966, even after driving the ski-tow car, I wasn’t sure which pedal was the brake and which was the clutch. I took driving lessons with Sam Lamb, who taught driver education in Mystic. Sam was in his mid-forties, his hair just starting to turn gray. He rented space for his driver ed classes on the second floor of an old building across the street from Cottrell’s Lumber. He owned a gray Plymouth Valiant automatic. The Valiant had an extension for the brake so that Sam could stop the car from his seat on the passenger side.
Sam was a fighter pilot during World War II. He was at once laid back and ready. He’d seen it all. Nothing could faze him. I imagine that he didn’t blanch if an old lady driving for the first time headed his Valiant at a telephone pole. He’d done that one before. Hit the brake, slowly turn to her with that tight smile, try not to roll your eyes, and say nicely, “Let’s try that one again Ma’am.”
We studied for the written test over several weeks. The written exam was going to be a snap because the material was rote and Sam gave us the answers. Then Sam took us on the road.
I’d walk to class through downtown Mystic after supper, sit through Sam’s discussion of driving safety, take his practice quiz, and then walk home. Mystic had street kids, kids who hung around downtown smoking cigarettes. Some were high school dropouts. Kids from dysfunctional families. Maybe they had a father who was a drunk and they had nowhere to go. I wanted to meet these kids. I liked their freedom. They did what they wanted without supervision.
One of them was a cute girl about my age, a streaky blond. She peroxided her hair and wore a lot of makeup, lipstick, mascara. She wore a tight blouse and short skirt and she flaunted what she had. She was hot. She was not particularly interested in me but she would flirt with me when I saw her on the street. A couple of nights, I shared a cigarette with her before walking home.
One night while I was walking home after driver ed class, I saw her hanging out under a street light. I invited her to join me for a slice of pizza and a coke. We sat in the large storefront window of Ted’s Pizza on Main Street watching the traffic. She looked alluring. Her short skirt had ridden up her thighs. Her breasts look constrained by her blouse. The blouse had a v-neck and she was wearing a gold crucifix that dangled in her cleavage. I lit a cigarette, passed it to her, and lit my own. Leaning back in my chair, I swigged my coke. We chatted. I stared at her legs, her thighs. She smiled sexily at me. I never again feel quite as cool, as hip, as I did that moment, holding my cigarette, staring across the table at her. But then she looked out the window and said, “Who the hell is that?” My father had stopped our Plymouth Barracuda out front. Leaning out the window, he gestured that he wanted to see me. Now. He didn’t look happy.
“Oh, it’s just my dad,” I said as coolly as I could. I took another drag on my cigarette before I stabbed it out.
Sam told me my driving was fine. “Good positive steering,” he said. But I was uncomfortable on the road. I wasn’t in control. I’d keep looking in the rearview mirror. When I was practicing with my father, he turned to me and said, “Keep your eye on the road in front. You’re not going to hit the guy behind you.”
I’m most uncomfortable pulling out in traffic and taking left turns. Trusting the guy in back to stop when I take a left gives me the willies. One day Sam made me do a lot of left turns. He thinks that if I do enough of them, I will get it. Instead, I’m rattled. Now we’re driving down Route 184. A big truck is coming up behind me – I see him in the rearview mirror. Sam says, “turn here” pointing left. There’s an oncoming tractor-trailer truck in the other lane, about sixty yards away coming at us at sixty miles per hour. It’s a no-brainer that I stop. Let the trailer truck go by. But I’m rattled, the other truck’s coming up behind me, and I can see that I have enough time. I hit the gas and turn. In one compressed moment, I think “oops – wrong choice”, see Sam turn white. He starts to stomp on the brake, then thinks better of it, shouts “go go” in my ear. The approaching truck blares his horn, keeps it blaring. But I swear, we swish by in front of the truck with several feet to spare. What’s the problem?
I dated Sam’s daughter Pam later on. Sam wasn’t happy when I picked her up in my car to go out on a date. Pam told me that Sam came home that night after my left-turn incident, had a good stiff drink, and went to bed.
Pam Lamb, Dave, Senior Prom
She’s yours
Once I had my driver’s license, I could usually get a car if I needed one. But it wasn’t always simple.
In 1960, Pop updated the family cars by buying a new Plymouth, a blue “Savoy”. A boat of a car with the big tail fins. It looked silly even at the time. “She’s a beauty,” said Bud Santin, who owned the Plymouth dealership. “Has a new slant-six engine – they finally got the bugs out – goes on forever.” She had bench seats in the front and back so that three could sit comfortably across. A three-on-the-tree manual shift lever on the steering column. The Plymouth was the family car, for Mom to drive and for those periodic trips to Holyoke.
60 Plymouth (Car could be synonymous with truck)
Pop also bought a new English Ford Escort. An English Ford Anglia modified into a station wagon by extending the rear roof and putting on a tailgate. She was primitive. She had a manual choke and a knob that you pulled to crank the starter motor. A hand-crank to start the engine, just in case. The wipers ran on the vacuum off the manifold. She had a three-speed manual transmission with a long shift lever on the floor. A small four cylinder engine that generated thirty horse power. Bucket seats. On the highway, on a straight-a-way, with the pedal to the floor, she might hit sixty with the engine straining and the transmission howling.
60 English Ford Escort – Dave at 10
Both cars proved to be temperamental. Two more gasoline engines for Pop to tangle with. I would cringe when they worked their magic on him. It’s 1964. I’m sitting at the table at Allyn Street, finishing dinner. It’s a rainy night. Pop gets up from the table early; he has a meeting to attend. We know the Plymouth is balky if it’s wet out. Pop is getting frustrated with it but hasn’t had time to take it down to the shop. He grabs the Plymouth car keys and goes out. While I scrape the last peas off my plate, I hear Pop cranking her over. RRR, RRR, RRR…. RRR, RRR, RRRR. RRRRRRR. I look across the table at my brother, who is also listening. RRR, RRR, RRR. – hm – RRR, RRR, RRR, RRRRRRRR. RRRRRRRRR. Thump, slam.
Pop comes in. “Where are the keys to the Escort? I gotta go.” He’s holding the keys to the Plymouth. He looks at them with disgust, then tosses them to Harold. “Here,” he says. “If you can make the damn car run it’s yours.” He finds the Escort keys near the telephone and leaves. We hear him drive off in the English Ford. I’m shocked. Harold got a car just like that?
My brother looks at the keys for about twenty seconds after the sound of the English Ford has faded. Then he goes out to the garage. I know what’s going to happen. Click, thump. He’s out front opening the Plymouth’s hood. Two minutes later the hood thumps shut. Harold turns the key. THROOM – the engine starts. He pulls out of the drive to take his new car for a spin. I haven’t moved from the table.
The next week, Mom and Pop look for a new car. Mom test drives the new Mustangs, but picks a gold Plymouth Barracuda with the long back window.
By 1966, when I get my license, my brother owns a 1960 MGA, a British two-seater sports car. Four cars, four drivers. It’s a matter of simple numbers that I get a car to drive. Of course, it’s the one that’s left over; that no one else needs or is using. The one that isn’t working.
Harold’s MGA
In the fall of my junior year at Fitch, the English Ford is dead for two weeks in the backyard with worn-out brakes. Six years of commuting to Electric Boat has taken its toll. My father says that if I can fix her, I can drive her. The most difficult car work I’ve ever done is change a tire. But a car would be handy. My friends go out on Friday nights to a football game or a community center dance. Sometimes I’m stuck at home. I pull out the detailed car manual. The manual assumes that the owner will service his own car. It tells how to fix the brakes. I start to read. I talk to Harold, who says he’ll help if I get stuck. I buy brake shoes from the auto parts store, jack up the Ford, pull her wheels, and replace the brake shoes. Harold helps me bleed the brakes. When I take the English Ford out on the road she stops like she’s supposed to. I’ve got a car to go.
Ned
There’s a picture in my high school yearbook of Ned Augustyniak, sporting a huge grin, holding a banner that reads, “We’re the Class of ‘68 We’re the Class that Really Rates”. Ned is tall, about six feet two inches, with curly light brown hair like Art Garfunkel. He signs my yearbook “Auggie the 8 point driver”. In Connecticut, you get two points for each driving infraction. Ten points and your license is gone.
Ned Augustyniak
“Ned has no sense of consequence,” my mother says one afternoon when Ned pulls his car into the driveway, blocking her car. Blocking her in is a capital offense in Mom’s book. But it wouldn’t occur to Ned that he’s offended anyone. He’s on the go, won’t be here but a minute, and what’s a driveway for anyway? Ned tells me I was born an old man and don’t know how to have fun.
He’s one of my best friends. He’s a romantic, enthusiastic. Ned would never ask that pseudo-sophisticated cliche of the ‘80s, “Are we having fun yet?” Hell no. It’s Friday night and we’re out looking for girls, man – wow, look at her. Life doesn’t get any better. It’s good therapy for an inhibited kid like me.
Ned is full of ideas, plans, schemes. Another Friday night coming up? “Get the car, we’ll go dancing at the Barn after swimming practice.” Or “Come on – there’s a party on the beach at Misquamicut.” Ned buys a surfboard. We tool around with it on the rooftop giving “surfs up” signs to the other surfers. We go surfing ourselves. Or we take his 22 rifle down to a sand quarry and shoot tin cans. Like me, if Ned is going out with a girl, “She’s the one, this is really it.” His next girl is “the one”, too. He’s fun to be around.
But sometimes he does something where you just gotta shake your head. “What’s Ned up to?” my brother will ask with a grin – knowing that there’s going to be something. Ned swings by the house one day in a ‘52 Chevy that he has picked up for fifty dollars. The night before he ran into a tree. The front bumper is symmetrically pushed in – forming a “v”. I don’t ask how it happened. This is Ned. One does not want to know.
“You got your tow chain?” he asks. In my family tow chains are household items. You never know when you’re going to need one. I got mine for Christmas.
I grab my chain from the garage. It’s about twenty feet long. It’s greasy because Harold has used it to haul out the MG engine. I get in Ned’s car. Most of the chain is bundled in my lap, but a unwieldy segment is dragging. I assume that we are off to rescue some friend, pull a car out of the mud, or tow someone’s car to the garage. Something that you use a tow chain for.
Ned keeps it a mystery. He drives up to Old Mystic where a new shopping area is under construction. He pulls up in front of a concrete piling, the base of a parking lot light pole. The area is posted with signs. “Danger – Construction”. I’m nervous and wonder what we say when the patrol car pulls up.
“This should do it,” says Ned. Do what? I’m mystified. I don’t get it. Ned takes the chain and wraps it around the concrete piling, then threads it between the bumper and the grill. “Oh,” I think. “Not really.”
Yes really. Ned has left some slack in the chain. He gets in the car, puts the car in reverse, revs the engine, and pops the clutch. The Chevy lurches violently backward, its balding rear tires screeching for traction. For several feet the car picks up momentum. The chain tightens and there’s a loud thwack as the car jolts to a stop. We examine the front bumper which has been pulled straight.
Ned is grinning. Success. “Far out, huh?”
The Yellow Ballpoint Pen
My other best friend is Alan Wynne. He is more sober than Ned. At heart, he’s gentle. He likes his music and art. He plays guitar. He is up for whatever we are doing – working, building. Like me, he will shake his head in wonder, roll his eyes when Ned tells us his latest escapade. “You did what?”
Alan is blond, about six feet, but broader and stronger than me. He knows how to fight.
Al Wynne and Dave – Wannabees
Alan and Ned are Navy kids. They have ended up in Mystic after their families traipsed around the world through the various American submarine bases. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Rota in Spain; the Philippines. Alan’s dad Gene was a Navy Chief. Gene has retired with a back disability. He’s finishing high school now with Alan and me at Fitch. It’s strange to see Gene, in his late 30s, physically mature, imposing, sitting with high school kids. He’s a physical fitness buff. He’s out running every morning – training. He has successfully overcome the back disability by exercising. And he’s a boxer.
Gene made it to the national finals in a Golden Gloves division. He defaulted in the finals when he was stricken with a serious viral infection. Gene has fought in Navy circles for years. He spars over at the Sub Base. He keeps a full set of free weights and a punching bag in the garage.
Gene and Dolores Wynne in 1988
My friends at Fitch were amicable and fun. But Fitch was a big place. We also had the toughs with the slicked-back hair who sat out in the school parking lot on their motorcycles. Unlike prep school, where fighting was an aberration, some kids at Fitch fought. I didn’t want to get caught in the wrong bathroom with them. It was rumored that they would rumble with the New London High School kids at a quarry on Friday nights. I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t interested in that.
But nobody was going to pick on Alan. Not more than once at least. You know that Beach Boys tune “I Get Around” where they sing “the bad guys know us and they leave us alone”? Alan. Gene had seen to it that Alan could defend himself.
Here’s Alan on growing up with Gene: “It took place during the 2nd grade. …I had about a two mile walk from home to school {Pleasant Valley Elementary – not that close to Navy housing}. One day on the return walk from school, for some reason some of the big 5th and 6th graders decided it was my turn for their special attention. I was going to be beat up! I had seen it happen to others and I was scared. I ran. Fast. Made it to my home. Threw open the door. Got inside (safe!). And Gene asked why I was breathing so hard. Big kids. Death outside at our door, etc. Gene got up and saw three of my tormentors in the front yard. He walked out and asked if they were wanting to fight me. All three said yes. He said great. Just that they would fight me one at a time. Who would like to be first? Biggest of the big kids puffed out his chest and said he would. Damn it Dave, I had tagged home. Safe! And then this betrayal of all that is fair! On a side note of this horrible situation, my earliest memories are of learning to box with dear dad. It was a game. He would be on his knees to make it even. I could hit him as hard as I could and he just remained a solid wall. I did not fight with kids my age. No experience. So I sullenly stepped out to fight the first kid. I do not remember if I was ever hit by him. My fights had always been with a man weighing in at around 180 pounds. The kids face exploded with blood. Nose and lips spewed like a fountain. Fight was over and he ran home. Other kids were edging away. No more fights for that day. Next door neighbor, Chief on the Nautilus, came out to shake my dad’s hand and give me a pat on the back. Mother of boy who was my punching bag came over and screamed at Gene for creating a killer.”
Gene still made Alan defend himself on occasion. Like Cato in those Peter Sellers, Pink Panther movies.
Alan and I walk into the Wynne’s garage after school one afternoon. Alan is carrying a sack of books. There’s a retractable yellow ballpoint pen sticking out of his shirt pocket. Alan and I are on the Fitch swim team with Ned. We are planning to pick up Ned and head over to the Sub Base pool to get in some extra laps.
Gene is in the garage lifting weights. He greets us with a grin. Gene is outgoing, gregarious. He wants to shake your hand, get to know you, know what makes you tick. But that’s not on his mind today. He’s feeling good. “Hey Al,” he says, “let’s go a couple rounds.”
In seconds, they are sparring, just like that. The garage is small. It’s like being in the ring with them. They don’t hold back. Fighting isn’t play. Whump, whump, whump. Gene is scary fast and strong. His fists fly so that I can barely see them. Alan blocks every punch, throws a punch in return that hits Gene in the chest. Whump, whump, whump. I’m backing up because they are circling each other. But I’m running out of room. Whump, whump, whump, whump, whump. Alan hits Gene, full force, and Gene steps back, wipes his mouth. I can tell from his eyes that he likes the fight. He steps back in. Whump, whump, whump, KAPLEEN. Gene catches Alan right where he has the ballpoint pen in his shirt pocket. The pen explodes – the barrel shoots out of Alan’s pocket across the room. Little plastic yellow shards fall to the floor.
Gene and Alan stop. Alan looks at what’s left of his pen. “Damn Gene,” he says.
Gene puts his arm around him. “Gee I’m sorry Al. I didn’t see the pen. You guys want something to eat?”
Swim team
I joined the Fitch swim team in my junior year. Mom insisted that I do something. Don’t sit around. Harold and Gordon had been on the Fitch swim team. Alan and Ned and some other friends were on the team. Harold liked the coach, John LaPointe. So I joined.
The team, however, was competitive, conference champions, and one of the better teams in the state. I hadn’t swum competitively at all. Starting as a junior, I didn’t have time to catch up. If the team had cut students or had real tryouts, I wouldn’t have made it. But, in fact, the team was thin. I could swim a credible breaststroke, the slowest stroke, the stroke shunned by most of the kids. So Coach LaPoint let me tag along and swim the occasional relay against a weaker team. Coach was a master at figuring out all the possibilities so that the team got the most possible points in a meet. By the spring of my Senior year, I could swim fairly well. I collected enough points at the team meets to get my school letter.
Fitch swam at the Coast Guard pool at Avery Point. The Coast Guard pool was unused except by our team. The building was unheated except when we were there. It made for some chilly practices. Since the pool was off-campus, the team members had to take a bus to practice or get a ride with someone who had a car. The bus was slow; if you rode in a car you got to swim longer.
On practice days, I drove the English Ford to school and gave my teammates a ride to the pool. So I quickly made friends. For two years, we tested how many kids could fit in my car. The English Ford, not much bigger than a Volkswagen beetle, had bucket seats in front and could seat five. But my car typically carried seven or eight to practice. One of the shorter kids sat in the wayback, in the space behind the rear seat where Mom put the groceries. We made it to Avery Point every time. I worried about the brakes on the steep grade at Fort Hill.
One practice, Alan, Ned, and I, with my load of team members, arrived at the pool before the bus or the coach. We were warming up in the pool and horsing around. Seeing how far we could swim underwater. Or how many underwater flips we could do without surfacing. Getting out, I turned and noticed Alan underwater. He looked strange, I thought. He was hunched over and crawling on the bottom. That’s funny, I wonder what he’s doing? So I stood on the edge of the pool, looking down at him. He crawled over to the side of the pool, then pulled himself up the ladder. Was he moving okay? He broke the surface, red-faced and gasping for air. Then sat for a half minute on the edge of the pool, hunched over with a stomach cramp, coughing, and catching his breath. Finally, he asked why I didn’t help him. He could see me looking at him. What did I think he was doing?
I might have figured out that he was drowning before he actually drowned. Then again, maybe not.
At the end of the season, Coach LaPointe taught life-saving. When we graduated, Alan, Ned, and I were Red-Cross certified to lifeguard.
Who am I
The Mystic Baptist Church, on the hill overlooking Mystic, sponsors a Baptist Youth Fellowship, a teen fellowship program. BYF. The church hires two Yale divinity school students, Walt and Ron, to run the program.
Walt and Ron are not pushing religion. They run a BYF program that doesn’t proselytize. It’s more of an activist community center run by a church. Walt is a music major. He runs the church’s music programs. He looks like Wally Shawn, the short guy in “The Princess Bride.” He has the same kind of crazy grin. He directs an occasional BYF music program, a religious chorale piece. Walt has a self-deprecating sense of humor. “I resemble that remark,” he says. But if I say something self-deprecating, he tells me I’m fishing for a compliment. He’s usually right. Ron is tall, physical, like a tight end on a football team. He has a crewcut that is going out of fashion. He grew up tinkering with cars. One night the car he was working under caught fire and blew up over him. He doesn’t understand how he survived. He wants to know what life is all about.
A lot of my friends belonged to the group and met there on Sunday nights. Ned belonged and wanted me to come. I resisted. “I don’t think I believe in God,” I said. How could I join a church group?
Ned said, “Come on – do you think I’d go if it wasn’t fun? No one cares what you believe. What else are you doing?” Ned introduced me to Walt, who I could see was bright, a regular guy. So I hung out at the BYF. At first, I was on my guard. I wasn’t going to compromise my beliefs, whatever they were. But Ned was right. Walt and Ron weren’t bothered by my skepticism. They needed another voice for the next music program. They wanted kids in their programs to show they were on the ball. They figured something good might rub off on me. And they were having fun like the rest of us listening to Simon and Garfunkel, or playing ping pong, in the church’s vacant house out back.
My skepticism was a running joke. Walt cast me as Satan in his next chorale program. “You’ll make a great devil – ha, ha, ha.” Then he rehearsed the part with me, one on one. He taught me how to project my voice and carry the tune. We put on an impressive program.
One of the girls wrote a skit for us to perform for the congregation. The skit concerned the difficulty in reaffirming one’s faith in a world overrun by riots and war. I play the skeptic. “Where’s God? Children are dying. Blacks are born confined to the ghetto – imprisoned in a life of poverty and drugs. Our soldiers are dying in Vietnam. Why? Where’s God?” It’s a great part and I play it with conviction. Everyone else gets a wimpy “Yes I believe” part. The parishioners and parents give us a standing ovation. One gentle elderly lady approaches me afterward and takes me aside. She chats about what a fine job we have done. Walt and Ron are wonderful aren’t they? You have such a nice group. Then she reaches out to touch my forearm, and moves closer so that no one else will hear. “You don’t believe that do you?” she says. The girl who wrote the skit tells me later that she wrote the part of the skeptic for me.
Once in a while the church fathers have Walt and Ron in for a discussion. Walt and Ron will show up at BYF on Sunday night with a religious program, something to teach moral values. They work hard to soft pedal it. Walt once suggests to me that I read C. S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”. There are thinking, intelligent people who believe in God, he tells me. I read “Mere Christianity”. Walt is right. C. S. Lewis makes a good case. But his rationale, I decide, requires that you make a leap of faith, that you believe because you want to believe.
One night Ron has the thankless task of leading the discussion about moral values. Ron looks uncomfortable. He’s struggling with what he believes himself. He doesn’t know what the right answers are. He’s reading from a guide that he’s been given but he’s being selective. He wants to raise the issues without being heavy-handed. We are sitting in a circle and he has asked “big questions”. How do we know right from wrong? What is life about? Ron is looking frustrated.
“Ok,” he says. “The next question we’re supposed to ask is.. a… a.” He stops and reads to himself. Hesitates. Begins again. “Ah the next question we’re supposed to discuss is ah.. ‘Who am I’?” Ron looks up. He is frowning, mugging. Something has struck a nerve. We look at him. “Who am I?” No one responds. Fifteen seconds of silence. Ron tosses the guidebook down and stands up. “Hell,” he says. “I don’t even know who I am.”
Fifi
Frances Norman, the French teacher at Fitch, knew something that I didn’t. Mrs. Norman was short with dark hair and a pleasant face. She looked like she should be French herself. She enthused about anything French. We called her “Fifi” behind her back.
She liked me right way. Ever since Pine Point, I struggled with French. “Madam Robere” at Pine Point ensured that I would be self-conscious by drilling me on my faulty pronunciation. “Say ‘eu’,” she would say. “No not ‘eu’, say ‘eu’ with your tongue back here.” “Eu.” “No, no, say ‘eu’.” It’s painful to recount. Then I was traumatized by the Loomis language lab.
But here I was in Fifi’s class and I could do no wrong. Straight As. I’m a star. Fifi wants me to take the French achievement tests. I know better. I can read French with a dictionary. But I really don’t know French. I can’t hear it when it’s being spoken. A standardized test would expose me.
One day Fifi pulls me aside. She convinces me to join the French Club, then asks me to be president of the club. I don’t see why she has focused on me but I agree. And the middle of my junior year, she pulls me aside again. The French Club is going to Montreal in early February. She wants to make sure that I’m going. Well, I have swim team, I tell her. But the truth is that I’m only 3rd string on the team. Montreal sounds neat. I’ve never seen French Canada. My parents will spring for the $78. So I reconsider and sign up for the trip.
The trip is sponsored by a New London French teacher and about half the kids are from New London High School. On a cold February morning, we gather in the New London High parking lot to get on the chartered coach to Montreal. A New London teacher is taking the roll, checking us off as we get on the bus. When he gets to me, he looks up and says, “Ah, Mr. Hemond. Or maybe we should say Emond. You have lots of relations up in Montreal, I bet.”
Say what? I’m sixteen. I’ve been trying to learn my Hemond ancestry for years. For reasons I will never understand, it’s been like trying to find out about sex. My dad’s no help. When I question him, he says, “You’re American.” It’s all I need to know. Case closed. He once mentions that “Crean” his mother’s maiden name is Irish. But nothing about Hemond. I ask Mom. She says, “Well, Grampa Hemond went to German school. And Grampa says some of them came from Nova Scotia. I really don’t know.” “Wasn’t there a Bohemond – some German knight or Count?” My Grandmother Field, trying to be helpful. “I think they were Vikings,” says Mom in a flight of fancy. Thinking that’s something I would like to hear.
“Well, yeah,” I say. “Don’t you know where they came from?” We’re not sure they say. There was a flood. A church burned. Nobody has the records.
I find this curious. But I don’t have the expertise to pursue it. I agree with Pop. We are Americans and it doesn’t make any difference. But I’d still like to know.
The coach pulls into downtown Montreal about 9:30 at night. There’s a lighted sign outside the hotel that reads minus seventeen degrees. When I step out into the open, it’s freezing. We walk into the hotel and two snappily dressed women pass on their way out. They wear short skirts. They don’t seem to notice the cold. I think, “this is different.”
There’s a telephone book in the hotel room and I’m determined to understand my ancestry. If Hemond is French, Hemonds should be in the phone book. I flip pages. And there they are. A full page devoted to Hemond. See also Emond, Emon, Aymond, it says. Gotcha.
When I get home, I confront Pop. “There are lots of Hemonds in Montreal,” I say. “We must be French Canadian.”
“Could be,” says Pop. “My grandparents spoke French. My mother couldn’t. She hated being at their house.”
And in a flash of insight, I realized that Fifi knew that Hemond was French. I had a French surname. The perfect guy to be president of her club.
Frances Norman
Manic
It’s snowing hard when we get on the coach for the ride back from the trip to Montreal. I sit with a girl that I met during the trip. She is a pretty blond from New London High. Sitting across the aisle from me are two Fitch girls, Bev King and Beatrice DeMitte. Bev is short, Bea is as tall as me. They make an incongruous pair. Bev is a stitch; laughing, joking, volatile. Now flying off the handle at an injustice. Half a minute later it’s forgotten. Bea plays off her. They are having fun. Both girls are black.
The bus is barely crawling out of the city. With a good road, the trip home would be a long ride, eight hours or more. We settle in.
I have gone through years at Pine Point and at Loomis without knowing a single black. When I played cowboys and Indians with Howie Sebastian in first grade, I didn’t have any concept of race. But the black kids I’m meeting at Fitch are friendly. I’m learning more about black culture, learning aspects of being black that I was unaware of. The civil rights movement is in full swing. I want to know better what it is like to be black.
Bev is handing out chewing gum. I take a stick and say thanks. Bea says her mom gets pissed if she chews gum around the house. The gum always ends up in the carpet. Damned if she knows how. My mom’s just like that I say. Bev laughs. We talk. We keep talking.
At first our talk about is innocuous, safe. Our moms. School. Music. I mention that I love Dionne Warwick’s music. “Anyone who had a heart.” I’ve only heard her on the radio. I’ve never seen her on an album cover. I don’t know that she’s black. “Hell yes, she’s black,” says Bev, astonished. “Where you been child?” She talks about white artists covering black singers. Bev is indignant. They tell me the singers that they like. Smokey Robinson. The Drifters. James Brown. Motown. The Supremes. Bea and Bev raise their hands, palm outward, in unison. “Stop in the name of love,” they trill. By now we are giggling.
The discussion gets serious. “Our boys are fighting the war,” says Bev. “All you white boys are gettin’ deferments. You’re going to college, right? It’s the black boys that are getting drafted.” And they are getting hooked on drugs in Vietnam. Doing heroin. What do you think happens when they come home?
We talk for hours about world affairs – TV programs – Bill Cosby in “I Spy” – family – sex, interracial relations, marriage – religion – sports – the ghetto – Martin Luther King – prep school. How it feels to be discriminated against, to not feel that you have a fair chance. Bev tells me that some blacks discriminate against blacks who have darker skin than they do. And that many blacks are part-white. Or pass for white. “I’m black and proud of it,” says Bev. I feel like I’ve been naive. What they tell me about being black should be self-evident. But a lot of it is new to me. When we share confidences about ourselves, pet peeves, I’m on firmer ground. Being annoyed by a foolish rule at home or at school is universal. Bev keeps us laughing. We laugh, in part, as a defense to a racial tension. Our conversation feels like it is testing unspoken barriers. Blacks and whites don’t talk like this, do they? But if there are barriers, the barriers are absurd. I mention an amusing article on race, a dig at the arbitrariness of judging people by the color of their skin. We are the same at heart. Here we are, friends, sharing the same hopes, dreams, fears. One’s skin color can’t possibly matter. Bev makes a joke about it. Maybe her joke isn’t that funny, but Bev and I are laughing again. I can’t stop. I feel manic. The blonde girl next to me, who, smiling, has joined in the conversation, looks at me to say “enough”. Get it together. But Bev is still laughing too. She nudges me on the shoulder. Ha, ha, ha.
I never get a better sense for how much alike we are than this afternoon with Bev. Race? Sex? The unspoken cultural barriers that promote our segregation are a crock.
But they are not going away just because Bev and I laugh at them. The following week, I stop by Bev and Bea’s table in the Fitch cafeteria to say hi. They are sitting with a table of black kids. When I walk away after a few words, I feel that eyes are on me, black and white alike, wondering what that was about.
The Shoe
Fred Thomas could not reconcile himself to the way things were. Like Allie Fox in “The Mosquito Coast.” He was profoundly disillusioned about the values of our society, their crassness. The way in which mainstream sanctions restricted personal freedom, killed initiative, beat you down. He was opting out. He owned the property just down the Mystic River from the Grays. He had a house, a dock, and a big boathouse. He lived there alone. His wife left him, taking the kids to California. Fred lived off the royalties from a patent for a variable pitch propellor.
Fred was wound tight. He was thin, in his late ‘60s, or maybe older, but in good shape. Wiry with strong hands.
My brother and Gordon drove Fred nuts. Fred claimed that they roared by his dock in their “speedboats”. He’d stand on his dock screaming “no wake, no wake”, waving his arms, shaking his fist. “I’ll call the police.” Harold and Gordon reluctantly throttled back anywhere near Fred’s dock and grumbled about “Fred”. There were not many places on the river where you could let your boat run. I’d hear about Fred at the supper table. “Any trouble with Fred today?” Mom would ask.
But gradually, Fred started to mellow. After watching from afar, complaining to John and Mary Gray, he pulled Harold and Gordon aside for a talk. He found that they were doing neat stuff and got to like them.
Fred was eccentric. His black and white cat Vanguard trailed him around his yard. To feed his cat, Fred walked down to his dock and pulled up his minnow trap. With Vanguard meowing, dancing on his hind feet, paws stretching, Fred dumped the latest minnow catch on the dock for Vanguard to feast on.
Fred was a glider pilot and a scuba diver. Someone said he could hold his breath for five minutes underwater. He designed and built his own boat, a fiberglass monstrosity. He and Vanguard were going to take it around the world. It had a large comfortable cabin inside, a galley, and numerous devices that he designed for convenience. The boat was innovative, with roller reefing so that he could easily store the mainsail on the boom, and with an autopilot to steer on the planned voyage. Still, the boat was funny looking. Fred called her Sea Coach but we called it “The Shoe”.
He finally launched the Shoe and took it out in Fishers Island Sound for test cruises. We sailed by the Shoe a number of times. She wasn’t very fast. But Fred had built her himself and he’d be sailing her out toward the Race off Fishers Island. If we looked closely, we could see Vanguard out on the front deck. After his test cruises, he announced that he was leaving for his round-the-world trip. He spent a day or so out in the Atlantic before he decided the Shoe wasn’t yet seaworthy enough.
Fred talked to me several times and showed me around his boat. Fred was lonely, but not lonely enough to do anything about it. He’d tried marriage. He saw me wearing a wedding ring once. “Why do you have that on?” he wanted to know. “Bondage – It’s a symbol of bondage – slavery. That’s why it’s closed. See.” He held my ring up, looking at it askance.
But Fred liked Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. In that day, Tolkien was still largely unknown. Most fans were kids my age or younger. But here was Fred, an adult, older than my parents, and he thought it was neat stuff. Frodo. Gandalf. Here was an older man who understood what I’d been obsessing on. He’d even painted florescent hobbit tracks on his ceiling. They glowed when he turned out the light.
And Fred was an eclectic thinker. He had lead bars lying around his boathouse. When I picked up a bar and observed how heavy it was, Fred described its unique properties to me. Why lead was so dense. But even lead is not really dense, Fred said. He described the theoretical density in a black hole. Looked at that way, that lead was mostly vacuum. Fred could get you thinking.
Fred was skeptical of the American space program. He didn’t think the technology existed to put a man on the moon. The night that Armstrong took a giant step for mankind on the Moon, Fred called my mom. “I think it’s staged,” he said. “The shadow’s wrong.”
Fred Thomas and Sea Coach
There’s a story about Fred that I like to think is true. It should be true if it’s not. Fred had a serious heart attack. He came to in the hospital hooked up to oxygen and an IV drip. The doctors told him his heart was fatally damaged. He had congestive heart failure. He was dying. Fred took off the oxygen and the IV and checked himself out of the hospital. He drove up to the airport and went gliding.
\
Sea Hunt
Out in Fishers Island Sound. The Amesbury Skiff is loaded with gear. Harold has the fifteen horse Evinrude flat out. The sun is bright but the wind is gusting and the waves are choppy. Every fourth or fifth wave wacks the bow and showers us with spray. I’m up front to keep the bow down, wearing a Fitch swim suit and getting wet. Ruby Baby is behind us; Gordon has her throttled down so she doesn’t pound in the waves. His brother Donny and Ricky Mark are with him. There’s a scuba tank by my foot, two wet suits, and some weight belts. A beat-up styrofoam cooler. Also two sleeping bags in a plastic trash bag that I have to keep moving to keep dry. Our towels are wet wicking water from the bilge.
Gordon juices Ruby Baby and she shoots by us, then half launches herself on a wave, jolts as she plows into the next trough. Gordon slows her down. Tips of spear guns protrude from the back of their boat. We’re headed to Sandy Point off Stonington to go diving, then out to spend the night on the beach at Napatree Point off Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
We swim most of the afternoon off Sandy Point. I don’t have a scuba tank, so I snorkel with my spear gun, hunting for fish. The spear gun is built like a crossbow. It has a barbed aluminum spear that is tethered to the handle. It uses heavy elastic bands to shoot the spear, a maximum distance of about three feet. It looks lethal. The water, however, is too murky to see a fish. But I’ve got my wet suit and flippers on, the water’s reasonably warm, and I feel cool. Lloyd Bridges. Sea Hunt. I put my head down and dive.
When I get cold, I get out and flop on the beach in the sun. I’ll have to wait for Harold, he never gets cold. Rick is the same way. But that’s okay because the salt water feels good, tingly, drying on my skin and the view is beautiful. A class of Groton Long Pointers is racing. They are sleek wooden daysailers. They are heeling sharply as they round a buoy off the point. I watch as they hit the mark, turn downwind, and break out the spinnakers.
From year to year, authorities patrol the beaches, putting up Private Property – No Trespassing or State Property – No Trespassing signs. But this year, there are no signs in sight and no one strolls the beach to throw us off.
I lie on the beach and contemplate my new freedom. When we left the house this morning, I only took thirty seconds to grab an extra pair of shorts, a suit, a towel and my diving stuff. Skipped the underpants, socks – they’d just get wet – and headed out the door. Not like those family outings where you wait and wait, and then have to check that you’ve got everything. Unlike the old days, there’s no tarp on the skiff now to take off and fold. No preliminary sponging of the bilge. We have a cut-off Chlorox bottle and we don’t start bailing until we are underway. It’s a new world.
Later in the afternoon, we motor over to Napatree and go ashore by the World War I fort. The beach is rocky in spots. Mussels crowd rocks on the shoreline. We have to be careful not to slice our feet. They get a little cut anyway. But we’ve been walking barefoot and barely notice. We find an area of good sand to camp out. Go for another swim, then divide up the sandwiches in the cooler.
When there’s still time before dark, Gordon and I walk along the beach into Watch Hill. By now the Groton Long Pointers are moored off Watch Hill Yacht Club. I buy some cigarettes and we walk back. It’s dark when we get to camp. So I spread my sleeping bag on the sand and crawl in. The bag is surprisingly dry after the day on the water. Only a corner is wet where it dropped for a second in the bilge.
The night sky is crystal clear. A cold front maybe. And no light pollution. We are miles from any city. I lie on my back and look at the stars and am amazed. I’ve never seen them so close. You could reach up and touch them. A cricket trills behind me. A meteor shoots across the sky. “Look at that,” I say. Gordon says, “Yeah. Perseids. There’s a meteor shower tonight.”
We lie back and watch the show. Every minute or so, there’s another meteor. I have never seen a shooting star. I’ve looked during meteor showers in light-polluted skies. Someone might have said, “There see it?” I never have. But this night, the shooting stars are for real.
Heineken
It’s a Saturday summer night. I’m up in Vermont, tagging along again. It’s a feeling I don’t like. But Gordon and Donny are going to a party and they invite me along. I’m sitting in the backseat of Gordon’s broken down Studebaker. The car doesn’t have a first gear. Gordon and Donny are up front. We have been driving up a dirt backroad for several miles following Jerry and Knuckles Fifield in Knuckle’s rusting gray Volkswagen beetle. Jerry is driving. We can see Knuckles in the backseat making out with his girlfriend. Knuckle’s dark unruly hair; her upturned face, straight blonde hair. When Gordon flashes the high beams at them, they look at us out the back window. Knuckles grins and gives a thumbs up.
Jerry Fifield, Harold, Gordon – Gray’s farm house, VT
The road is slow going. We are somewhere in the Green Mountains, hemmed in by trees, now downshifting to second for a steep grade up. Other dirt roads branch off to the right or left. Jerry passes a turn, hesitates, then continues straight. There is supposed to be a party up here in a meadow. The Fifields, local kids that live on a farm down the street from the Grays’ place, know about it. But we are out in nowhere. After seeing Jerry hesitate at that turn, I’d bet ten-to-one that we are lost.
Ahead the Volkswagen pulls through a break in the trees to the right and suddenly the meadow is there, opening up along a broad expanse under a full moon. Twenty or so cars are parked around several campfires. Gordon pulls his Studebaker up next to the Volkswagen beside one of the fires. A car radio is blaring Jimi Hendrix, Foxy Lady. I can see groups of people congregated around the fires. There are faces shining in the firelight. Some faces are blacked out in shadow. Voices rise and fall.
I stand leaning against the hood of the car looking out over the fire and light a cigarette. The cigarette is not a bad social crutch when you don’t know anyone. Don’t know, in fact, why you are here. Come to think of it, Gordon, Donny, Jerry, Knuckles and his girlfriend have disappeared into the night. I am there alone. Just me and the Studebaker.
I look at the other cars and the people around the fire. People are having a good time – laughing, drinking. Clapton, Layla, is playing. I don’t know a soul. It must be 11:30 or so at night. I’m not going to start circulating, introducing myself to total strangers. Still, I can’t complain about the atmosphere. The sky is bright and the moonlight positively shimmers on a sea of grass spreading out as far as I can see into the night. Even in the moonlight, the meadow has an openness that I will years later associate with the American West. And an otherworldly quality – ethereal. One could imagine a herd of bison suddenly appearing out of the dark and thundering by. Or believe that you had been dropped by magic somewhere in Middle-Earth.
But I find that I’ve been staring at a dark-haired girl on the other side of the fire. Her hair is short but it frames and accentuates her face which is pretty, delicate, like a model’s. It seems that I’ve seen her before. Which is when she catches me looking at her and – Jesus – heads my way. I take a drag on the cigarette, which sure is handy about now. Where the hell have I seen her? “You’re Harry’s brother,” she says. “I’m…”
“Cathy.” I realize I’ve seen her with Donny at a Pittsfield center dance the year before. Only then her hair was long, dark, and shiny. She’s surprised, pleased, that I know her name.
“We’ve got some beer in the cooler,” she says. “What would you like?”
I’ve tried drinking beer twice in my life. Both times it was awful, bitter. The last can that someone gave me I had surreptitiously dumped when no one was looking. But I knew right then, that, for this moment, I was going to like beer. Love it. “What’ve you got?”
I pull out a green aluminum can of Heineken. I think it’s more sophisticated. German beer’s supposed to be good. I don’t know it’s Dutch. The Heineken isn’t too bad. Maybe I’m getting the hang of it.
Cathy and I chit-chat while we sip our beers. We stand with our backs to the fire looking out over the meadow. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” I say. It occurs to me as I say it that I could be talking about her face. But the meadow under the full moon is amazing. The fire crackles behind us. I’d like to freeze this frame. I know I’ll never be here again. I don’t even know where we are. I’ll never date this beautiful girl. She lives a four hour drive from my home. I’d be over my head anyway. But why can’t I somehow preserve the moment?
Maybe Cathy feels something, too. She moves closer to me in a way that feels like an invitation. I take a sip of beer and put my arm around her. She melts against me. I kiss her and her lips are moist. I feel the press of her body. It is hard to believe that this is real, that life can be this sweet.
Black girls
I’m hanging out with Ned and with Cliff Webb down at the BYF in Mystic on a Sunday night. Cliff is black, tall, outgoing. He’s been playing his drum set for us. He’s good.
Cliff looks at his watch and says, “Come on. Let’s go see Vicki dance.” I don’t know who Vicki is. But Cliff says, “Well, I’m going. It’s about to start. I’m not going to miss it.”
I tag along. Vicki is showing a dance routine to Walt and Ron. We’re not invited. Cliff sneaks up to a window to watch. Well, alright, I guess.
We have to push through foundation plantings to get close. I can hear classical music. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, maybe. It’s dark and the light beams out the windows. I push up next to Cliff to look in.
Vicki, a pretty black girl in leotards, is poised, in a kneeling position, like a cat. When the next movement starts, she springs and whirls. She performs a modern dance routine. She is amazingly graceful, her movements are fluid. Her skin glistens in the light, set off by her leotard. She could be dancing for Alvin Ailey. I think “jeez”. I look at Cliff and his mouth is open. We watch until she finishes. Then we sneak away.
Vicki starts coming to the BYF. She performs her dance for the group. I’m intimidated by her. I think that she is talented and beautiful. But Walt and Ron run the programs so that we get to know each other. The BYF has a Halloween party where we bob for apples. Then teams race to pass an apple from chin to chin. I pass an apple to Vicki. We have to get close and her touch feels electric.
Then there’s a toga party. A week later, the BYF goes Christmas caroling. By now Vicki and I are friends. I give her a ride home and we make out in her driveway.
I know that going out with Vicki is ignoring what some consider a social taboo. But the taboo, if there is one, is fundamentally wrong. Immoral. I remember the feeling I had with Bev. A barrier based on skin color is a crock. Vicki is nice, pretty, fun to be with. The hell with it. It’s no one’s business except ours. My mother sees Vicki and me when we are caroling together, holding hands, looking at each other. She tells me that the world is not benign. Some people don’t like interracial couples. I should be careful. But I resent her comments. I don’t tell her that I’m dating Vicki. I tell her that I’m off to see Ned, or I’m going down to the BYF.
Vicki, however, has her own agenda. After the fifth date, she says good bye. I’m crushed.
I date another black girl, Alice. She’s pretty too. A lively sense of humor. She flirts with me at a cook-out, then calls me up. She is sensitive and has deep soulful eyes. I take her out most of the spring. We go to dances. To the movies. We make out at the drive-in. Talk about love and life and race. I know for sure that the racial barriers are foolish, stupid. What’s wrong with the world? We’re people, that’s all. I love Alice. She’s the one.
But I hide our dates from my parents because they wouldn’t understand. When my Senior Prom comes, I feel that I can’t ask Alice so I ask another girl. Ned asks Alice’s sister and Alice finds out. I could kick myself, but it’s too late.
South Hill
Harold decided in the fall of 1967 to build a house on South Hill in Stockbridge, Vermont, near the Grays. He bought some land off South Hill Road, roughly on the opposite side of South Hill from the Grays’ farm on Route 100.
South Hill Road begins at Route 100, about a third of a mile south of the Grays’ farmhouse, beyond where I drove the ski-tow car. The road is dirt and runs steeply up South Hill. The road challenges a marginal vehicle. Like the ones we drive.
Harold’s lot is on a downward slope to a brook. The area is largely tree-covered, but Harold’s lot has a small meadow and an open view down the valley to the south.
Harold planned a small cape, twenty feet by thirty feet. With a full cellar and a sleeping area on the second floor, the house was a good size. He didn’t have much money; just what he earned working for John Gray, but Pop would help him out financially. Harold wasn’t looking for much. He planned to build the house with what he had.
When Harold came home from Worcester Poly Tech during the winter break in early 1968, I rode over to New London with him to look at a 1947 Studebaker pickup truck advertised in the New London Day and owned by an elderly Italian tradesman, Attilio Polvari. Harold would need a truck to build the house. The truck was over twenty years old, older even than John Gray’s classic Dodge, and had been sitting in a shed covered with dust. It had a six volt battery system. Manual choke. Vacuum wipers. The starter button was on the floor. The six-volt system turned the engine over so slowly that I was always amazed when it started. But it was a real truck. It could carry a load.
47 Studebaker gets a paint job
Studebaker – South Hill, Pittsfield,VT
The truck had to pass inspection to be registered and we were concerned that it might not pass. Harold hadn’t had time to work on it. The truck looked its age. It was scruffy and needed paint. But Harold had to be back to school and wanted the truck on the road. We drove the truck to New London late on a Friday afternoon just before the Motor Vehicle Department closed for the day. It was dark out and brutally cold. As we crossed the Gold Star Bridge into New London, it began to snow. The motor vehicle inspector grumped when we asked him to inspect the truck. He looked at his watch. But we were there five minutes before closing time and he grudgingly followed us out to the truck. I thought that, under the circumstances, he might find a quick problem and make us come back another day. But no. Finding a problem was going to take too long. “Turn on the lights,” he said. The snow is coming down hard, blowing against our faces. It’s freezing. The cold bites through my gloves. The inspector shakes his head, hugs himself. He claps his hands, breathes out a stream of fog. The lights work. He looks at us, scratches the back of his neck. Shrugs his shoulders. “Okay.” We follow him back in the building. He should have at least kicked the tires for show.
The Studebaker dies on the way home. Now I get to freeze my ass. I know that Harold can’t diagnose and fix the truck in the dark, in the freezing cold, in the snow, without tools. In less than a minute, he locates a crimp in the fuel line near the fire wall into the engine compartment. He had to be psychic. He uncrimped the fuel line with a pair of vice-grips that he conjured out of thin air. Restarted the truck. I didn’t freeze at all.
Harold and Pop sit after supper discussing how Harold’s going to get his house built. Pop planned his projects in detail. Blueprints. Materials lists. But Harold has it in his head. Rough estimates of board feet of lumber and the prices at Colton’s native lumber sawmill. The cost of cement blocks for the basement. He plans things as he goes, playing it by ear. He gets picture windows for the house by chance. He’s at the lumberyard in Rutland, Vermont ordering windows for the house when a disgruntled customer returns two picture windows. They aren’t what the man wants. The yard-man haggles. The yard is about to get stuck with two specially ordered windows that he can’t sell. Harold offers to take them if the price is right. He gets a bargain-basement deal. He will put a picture window in a corner to give a view looking south down the valley. He redesigns the house on the spot.
Pop runs down his list, seems satisfied, and says, “You need labor. You can’t do the work by yourself.” They look at me. Twenty dollars a week plus room and board, says Pop. Can’t beat that.
During spring break, Harold and I take the Plymouth up to Vermont to clear the lot. Along with the wood saws and a chain saw, Harold puts a shovel, rake, and mattock in the trunk. I want to know what the shovel’s for. I thought we were clearing trees. “We need to get to the site first,” says Harold. That doesn’t sound promising.
We turn on the radio during the ride up. A newsman reports rioting in the inner cities. We listen. It’s April 4th. Martin Luther King has been shot. We look at each other. JFK, Vietnam, now this assassination. The country’s social core is splitting. The center failing to hold. I feel that the country is adrift. Like something is shifting under our feet.
We reach South Hill Road. Harold swings the Plymouth over some ruts on to the dirt road and we head up the hill. There have been spring rains and run off. The road is in bad shape, rutted, gutted, washed out. I wonder if anyone has been up the road this year. We go a little further and I have my answer. We stop when the Plymouth bottoms out with a rear tire spinning. Deep ruts furrow the road in front of us. We pull out the shovel, rake, and mattock and fill the ruts. After twenty-five minutes, we can drive again.
When we get to Harold’s lot, I am amazed at how steep the slope on his land is. I wonder how he can build on it. I wonder even if we can get the car off the road. But Harold has figured out how to take advantage of the slope so that the house has ground level access to the basement in back as well as to the first floor in front. He pulls the car off on a grade and doesn’t get stuck.
The next day we cut trees and clear the site. I haven’t cut many trees and I know it’s dangerous. I’m careful. But the first tree that I drop falls sooner than I anticipate. Harold walks right into its path. The tree’s not very big; I shout a warning. Harold runs. He gets brushed by a few upper branches. He’s not happy.
Later that day, to my astonishment, someone drives a Jeep down South Hill Road from the opposite direction. Mr. Bumps, a neighbor, is taking his Jeep out for a spin to check on the road. He is surprised to see our Plymouth with the big tail fins sitting on a building lot on South Hill.
Fitch graduation
I graduated from Fitch in May 1968. Lorraine Santangelo directed the rehearsals for the graduation procession. She expected us to do it well. I knew Lorraine better now. She had continued to be supportive. Because of her, I was an editor for the school paper. But when she saw me walking in the procession rehearsal, she came running. “David,” she said. “What ever do you think you’re doing?”
“Walking in the procession.” I wondered if she was pulling my leg or something. What’s the problem?
“You’re out of step, “ she said. “Not even close. Try it again.” I had no idea what she was talking about. I was stepping to the beat. Like everyone else. I tried it again. “No, no, no. Again.” “No, no, no. Again.”
Lorraine looked frustrated. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Worse yet, she will think that I’m doing it on purpose. She watches me one last time – before she brains me, I suppose – and understands what is wrong. “You are syncopating,” she says. “You’re a half step off. Every time.”
Dave, Mike Tansey, graduation – photo courtesy of Ned’s sister
When she says that, I understand. Now I hear the music differently and see that I was out of step. Marching to a different drum. I would never have figured it out on my own.
I was accepted by the University of Connecticut at Storrs. My father wanted me to go to a top private college. Wesleyan, Williams, Amherst. Give Yale a shot.
I had received a National Merit Letter of Commendation. My score was the second highest in the class. I had a reasonable chance of being accepted by at least one of those schools. Looking back on it, Pop was right. While UConn had its strong points, I might have had more options if I had gone to a higher ranked school. But the prep school kids went to those schools. I’d had enough of them. I had friends from Fitch going to UConn. UConn was it.
Cement
We built Harold’s house on South Hill in the summer of ‘68. My brother was the guiding spirit, owner, manager, contractor, supervisor. He was the most efficient, best motivated worker. But he had help.
We had the cellar hole dug for us. Then Harold and I hand dug the foundation footings. We set cement forms for the footings. We leveled the floor. The cement truck couldn’t get close to the cellar hole so we built a cement chute of wood struts and roofing tins. We had a wheel barrow to move cement. I heard the cement truck coming up South Hill, grinding up the grade, for ten minutes before it finally came into view. The driver backed his truck down the slope closer than I would have dared and didn’t flinch once.
We poured the footings, then the cement floor, all at once, in one job. We had to move the cement around the hole by hand. Early in the process, I sliced my hand on the chute roofing tins. But the cement is coming down the chute. We have to keep going. Once the cement is mixed with water, it starts to set up. So it has to be poured and put in place quickly. We get the footings filled and move onto the floor. The work is heavy, more that the two of us can do. But we can’t stop. We are not fast enough and cement starts to harden. We have to work faster. The rush keeps getting worse. Suddenly, amazingly, the floor is done. We step back and it looks okay. There’s even time to screed the surface of the cement.
But there’s a problem. The cement has burned Harold’s ankles. You don’t walk in cement as you pour it. But in the rush, we had to break the rules. I have ruined a pair of socks. But Harold walked in it more. He wasn’t wearing boots and cement soaked through his socks and around his ankles. The cement was burning him but we couldn’t stop until the job was done. He ignored the pain.
Finally he takes off his sneakers and looks at his ankles. They look nasty. Red, swelling, with peeling skin. Cement has bonded with flesh. He soaks his ankles. We drive down to the Grays’ house and Harold tries various home remedies while sitting in Mary Gray’s kitchen. The cement burns keep him off his feet for a couple of weeks. The job stops. My parents drive us home so that Harold can recuperate.
I ask Alan if he can help. When we start working again, Alan and I do the grunt work. The first job is to build cement-block walls for the cellar. A truck delivers a load of blocks on the road. We have to move the cement blocks forty or fifty feet into the cellar hole. The cement chute is now a cement-block chute. One at a time, Alan tosses a block down the chute. If the chute is sufficiently greased with sand, and the block is thrown straight enough and hard enough, it slides to me at the bottom of the chute. But many snag or are misdirected and fly off the chute. Some bounce down the slope at me. There are a hell of a lot of blocks.
When Harold’s ankles get better, he and Pop, the masons, lay the blocks. Alan and I are the mason’s helpers, preparing the site so that the mason can concentrate on setting the blocks. It’s the harder job. Each morning we shovel a truckload of gravel from a local gravel bank into the Studebaker. We fill the Studebaker as much as we can, but we discover that the truck can’t get up South Hill Road with a full load. With a full load, the clutch slips and the truck bogs down halfway up. So we estimate the biggest load that will make it, then gun the truck to a running start at the base of the hill. If we figured it right, we make it all the way up. Since the road is only a car-width wide, we hope that we don’t meet someone coming down the hill in the middle of the steep grade.
To make mortar, we sifted the gravel a shovel-full at a time to get the sand. Harold built a sifter from 2″ x 4″s and a screen. Then, we mixed the sand with mortar-mix in the gas-powered cement-mixer and siphoned in water from a brook a hundred yards away. The mortar wasn’t bad. The cellar walls went up. One afternoon, ten days or so later, Harold finished them.
Harold set up a generating plant for the next phase so that we could use our electric skill-saw. Uncle Scoop at the Farm in Montague had given Harold an old turn-of-the-century donkey motor, a single-cylinder gas engine cooled by a water jacket. Harold hooked the engine up by belt to an ancient looking AC generator. Who knows where that came from? We started the donkey motor, then started the skill-saw and began cutting.
Generator shed concealing donkey motor/generator
When we started framing the walls and other woodwork, Alan was temporarily back in Mystic. We could have used his help. We were building with rough-cut native lumber – 2″ x 4″s; 2″ x 6″, 2″ x 8″s, 2″x 10″s. The lumber was full-sized, not pared down like finished lumber. A rough-cut 2″ x4″ is two inches by four inches. A finish-cut 2″ x 4″ is really one and one half inches by three and one half inches. Since the native lumber was fresh-cut, not kiln-dried, it was also wet. So the lumber we used was bigger and heavier than is normally used by builders. It was strong and relatively inexpensive, but it could be hard to work with. And the wet wood spit at us as we drove nails home.
The extra weight created a problem when Harold and I put the central thirty-foot carrying-beam in place. The beam was made up of three widths of two by tens, a thirty foot ten by six. We had to get it into notches at the top of the basement walls. But it was too heavy to lift. Harold thought that we could lift one end at a time.
But the first end was hard to grip and still too heavy. We barely had it under control when we lifted the first end and set it in the notch in the north wall. We took a break, then raised the second end. Straining, we got the carrying beam over our head. But now we had to walk it up a ladder to a height above the wall before we could drop it into the notch. We got it up high enough, almost had it, started to swing it. But it was awkward and heavy, and it spun, then lurched out of control. As it collapsed, it narrowly missed us and knocked against the south wall.
We needed a better idea. We pulled the beam apart in two pieces and put it back up, one half-beam at a time. Then nailed the two halves together. Piece of cake. Too bad we didn’t do it that way the first time.
Once the foundation and carrying-beam were in place, we made good progress. Framing and closing in a house is rewarding. When we erect a wall or board over a roof, we step back at the end of the day and see what we built. Alan and Ned joined us. Some days Gordon stopped over. Harold was moving freely on his feet. We had cut the necessary joists and rafters with the skill-saw. Now we cut the boards by hand, boarding the exterior walls, dormers, floors, and roof. After a couple days, we were flying. Grab a board, measure, mark using the square, flip it on the saw horse, four or five strokes with the saw, nail it, grab another board. We had the routine down pat. With each board, there’s more house. We get cocky, racing to see how fast we can saw the next board. Who can cut a board with the least strokes. Drive a nail with the least swings. Seeing the house coming together is exhilarating.
We had started the second floor when my parents drove up from Mystic on a beautiful blue-skied summer day. I could hear the wood thrushes and veeries singing in the woods. My mom walked up South Hill Road looking for birds with her binoculars. She had gone about a minute when Ned broke out his radio and cranked the volume up high. Jimi Hendrix blared. Purple Haze. I start to move to the beat but Mom runs down the hill shouting at Ned to turn the damn thing off. Boy was she mad. If you listen to her, Ned scared away every bird for a square mile. And they didn’t come back for a week.
Construction South Hill – not a bird to be heard
Roof Surfing
We are roofing on South Hill. The east side of the roof – the down-slope side – is boarded. Ned and I are about to roll out the last sheet of tar paper, the piece that goes over the ridge. The roof is sloped at a forty-five degree angle, steeper than most roofs. We are standing on staging planks.
I edge my way around Ned to refill my apron with nails. As I pass by, I see that Ned has written “Ned was here ‘68″ with roofing nails on the tar paper.
We are near the top of the roof, pretty high up, looking down the valley at a mix of deciduous maple, oak, and birch trees with darker green evergreens. White pines line the ridge, silhouetted against the horizon. We are at mid-height with the surrounding trees. At this height, I notice funny looking bugs. They must live up here but they look alien. Red and green backs. Long curling antennas. I point them out to Harold and Ned.
The west side of the roof, where Harold is working, is coming more slowly. He’s wearing baggy, torn, cut-off dungarees held up by a manila rope. No shirt. The sun is hot even though the late summer air is cool. Harold lays the boards, tar paper, and shingles from the inside of the second floor. Now the roof on Harold’s side is about three-fourths of the way up and we are going to need staging. Harold can’t reach over the last row of boards to shingle.
A car is coming up South Hill Road so I take a break. It’s Gordon in his Studebaker. Gordon gets out leaving the car radio blaring. He’s wearing long dungarees and a torn white T-shirt. He clips on his work belt. Maybe we’ll finish the roof today.
Gordon climbs up the ladder and surveys the job. “Guess we should be making some roofing brackets,” Harold says.
Gordon laughs. “What the hell for? That roof’s not so steep.”
“It’s pitched forty-five degrees to keep the snow off,” says Harold. “I can’t walk on it.”
“You guys,” says Gordon, as if we’re wimps. “I can walk on it. No sweat.”
I don’t think so. I watch in astonishment as he jumps out on the west roof – the side with no staging. He has a hammer out, ready to nail.
“See,” he says. “ Let’s nail this sucker.” He stands up looking down the roof. For a second, his sneakers hold. Then he starts to slide. I think he’s going to die. It’s a long way down the roof and the roof edge is ten feet above the ground.
Gordon looks surprised but he doesn’t panic like I would. Instead, he surfs down the roof. You know that scene in the movie “Return of the King” where Orlando Bloom as Legolas slides down the Oliphant’s trunk? It’s Gordon. It flashes through my head that he’ll crash and burn. But when Gordon reaches the edge of the roof he skips onto the staging at the top of the wall. Like he had this planned all along. Looking back up, he grins, a bit sheepish. “Well, maybe it’s steeper than I thought.”
Closed in
Harold the Mason with fireplace
Hampton Manor
Friday night in Vermont. We’ve been working all week. We are nearly finished putting up the native-cut wavy-edged siding made from inch slices of logs. It was hot today. We broke off work early to drive down to Timber Lake for a swim. We pull in our car near the dam. I don’t know if the area where we swim is public, but it’s not posted. The water is cold but clear and refreshing. We are Fitch swim team graduates, good swimmers, and show off. Alan’s butterfly is heavy in the water. My freestyle looks okay. After the swim, we head back to the Grays’ house where Harold cooks up a pot of spaghetti. Cheap spaghetti sauce from a jar. We drown the spaghetti with milk. Then we rag my brother about his cooking. His reputation as a chef has not been enhanced this summer. Last night he cooked canned Dinty Moores.
Harold and Gordon are headed out in Harold’s MG. Alan and I are left with the Plymouth. We are both eighteen. At eighteen in 1968, you are old enough to be drafted, to die for your country. But you can’t vote. And you can’t buy a drink in Connecticut or Vermont. The incongruity of this, in the land of the free, grates on me.
The Plymouth, South Hill
However, the drinking age in New York is eighteen. The local Vermont kids drive over to Hampton Manor, a bar and night spot over the New York border. You see the “entering New York” sign just before the Manor comes into view. We haven’t been there yet but it’s Friday night, we are on our own, and we have the Plymouth.
Although we go to the Manor in part to drink, I don’t like beer. And if I drink too much, I won’t be able to drive back. So I limit myself to one beer and try to pick up a girl. The place is hopping. There’s a dance floor with a good band. I ask a girl to dance. After a couple dances, she has to “do her hair” and disappears into the ladies room. But I’m enjoying the music and the atmosphere. I light a cigarette and order a second beer. Then, I have a third. Al, who has been drinking all along, thinks I’m being a putz. What are we here for, after all? Al looks a bit sloshed. But, me, I’m driving – no problem.
Except, when we leave, I’m not steady myself. I haven’t been drinking often enough to know my limits. Three beers was too much.
Still, I’m in control. We are parked in a large parking area with a worn blacktop littered with debris. An empty box of Marlboros. A squashed can of Budweiser. I get Al in the car – yup – he’s sloshed alright. I start the engine and pull ahead. I hear the tingling crash of breaking glass. I step out of the car and there are slivers of a beer bottle under it. The tires look alright. It’s 1:00 in the morning and there’s nothing I can do about it except try not to run over the glass again. I shrug, get back in the car, and pull out of the lot. We make it several miles into Vermont before the front tire on the passenger side goes flat. Kerthunk. Kerthunk. The steering wheel jerks in my hand. Shit. I pull over. Well, I know how to change a flat tire.
But damn, I’m unsteady when I get out of the car. Dizzy. My key won’t fit in the trunk keyhole. It’s a struggle to get the jack in place, lift the bumper, and loosen the wheel lugs. Every once in a while, the ground whirls and I steady myself by grabbing the car. I know what I’m doing – I even know to check whether there are reverse threads on the lugs like the Chrysler products had back then. But I have to grab the fender when I stand up. The air is cool. I’m hoping the dizziness will wear off as I work. I am, in fact, starting to feel better.
But a car pulls in behind us. It’s a Vermont State trooper. He’s out patrolling for drunk drivers. We are two drunk teenagers headed home, a stone’s throw from the Manor. I figure that we are screwed. But I put on my most innocent face. “Sure officer, a flashlight would be great.” Hoping, praying, that Al stays in the car. Kerclick. Nope. Al getting out. He’s going to help. Or chitchat with the cop. Just what we need. I am focusing hard, trying to get the spare tire on quickly and competently. Trying not to lose my balance. The cop is a nice guy. Maybe after dealing with real drunks every night, he didn’t think we looked bad. He might have been amused. He comments about the Mets and he shines his flashlight so I can see. I sock the last lugs on the spare tire. I straighten up trying to be casual and steady. Balance. Let the car down off the jack. There. I don’t think I showed a thing. “Gee, thanks a lot officer.”
Perhaps I haven’t fooled him. He says, “You boys take it easy on the way home.” He heads back to his cruiser. As he walks by, Al gives him a drunken wave, a goofy grin, and says, “Yeah officer, I sure hope we don’t get any more flat lights.”
The cop hesitates in midstride, then keeps going.
Boating
Fiberglass boats dominate Fishers Island Sound. Harold’s twenty-foot wooden Star, the Snark, hearkens back to an earlier day. She’s blue, angular but sleek, with a dagger keel and a high raking mast. Built for speed. She looks fast sitting at her mooring.
The Snark
The Snark – light air
She’s heavy compared to the glass boats. If there’s a light breeze, we’re better off letting her sleep. Otherwise, some kids with a lightweight glass boat will pull up on us, then cruise by looking smug. But give her a fifteen or twenty knot breeze, like today, and it’s a different story.
She’s sailing into the wind, her large mainsail taut. Her rigging hums. She is surging through the water, rail down, now inching under. Her keel keeps her stable and I feel her surge yet more strongly with a gust. I’ve trimmed her jib as tight as I can and hiked up on the windward side. Harold is taking aim on a larger fiberglass sloop a quarter mile ahead. She’s a twenty-eight foot Ranger. Pretty. Her skipper’s got her trimmed tight, driving her. Now he glances surreptitiously back at us. By unwritten law, this has become a race. He hauls his mainsail in tighter, tries to point closer to the wind. Now he shouts at the girl sitting with him in the cockpit. She pulls out a winch handle and socks in his jib another turn. The Ranger heels, picking up speed.
But the Snark is flying. I hike further out on the windward rail and the water is shooting by her hull. She’s a thoroughbred, she’s seized the bit, and she wants to run. The Ranger is no match. The Snark rips by her. The skipper is yelling at the girl, ignoring us. We’ve spoiled his day.
Harold brings the Snark around at the next buoy and sets her on a broad reach for home. The sails, mast, and rigging are straining. This sail is a hoot. Perfect. We can’t help grinning at each other.
Another gust, the Snark heels, surges – my adrenaline is rushing. Then KERWOOMP – like it’s in slow motion, the mainsail splits, blows out in great shreds. Wooden battens at the edge of the sail fly off and tumble through space, blowing off in the breeze. Segments of the sail flap like giant flags. Her energy lost, the Snark sits up straight, flattens out, and wallows in a swell.
It’s hard to know whether we should be shocked, chagrined, or just laugh. There are a couple more old mainsails stowed under the deck. We’ll use one of them next time we go sailing. What the hell. We pull down the remaining shreds of the mainsail and limp home on the jib.
John Gray has Dixie, his brother’s old forty-foot gaff-rigged sloop, for the summer. He keeps her off Noank at a mooring improvised from an engine block. Like the Snark, Dixie is a vintage wooden boat of a different era. She too is built for speed. Her bow and stern are sharp and overhang the water. Her gaff mainsail is massive. The wisdom of her day was to crowd on sail and drive the boat with a large main. Newer fiberglass boats have masthead rigs, large jibs and smaller mainsails. They are easier to handle and faster in light air. But they don’t produce the sensation of raw power that Dixie does in a good breeze.
John Gray, Pittsfield construction
Harold, Gordon, Donny, Rick, and I have taken Dixie out to Block Island for the weekend. While she sits at anchor, I go up the mast, using a halyard for support. Just because I can. I am surprised at how high up it feels. From the deck of the boat, the top of the mast looks high, but not that high. With the gaff rig, the mast is shorter than the mast for a triangular Marconi rig. But from up the mast, the boat below looks like it has shrunk. Thirty feet up feels very high. Those people on deck look remote. And the view out over the harbor is incredible. We’re anchored in Great Salt Pond. But I can see right across the Island. A Point Judith ferry is pulling into Old Harbor. She’s pushing a white bow wave that stands out against the dark blue of the water. Further out the ocean is rippled by white caps. Either it’s gusting out there or there’s a big tide rip coming around the Island. There’s Dead-Eyed Dicks, the bar. And further down, the classic Island hotels – The Surf, the run-down National, the New Shoreham Inn. Now Gordon’s yelling up at me from the deck. He wants his turn.
John Lindstrom rents John Gray’s boathouse apartment on the Mystic River. He’s a bachelor, a fun guy, and some evenings Alan, Ned, and I hang out at his place. We watch Johnny Cash, or Tom Jones, or Dean Martin on TV.
John owns an old forty-foot wooden cabin cruiser- twin engine, twin screw. And it’s Friday night. Alan, Ned, and I are eighteen. Can’t buy a drink. But Fishers Island and the Pequot House are in New York. This is a no brainer. “Hey John. Let’s take the boat out to Fishers.”
John hesitates. It’s already dark. One of his engines, salvaged from a junk car, only has twelve pounds oil pressure. Not really enough. He’s working on it. But does he want to go? He stares at us a second, then grins. Hell yes.
One engine should be enough. We slip out of Remy Faucett’s marina, the one over the railroad tracks at Willow Point. Our boat doesn’t steer well without the second propellor engaged. We have to fend off pilings to get out. From the Mystic River channel, we head out in the Sound. The cruiser pushes her tired hull along at a credible fifteen knots.
Fishers Island Sound at night is its own world. There’s a moonlight sheen on the water. Bright stars, constellations compete with a half moon. We see Fishers Island ahead and the lights of Groton Long Point off to the right. But the water itself is an inky black. To navigate, we pick out a bright light on Fishers Island and run down its track toward the shore. If there’s a boat or a buoy in the way, we should see it. I’m up on the foredeck, straining my eyes into the night. Our running lights are on, giving red and green glows to port and starboard. John’s face at the helm is dimly lit by a dull cabin light behind the windscreen. The bow wave is florescent and shoots off a stream of luminescent sparks. There’s a refreshing, cold breeze on my face. The cruiser lurches as we hit a swell, a tidal rip. Tide surging over Ram Island reef maybe. I catch my balance. If I fall off the boat out here in the dark, I won’t be missed for a while. I edge back to the cockpit reaching for the handholds on the top of the cabin. Suddenly the handholds don’t feel as substantial as they did in the daylight.
Breakfast at Allyn Street in Mystic. The phone rings. Joe Lewis calling for me. He’s headed out to Block Island in Melody for the weekend. His son Jim was called into work. Would I like to crew?
Melody is a beauty, a thirty-six foot wooden cruising sloop with classic lines. Joe keeps her immaculate. Joe is the best sailor I know. And I love Block. Whatever I had planned for the weekend is suddenly toast. When are you leaving? I’m headed out now. I’ll meet you at the dock.
It’s mid-August. It was a cool evening the night before and Melody is covered with a layer of dew. The harbor is hazy, verging on fog. Melody is painted a bright white with varnished wood topsides. Where Dixie feels lanky, built for speed, Melody’s lines are graceful – she’s built with finesse. Class.
Joe’s youngest son Tommy, ten, is on board. His daughter Mary, my classmate at Fitch, is also there. Mary’s at least as good a sailor as I, plenty of crew for the trip. I suddenly understand that I’m not needed. Joe had an extra spot and gave it to me.
We barely clear West Cove when Melody sails into a fog bank. Pea soup. I can’t see to the bow of the boat. With most skippers, the sail could get hairy. But Joe is relaxed, sitting by the helm. He checks his bearings, his compass reading, his watch. He glances up at the mainsail. There’s a light breeze. He trims the sail slightly. He’s wearing khaki shorts, a button-down short-sleeve shirt, and a cap with a long front brim known as a Block Islander. He glances briefly at his chart. Then he sits back and lights a pipe.
Every once in a while, he tells Mary or me to look out for a mark. Should be a nun coming up to port. He looks at his watch. About now. A red nun passes us on the left. Mary, I’m looking for Midchannel buoy. Yep. There it is.
Joe thinks that the fog is going to burn off. It doesn’t. From time to time we sail into a clearer patch. Then back into pea soup. At one point the fog only rises ten feet above the water. Higher up, it is almost clear. If I stand on the cabin, I can look up and see the mainsail clearly and even a hint of blue sky. But I can’t see the bow of the boat.
We hear motorboats in the distance. Some are going too fast for the conditions. We hear, but don’t see, a couple boats cruise by within fifty feet or so. I don’t think they know we are here. Another motorboat, a Boston Whaler, spots us and pulls out of the fog to run along side. “Which way to land?” the operator wants to know. Joe heads him off in the right direction and the Boston Whaler speeds off into the fog. From the sound of his motor, we can tell that he’s not keeping a straight course. Joe shakes his head.
We take most of the day to get to Block. Once we sail out of a patch of fog into sunlight. As we come into the clear, we see a large sunfish, ten feet across, sunning himself on the surface. For a moment, a fin sticks out of the water and he looks like a big fat passive shark working on a tan. We never do get a good breeze or have a clear view of land. In this fog, one could miss Block Island entirely. But Joe is thoroughly in control. He predicts when and where the entrance buoy will show up. Should be dead ahead about now. You see anything Mary? The buoy comes out of the fog twenty feet to Starboard.
We anchor in Great Salt Pond for the night. After we eat a late supper, Tommy takes out the dingy with a small one and a half horsepower Seagull outboard. Light is fading fast. Tommy is irrepressible. He gets an impish look when Joe tells him he can take the dingy. He’s on his own, having the time of his life scouting the anchorage. Joe is nonchalant. He’s got another pipe going. But I can see that he’s also keeping an eye on Tommy.
I figure Joe is about to call Tommy in. But now, in the distance, we see Tommy reach over the side with a bailer and scoop something up. And now he is racing the dingy back to the boat. When he gets back, he excitedly shows us what he’s got. A translucent jellyfish. A clear globe. It has membrane structures, but I look through it. Watch this, says Tommy. He pokes the jellyfish with a stick. The jellyfish lights up like an overcharged firefly. The bailer glows. I’ve never seen anything like it.
We look around the boat and jellyfish are everywhere. Hundreds. Thousands. We light them up by poking them with the boathook. As it gets dark, turns to night, we see them lighting up all around the harbor. I reach into the water to touch one and it doesn’t sting.
Joe suggests that I go for a swim. The swim is otherworldly. Something out of X-Files. Eerie. As I swim, I constantly touch one jellyfish, then another. They flash around me in an incredible light display. Treading water, my body is lighted against the dark. Jellyfish flash like strobe lights. I’m reminded of descriptions I’ve heard of LSD trips. I surface dive and the water blossoms around me in flashing globes of light. Cool. Far out. Unreal.
Storrs
The Storrs campus of the University of Connecticut expands broadly over several low hills. UConn is an early land grant college. The campus is wide open, spread out. In the winter the wind sweeps down bitterly from the West. In 1968, there was no shuttlebus system, but one was needed. There wasn’t enough time between classes to cross the campus on foot.
The buildings are institutional. With the exception of a couple of older buildings, the campus architecture is contractor concrete. The campus is out in cow country, in the middle of nowhere. A downtown Storrs did not exist in 1968. The nearest real town was depressing Willimantic whose showcase hotel, Hotel Hooker, was reputed to be, literally, a hotel for hookers. Or so I was told.
I lived in the Jungle in my freshman year. The Jungle was a series of interconnected residential halls built after WWII to house soldiers taking advantage of the GI bill. The hallways were lit by bare lightbulbs. My room, in Tolland Hall, looked out over a cemetery. My roommate was a nice kid but immature. He taped a picture of a woman exposing her vagina with the words “blow me” on the roll-up window shade. “Ta da.” Yes, it had to stay up, he told me. What kind of square was I?
But I let it slide, tried to be nice. And made friends with other kids on the hall. One of my better friends was Humphrey, a black foreign student from Swaziland, an independent enclave largely surrounded by South Africa. Humphrey was tall and athletic with a handsome face like Mohammed Ali’s. His culture really was different. His native Swazi language used clicks as consonants so that his real name could not be correctly pronounced by a native English speaker. But Humphrey had been educated in an English school. He spoke perfect English with an English inflection. He talked about the interplay of native and English culture. I liked his story about the school production of “Julius Caesar”. One of the students overzealously attacked Caesar during the assassination scene. Caesar had to be carried from the stage for real. Humphrey played guitar. He sat on his bed at night with his guitar, picking out popular tunes by the Beatles or Santana, and mixing them with African rhythms in a way that predated Paul Simon’s “Graceland”. He was also an excellent, sophisticated artist, covering his notebooks with doodles based on African themes, like pictures of lions intermixed in a larger design.
Under Swaziland culture, polygamy was common. The king had many wives. Humphrey grew up in a family compound with several “mothers” who shared in the child care. I enjoyed talking with him about what growing up there was like. He talked about being out in the bush. Watching out for crocodiles.
Humphrey – Allyn St addition
I like the professors at UConn. The English Department, my major, was especially strong. Professor Reynolds enthusiastically taught John Dryden. “Alexander’s Feast.” Alexander Pope. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” “The Rape of the Lock.” Samuel Johnson. “Rasselas.” “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.” Addison and Steele and “The Spectator.” The intellectual awakening of the 18th century. The earlier self-conscious diary of Pepys. Those writers spoke to me too. My advisor, Charlie Owen, was a Chaucer scholar and a classic humanist. He wanted to know his students personally and invited our Chaucer class to his home for dinner. Charlie was in his late 70s and looked like an aging English gentleman. Rotund, shy, with a soft hand shake. Bright eyes. He turned maudlin late that evening. He reminded me of Mrs. Olmstead’s words in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he predicted the end of civilization by nuclear holocaust, “by the 1980s at the latest.” “Pray I don’t live to see it.”
Science, math, economics, history. The faculty at UConn was excellent.
And the student body was first-rate. Tuition was low by contrast to the private universities. A lot of top students chose UConn because they could afford it. It wasn’t easy to get in.
The administration, however, failed to respond to student needs. It was a state institution with a lack of accountability. No one fixed the dripping faucet in the bathroom. Registering for classes was a nightmare. The food was awful, contracted out to the lowest “qualified” bidder no doubt. Alas, no one was poisoned.
Golden Summer
I began the summer of 1969 after my first year at UConn working as a lifeguard. I had my certificate to lifeguard from the Fitch swim team. Alan got us a job through his dad’s Navy contacts lifeguarding at Highland Lake in Ledyard which was frequented by Navy families.
I now had a job and money. Grown up.
A couple of the Navy mothers were irresponsible. They dropped their kids off on the beach for the afternoon and disappeared. Twice, I pulled a kid out of deep water. Each time, I had trouble recognizing that there was a problem. Was that kid floundering? Was he just a lousy swimmer? Was he shouting in excitement or fear? Looking from a hundred feet away in the life-guard stand, I wasn’t sure. But now I was responsible for knowing. On a sunny weekend, the beach would be mobbed.
On cloudy days, when there was a chill in the air, the beach was deserted. Sitting on the beach staring at the water was boring. So life-guarding wasn’t great. I was either anxious or bored.
On the other hand, several teenage girls in skimpy bikinis hung out at the beach. They showed up looking good and talked to us. But we had to break the rules to talk back. That was a problem for me. I wasn’t a palace guard.
And I couldn’t help notice that some people were having fun. One afternoon, several Navy families partied at the beach before their missile sub went out on patrol. A hot, dark-haired woman played catch with her husband and a three year old toddler. She was hard not to watch. She necked with her guy, giving him a good sendoff. I chatted with them. What’s your boat? How long you out for?
The next day, after the boat had left, she was back on the beach with another guy. They shared the same blanket, laughing and smiling. Then kissing and petting. I watched, trying not to stare. Later, they walked by me, arm in arm. As an after thought, she introduced me. “Uncle Jim.” He’d just flown in from Seattle. They hadn’t seen each other in years. Hmm. Well, okay.
After seven or eight weeks, I was fired. I was on duty by myself on an overcast day. Finally, it began to rain. No one was on the beach. I twiddled my thumbs under a pavilion watching the raindrops. Until one of the girls came down. She was pretty with long dark brown hair. A skimpy bikini. We talked and then made out. The supervisor, who was driving by, saw us. Maybe he was coming to send me home because of the rain. But he didn’t stop. Instead, he called me at home the next morning to fire me. It was awkward explaining to my parents. I don’t remember what lie I told.
Getting fired was a good lesson. It also freed up my summer. I had the Plymouth, Pop’s Amesbury Skiff, a little money, and suddenly time. They were the dog days of a beautiful July and August. And, it turned out, I had a girlfriend too.
Alan had the nerve to ask out the girl who had helped me get fired. But it didn’t matter. Marina, a Belgian girl, was living next-door on Allyn Street. She was working for the summer as an au pair for our neighbors, submarine captain Mickey O’Beirne and his wife Kathleen. Marina was a French-speaking Belgian, a Walloon, from Brussels. She wanted to see the States and her parents had made arrangements through military circles for her to work for the O’Beirnes. Her parents knew Kathleen’s parents. Something like that. So Marina was in Mystic. Kathy needed the help because, as a captain’s wife, she was responsible for the families of Mickey’s crew. It was a good deal for Kathy – and me.
The O’Beirnes threw an outdoor evening party, a “shish kabob”, with Scheherazade playing as theme music, to introduce Marina to the neighborhood. Kathy checked to ensure that I would be there to meet Marina. Mom made sure too. The neighborhood turned out. Kathy introduced me to Marina and we hit it off.
Capt O’Beirne, Kathleen, Heather, Michael
Marina was about 5’7″ with dark brown hair, fashionably dressed. Sophisticated in a cultured European way. Belgium was new and interesting to me. No, I said to Marina’s amazement, I’d never heard of the Grand Place, Brussels’ historic square. Where they promenade in the evening to see the famous floral decorations. No, I didn’t know about Mannekin Pis, Brussels’ famed pissing boy, or how they periodically dressed him up in a new outfit. I didn’t even know about the historic split of Belgium between the French-speaking Walloons and the Flemish. But, then again, I think she expected to see cowboys in downtown Mystic. And while she wouldn’t find the haute couture of Paris in Mystic, she liked boats and the beach and American movies.
Marina’s English was better than my French, which made her cringe. Or laugh aloud. At the party, I invited her to a Pete Seeger/Clearwater concert at the Mystic Art Gallery. It probably was Kathy’s idea, come to think of it. Clearwater was a gaff-rigged wooden schooner that had just been built to publicize environmental efforts to clean up the Hudson waterway. A beautiful boat with clean lines. That summer, Pete Seeger and some other musicians were touring, giving evenings of free music wherever Clearwater pulled in. Seeger did a short set, sandwiched in between some other good musicians. I was impressed by his performance, his charismatic presence, the way he could grab the crowd, move them. It was great music under a mild summer evening sky, sitting on the Art Gallery lawn looking out over the river. Marina and I had a good time. I kissed her on the walk back up the hill from downtown. Suddenly, I had a girlfriend as well as time, a little money, a car, and a boat. And I wanted to learn about European culture and European girls. Marina was interested in American culture and American boys too.
The stickler was Kathleen. Marina was living with her to look after the kids.
Anyhow, I now had the Plymouth for good. Harold graduated from Worcester Poly Tech and enlisted in the Coast Guard, where he was sent to Officer Candidate School. We had a yard full of cars with only three drivers. The Plymouth, by default, was mine. It was in good shape except that it burned oil and had traveled a lot of miles. I had several weeks free. With Kathleen taking up Marina’s time, I had time to overhaul the Plymouth engine.
All I needed was the engine manual to tell me what to do. Engines were less complicated and more accessible than today and the work was straight-forward. I ordered the parts, the rings and a gasket set, and pulled the engine apart. I tried to be as systematic as possible; I used egg cartons to hold the valve parts. I had a tray of kerosene for cleaning. Pulled out the pistons and replaced the oil and compression rings. In the end, I got a rebuilt engine for next to nothing. And I got an inside view of how engines worked. From the little gear at the bottom of the distributor, to the camshaft and pushrods. From the bearings and pistons up through the valves and gaskets and manifolds. I reamed out the cylinders for the new rings. I took the valves down to a machine shop to be reground. I replaced the headgasket and reset the gap for the valves. Reset the timing. Put it back together and turned the key. Damned if it didn’t start. And run for a few more years. I’d done it myself. And not even any parts left over. I was flying pretty high.
Mystic Island
Mystic Island lies off the Mystic River in Fishers Island Sound. The island is crescent shaped, with bluffs on each end connected by a central, sandy beach. The crescent forms a natural cove, a popular destination for local boaters. Two smaller, rocky islands trail from Mystic Island’s northward side toward the Connecticut shore. A geologist told me that the rock face of the bluffs showed interesting sedimentary layering. I wish I’d known enough to fully understand what he said.
Back in colonial days, the island had been used to graze sheep. It is popularly named Ram Island for the rams that were kept there. Ram Island is how it is marked on the chart. To us, it was always Mystic Island.
It has a varied history. Since it lies between Fishers Island, which is in New York, and the Connecticut shore, it has figured in state border disputes over the years. I don’t know which state claims it now. Back in the ‘60s, it was uninhabited. Boaters treated it as public domain. While it was privately owned, no one shooed off the casual boater or collected a fee. I imagine that has changed.
Mrs. Lamphere, a warm-hearted lady in her eighties, babysat me on days that I was sick in grade school. She was a native of Mystic and a descendant of Mystic ship captains. Mrs. Lamphere and I played cards all day. She was partial to canasta but varied the game we played from time to time. As she dealt or played, she talked about the old days, telling tales her father told her of rounding Cape Horn in the great clipper ships, plying the Asian trade. She told me about the legendary clippers, the Flying Cloud, and the Davy Crockett, and their races for record passages to San Francisco and the Orient. Her father was a clipper ship captain himself. So was his brother. In one story, she told how her father’s ship was sailing in rough weather in the South Atlantic. He had not seen his brother for several years. That was not unusual. It was the nature of the business. But this particular night, her father dreamed that his brother was near. When daylight broke, his brother’s ship appeared on the horizon. The sea was too violent for a true rendez-vous. But the brothers hailed each other over the rails of their clipper ships, thousands of miles from home.
In those days, Mrs. Lamphere said, Mystic Island had a hotel. In the 1960s, you could see the large stone foundation. The hotel wasn’t regulated by either Connecticut or New York and was a den for gambling and prize fighting. Mrs. Lamphere, elderly lady that she was, described it as an exciting place. She said they could spot any authorities approaching by boat.
So to me, Mystic Island was a place of romance. In our boating days, we visited the cove in most of our boats. It was a beautiful place to swim or snorkel, with a sandy bottom and a shell-strewn beach. The clams were so dense in spots on the cove bottom that I could surface-dive, run my hands through the sand, and pick up one or two clams on every dive. My brother camped on the island with the Grays. The island was, in short, a treasure.
It’s a bright sunny day and I am running the skiff out to the island with Marina. She’s up on the foredeck in her skimpy European bikini. Posed like one of those girls in the boating magazines. She has a nice tan and the top reveals and emphasizes her breasts. Her bottom has a string on the side and shows off her thighs. A light breeze is blowing and the Sound is flat. We throw up a spray plowing through a cross-wake. And the day is stunning, bright blues of sea and sky, the few high cirrus clouds a bright white. Marina is grinning; she tosses her hair and points at a white sloop that we can see leaning to a gust off to starboard. She shouts but I can’t hear her over the drone of the Evinrude. My skin is alternately hot with the sun and cool with the spray. The tide is high so I head the boat straight for the island, over the flats, neglecting the channel. I know this water, it’s my stomping ground.
Ahead, the bluffs of the island have that dried-out look of late summer. A hint of brown stunted grass is mixed in with the greens. I throttle back as we approach the northwest shore. Other days we have headed around the island to the cove and the beach. But today, I’m showing Marina a wreck off one of the small islands. The small island has its own beach, one so low to the water and so exposed that it changes from year to year with the storm and tides. One year the beach is pebbles or rocks, washed out. Another year, a sandbar has formed. But this is my golden summer. The beach is not only sandy but the sand extends up behind a line of boulders to form my own private beach. Hidden from prying eyes.
The water is cool but not cold, and unusually clean for the Sound. When we swim out over the wreck, wearing diving masks and fins, we can see down into the wreck’s innards – see the large rusting boiler resting on its side amid the struts and beams. There, a cunner. A blackfish. Sand crabs scurrying. On the beach, we break out a lunch that Marina has packed. She has a nice smile, pretty eyes, and I like the way the sun is reflected in her skin. And now her lips taste salty. She is laughing at me, grinning between kisses. She pops open her coke.
In late July, I sit with Marina in a family room in the upstairs of the O’Beirnes’ house with Mickey and Kathy. We watch the broadcast of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. The universe seems a different place that night, the possibilities limitless. I think of the afternoon I’d spent with Dave Dunn talking about the miracles of science, the new worlds that were being opened up. Progress that changes the world forever. It’s true that, when I get home, Fred Thomas is on the phone to my mom saying that the landing was staged, that it was a hoax. And my father seems unsure. For the crew to survive, he says, NASA would need to have advanced kryogenic technology to recycle the air. Pop doesn’t have access to technology that good for the submarines. With the lack of government credibility in Vietnam, and given the propaganda value of the landing, one had to be a bit naive not to entertain doubts. But Armstrong seems okay. If the landing didn’t happen, it should have. I see it as a wonder.
‘
Nam
No one’s golden summer was going to endure those days. Each day, the news was like something out of Shakespeare. Time was out of joint. Dogs of war raged in Vietnam. The cultural shift among my generation from early 1968 to mid-1970 was cataclysmic. My friends embraced the counter-culture amid a desperate bitterness, an impotence and despair rising from the War. Our institutions were morally and intellectually bankrupt. The United States Government, with the complicity of the media, engaged in a vile web of lies, rationalizations, and cover-ups. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was revealed as a hoax, a trumped-up incident to get a blank check from Congress. The American pacification policies were Orwellian. American troops slaughtered civilians at My Lai. The daily body counts. Vietnam, with increasing horror, seeped its way back to the United States and into our consciousness.
On February 1, 1968, General Nguyen Lgoc Loan, Saigon Chief of Police, in full view of NBC cameras and of AP reporter Eddie Adams, summarily executed a Viet Cong suspect. I first saw the film while standing in the family room at Allyn Street, Mystic. The TV reporter announced that NBC had recently obtained graphic Vietnam footage that it intended to air. The screen showed a young Vietnamese man casually dressed in a plaid shirt being dragged across the street to General Loan, an unusually ugly man with a receding jaw, receding hairline and cold, jaded eyes. I had the impression that General Loan had been preparing for an interview before the camera. But now the young man was standing before General Loan, his arms pinioned behind him. The man was good-looking, almost handsome. His eyes spoke of fear, pain, and confusion. Quite deliberately, General Loan raised a pistol to the suspect’s temple and fired. I had the impression of the suspect’s brain spraying out from his head. Maybe that wasn’t there. I was stunned. I haven’t seen the film since. AP reporter Eddie Adams caught the image at the moment that General Loan fired. I believe he won a Pulitzer prize for it.
It is estimated that some two million Vietnamese and fifty thousand Americans died in the Vietnamese conflict. It may not be logical to focus on one execution by General Loan. But that incident personalized and brought home to me what was happening in Vietnam.
In 1964, at fourteen, I firmly believed the American government explanation that we were in Vietnam to thwart communist aggression, bringing freedom and democracy to Southeast Asia. By the time I left Loomis, I questioned the intellectual underpinnings. I’d read articles and columns questioning the assassination of Diem and the nuances of the religious and colonial conflicts. What was that Buddhist self-immolation all about? And how were American soldiers, black and white, seen by the Vietnamese? I’d heard it both ways.
In 1967, Dr. Elbert Gates, the pastor for the Mystic Baptist Church and a veteran of missionary work in China and Indochina, told his church that Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese nationalist and that the United States in Vietnam was the heir to French colonialism. Dr. Gates said that he had met Ho Chi Minh, who was an educated cultured man fighting for the ideals of self-determination that the United States, in theory, stood for. Dr. Gates was a popular pastor known, even to his face, as Pearly Gates. He was articulate and knowledgeable. I thought that his integrity was beyond question. If he was right, supporting the War was wrong. The United States was a colonial oppressor. We were not extending the American concept of liberty.
As evidence seeped out of Vietnam, or was revealed in the Pentagon Papers and in documentaries, I became convinced that Dr. Gates was right. Large sections of the Vietnamese population resisted the American occupation. The American government was implicated in the assassination of Diem. The Vietnamese troops were ineffectual while the Viet Cong fought with passion. The 1968 success of the Tet offensive gave the lie to General Westmoreland’s representations of “a light at the end of the tunnel.”
General Loan’s summary execution of the Viet Cong suspect revealed a depravity that I had not previously understood. The summary execution of the suspect violated any concept of due process. It violated the fundamental precepts of humanitarian doctrines such as the Geneva Convention. General Loan acted arrogantly, without hesitation. Without fear of accountability. Then our government defended Loan. Told us that the VC suspect was guilty of heinous crimes. General Loan was provoked beyond human endurance. He was one of South Vietnam’s best, a moderate. Such acts were necessary in a civil war.
That didn’t wash with me. The summary execution – and it was, in fact, one of many – demonstrated that American-supported South Vietnamese officials, at the highest level, abused their power. The United States supported them even in full knowledge of their abuse. Such books as Neil Sheehan’s “A Bright Shining Lie” now make abundantly clear the extent of American involvement in abuses. The United States had no legitimate claim to being in Vietnam in the name of freedom. And I wanted no part of it.
I was shaken by the execution in much the same way that I felt when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot. The image of the execution, the pistol pointed to the head, stayed with me. Its horror was reinforced by the nightly reports of the Vietnamese conflict. I found TV news impossible to watch. I loathed Lyndon Johnson and cheered his announcement that he would not run for reelection.
I was scared that I would be drafted to fight in the war. My college deferment momentarily protected me. Other kids – my peers – the black kids Bev King spoke of, and kids from Appalachia, or blue collar families – were going to Vietnam in my stead. But my time was coming. Each year, the draft drew nearer while the government sent more troops and bombed Hanoi. We were entrenched and our leaders urged us to stay the course.
In short, my government was immorally entangled in the wrong side of a civil war. By escalating the conflict, the United States was itself killing innocents. Yet, a majority of Americans continued to support the war effort.
I was profoundly alienated. The alienation was reinforced by ongoing confrontations between antiwar protestors and police. At the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley’s police went wild suppressing anti-war demonstrations. Martin Luther King, then Bobby Kennedy, were assassinated. The assassinations felt like messages from America’s violent heart that good leaders, men who tried to right wrongs, would not be tolerated. And the antiwar movement itself contributed to the polarization of the country. If you’re not part of the solution, the movement said, you’re part of the problem. I now believed that myself.
In the fall of 1968, the antiwar movement hadn’t yet solidified with the UConn student body. My 1968 roommate joined ROTC – college military officer training. I told him that the army was not a good place to be. He laughed. ROTC was cool. He needed the money. I wasn’t one of “those guys” was I? In the fall of ‘68, the student culture had not yet embraced the counterculture. Students pledged fraternities and took buses to alcoholic mixers just like they had done for years. There may have been pot around, but I didn’t see it.
By the fall of 1969, life on campus had changed – the counterculture had arrived. Richard Nixon, newly elected, had expanded the war into Cambodia and launched massive air raids on Hanoi in North Vietnam. In August, four hundred thousand antiwar protesters met for a three day rock concert in Woodstock, New York. Friends of mine who went told stories of wonder. Three days of drugs, rock and roll, and sex, in the mud, in the rain, with no facilities. Naked girls and pot. It was great. Bad trips and no place to shit. It was awful. Either way, it was awesome. Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner. The counter-culture, flower power. The world would have to take notice.
At UConn, student protestors took over the ROTC building, painted it with flowers, and drove ROTC off campus. Protestors camped out in Gulley Hall, the school administration building. When the administration didn’t respond, a student-wide protest broke parietal rules that restricted visiting hours between members of the opposite sex. Make love, not war. My former roommate dropped out of ROTC and was wearing bell bottoms. Fraternities were identified with “establishment” and had trouble recruiting pledges. Overnight, pot replaced alcohol. Girls frizzed out their hair and wore beads. “Aquarius” and Janis Joplin blared into the quads.
Not everyone joined the movement. Engineering students still walked around campus wearing button down shirts and pocket protectors. But protestors mobbed any college recruiter for Dow Chemical, manufacturer of napalm, or any other member of the “Military-Industrial Complex”. I knew which side I was on. I grew a mustache and let my hair grow. I didn’t like antiwar protest tactics that threatened violence. Violence begat violence. But protesters inclined to violence were a small minority. Our government was terribly in the wrong. I was glad to know that I was not the only one who felt so.
My roommate in 1969, Jerry, had a Phil Ochs album of war protest songs. I played it all the time. “White boots marching in a yellow land”. “Cops of the world”. “I’m going to say it now.” Phil Ochs sang with a clear tenor and wrote melodic songs indignant at social injustice. He spoke for me. I went to see Richie Havens in an anti-war concert, singing “Handsome Johnny” and “Knee Deep in the Big Muddy”. One evening in October, I joined a campus-wide peace march. Students and faculty, under a cool night sky, walked the length of the campus holding candles. Several thousand candles flickered in the dark, snaking across campus.
I distrusted the drug culture that was hand-in-hand with the antiwar movement. As a rule, I don’t like drugs. I don’t want a chemical messing with me. When I drank my first cup of coffee, I was wired all morning. I had a nervous sensitivity. I hadn’t changed that much since I was ten or eleven and couldn’t watch the end of a football game or the climax of a horror movie. A friend wanted me to read Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and talked about Timothy Leary and LSD and “mind-altering” drugs. I thought that LSD and other mind-altering drugs sounded frightening. I liked my mind the way it was. If I could get wired on coffee, a mind-altering drug might send me over the top.
I was more open to smoking pot. I thought it was benign. A cigarette that made you mellow. Mellow yellow. My friends smoked. Phil Ochs sang, “Smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer.” Pot was becoming an emblem of the antiwar movement. A symbol of personal freedom. A way of communicating your disdain of the established order and its arbitrary repressive laws. A way to show solidarity with protestors. If you didn’t smoke pot, why not? People on pot didn’t get drunk like alcoholics. Or addicted. In 1969, pot was everywhere – there were corridors in dormitories that were hazy from marijuana smoke. More fun than drinking beer – must be good.
So one night I smoked pot. I was listening to Nina Simone in a dorm room with other kids. I took several tokes of a joint that was passed around. I waited for something to happen. As far as I could tell, nothing did. No buzz. Nina Simone’s voice was so smooth, so sensual. I’d never noticed that. It was interesting the way the light shined through my fingertips. Still, I felt fine. What’s the big deal? My friends wanted to go for a ride. I drove them into Hartford in the Plymouth. Someone knew where a porno movie was playing. That sounded interesting. I’d never seen sexual intercourse on film. That thought gave me a buzz. But when we got there, the theater was closed.
However, as I parked, I heard glass breaking. When I got out of the car, all I saw at first was a loose chrome strip on my car. I whacked it back in with my hand. Showed the guys that I knew my way around cars. Then I saw that the headlight of the car behind me had been broken. I assumed that I had hit the car. Wondered how that had happened. I had read that pot affected depth-perception. Mine seemed fine, but now I wasn’t so sure. I began to hunt for a pencil and paper to leave a note on the damaged car. One of the kids asked me what I was doing. “You didn’t hit the car. I was right there,” he told me. “It was on my side. You didn’t hit it.” I looked at the shattered headlight. The other two kids chimed in. You didn’t hit it. No way.
A wave of paranoia and confusion washed over me. I felt dizzy. How could I be mistaken? But I must be, everyone said so. “I really didn’t hit it?” I asked.
No. Not even close. Come on. Let’s go.
I still felt muddled. My brain wouldn’t sort it out. Finally, I decided that I believed them. I got back in the car and we drove off. When I woke up the next morning, I knew that I had swiped the other car. The kids had been goofing on me, playing off my confusion and paranoia from being stoned. Goofing was becoming a sport. Those kids were having a great time at my expense.
That wasn’t going to happen again because I wasn’t going to touch the stuff. I told my friends, no pot in my car. None. Zero. I wasn’t getting arrested for having that crap in my car. A couple of weekends later, I drove up with the same kids to Wolf Den, a state park in Pomfret, Connecticut. I was driving the speed limit. Hadn’t done anything. I was stopped by a cop. As far as I know, it was for having long hair and driving a car load of hippies. But maybe there was a report on my car from the Hartford incident. When I turned around to look out the back window at the cop car, one of the kids was stuffing marijuana into his cheek. The cop didn’t see it. He peeked in the windows and checked my license. Then let me go.
In mid-November, 1969, one of the largest antiwar protests was held in Washington, D.C. I drove a car-load of kids, six of us, to Washington in my Plymouth as part of a three-car caravan. In all, seventeen or eighteen UConn students. We stayed the first night, Friday night, in a small brownstone townhouse in Georgetown. Someone knew someone. We shared the townhouse with a similar group of college kids from Philadelphia. Over thirty of us in all. It was the night before the protest and everyone was tense. Several groups had congregated in small circles. What would we do if there was tear gas? Billy clubs? Rubber bullets? One of the students talked about heads busted in Chicago. Blood everywhere. Someone talked about how the feds infiltrated protest groups. Sometimes they used students. We looked at each other. I sat on the floor with one group and took a couple of tokes of mildewy-smelling weed. I didn’t inhale. To refuse it was to invite suspicion. It was easier to smoke the damn stuff. Later that night, one of the kids crashed coming down from amphetamines. He was strung out by the impending protest. His hands shook. Later, sitting on the staircase by the common room, he sliced through his wrist in a suicide gesture. He bled copiously on the stairs but didn’t cut his artery. Someone had a medical kit and taped the wrist. A girl sat up with him the rest of the night. Kids were lying on sleeping bags wall-to-wall on the floor. Couples were making out. Or writhing in sleeping bags. A girl grunted. Someone said, “there’s a room you can use upstairs man.” A number of kids didn’t bother to go upstairs. Make love not war. It wasn’t just a slogan. It fit with everything else. Everything on edge. I didn’t know any of the girls and I was tired. I crawled into my sleeping bag and fell asleep.
The next morning we walked down to the protest, which was held on the National Mall by the Washington Monument. Later accounts say that there were two hundred fifty thousand people. That estimate seems low. The crowd overflowed into the streets radiating from the Mall. On the walk to the Mall, we were pushed, shoved, jostled, walked arm to arm with a mass of humanity – like entering a football stadium before the game. The same thing was happening throughout the city. So many people that we had to be careful where we took our next step.
As I walked, I hooked up with a girl from the Philadelphia group. We’d hardly been introduced but we were walking together, getting pushed together by the crowd. She held my arm. She looked excited, high. Light brown hair that she continuously brushed out of her face. She put her arm around my back. That felt nice and I grinned at her. As we neared the Mall, we passed a side street crammed with riot police – shields, head gear, police barriers everywhere. Then our swarm converged with the mass already congregated in the Mall. Like a wave breaking. We could hardly move – couldn’t get close enough to hear what was going on. When we finally pushed closer, we saw Dr. Spock, the baby doctor, prominent antiwar activist. His voice was blaring in a loud speaker but difficult to understand. The press of bodies was uncomfortably tight. My Philadelphia girl met friends going somewhere else. She kissed me and was gone.
I moved back from the center of the press. Saw Jerry. He’s dressed like John Lennon, wearing a camouflage army jacket, wire-rimmed glasses. Prematurely graying long hair. Jerry was headed to a staging point in Arlington where a death-march was being organized. I followed him. I stand with a throng of protesters, waiting an hour, more than an hour, to pick up a placard with the name and hometown of a dead American soldier. Finally, we are walking again in a line back toward the White House. We are to shout the name on our placard across the White House lawn. The name on the placard personalizes the protest. Benny. I wonder who the man was. Dead in a Vietnamese rice paddy. I look ahead and behind and the line stretches out as far as I can see. Placards. Dead soldiers.
But by the time we get our placards, it is dark, turning colder. Then it rains, a light drizzle at first, then harder, finally an intense downpour. I am lightly dressed. In minutes, I am soaked through. The line moves slowly, stops, moves again, more than a mile it seems while the rain pours. By the time we turn the corner in front of the White House lawn, I am soaked to the skin. Streams of water run down my head, inside my shirt, and down my back. My undershirt is soaked and clammy. My socks are like wet sponges, slogging with each step. My underpants are soaked, wet even against my crotch. It is so cold that I start to freeze – to shiver from hypothermia. The shivering won’t stop. A man that I assume to be a federal agent, dressed in a warm raincoat and rain hat, methodically takes the picture of each protestor as we approach. I wonder a moment where my picture will end up – if I will be identified. Then I am facing the White House through a fence, a hundred yards away. I shout the name on my placard as loud as I can – it’s too far, no one hears, one voice means nothing. More rain runs in my eyes, down my face. Everything cold, wet. I’m shivering. Miserable. And yet, something primal. Screaming that name at the White House. Floating that name into space. Take that Tricky Dick. Damn you.
The walk back to Georgetown seems interminable. The rain lets up, but it’s colder. We walk and walk. I wonder if we are lost. My feet squish with each step. I’m not looking up – just following the feet in front of me. Now down another street. Another block. Christ, I’m cold. At last, we are walking up steps to the apartment and then, unbelievably, are inside where its warm. Then I really begin to shake.
One of the girls from Philadelphia has seen me come in. I said hi to her the night before. She has straight dark hair – striking blue eyes – she’s gorgeous. Without a word she helps me get out of the wet clothes. My fingers are numb, shaky. I have trouble undoing the buttons. I find a pair of dry underpants and lie down on the couch. She lies down with me, pulls me to her, and pulls a sleeping bag over us. My teeth are chattering, my skin is goosebumped and dank. She hugs me to her – my shivering against her heat. She is wearing a light dress and I feel her breasts against my chest. For long minutes I shake uncontrollably. The shaking subsides, starts up again, finally stops for good. It’s surreal, intensely sensual, her scent, her heat, and the way she is holding me. It’s embarrassing that I can’t stop the shivering. But now we talk. It’s an assbackward way to meet someone. She kisses me. We make out on the couch. I stay with her into the evening, knowing that she will leave in a matter of hours, maybe even minutes. Another frame I can’t freeze. I don’t even know her. How does one say thanks? We talk about the strangeness of this night. A self-awareness. But she’ll have to leave. This is for the moment. She snuggles against me. Strokes my hair. Then someone taps her on the shoulder. They’re leaving. Yes, they have to go now. She gives me a slip of paper with her name and number but then she is gone. She lives hours away in Philadelphia. When I get home, I will put the paper in a drawer and never see her again.
Around 12:30 that night, a man tells us that we need to go home. People live here. The apartment is not a flophouse. My group piles into the Plymouth. We look disheveled, worn, beat. Approaching Philadelphia, I am half-dozing and accidently take an exit. We end up outside Philadelphia International Airport. I should pull over but I don’t. After another five minutes of driving, I find an entrance ramp back to the highway. We approach New York City at daybreak. The city skyline is framed by the rising sun. I have never been so tired in my life. But we are in Connecticut. I get a second wind and drive the rest of the way to Storrs without falling asleep. As I drive on campus I see Jerry’s car ahead of me. Jerry and I have breakfast at Husky’s Restaurant. I order waffles with maple syrup and a cup of coffee.
Dynamite Stuff
The UConn campus was on edge. It’s an unusually warm December day. I’m sitting with other students outside the Student Union. I’m eating a hamburger from the grill inside, washing it down with a coke. A student bursts through the door not ten feet from us. He’s tall, thin, black-haired, unkempt. His shirttails are hanging out. There’s a shock of black hair sticking out like a cowlick. He is wild-eyed, gesturing. Frustrated. Frantic. He looks at me and starts to scream. “They are killing babies. They are killing babies. They are going to kill you. Why the fuck are you just sitting there?” He raves – wildly, like King Lear, I think. The students look uncomfortably at each other across the table. We don’t know what to do. He raves more, waves his arms, screams, shrieks, “Jesus Christ, why don’t you do something?” A security officer moves into view. The student sees him and dashes back into the building.
The Black Panthers hold a rally at Jorgenson Auditorium. I walk into a crowded hall with Jerry. It should be interesting. I’d like to hear what the Black Panthers have to say. As I sit down in the middle of a row, about halfway back, I see black men, dressed in black with black berets, standing on the balcony brandishing submachine guns. Submachine guns. I can’t believe it. Those guns must be illegal. The University wouldn’t allow it. But they did. I don’t like it. I tell Jerry that I’m leaving. But as I get up, an administration official takes the podium and announces that there’s been a bomb threat. They think it’s a hoax. They are not going to let the rally be stopped by intimidation. But if we want to leave, leave now. No one moves. Perhaps they are stunned. I want to leave. But I don’t. Perhaps I am afraid to draw attention to myself. Or I think it is not a credible threat. Or decide that I have the right to stay. I’m not going to be scared away. I don’t know. Maybe all of that. I only know that I sit back down. I look around nervously, look behind my seat, and hope a bomb doesn’t go off. The speaker is a prominent Black Panther, David Hamilton. He is belligerent and overtly racist. He shouts into the microphone. Black Panthers have had enough of young black men dying in Vietnam to support our white racist regime. They are mobilizing the black community. White cops had better watch their backs if they patrol the black ghetto. Hamilton is menacing, the virulence is unmistakable. I leave the auditorium after he speaks, feeling that I have been worked over. Abused.
It’s the second or third week of January. I have finished my last exam for the first term. It’s my English exam and I have written an essay on Tristan and Isolde. In the tale, a knight steals away with his illicit lover. They hide out for a year in a cave, escaping reality and living off their love. It’s a romantic theme that resonates with me. But when I finish the exam, I feel washed out. Like I have low blood sugar. The events of the semester – the pressure of the War – my impotence to do anything – are wearing on me. Several kids in my room are smoking something when I come in.
It’s “good stuff”, they say, “dynamite.” You gotta try it. One of them offers me a pipe. The prospect of a drug-induced peace seems suddenly attractive. I’m so tired, so stressed out. I sit down, take the pipe, and inhale two lungs full. I assume that this is a form of pot, but I am wrong. It is hashish, an opium derivative. It knocks me on my ass. Within half a minute, I am hallucinating. Faces take on strange shapes. Time freezes – a real freezed frame. I am in this frame, no movement at all, but I can look around at it. Then time, reality, rushes ahead, like a wild out-of-control video tape. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I can think fine, see this happening to me. But the real world has changed around me. I panic. A mainspring connecting me to reality is being severed – I am alone – totally alone – unconnected to anything, anyone, imprisoned in this artificial reality. The experience is terrifying. After several hours, the drug wears off. But my sense of severance from reality does not. Later that night, without further provocation, I suffer a panic attack that I cannot suppress or control. Everything closes in. Everything is unreal.
The attacks and my vulnerability to attacks do not go away. I find over the next several weeks that I can no longer deal with living in my dorm room on campus, in the environment in which the attacks first occurred. I am confronted too often with stimuli that I can’t control, can’t deal with. I can’t ride the elevator without becoming terrified, claustrophobic. Or walk down the dormitory halls with the doors shut. My room is on the fifth floor. Feeling stressed, I take the elevator down to the lobby. But it gets stuck between floors. I can’t get out and I panic again.
I look for circumstances that I can control. I seem to be okay driving my car. And I’m much better at home. During certain distractions, watching a good TV show or a college basketball game, I feel normal – or at least remember what it feels like to feel normal. I guess that this phenomenon will gradually recede – if I can get through the next day, the next week, things will get easier. So I move back home and commute to school for the rest of the semester and then for the next two years. Gradually I take back my life.
I tell my parents what has happened. They help – are understanding. Later, I get professional counseling. I manage the problem through school and a career. But it never completely goes away. Like a Stephen King boogie man in the cellar, there is a terrifying place deep inside that I don’t want to go. But I know it is still there.
Kent State
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen fired into a crowd of protesting students at Kent State University. Four students died.
There was an immediate reaction on our campus. When I walked into my Shakespeare class that day, Professor Proser dismissed the class and led us to a campus rally by the Student Union. Many people looked shocked. The Kent State incident hit close to home. It could have happened here.
Kent State triggered a nation-wide student strike. At UConn, many students simply went home. The UConn administration, appropriately I thought, gave striking students the option of taking a passing grade for their course – an “s” – without taking the final exam.
I sympathized with the strike but didn’t see the correlation between taking exams and the war in Vietnam. I took the final for each of my courses. Except one.
I had Professor Darling for Sociology. Darling was bright. I thought that the premise underlying sociology – that human behavior could be scientifically studied – was fascinating. Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” was eye-opening. Darling emphasized the importance of understanding underlying human dynamics. Actions were governed by perceptions of self-interest. Friendships formed because of proximity. One couldn’t rely on the institutional structure to show where power lay. In the legislature, for example, interested parties, campaign contributors, might be calling the shots. One couldn’t rely on institutional protocol to determine how decisions were made. A committee structure, or a public hearing, might be for show while the real decision was made by two or three people in a hallway or over the phone.
Maybe that is obvious but it was heady stuff to me. I was naive enough at the time to have thought, for example, that the Committee Chairman was usually in charge. The class helped me see a different view.
One strain of sociological thought, however, made me uncomfortable. Some sociologists argued that sociology was a hard science. Behavior could be meaningfully quantified. And observable tendencies were analogous to rules. Taken to its extreme, they posit that an individual’s actions are merely a product of larger social forces – that free will is an illusion. Maybe I’m overstating their case. But to me, free will is important. As thinking individuals, we remain free to act. And how we act as individuals is often crucial. Free will lies at the heart of our humanist tradition. An individual, I believe, can make a difference. Professor Darling, I suspect, might have said that I’m all wet.
When I attended Darling’s class the day after Kent State, Darling was angry. He had an important class to teach and he was being undercut by the student unrest. He lectured us on the bankruptcy of the student protest. Most of us, he asserted, were insincere. Those of us who took the “s” were taking it because it was easy, not because of Kent State. We were striking to get an early start on summer. We’d rather be at the beach. Under it all, he said, we were just like our parents. We weren’t principled. Sociology tells us that, in our parents’ shoes, we would do the same thing they did. Our antiwar sentiment was skin deep. Motivated by personal fear of the draft or other personal interests. The student strike was hypocritical. A fraud. And destined to fail. We didn’t understand how the world works. He concluded with a threat, “If you don’t show up for my exam, I’ll fail you. Whatever the school administration says.”
I was taken aback. I thought the speech was extraordinarily crass and insensitive. People were dying in Vietnam. Yet according to Professor Darling my protest was insincere, motivated only by self-interest. I had trouble suppressing an outburst. When he dismissed the class, I walked out and didn’t look back. I took an “s”.
But Professor Darling’s cynicism stuck with me. It struck too close to my own observations. In the spring of 1969, a year earlier, President Nixon instituted a new draft lottery, “so that potential draftees would know their actual prospect of being drafted.” “So they could make plans.” I thought that the lottery was intended to undercut the antiwar movement. Potential draftees who drew a high number and weren’t going to be drafted wouldn’t have the same incentive to oppose the war. But I hoped the lottery wouldn’t work that way. The night that the lottery numbers were picked, I sat in the dorm lobby with other boys from the dorm and listened to the radio as the draft numbers were drawn. The night began under an oppressive cloud. Grim students, tight faces, tense as the first numbers were read. One student drew a low number, 15. He jerked back, recoiled, turned his face from us, and curled in a fetal position on the couch. He started to cry. Other students got high numbers, in the 300s. They looked guilty but couldn’t suppress their joy and relief. They grinned, laughed. Finally they left the room in high spirits. One kid hooted, “woo wee” as he went out the door. I drew a forty-seven. The evening left me feeling sick.
I hoped, after Vietnam, that my generation learned a lesson. That counter-culture values, peace, love, protection of the earth, would translate into a more enlightened government as power passed to my peers. That my generation was different. Weren’t we all out in the quad listening to the “Age of Aquarius?” We would respect individual rights and understand the danger of foreign entanglement. Curb the military-industrial complex. I hoped that Professor Darling would be proven wrong.
Drambuie
In the spring of 1970, my father decided to build an addition on the back of the Allyn Street house. He drew up plans, got a building permit, and asked me to do the work. Maybe he devised the project as something productive for me to do. The addition included a playroom, where we installed a pool table, and a bedroom for me.
I recruited Humphrey, my friend from Swaziland, to help. After my panic attacks, I needed a summer of hands-on physical work. It helped me get reconnected. One afternoon, I hit my thumb with the hammer while driving a nail. Now that was real.
Allyn Street still had a high water table. Humphrey and I waded in mud leveling out the crawl space and preparing the drains and footings. I bought a new cement-mixer at Sears, some assembly required. We still use it thirty years later. We laid the foundation blocks ourselves. Floor joists, floor, walls, roof, windows, wiring, roofing, all Humphrey and me. Alan and Ned worked an odd weekend. I paneled my room with cedar tongue-and-groove boards. The boards took on a nice sheen with varnish. My bedroom was the nicest room in the house.
Mystic addition
On the hottest day of the year, I was on the roof laying asphalt shingles. The heat reflected off the shingles and black tar paper. The shingles got too hot to touch and so soft that they would rip if I wasn’t careful. I was exhausted and hot. But not willing to stop either. I wanted to finish up before a predicted rain shower that would otherwise make a mess. A week later it’s still hot. I’m tacking up fiberglass insulation. At first, I stay fully clothed to protect my skin against the fiberglass irritants. But I get sweaty and overheated and the fiberglass gets under my clothes anyway. Sweat is rolling down my face. So I try it the other way, strip down, and try to stay cool. To hell with the little fiberglass particles. But now I’m covered with itchy particles that are mixing with my sweat and seeping in my pores. A half hour of that and I try the clothes again. But I can’t put them on because they instantly grind the particles against my skin. I call it off early and go for a swim.
I’m eating dinner on a late summer evening. Humphrey has headed back to school. If I turn in my chair, I see the addition, which is closed in, almost finished. It’s a success, a feather in my cap. Fuzzy is sitting at my feet. She has slowed down. But once again she gazes up at me with that pleading expectancy. What have you got tonight Dave?
Pop is talking about the Admiral. He contrasts the Admiral’s surliness toward subordinates with the professional courteous manner of Douglas MacArthur whom he met in the Philippines. Then he mentions his visit that afternoon to the doctor’s office. I’m not paying much attention until he says, “they found something in my throat.” He has my attention now. But he doesn’t miss a beat. It’s no big deal. Got it early. They’ll do a few tests maybe. Then he’s back to talking about Tullibee, the submarine. She’s in for work. Captain Jortberg was in the yard this morning. I realize that my mother already knew about the doctor’s visit. It’s why she was stressed out earlier. She’s a wreck But Pop has given this spiel without betraying any emotion. A performance, I think.
It was the beginning of a nightmare journey for my dad. The effects of the treatment and the medical profession itself finally got to him. Maybe they saved his life.
The biopsy was inconclusive. One lab said cancer – bad news – do something right away. The second lab said that things were abnormal but no clear malignancy – we’re not sure – better monitor it. A third lab found nothing malignant. Thought the tissue looked benign. I heard Mom and Pop debating what to do. One moment Pop is swearing – he’s not doing anything unless they have proof, God Damn it. An hour later, he has changed his mind. Then it’s no God Damn it. How can they do this? I hear him pacing the floor at four in the morning.
The doctors recommend radiation. They want to burn out any cancerous cells. Make sure. Pop reluctantly agrees. As he explains the treatment – as I think he understands it – the treatment is routine. A series of outpatient treatments at Uncas Medical Center in Montville, then a little discomfort, but no major side effects. The first time that he goes to Uncas, my mother goes with him. In preparation, the medical staff mark up his throat to indicate where to radiate. Mom watches, puzzled. Finally she asks the doctor why he is going to radiate the wrong side of the throat. The doctor consults his chart. Oh, he says. It’s on this side?
Pop is unprepared for the effects of the radiation. The radiation is not selective – it scorches his tissue, kills saliva glands, hair cells, skin, good tissue too. His facial hair stops growing. He can’t make saliva and has trouble swallowing – even tasting. He comes home from the treatments feeling nauseous. The day after the treatment – every time – he gets up and goes to work. But he looks drawn and tight. At the doctor’s recommendation, he takes a nightly drink of Drambuie. He never enjoys alcohol. He drinks socially on occasion but regards the use of alcohol as a weakness. But now, although he doesn’t like the Drambuie – he is drinking something he doesn’t like, in part, so that he won’t be tempted to keep using it – I see him anticipating his drink after supper. Sometimes he leaves the supper table early to pour it. Just one. I see the relief that it gives him. I wonder what he is going through. One night I drive him to Uncas. It’s clear that he shouldn’t drive himself home those nights. When the treatment session is over, he is shaky walking back to the car. It’s all he can do to hold his head up riding home. The treatments end and no cancer appears for two decades. But there has been a major cost. He lives the remainder of his life with an eating disorder. He fights mucuous that his mouth won’t wash out and scar tissue that impedes swallowing. His teeth fall out. Every meal, every day, his life is not the same. And, he loses a core reserve that he always had – a confidence that he was smart enough to find a way out of a problem – and a resolve that he could stay the course. Once or twice, when I asked, he tried to explain the problems that he was living with. But I never heard him complain about them. Not once.
The Connector
First, the highway engineers for Route 95 in Groton laid its path through the Groton reservoir. Pop wondered what they were thinking. Didn’t they get it? Through the reservoir – our drinking water. The water would be contaminated by road salt and oil and who knew what else. They also designed two Mystic exits. One, on the Stonington side, exits at Route 27, providing convenient access to the Seaport and the Old Mystic Village Shopping area. Where Ned fixed his car with my tow chain. That exit made sense.
The other exit, on the Groton side, led nowhere. Traffic exited on Sandy Hollow Road, a rural street not close to anything. The master plan, however, called for an Allyn Street Connector – a major access road – two full lanes and shoulders – from the exit down through the Pequot Woods to Allyn Street and downtown Mystic. The downtown merchants pushed the Connector. Tourists who used the Stonington exit to visit the Mystic Seaport wouldn’t drive through the downtown shopping area. Merchants claimed that the Connector from the Groton exit would draw cars downtown. A few local residents also wanted a Connector – they argued that it would herd traffic down one main street and reduce the traffic on their roads. The majority of residents, however, opposed a Connector as being destructive to the community that it was supposed to serve. Downtown Mystic was already congested; its traffic tied up each hour when the drawbridge went up. It didn’t need more traffic.
The residential areas in Mystic, particularly up on Windy Hill and Allyn Street, were safe, quiet places. Ideal areas to raise children and keep pets. As little kids, we rode our bikes on Allyn Street. We played street-ball. We had a neighborhood snowball fight out on the street. If a car happened along, we got out of the street. But cars were infrequent, a minor inconvenience.
The Connector was going to drain traffic off Route 95 and run it through the heart of the neighborhood. It doubled the road width of Allyn Street, so that most of the roadside trees had to be cut down. Most houses on the street lost a substantial portion of their front lawns. And the Connector cut a wide swath through the Pequot Woods to our north – destroying open space. Traffic increased, not only on Allyn Street but throughout the neighborhood. And, as Mom would frequently point out, our homes and the neighborhood were our destination. We didn’t want a new thoroughfare or need a Connector to take us through them to downtown. We wanted to keep our homes as they were – safe and quiet.
Plans for the Connector had lain dormant for a number of years after Route 95 was constructed in the early 1960s – long enough so that I assumed that the Connector would never be built. People didn’t want it. The Stonington exit provided sufficient tourist access to the Seaport. But that showed how little I knew. Behind the scenes, up in Hartford, at the State Capitol, wheels were turning. With no local notice, no publicity, the legislators in Hartford funded construction of the Connector. When word of the authorization was leaked locally in the fall of 1970, my parents banded together with the neighbors to oppose the Connector’s actual construction.
I arrived at the house one evening after my daily commute home from U Conn. A group of neighbors are meeting in the living room. My parents, the O’Beirnes, the Wynnes, Helen Mark from up the street, Edith Fairgrieve from down the hill. At the meeting, Pop comes up with a name for the group – TREES – To Reassess Environment & Ecology. The group issues a press release. Pop is going to call a local attorney, Belton Copp, to discuss legal options. The group plans to contact local officials, state representatives, and state officials.
Over time, TREES generates popular support. Belton Copp discourages my parents from taking legal action. Legal action would be costly and have little chance of success. The State, he says, stacks the legal deck in its favor so that necessary projects can’t be stopped by a small group of disgruntled locals. Our best chance says Belton is through the political process.
So TREES mobilizes public support. As the result of phone calls by TREES members, five of the nine members of the Groton Town Council agree to withdraw town approval for the project. But at the council meeting, the other four council members, who support the Connector, walk out. The Council is denied the necessary sixth member for a quorum. Such a walk out has never been taken before – they are walking out on the body that they were elected to attend. TREES approaches a local State Senator, George Crafts, who agrees to help in the state legislature. He draws up and introduces a bill that would kill the Connector. Progress on the bill is followed and reported in the New London Day, the local newspaper. The Day reporter interviews Crafts. Yes, he’s introducing the bill. Then, for several weeks, we hear nothing. Silence. We call up to Hartford and no one can find the bill. The Day reporter can’t find the bill. He finally confronts Senator Crafts. Where’s the bill? Crafts won’t talk to the reporter and walks away. The reporter follows up and discovers that Crafts introduced the bill, then withdrew it without notifying us. The deadline for introducing bills has passed. Crafts refuses to answer our phone calls. Then we hear that he is no longer living in Connecticut – he has picked up and left for an unknown destination. Newspaper reports make the bad faith of these public officials clear to the public. The system is being abused. But it doesn’t matter. Someone with political power and connections wants the road and is going to get it.
Back in Mystic, support for TREES grows. TREES supporters dominate a Democratic caucus. Connector supporters don’t have popular support. My father, who is on the Republican Town Committee, meets several times with Mort Wright, the Democratic Town Chairman, to discuss strategies for stopping the road. Those meetings begin one night when I’m eating with my parents at the Modern Grill Restaurant in Mystic. Mort, a distinguished-looking man who runs a local insurance and real estate agency downtown, is eating at a neighboring table. Mort has the worldly sophistication of William Powell in the Thin Man series. My father and Mort exchange pleasantries and talk about the Connector.
Fran, Mort Wright
Mort is running for State Representative in an interim election. He opposes the Connector and wants TREES support. Seems to me that we have interests in common. A State Representative might turn the tide.
Staging
Alan and I made plans for the summer of 1971 to go lobstering. We bought a seventeen foot Lyman runabout and a thirty-five horsepower Johnson. We reinforced the Lyman’s worn hull with a sheet of fiberglass. We bought about fifty lobster pot kits at Wilcox Marine in Stonington and spent weekends in my garage putting them together. The pots were made out of slats nailed to frames with an opening on one end for a net shaped like a funnel to direct the lobster inside. The lobster is supposed to crawl in to get the bait and not find his way out. The slats on top open like a door so we can reach in and pull the lobsters out. My lobstering license cost ten dollars. By late spring, we had rows of pots stacked in my backyard, ready to go.
We didn’t know much about lobstering. But how difficult can it be? Lobsters are shellfish. You put out a pot with some bait and pick up a lobster every day or so. We spent two weekends in May setting pots out in Fishers Island Sound. The water was disconcertingly cold. But I thought that a modest amount of money would roll in. Guys made a living doing this. Their pots looked like ours.
The Lyman – Fran with Whitey in foreground
Lobster pots
That summer, John Gray started a new construction project – a log home on a bluff next to his place on the Mystic River. Log homes were sold in kits – like tinker toys. John thought he might buy a log-home franchise. He wanted to build one himself first. He hired Dennis, a moonlighting mason from New London, to supervise its construction. He asked Alan and me if we’d help.
A contractor dug the cellar hole and poured the footings. The first day Alan and I were on the job, before Dennis was free, we moved the cement blocks down into the cellar hole. Unlike Vermont, however, there was no ramp, no way to get the blocks down. So we carried the blocks two at a time down the gravel slope. On one trip, Alan slipped when the gravel on the slope gave way. His blocks went flying and he flipped head over heals. Slid ten feet on his back into the cellar. Strained his back, banged himself up. We kept working. But that didn’t seem to be a good omen.
The work was heavy – moving blocks, making batch after batch of mortar, slinging the bags of mortar mix. Then hauling and putting up the logs, spiking them together with long nails driven in with a sledge hammer. The logs were flattened on the top and bottom so that they lay up tight with each succeeding row. The flat sides had a groove for a spline so that they could be lined up straight. And each log was numbered. A-8 was the eighth log on the first row. D-6 was the sixth log on the fourth row. Before we set a log, we ran a line of caulking and inserted the spline. With the log set, we drove in a spike every few feet. It was hard work but the log walls went up.
We reached the point where we needed staging. But since staging comes down after the house is up, there is an incentive to build as little as possible. Putting it up and taking it down takes time and effort. Extra staging is a waste. Dennis thought we could minimize the staging if we walked on the walls. He showed us how it was going to done. He grabbed a sledge hammer, jumped up on the eight inch wall, and drove a spike. It was a long way down if he missed with a stroke of the sledge. He didn’t miss but did have second thoughts. Getting Alan and me to hammer standing on the wall would have been futile in any case. We spent the rest of the morning setting up staging.
The staging was made of planks laid on interlinked metal frames. It went up quickly. But several times as we were laying planks, Dennis warned us to be careful, not to create any “dead men”, his term for a plank end that lay beyond the metal support. It could flip if you stepped on it. You could be dead. I thought that his advice was self-evident. Of course every plank should be supported. Of course we would be careful. We would notice an unsupported plank. Give us a little credit here. We put up three walls of staging that morning.
Then I took a walk on the top row of staging to test its sturdiness. I was up high. When I stepped on the first plank, it gave under my weight and kept going down. With my first step, I found a dead man. A sudden drop in my stomach. I leapt for a plank a level down as the first plank flipped. My senses are heightened. I see the first plank sliding in my peripheral vision. The other plank is rushing up, someone is shouting. I calculate how to land on the plank, stop the momentum. There is the sense of height, flash of fear. The second plank flips as I hit it, another deadman. I leap for a third, lower plank. Like Spiderman. I’m amazed I haven’t crashed yet. But I’m picking up speed. Third plank gives way as I hit it. I jump for the floor. But my momentum, when I hit the floor is going to take me through a picture window. I will fall another ten feet to the cellar entryway. Instead, I drop as I hit the floor, do a parachute landing, bend my knees, fall and roll. Hit the wall under the picture window. The wall shakes.
I spring to my feet, feeling foolish. Never tried that parachute thing before. And I wonder how we could have left three plank ends unsupported. When we recheck the staging, those are the only three bad spots. Dennis is standing on a staging plank looking at me as I get to my feet. He looks disgusted. “What did I try to tell you?” he says.
Lobster pots
Our seventeen foot Lyman runabout has lapstrake construction, overlapping boards fastened to frames. She’s stable and beautifully balanced. We’ve painted the hull white. She has a lot of topsides varnish. Even though she’s old, she’s classic, pretty. With the thirty-five horse Johnson, she planes out. And she’s big enough to run smoothly in Fishers Island Sound. She doesn’t pitch and bounce like Ruby Baby.
It’s early morning, the air is crisp and there’s a breeze and a light chop. But the sun is warming things up. I’m at the wheel – Alan’s seated in back tying strings through the bait fish – fish-frames that we’ve picked up for nothing down at the fish market. The self-bailer, a valve in the bottom of the hull, drains out the bilge water before Alan bends to tighten it shut. A Navy friend of Alan’s, just back from Vietnam, is sitting on the foredeck.
We have the day off from work while John Gray plans the next stage on the log house. We are out early to make a round of our pots. Lobstering has been a bust. We are finding four or five legal-sized lobsters a trip in the thirty or so pots that we have set. Another ten or so lobsters are shorts – we have a gauge to measure them. Too many lobsters are a fraction too short between the back of the eye socket and the back of the main shell. We are getting good at flipping them out of the pot. They back into a corner in a defensive position with their claws raised protectively. But lobsters aren’t too bright and can’t do anything once you get a hold of the shell from behind. We pull a pot – the water’s warming up so that we don’t numb our hands – flip open the trap door – pull out and measure the lobsters, most of which get thrown back – and rebait the pot. The old bait, after a couple days decomposing in the pot, is disgusting. The new bait is not much better. Sometimes we pick up a black fish or a blue crab in a pot. Both good to eat. The legal lobsters we catch pay for the gasoline. And it’s nice on the water. So maybe it’s not a total bust.
I’ve just gassed up at Haring’s Dock in Noank. Mrs. Haring is a character – she’s stocky and dresses like a man with boots and a worn overcoat. She can be gruff. But she likes us, she is encouraging, and now she’s standing on the end of her dock waving. I’ve headed the Lyman out through a fleet of moored sailboats toward Mystic Island and our first set of pots. I’m feeling sober this morning after hearing Alan’s friend’s account of his last weeks in ‘Nam. Helping ship out body bags. Some of the bodies in pieces. Mangled. Faces ravaged. A body with a head missing. They bother him. He describes the contrast between the hell of being there and the strangeness of suddenly being home. Just an airplane ride. The stress shows in his eyes. But his stories stress me too. My college deferment is good for less than a year.
Haring’s Dock – from 89 print by Tyler
Al’s friend looks okay now up on deck. He smiles and points at a low-riding white Boston Whaler over by our pot area. There are several rows of pots stacked on the Whaler’s deck so we can’t see who’s on board. But I think that those guys have a nerve to lay their pots right next to ours. I throttle up out of the anchorage. The Lyman is cruising now – closing the distance quickly – and Alan is yelling in my ear – “He’s taking our pots.” I see our orange buoys on the Whaler’s deck.
We’ve been losing pots. We think someone’s been pulling our pots, stealing our lobsters. Maybe now we’ve caught them. I am suddenly red hot angry. Alan joins his friend on deck and I aim the Lyman for the Whaler amidships. We are closing fast. We are less than a hundred feet away – time enough to throttle down – shift to reverse – and close up slow. The Whaler is swinging so we can see the men – Alan yells at me to throttle back – and, suddenly, over Alan, I see the men stand up and my heart sinks. There are two of them – both wearing uniforms and Smokey the Bear hats – cops. I jam the throttle all the way back and try to shift into reverse. But the controls stick – I’ve greased them but they pick this moment to bind – the shift lever won’t go into reverse for a second too long. Our momentum carries the Lyman’s hull into the Whaler with a solid thump.
Alan shouts at the cops – what the fuck are you doing with our pots? – at the same time one of the cops tells us that we’re under arrest. A day spoiled in a hurry.
Never seen a dead short
We didn’t know enough about lobstering. Unlike Rhode Island and New York, Connecticut – through agency regulations – enacted a requirement that lobster pots have “escape openings”. My pots did not have the required openings. I thought it was counter-intuitive when I found out, too late, about the provision. Lobster pots are supposed to catch lobsters, not let them go. But the concept protects the species. Letting the smaller lobsters get out was not a bad idea. You couldn’t sell the shorts anyway. Not catching them made sense. But the regulation proved unpopular. I’m sure lobstermen imagined they were losing legal lobsters to the openings as well. It was withdrawn shortly after my arrest. In fact, studies now show that most lobsters easily get in and out of the pots anyway. They are caught almost by chance.
That’s not relevant to my case, however. We probably should have known about the regulation. I was able to find the regulation once I knew about it. But we didn’t. We didn’t have a mentor, someone who knew the rules. We built our pots copying pots lying outside Wilcox Marine where we bought the kits. Those pots didn’t have escape openings either – they were either built for Rhode Island or New York waters – or they predated the Connecticut rule, or they were illegal just like ours. The fact is that Alan and I tried to play the game right and didn’t.
The cops – officers of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection – had found eleven of our pots. When things were sorted out and it was determined that I was the licensee, I was the one that was charged – eleven counts of illegal lobstering. A potential fine of fifty dollars a count; five hundred fifty dollars in total. Substantially more money than I had.
The arrest wasn’t fun to explain to my parents. They were not naive but they had faith in the system. As a rule, you don’t get arrested unless you do something wrong. After I explained, I think they assumed that things would work out. I was twenty-one, an adult, and could handle it myself. I didn’t have a record. And the New London County prosecutor Harold Dean had married one of my mother’s childhood friends. Mom thought Harold Dean would be fair – tell him your story. It’s a first offense. You weren’t taking shorts.
I had, in fact, met Harold Dean once before. I was twelve. He was visiting at Allyn Street. He’s not very tall, maybe five foot nine, with a dark complexion, craggy face, short hair, severe tight lips. He wore a dark suit that might have been expensive once but now seems threadbare – doesn’t fit right. He’s talking with Mom in the living room next to the fireplace that Mr. Carlucci built. I stopped in to say hello. That was family protocol – if someone was visiting, I was supposed to introduce myself. So there I am, standing in front of Mr. Dean and Mom is letting me know what he does. He’s the court officer that enforces crimes – like robbing or drunk driving, or maybe speeding. Right Mr. Dean? Harold Dean is pompous. He’s not interested in this little kid. He smiles stiffly and nods his head in agreement.
I’m not sure what possesses me in these moments. I understand exactly what Dean does – I’ve got it – but I have a question that has been puzzling me. I ask, “Gee Mr. Dean. I’ve noticed that people seem to drive at least five miles an hour faster than the speed limit. I mean, everybody does that. So how do the cops decide what speed is really speeding? Is it like seven miles too fast?” I’m only twelve, a short prepubescent twelve. I come up to his shoulders. But this was an interesting, sophisticated question for a little kid.
Dean gets mad. My question shows him that I’m getting off on the wrong foot. If he doesn’t rebuke me, I will become one of those punks he has to deal with. He speaks angrily, his voice rising. “The law is the law. The way it’s written. One mile an hour over the speed limit is illegal. If you speed when you grow up, we will arrest you and prosecute you.” Prosecute you rings in my ears. The wrath of God. Jonathan Edwards in the pulpit. Repent sinner. I cringe and say “Yes sir” and timidly leave the room.
Now I’m twenty-one, standing in a long line of persons charged with petty crimes, waiting to see Mr. Dean. We’re at the New London Circuit Court on the third floor of the New London police station. The court handles petty misdemeanors and traffic offenses. It’s in an old building with high ceilings. I could see the dust motes in a sun beam. The window high up on the wall is dirty. The prosecutor’s office is little bigger than a broom closet – room enough for a desk and chair for the prosecutor. On this date, I don’t understand plea bargaining or how the court system works. I know enough about Dean to be a nervous. But, after all, it’s a first offense. I was trying to follow the law. I had a license. I didn’t intend anything illegal. I should get a break. Right?
As the line gets closer to the office, I can hear Harold Dean’s voice through the door. Loud, strident, berating the person he’s talking to. The kid in front of me goes in and I hear Harold Dean yell at him – threatening him. This is the deal you’re going to take or else. Do you know what I can do to you? The kid comes out with a white face. My turn.
Dean is lifting up my file as I walk in. I start to speak – I want to explain. He silences me with a gesture. He’s going to tell me how it’s going to be. This was a serious violation. The officers found thirty dead lobsters in my pots. Most of them were shorts. I was flagrantly violating the law.
“No I wasn’t,” I say. “I’ve never seen a dead short. I’ve been lobstering for weeks.”
Was I accusing the officers of lying? I start to respond but Dean’s voice rises suddenly to a scream. “No, you shut up. I’m talking to you here. You want to fight this – we’ll go right out there”. He points out the door, shakes his finger. “Right now – is that what you want?” Well, I’m just… “We’ll go out there right now,” he thunders. “Eleven counts. I would’ve let you plead to one count – twenty -five dollars – but by God one more word out of you and it’s the whole eleven. What’ll it be?” “Well, yeah, alright,” I say. “One count.” Get out. Next.
Dean ran fifty, a hundred, petty criminals through the system in a couple hours with his technique. American justice.
I pled guilty and paid twenty-five dollars. After which I was notified that because of the conviction my license was automatically suspended. And my eleven lobster pots were forfeited as contraband. I called Harold Dean up about the forfeited pots. To give him his due, after he yelled at me over the phone, he agreed to call the DEP. I got the pots back. But I couldn’t use them without a license.
Unanimous opposition
A summer evening. I grab a chair in the living room and start to read the paper. Letters to the editor about the Allyn Street Connector. There are two boxes of TREES pamphlets by my feet. Political flyers in green ink with a TREES logo. A call to action – call your representative – speak out. We are handing this stuff out door to door. I can hear Mom on the phone talking to Mort Wright. “You’ll take a box? That’s great. I’ll have David run it down.” Oh well. I know what my next chore is going to be.
I read the funnies. When Mom gets off the phone, she comes into the living room – gives me Mort Wright’s address. Yeah, the big white house in Noank next to the Baptist church. I heave a box of pamphlets into the old Plymouth and head down to Noank. Noank is a self-contained community of old houses, some real fishermen, and an eclectic assortment of nonconformists. Until recently, Noank hasn’t had city water. The local people have depended on shallow wells and cisterns. That tends to keep out the mainstream. People in Noank are different. An old engineer who’d rather be sailing. A swordfisherman. A former labor organizer. An elderly lady with cats. A homosexual couple. An editor who commutes to New York. A writer. More people than I can name who sit on the doorstep and swap stories and invite you in for a glass of sherry.
I pull up in front of Mort’s house, a white Greek revival at the top of Store Hill, overlooking the town dock and Fishers Island Sound. A girl answers the door and holds it open while I bring in the box. “Oh TREES,” she says. “Ha, ha,” like it’s a hoot. She has a wide smile. Mort’s daughter, Lisa. I think she’s attractive. She’s holding a book, Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Well, if she can laugh at TREES – “That Freud stuff’s a lot of foolishness isn’t it? You believe that stuff on the unconscious? Ha, ha,” I say. Maybe I used the word “crap” instead of foolishness. “Well,” she says, “Freud has some insights. Maybe you’d like to read it when I’m done?” Putting me in my place.
Well – now I know who Lisa is when she calls me a week or so later. Mort wants to revive the local Young Democrats organization. Maybe Young Dems could do something for TREES and the Connector. They’ll be meeting down at Pearl Street at 8 pm. I’ll be there, I say.
At 8 pm I’m down at Pearl Street, Noank, looking for the Odd Fellows Hall where they are going to meet. It’s not there. Oh, Pearl Street in Mystic. When I get to the hall in Mystic, Lisa is sitting at a table with another kid. We hold a Young Dems meeting and vote to oppose the Connector. Then write a press release for the New London Day. “Young Dems unanimous in opposition,” I write. Ha, ha, ha. What shall we really say? “Looks good to me,” says Lisa. We laugh and send it off.
“YOUNG DEMS UNANIMOUSLY OPPOSE CONNECTOR” scream the headlines in the local section of the New London Day the following afternoon. Holy cow.
The Pequot Woods
TREES is continuing to gain popular support. The New London Day prints our letters and writes editorials in support. We will elect Mort Wright to the state House of Representatives. He knows the system. Any day, any week, any month, we’ll breakthrough. Turn the tide on the Connector.
The highway department, the State boys, the New Britain contractors, know how to deal with that. We won’t turn the tide before they build the road. The contractors show up in Mystic and push ahead with the Connector.
A day late in the Summer. Alan and I had closed in John Gray’s log house. But last Saturday, Alan had gone alone to work with John and they had had words. I never understood the problem. Alan could get surly. John could be grumpy. Anyhow Al had quit or John had fired him – take your pick. I told John that I was done for the summer, too. Thanks for the job, but I wasn’t going to work alone.
So I was at home – no job – when the Canadian lumberjacks showed up in the Pequot Woods and started to cut the trees. I was one of eight local residents that went up to the woods to protest. We walked out in the woods and stood near the trees in the highway line. The lumberjacks, about ten of them, were grizzled backwoodsmen, carrying big chain saws with long bars. One of them wasn’t much older than me. He looked nervous when he saw us. Most of the lumberjacks put down their chain saws. When two of them kept sawing, some of the protesters moved in close. The two lumberjacks swung their chain saws. Threats were exchanged. It got ugly fast. Someone had called the cops. The Groton Town Police, led by Chief of Police Robert Falvey and Lieutenant Gray, pulled up with sirens blaring, followed by a school bus to transport us. By now the media had shown up too.
Falvey went to each of us, one by one, and explained the situation. We had to leave. If we didn’t we would be arrested for trespassing on state property. When we didn’t move, he arrested us and asked us to get on the bus. The right non-violent way to arrest a protester. We didn’t want a physical confrontation. There hadn’t been a hint of that kind of trouble with the police. But then Lieutenant Gray decided that we weren’t moving fast enough. He grabbed Dolores Wynne, Alan’s mother, by the arm to move her along. Gray was apparently weaned on Sgt. Friday. He looked like Friday, projected that tough cop aura. He was in charge – we were criminals.
About then, Gene Wynne showed up. Gene didn’t know what was going on. But here was a cop shoving his wife. He moved in. “Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on?” He stepped in front of Lieutenant Gray. Gray reacted angrily. Told him to move if he knew what was good for him. Not the right approach. Gene set his face, clenched his fists. Ready to go off. We’re a split second from a Donnybrook. Gray is tough, a pug. But no match for Gene. Gene recently busted a sailor’s nose in a friendly sparring match. I don’t want to see him angry. And the police will respond. I visualize the fight even as events develop in front of me. Another word from Gray and it’s all over. But Dolores knew her man. She turns on Gray. “Excuse me.” Lifts his hand off her arm. Turns to Gene – “Gene. You get home now. I mean it. Watch the kids. We’ll be right back.” And Gene backed off. Gray started to go after him – a really bad move – but Chief Falvey, a little late, got in Gray’s face. We got on the bus. A confrontation was avoided.
I went to the New London Courthouse for the second time within the month. But this time we had good publicity. Public spirited protestors saving trees. All that baloney. There was even a picture of me in the paper. I was sitting in the bus covering my face like a common criminal. Oh well. And TREES, my dad, had hired a lawyer for us. So I didn’t get to see Harold Dean. Dean nolled the charges before we appeared before the judge. But the State cut the trees, and built the road.
Grand Central Gods
Saturday afternoon after my arrest as a protestor, Lisa is in Noank for the weekend. She has a job in New York City as an assistant to one of the editors at the New Yorker. She’s a pianist – taking master classes with a Julliard piano teacher. But her dad is running for political office and she has come home to help out. Her friend Cordalie, a UConn law student, has stopped by to see her. Cordalie is reading the New London Day. She’s recently been arrested in an antiwar demonstration. She’s drawn to the picture in the Day of the arrested TREES protestors. The picture with me in it. “Oh, I know him,” says Lisa. “The guy covering his face.” Ha, ha. “Let’s call him up,” says Cordalie.
They invite me to play tennis. Mort and I, Lisa and Cordalie. It’s a bright, sunny afternoon. Not too hot. Perfect. I get to show off with the racket – feel like I look good. Cool. It’s fun. And Cordalie likes guys. She’s thin, blond, smart, pretty. She flirts with me. Maybe that makes me look more interesting to Lisa, who is more reserved. Later that week, Lisa sends me a letter. She is a terrific writer. She describes how she’s writing from the train on the way into New York. Now the train is going underground into the depth, the soul of the city. She invokes the protection of the Grand Central Gods. Then writes about New York and the New Yorker and her dreams. Maybe I’d be up for another game of tennis if she made it down to Noank next weekend. It sounded good to me.
Mumbo jumbo
In the fall of 1971, I was in my senior year at UConn, driving up to Storrs every morning in my ‘60 Plymouth. The commute was a hike – over an hour drive. It was a challenge to keep the car going on a daily basis. The Plymouth was eleven years old and had over one hundred eighty thousand miles. Like an elderly patient, she began to acquire chronic syndromes. The bendix – the starter motor engaging mechanism – had to be replaced every ten thousand miles or so because its gears were being chewed up by worn teeth on the flywheel. By the second time it failed, I could fix it in about twenty minutes. The generator brushes wore quickly because the rotor was getting rough. Nowadays, the garage sells you a new generator. But I could get a cheap set of brushes down at Wally’s gas station and put them in after supper before starting my homework. Every week, it was something. The differential sprung a slow leak. The clutch had to be replaced. One morning on my way to an exam, a brake line burst and the brakes failed. I coasted into a convenient gas station, left the car to be repaired, hitch-hiked up to Storrs in time for my exam, hitch-hiked back to the car, and drove home.
I majored in English almost by default. I liked to read literature. I knew that an English degree wouldn’t get me a job. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do. The draft looming over my shoulder made it difficult to think about a career. In the meantime, I could enjoy Boswell or Johnson or Shakespeare or Chaucer. Those writers spoke to me. Maybe the courses didn’t prepare me for anything. But how can you have a full life without reading the great works?
Lisa and I dated that fall. She lived in a fifth floor walkup on West 87th Street in Manhattan, worked full time, and took master classes. I juggled classes, commute, and homework. So we wrote letters or talked on the phone. She came down to Noank a few times to help Mort, who was easily elected. And I drove to New York when I could get free.
New York was a revelation. The city lifestyle, with its proximity to arts, restaurants, old book stores, opened a new world to me. Lisa took me to the opera – a fascinating ritualistic display, I thought. The opera was “Julius Caesar” – somehow his name keeps popping up in my narrative – with Beverly Sills. We sat on the balcony, far removed from the action. I’m afraid to say that I’d had enough by intermission. I find that hard to believe now.
Increasingly, my life was overshadowed by the draft. I couldn’t see my way out of it. And I couldn’t see myself serving in the armed forces. I could not bring myself to participate in such an immoral war. I had panic attacks. I feared that I would get attacks once I was drafted, in the army, in combat. I was scared. On the other hand, I didn’t legally qualify for exemption from the draft as a conscientious objector. Under the guidelines, a conscientious objector could not object to one specific war. He had to conscientiously object to any war. If I’d been more independent and had more fortitude, I would have left the country. But I didn’t.
The worsening anxiety attacks were depressing me. Some evenings when I tried to read, I just stared at the page. I couldn’t get through reading assignments. Stories by Kafka or DH Lawrence felt repressive, too harsh, too close to home. I couldn’t finish them. I never did finish “The Cockroach.” I knew what it was about though. I sat in the chair halfway through it and the blackness descended. And I knew there was no way out.
Lisa told me to see a psychiatrist. Maybe I thought it was crap, she noted, but I needed help. I got a reference for a therapist from our family doctor. When I dialed the phone to set up an appointment, my index finger shook so much that I had to redial several times.
The counselor was Robert Gibson, a clinical psychologist. He looked like Bob Newhart, middle-aged, thinning hair. He had an office in Gales Ferry, near the shopping center on Route 12 north of the Sub Base. I felt compromised just walking in his office. I was uptight every time I went. One night it took me ten minutes to stem a nose bleed that came on as I walked in his door.
But the first night, there was a girl sitting in the waiting room. She was cute and looked just as nervous and compromised as I felt. We exchanged glances that said, “So what are you here for?”
Gibson wasn’t into mumbo jumbo. He didn’t promise me anything. He suggested that we sit down and talk; maybe he could help.
His clinical style was low-keyed, like that of Dr. Melfi of the Sopranos. Stay rational, get a feel for what’s going on, figure out what might help. I half-expected him to probe for repressed memory or trauma or an identity crisis. But he stayed pragmatic. We discussed the anxiety attacks and the draft. He recommended that I learn about filing as a conscientious objector. He gave me the name of a draft counselor. Now, let’s talk about the anxiety attacks. What’s the worst that could happen if you lost control?
I drove up to Norwich for a session with the draft counselor about conscientious objecting. He was a minister, a tall dark-haired man with a beard and thoughtful eyes. I sat in his rectory office while he sketched out what I would need to do. Write letters to the editor. Speak at seminars or in church on the evils of war. Engage in a set of activities that would demonstrate, prove, my sincerity and commitment. Suppose, I said, I don’t object to all war? The Nazis were engaged in genocide. The Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor. My problem was that our actions in Vietnam were immoral. My counselor paused and gave me a somber look. “You shouldn’t say that,” he said.
I left his office, walked into the cool night air, a light drizzle that gave the street lamps a halo, and felt that I hadn’t resolved a thing.
I saw Mr.Gibson once a week. It helped to have a confidant; a place where I could discuss the anxiety without exposing myself to friends or family. I could see how his support could become addictive and worried that I might come to rely on it.
In the end, Mr. Gibson did two things that proved critical, that in fundamental ways saved my life. One evening, after a number of sessions, he said that he would write a letter for the draft board detailing my psychiatric disability. It won’t sound pretty, he said, but it will be true and it might make a difference.
Another night, he said, “I can’t magically stop your anxiety attacks. From time to time, you will have to deal with them. Some patients don’t have the resources to handle a problem like yours. I can’t always help them. You are different. You have the smarts to figure out what is going on. You have the inner resources to cope with it. You are going to make out fine.”
Maybe Gibson pulled that speech out of a psychiatric manual on empowerment. Maybe he was just a clever guy. His assurance that I could handle the attacks helped a lot. Mumbo jumbo? I don’t know.
The draft
I feel like I was robbed. Graduation at U Conn was blighted by the impending draft. A number of my friends didn’t show up. Diplomas weren’t handed out there in any case, the class was too big. We stood and flipped our tassel from one side to the other. But no drinks in celebration. No congregating with friends at a restaurant. No pride in an academic career on the whole well done. Graduation was like an afterthought.
“Thrilled” to graduate
It was an awful time.
That letter in the mail. The draft notice. “Greetings”.
Mom dropped me off in New London at the federal building for the ride down to the draft center in New Haven. A somber journey. Young men, unwilling, herded on the bus: a glum silence as the miles pass by. I shared the ride unexpectedly with a friend from Fitch, Jack Howard. Jack looked depressed too. Like riding together on a bus to prison.
A staff sergeant met us as we arrived. He informed us that we were already in the Army – the induction process was a mere formality. Any directions you receive are orders. Your response is “Yes sir.” “You got that soldier?”
We sit in a room to take an elementary aptitude test. I’d be willing to fail anything, willing to be as stupid as it takes. But the test is a small step above spelling your name right. I rush through it and hand it in.
We are told to strip down for a physical. Underpants only. The room is cold, in the lower 60s, and my skin turns pink and goose-bumped. We stand in line so they can visually check us for flat feet. A line of men trying to make their feet as flat as possible. A corpsman walks down the line feeling our testicles and making us cough. The process is someone’s cruel joke. They give a blood pressure test. Some kids, I’m told, take pills to send their readings off the chart. I’m tense enough so that I shouldn’t have to take anything. The corpsman takes my blood pressure, glances at it a second, and shrugs. Next. There’s a hearing test. Hit the button when you hear a beep. Say what? I think that I hit the button randomly. Apparently not.
I have my letter from Gibson. With the anxiety attacks that I have had over the draft, I am worried that I will have an attack at the draft center. Here. Now. At least, they will see what I’m like. But no. I may be tense enough to pop the blood pressure machine but I’m also curiously cool – lucid. In control. My too-sensitive nerves have deserted me. I feel okay. And I’ve passed the preliminary physical with flying colors. These corpsmen aren’t dumb. They are doing hundreds of these exams a day. It is a formality. I’m sure they’ve seen it all.
But Gibson’s letter gets me separated from the other draftees. It says I’m obsessive compulsive and depressive with an anxiety disorder. I will end up institutionalized if I’m inducted. Gibson’s letter is professional, a diagnosis, and hard to ignore. It will be in my file if they take me and something goes wrong. So I wait on the bench to be interviewed. It reminds me of Alice’s Restaurant and Arlo Guthrie, separated with the other kids who are “not fit to go out and kill mothers and children.” Then again, what did these other guys do who are sitting on the bench with me?
My name is called, mispronounced but close enough so that I figure it’s me. I walk into an enclosed room, no windows, where the Army man is sitting who has to make the decision. Crew cut. Official looking. Young, in his twenties. He has Gibson’s letter in front of him. He taps his pencil on the table. At that moment I am collected. I should be wild-eyed, trembling, so he can see I have a problem. But no. I’m not nervous. My hands don’t shake. No tremor in my voice. He asks several perfunctory questions. He looks weary, tired, it’s one more of these bullshit interviews. But I’ve got the letter and it’s no skin off his back. “I presume you don’t want to go,” he says in a tired voice.
I pause. It feels like a trick question. Am I being asked to confirm that I’m draft dodging? There’s no good answer. I feel that that’s why he asked it – to see what I’ll do. I look him in the eye. “No. I don’t want to go.” I don’t know at that moment whether I’m in or out.
“You’re all set. You don’t have to go,” he says. He flips my letter in a basket.
I hitch-hike home from the New London federal building. It takes several car rides. A car drops me off at the top of Fort Hill. I can see down Groton Long Point Road. The red brick building of Fitch High School is off to the right. Far down the hill, in the distance, I see the dark blue waters of the Sound reaching out toward the green of Fishers Island. It’s a strange feeling – suddenly rootless – nowhere I need to go. I half want to cry at the freedom of it. I take a deep breath, turn down the road toward Mystic, and stick out my thumb.
Army Memoirs of Harold C. Hemond
Army Memoirs of Harold C. Hemond
16 November 1942 – 15 May 1946
February 1990 by Harold C. Hemond
Copyright – world rights (2020)
David Hemond, editor
See also The Life and Times of Harold C. Hemond
Harold C. Hemond
I BECAME A SOLDIER
Growing up, I never expected to be a soldier. That was emphasized in the seventh grade when the history teacher was telling us about “The Great War” that had ended on November 11, 1918, a holiday that ever after was celebrated as Armistice Day. For the teacher assured us that the war had been fought “to make the world safe for democracy”, and, with that matter settled, there would never again be a cause for war! So there would never be a need for me in the Army. She was wrong, of course, but in 1929 this impressionable lad of twelve did not doubt her.
Even as I joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) in college in the fall of 1934, the concept of a real Army career never was counted by me as a realistic possibility. ROTC was fun because ours was a Cavalry unit – one of the last in the Army – and we had the chance to ride horses, and if we were skilled enough, we were allowed to take part in the Spring Horse Show. So we liked the Army. True, they had close order drills, and dull classroom lectures about the management of ordnance and such. But that was balanced by the chance to fire target rifles on the indoor firing range. I even made the college rifle team. But that was just playing at Army life, and we never ever expected to be involved in the real thing. Even in 1939 when I was working for my Master’s degree at Massachusetts State, and we were all plotting to save the necessary seventy-five cent fare to see Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in “Gone With the Wind”, and there was civil war in progress in Spain, and Adolph Hitler had come to power in Germany, the idea of an Army career in my future never seemed to enter my head. True, the public sentiment was still very much isolationist. Most adults, including my parents, were confident that any problem they had “over there” would stay over there. It was none of our business. And President Franklin Roosevelt had said that he and Eleanor hated war. So I concentrated my efforts on getting the degree work done in one year, earning a few dollars by teaching algebra at the Holyoke Evening High School, and having a date with Frances every Saturday evening. There was no possibility of Army service on my horizon.
But leaders of our government saw a different picture. Privately, they foresaw war with Germany as inevitable. Therefore, they foresaw the need for large numbers of men for the Armed Services. So the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was proposed, debated, passed by the Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on September 16 of that year. It was the first universal conscription law ever accepted by the United States in time of peace.
Still – not to worry. There were millions of young men available, and the military facilities could handle only a relative handful of men. So, on October 20, 1940, along with more than sixteen million others, I registered with the local draft board in Holyoke and was assigned a draft order number. The national lottery to determine the sequence of draft order numbers was held in Washington on October 29, 1940. My number (which I have long since forgotten) was among the very early ones drawn! Conscription for Army duty began soon thereafter.
At the start, the local draft board was requisitioned for a certain number of men (on the order of ten or twelve) each month. On the assigned day, the group was bused to the indoctrination center in Springfield, where, upon passing the physical examination, they were sworn in and immediately shipped off to Fort Devens. I was in one of these early groups. But I did not pass the physical examination – my teeth were not perfect – not enough of them touched each other when I bit. The dentist assured me that there was no problem with my teeth – when the need for men rose, the perfect teeth requirement would be waived. So I went home and on to my job teaching at Wilbraham Academy while more and more of my friends were called up each month. Soon Ed Banas was inducted and sent to an Army camp in Pennsylvania from which he wrote that training was severely limited by the lack of equipment. But the country was not at war – and public sentiment was still very much opposed to having the United States get involved.
Then came Pearl Harbor – December 7, 1941 – a day that President Roosevelt said would live in infamy. By then Frances and I had been dating steadily for some time, and I had saved up enough money (like forty dollars) to buy her a Hope Chest. On that Sunday afternoon, we were window shopping in front of McLean’s Furniture store on High Street in Holyoke, admiring their chests and trying to select one. I don’t remember exactly how we heard the Pearl Harbor news, but it spread rapidly – everyone on the street had a reaction. Mine consisted of great surprise – I wondered what we had ever done to them to stir up such resentment. I would not have been nearly as shocked by a German attack, since the Germans were still unhappy with their defeat in World War I – but what were the Japanese mad about? I did not know – and most people did not know. But no matter – we had been attacked – we had to defend the country – war was now a certainty, and Congress made it official the next day.
Draft calls immediately increased, but so also did the recruitment efforts by the Navy and the Marines. It seemed to me that service in the Navy would be more to my liking since I had always had an interest in the sea. So one day I walked into the Navy recruiter’s office in Springfield to apply for training as a naval officer. I was cordially received and the processing was started. But it ended with the physical examination where it was determined that I was “color blind”, a deficiency that the Navy would not tolerate any more than the Army would tolerate crooked teeth. Actually the deficiency was limited to the red-green portion of the spectrum where my sensitivity to those colors was not zero, but it was not normal either. It never would have hindered efficient service, but I wasn’t as smart about the matter then as I was later.
By the time the school teaching year ended in June of 1942, the draft process was in high gear. I expected to be called any day, so I did not sign on at Wilbraham for the following school year. To stay busy while waiting for a call from the Army, I went to work for the Westinghouse Corporation at their West Springfield plant where they were building radios for the Air Force. My job was to trouble shoot units that failed to pass the routine tests. As I remember, they paid me two dollars per hour; more money than I had ever seen before! I will expand on that Westinghouse experience at another time.
By October the uncertain existence had become unpleasant. Strangers on the street wanted to know how I had dodged the draft! Fact is I did not know what had delayed my call – possibly because I had already been called up once. But at any rate I took action one day, walked into the Draft Office and volunteered for their November quota. That also precipitated action on another front. For Frances and I decided to get married now rather than wait out the war. So on October 31 1942, a Saturday in the midst of the war effort, and Halloween, we were married in Holyoke. But that too is a different story which I will relate at another time.
I joined the U. S. Army on Monday, 16 November 1942. The processing, physical examination, and swearing-in ceremony had been completed on a prior day. So, on the 16th, I and a group of others, including one of the Apple brothers and Larry Bagg (Dr. Bagg’s son), met a train at the Holyoke station and were carted off to Camp Devens where I became Private Harold C. Hemond with Army Serial Number (ASN) of 31213777. The record shows that I was then 25 3/12 years old, by occupation a teacher, with blue eyes, brown hair, medium complexion, and 5 feet 11 inches tall. There is no record of my weight.
At the time, Camp Devens was in full swing funneling hundreds of men into the Army every day. It was a very brusque process, but also efficient if one managed to get into the correct line and follow exactly the curt orders emanating from every direction at once. Somehow I acquired a large barracks bag full to overflowing with army issue clothing, got it to a bunk in one of the barracks, turned myself into a soldier in appearance as well as fact, packed my civilian clothes into my suitcase and mailed same home to Fran at 174 Pearl Street, Holyoke. I probably stood in line for my first army dinner, but I don’t remember what there was to eat.
174 Pearl St. Holyoke
The next day our big interest was the specific army outfit to which we would be assigned. But a new army private gets no information briefings. So there was no way of finding out one’s destination. From time to time, names were called out, and that group would be marched off. Finally my name was bellowed out by some sergeant and I found myself in a large group marching to a waiting line of railroad cars which we boarded. The cars were all day coaches. We thought that was a good sign since obviously we were not going very far on day coaches. Our speculation included training posts in New York or New Jersey. The train got underway – slowly.
The railroad coaches were a very old style fitted with a row of benches on each side of the center aisle. Each bench, sized for two passengers, was covered both on the seat and on the back with rattan which made them feel like sitting on a board. The backs could be swung to either side of the seat so that the passenger could be looking forward no matter which direction the car moved. The army arrangement was to alternate the back positions so that every two benches had the look of a compartment. In that space they placed three of us guys along with each person’s barrack bag. The result was that there was little space for anyone. But again – not to worry – obviously we would not be in this car very long.
It was time for an evening meal and we found out how meals were served army troop train style. There was a freight car in the middle of the train. That was the mess hall. On order from the sergeant, one assembled his mess kit and stood in line. On signal the line began to move through adjacent cars to the mess car. There one held out his kit while it was filled with food, and then he followed the line back to his assigned car seat. Then one ate. The food was ample. It was hot. The art of mess kit eating was clearly one of the army’s first lessons. Except there were no instructors. Everyone was on his own, and there were many slow learners as became evident when the car made a sudden jolt causing many a meal to be deposited on a lap or a seat or even the deck. I survived the meal. Then it was time to wash the mess kits. This involved another treck to the mess car where there were three thirty gallon buckets, one with boiling soapy water, and two with boiling rinse water. One dumped any waste food in a separate garbage bucket and then dipped the mess kit in turn in each of the three water buckets. Then with scalding mess kits dangling, one went back to his assigned seat.
About then, the sergeant started through the car directing how to arrange things for sleeping. The three barrack bags were to be used to fill in the space between the two benches. That would make a surface more or less flat involving the two bench seats and the intervening barrack bags. Upon that surface the three occupants of the cubicle were to find a way to lie down and sleep. There were many private mutterings about the sergeant’s sanity as well as his heritage, but no overt mutiny. Plainly we were going to be on that day coach throughout the night so we might as well figure out how to get some sleep. Probably we would arrive at our destination during the night and could expect a hot breakfast at an army post in the morning.
In the morning, we were aroused early – not that anyone needed much arousing – there had been little sleeping done – and went through the feeding ritual again. I don’t remember exactly what they gave us, but it likely was bacon, scrambled eggs, an orange, toast, and coffee. I should report that I usually found the army food to be reasonably tasty, very hot when it was supposed to be hot, and always available in greater quantity than I could manage.
Now it was morning and the train was still poking along. Several guys had made attempts to pry destination information out of the sergeant, but he either did not know, or he was under orders not to tell. At any rate, we were still staring out the dirty car windows at the passing landscape looking for hints as to where we were. But nobody could figure it out. Gradually, based upon frequent stops and starts of the cars, as well as our failure to observe train stations, we concluded that the train was not following conventional passenger routes but was using freight lines. Consequently, it was not likely that we could figure out our whereabouts.
We could not figure out where we were. We only knew that we were not there yet. The day went by. The only organized routine was the meal procedure. Between meals we were on our own, except that there was no place to go nor anything to do. I took time to shave and wash using the overcrowded and thoroughly inadequate car toilet room, and got kidded for my effort. But it was something to do and filled in some of the time gaps.
Another awkward and nearly sleepless night dragged by, followed by a second long day in those increasingly foul cars, while the train plodded slowly westward, its destination still a mystery. We could scarcely believe that the army would transport us for this amount of time in such miserable equipment. But our patience was to be further tried by yet another long night and a third endless day.
On the morning of the next day, the train came to a halt and we were directed to prepare to leave the cars. Out the window we could see only an endless vista of flat snow covered land. After hurried preparations sorting out each others stuff and repacking the barracks bags, we sat down and waited for the next order. It was our first taste of the army’s famous policy, “Hurry up and wait”. Eventually we were ordered out of the cars and into a column formation. The approved way to carry the heavy barrack bag was over one’s right shoulder. Tender muscles got a workout that way. The sergeant called for order and saluted a Captain who had appeared. The Captain called out “Welcome to Camp Funston, Home of the 9th Armored Division.”
Eventually we learned that Camp Funston was a wartime adjunct of Fort Riley, Kansas, traditional home of the famed army horse cavalry where horses had now been replaced by armored vehicles. Riley was located on the outskirts of Junction City, Kansas, west of Manhattan, Kansas, at approximately the geographic center of the United States. The army task at Camp Funston was to activate and train another armored division. We recruits were all part of the buildup of the 9th Armored Division.
THE 9th ARMORED DIVISION
Life at Camp Funston quickly settled into an exhausting routine of training, eating, and sleeping. Training should be read essentially as physical conditioning involving group exercises, close order drill, and cross country marches often at double time. Eating should be read as standing in line in the cold winter winds waiting to have a turn getting into the mess hall to gulp down a meal in the allotted time before the next drill call. Sleeping should be read as trying to get some rest on a sagging army cot in a setting of some fifty such cots all with snoring occupants.
The barracks were barren two story wooden structures – nothing but vast halls lined with bunks. Heating was by means of a large pot bellied iron stove set near the middle of the place and fueled with soft coal that had to be fed by hand shovel. The fuel was stored in a bunker outside one end of the building. Duty to fuel the stove fell by lot to occupants of the barrack. A combination gang wash room, shower room, and toilet was located at one end of the first floor. It was so crowded and overworked that I found it useful to be the first there in the morning – not hard to do – most of the gang needed prodding by reveille and the foul curses of the barrack sergeant before they started their day. They called us Privates – but there was nothing whatsoever that was private about the way we lived.
I soon learned the names and other details about many of my associates, but practically all of that has now slipped from memory. However, I remember Jack Wilson who came from West Hartford and had been teaching at Cheshire Academy – our common teaching background made us kindred spirits. And then there was Ralph Bettencourt from Billerica – Ralph was a great talker with graphic opinions on army ways, a characteristic that sometimes got him in trouble with the sergeant. There was a fellow from Brooklyn who had never been outside the city – he had never seen a cow! There were several boys from Vermont who were offended when breakfast consisted of pancakes and syrup and the syrup turned out not to be from real Vermont maple trees. And there was Smokey Butler. I’ve forgotten his origin, but he had a habit upon waking in the morning of shouting “Dubgie-Dubgie” – what it meant he never said. And there was a fellow from Gloucester who had been a fisherman – he was unhappy with the lack of fish at army meals.
Ralph Bettencourt
There must have been a Thanksgiving that year – but I don’t remember it at all. No doubt it was a depressing day that I was glad to see go by. We probably had little in the way of army drill that day – officers and non-coms alike probably were away on passes.
On something like the third Saturday afternoon that I was at Funston, I experienced my first tornado. I did not know then that it was a tornado. And given my situation of being still restricted to barracks, I had no way of even being aware of an approaching storm. About the middle of the afternoon, an unusual darkness fell. I went out on the barracks balcony to see what was happening. I got there in time to see an approaching black funnel that went up from the ground to a black cloud formation. The funnel was moving in my direction at a rapid pace. As I watched, the funnel struck on end of the barrack across the street, cutting the structure neatly in half. The struck portion was completely leveled. I was surprised beyond words, and too ignorant of the phenomenon to realize my own danger. By the time I appreciated that I had been in peril, the thing had gone by. Some twenty recruits had been killed. They said that this kind of storm was not unusual in Kansas. So I knew that there were hazards greater than being in the army.
After about a month, we began to get instruction in the weapons that are found in the armored divisions. First was the rifle – we had to learn the nomenclature of its parts, and be able to take it apart and reassemble it blindfolded – literally blindfolded. The claim was that on some dark and stormy night the weapon would be inoperative and require repair – and there would be no light – nor any alternate weapon – yours had to be fixed in the dark. I found that was easy – but dumb. Then we gave similar attention to the carbine, then to the automatic handgun, then to the machine gun, and finally to the 30 mm tank cannon. After that we went to the firing range to learn how to shoot each of these guns.
One winter morning, with ice and snow all over the place, and with a storm in progress that was dumping a mixture of sleet and cold rain, we were marched out to the firing range. We were scheduled to shoot the carbine that day. Upon arriving, I found myself in charge of a detail of six men charged with the job of building a fire so that the gang could have some warmth. We had to find the material, get it in place near the firing line, and make it burn in spite of the weather conditions. Fortunately we found nearby some piles of used construction lumber which we appropriated. The Captain’s jeep had a spare five gallon can of gasoline – which we also appropriated. Together they made a great fire and the Captain was pleased.
But in the process I lost my turn at firing. So, as the others ate lunch, I had my turn. The course consisted of five rounds each at 200 yards firing first in the prone position, then sitting, then kneeling, and then standing. That was done twice over – forty rounds all together – scoring gave five points for a bullseye. My first shot was a four – then I started a string of fives – I finished the first course of twenty rounds with 19 bullseyes. By then I was the focus of all attention on the range. The Captain came to be my coach – then came the Major – then came the Lt-Col. I started the second course with another bullseye – and continued to rack up more. All shots were fives until the very last one which was a four. I suppose I was tired by then. I never got any official recognition for that feat, which probably was just as well – the army might have got the notion to make me into a sniper.
By now there must have been a pay day. Pay day has its own unique army customs. The company commander sits at a desk or table in some large room, and the men file by one at a time, saluting and reporting for pay. Each in turn is handed a small manila packet in which appears his pay in cash, minus any allotments or other authorized deductions. As a Private, I was eligible – as stated so well in a popular song of the time – for forty one dollars a day once a month. Some of my monthly allotment, I sent home to Frances who saved it for post war use, accumulating about three thousand dollars in that fashion during the wartime period. Immediately following the pay formation, the crap games got underway, usually in some place out of sight of the officers who were supposed to break them up. But the games always went on. It was a given that most of those who played were soon wiped out and became charity cases for the next month. I regularly avoided the games which made me fair game for helping some guy out when he needed toothpaste or something at the post exchange (PX).
Christmas was a thoroughly miserable day. By then the effect of the cold wet weather had brought on a severe sore throat – I could scarcely talk or eat – that didn’t much matter to the medic – I was never excused from training. But I was not in the Christmas mood. To make things more awkward, my mother’s Christmas package arrived. It was a large box filled with food and presents – but the box had suffered considerable damage in transit and food and presents were in an assorted mess. Had there been no damage, I could not have handled the package – we had literally no place to put anything! And there would have been little help in consuming the food – most fellows had similar gifts from home. My only recourse was to consign the package to the trash barrel – which I did – and then wrote a nice Thank You note to my mom.
An armored division coordinates its activities in the field largely through the use of radios installed in each major vehicle. Consequently many radio operators have to be trained. As basic training ended, many of us were singled out to become operators. Including me.
Operator training consisted largely of learning the Morse Code. There was some discussion of radio theory, but mostly the army wanted operators. Radio operation was principally done by using AM radio equipment operated in the CW mode where the transmissions involved coded groups of five characters which could be letters or numbers in any sequence.
Perfect accuracy by the operators, both sending and copying the code groups was essential. So we were taught the Morse code, daily, all day long as we sat with headsets over our ears, pencil in hand, writing down the characters as the sounds were heard. In about two weeks, most of us could operate at five words per minute without error for unlimited periods of time. Then the instructor began to speed things up – to seven words per minute – to ten words – and then to thirteen words. At each stage, certain fellows could not operate satisfactorily and were dropped out of the program. But a large number of the guys, including me, completed the course and were certified as army radio operators.
The Armored Division organization contains two separate Command Groups, each headed by a Brigadier General and his necessary staff. Troops were then allocated to the Command by Division Headquarters as necessary for the particular assigned mission. I, along with about a dozen of the new radio operators were attached to Combat Command “B” which was under Brig-Gen Hoag, a long time army veteran who had just returned from commanding the construction forces that had built the Alaskan Highway. We radio operators joined the Signal section which was under Captain Christie, a very likeable chap from Shaker Heights, Ohio. Our top kick, Master Sergeant Florschutz, was also a very competent veteran. The section had a vacancy for a corporal-technician and for reasons unknown to me, the Captain gave me the rating. So within about ten weeks of joining the army, I had become a Corporal. It meant more pay, but I forget how much more.
Soon our daily training mode was to set up and operate a radio network using the radio equipment in the division’s vehicles. I was the operator in the General’s armored scout car, so I was often the net control station, which meant I really had to pay close attention and allocate radio time to the stations in the net. It was sometimes fun, but it was often boring. There was one operator, fellow named Reichert, who was very difficult to work with because his Morse code sending style was not clear. One day the gang made up a coded message as follows: R E I C H E R T S T I N K S. We sent it off to Reichert’s vehicle. Soon Captain Christie drove up in his jeep – he was in high dudgeon – he had copied the message – there followed a lecture about sending unauthorized messages. We were properly subdued – but a few days later Reichert was reassigned to other duties.
Army boys always look forward to a time when they can merit a PASS! That there may be an authorized leave from duty in one’s future is a great morale booster. On my first week-end pass, Jack Wilson and I took the train to Topeka, got a room at the YMCA, had some good meals, and explored the city. Topeka is the Capitol city of Kansas, so we went to visit the Statehouse. It is a handsome domed structure. On Sunday there were few visitors, so the caretaker was very generous with his time and showed us the entire building. Finally he asked if we would like to go out on the observation deck on top of the dome – of course we did. To get there we had to traverse a catwalk suspended between the outer dome structure and the fancy false ceiling seen from the inside of the dome. It was a scary shaky walk – but we made it to the top and outside just below a huge statue. The view was fabulous! All of the city lay before us – and beyond was the endless prairie.
One Sunday I got a pass to go to Manhattan. There I started out to look for Kansas State University which I knew to be located in that city. I stopped a kindly looking gentleman to ask the way. He said he was going there himself and volunteered to show me around. Turned out he was a professor at the college. As we talked further, it also turned out that he was a good friend of Professor Frank Waugh of Mass State with whom I had had a course in Art Appreciation (two of Frank Waugh’s etchings hang in our breakfast room).
Pvt Hemond, Manhattan, Kansas
One day I learned that I was eligible for a three day Memorial Day week-end pass – it was a golden opportunity to see Frances – that is if we both could get to Chicago. I think I must have called her – we agreed to meet in the Chicago railroad station at the information booth. What we did not know was that there were many railroad stations in Chicago – each line had its own terminal. But luck was with us – without coaching, we both took trains that went to the same station – and our meeting plan worked perfectly. We even found a hotel room at the Mark Twain Hotel that we could afford. It was a great time – we explored the city via public transportation – saw the Science Museum – sampled the eateries – and generally got reacquainted.
Mark Twain Hotel, Chicago
Mark Twain Hotel
Fran was determined to come to Kansas on her midwinter vacation. She did, staying at the guest house for a short time until we found a room in a house on Colorado Street in Manhattan. Master Sergeant Florshutz was an immense help allowing a pass every night – and the Sergeant in charge of the mess hall provided transportation – he lived in town and had his own car. So we managed to stay close. Fran kept herself busy during the week taking a typing course at the high school.
Fran and HC, Library, Kansas State
But the war was raging in the desert in Africa, and so the 9th Armored was scheduled for desert training. That meant transfer of the division to the desert training area in lower California. So Fran went home for a time.
Movement of the division to the desert was by troop trains. But the experience was considerably better than the ride from Devens to Funston – this time we had parlor cars! Furthermore, Florshutz had a private room, and he invited me to share it with him. Thereupon, he put me in charge of the TRAIN-PX, the stock for which was also stored in the Sergeant’s room. So twice a day I traversed the train selling candy bars and cigarettes. But whenever I had a chance I watched in wonder the spectacular Western scenery as we rolled slowly through Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, New Mexico, and Arizona to Camp Ibis in the California desert, which is just north of the sunbaked town of Needles.
Some other outfit must have just moved out, because we found Camp Ibis to be a vast ready-made tent city. The typical army square 8-man tent was everywhere in neat rows so that companies could be billeted together. The facilities were already in place too, so we were spared the task of digging latrines. Drinking water was available in large canvas bags that decorated the company streets. Showers were turned on every day at four o’clock for one hour – conservation of water was one of our first desert lessons.
It was hot! And dry! Guys were constantly thirsty. When word came that the PX had a supply of ice cold beer, there was a stampede to get a place in line to buy one. The army medics were worried about guys losing too much salt in the hot sun – so salt pills were prescribed for everyone – entrance to the mess tent for the evening meal was gained only by swallowing two salt tablets first. A typical day saw the sun temperature rising to about 120 degrees by noon and falling off to about 80 degrees during the night. Curiously that made the nights seem cold – we slept under blankets! And the days were so hot that the many division armored vehicles became too hot to touch with the bare hand. We wore gloves when we were in vehicles!
Training continued with weapons and vehicles, but there was the added flavor of drills on water conservation. Survival may depend on how well one husbands the meager supply. A typical training scenario involved going three days at a stretch with one canteen (about a quart) per day per man, with the additional requirements that one shave each morning and wash a pair of socks each day – the rest of the water one could use as he pleased. I managed this drill quite well. Years later, when I was in the submarine engineering business, I was able to tell the Navy about ways of conserving their water resources (the Navy wasn’t interested of course).
On our first weekend pass, we headed for Las Vegas. There were buses for transportation. I went with Smokey Butler. We must have looked like hicks from the country as we stared and gaped at the wonders of the gaming rooms in that wild town. Smokey was hooked – they let him win at the start – and he had a reasonable pile of chips – but as they knew he would, he got greedy and kept on playing. By Sunday afternoon when we had to catch the bus back to camp, Smokey was nearly broke, but he still wouldn’t quit – he was going to play until he won! So he missed the bus and became AWOL and was busted back to private.
Letters from home were highly prized – so the daily mail call was always well attended. Usually I was rewarded with a letter from Frances. It was one of these, coming in late June, that advised me that she and Irv Wessman’s wife were planning to drive across country to Needles. That was great news, although neither Irv nor I had any reasonable idea as to what then – accommodations were just not available!
But the girls came – and that is a separate story that Fran can best relate. So one day we got word that we should meet them at the USO in Needles. Cooperative Sergeant Florschutz provided the necessary passes. We bummed a ride to town and met the girls. They had each driven a car forming a mini caravan – Fran had Matilda, our 1937 Plymouth coupe that needed a quart of engine oil every 50 miles. After a short reunion, we decided to head toward Las Vegas to try our luck at finding a place to stay. We lucked out in the little mining town of Whitney just south of Las Vegas where we found some wayside cabins. The girls made that spot their headquarters where they waited out each week waiting for us boys to get there on the weekends.
Meanwhile training continued and we got familiar with the desert territory as we practiced maneuvers against imagined enemies. On occasion, Captain Christie had an urge to explore the region, and then he usually requisitioned me as his jeep driver. One day we drove to the abandoned town of Searchlight in the mountainous area along the California – Nevada border. It was a scene from the Old West, dirt streets, the bar and the hitching posts. Then we explored on foot the abandoned silver mines in the area – we would have been thrilled to have found some silver – but we didn’t. We drove along the Colorado River which, in that area is running through a gorge. We came upon a long-defunct facility for transporting stage coaches across the river. It was a trolley with cables strung from towers on each side of the river. Suspended from trolley wheels that rode the cables was a large flat-bed platform where the passengers and their vehicles (and horses probably) would ride.
On 9 August 43, I had a welcome surprise as the Headquarters, 9th Armored Division, issued Special Order No 202, wherein it was recorded that T/5 Harold C. Hemond, 31213777, was promoted to Staff Sergeant. Later I learned that Captain Christie had been the prime mover behind this action. My duty was to be in charge of the enlisted men in the Signal Section of Combat Command “B”.
It had become my desire to have a chance to attend the Signal Officer Candidate School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. But, in private discussions with Captain Christie, I learned that an Armored Division seldom had a chance to offer attendance at a Signal Corps facility. So I set that desire on the back burner.
But Christie did the next best thing – he arranged to get me out of the Armored Division. So on 13 August 43, in Special Order No 206, S/Sgt Harold C. Hemond, 31213777, was ordered to proceed “from Needles, Calif. to Ontario, Calif.” reporting on 18 Aug 43 to the Comdt of students at Chaffey Junior College in the Army Special Training Program.
So in the still of the night, Irv Wessman drove me to Whitney where I broke the news to Frances. We packed all our possessions into the huge trunk of Matilda, and made a big batch of brownies. Then we drove back to Camp Ibis and roused our 9th Armored friends to share a midnight party in the desert.
Jim Nordahl from Oregon
Fred Hollowell from Mass
Earl Hartman from Houston, Texas
HCH
Ira Weil, Montgomery
Capt Byrnes, Phil Ryan “the happy one”
Jack Wilson from West Hartford
Johnny Baker on baracks rail
Ralph Bettencourt, HC, Jack Wilson, City Park, Manhattan, KS, March ’43
Ralph on the Merry-Go-Round
ASTP
It must have been about two o’clock in the morning when we finally left Camp Ibis and the 9th Armored Division, setting out on a new chapter in our Army experience. We headed Matilda south to Needles, then west toward Ontario. Towards morning when it seemed that we were closing on our destination, we gave in to weariness, pulled Matilda over to the shoulder of the road, and sacked out. It was a bright sunny morning when we woke up. We approached Ontario in the time honored tradition of the cavalry – we drove right into the downtown area and on through town – Chaffee Junior College turned up on our left, and we cased the place as we drove by – it seemed like the place to which we had been ordered to report.
So we turned our attention to getting some breakfast and finding a place for Fran to stay for the expected short time we would be at Chaffee. Turned out there was a modestly priced hotel ($2 a night) in the center of town and we managed to engage a room. We estimated that our funds could survive about ten days. We paid an extra 25 cents rent any night I stayed at the hotel. In theory, as a Staff Sergeant with a dependent, we were making a living wage. I forget how much that was – but the real problem was that my detached duty assignment cut me loose from such amenities as a paymaster and I was not certain when I would be able to collect my pay. My orders required that I report to Chaffee on the 18th – and I had four more days free. However, by reporting I could eat at the Army mess and conserve our food budget. So I checked in at the school.
Some years previous, in one of the school journals, I had made a case for New England adopting the California system of Junior Colleges. That piece had been written without any personal experience with this type of school – but I had promoted its advantages anyhow. Now I was pleasantly surprised to observe that all the good things I had said in that article were true. Chaffee had a beautiful campus featuring modern classroom buildings, a well appointed dining hall, and a large gymnasium. There were no dormitories since a Junior College functions as a day school. The army students were quartered in the gymnasium where a cot was provided for each man.
Chaffee served as a staging area for those personnel who were entering the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). Apparently, the purpose of the ASTP was to keep college level institutions functioning by providing them some of the students who had been drained off by the war effort, as well as to keep a segment of the college age population in a learning situation.
So we just marked time at Chaffee. As possible I got a pass to be off-campus, and we used the time to explore the Los Angeles area. It was a delightful area – not yet big-time. Although there was no mass transport system, we had enough gasoline to explore. The smog problem had not yet developed. Orange groves were common. Fig trees were used as shade trees and when the fruit was ripe, one could help himself as he walked down a fig shaded street. In our sight seeing, we toured the Hollywood movie area, drove by the Rose Bowl, visited friends from the East, and toured downtown Los Angeles where it was no problem to find a parking spot at the street curb near one’s destination. After about ten days of this pleasant respite from Army discipline, I received orders to proceed to the University of Santa Clara, at Santa Clara, California.
Santa Clara is located in the southern end of the San Francisco Bay area, near San Jose, or about 500 miles north of Ontario. We loaded up Matilda (it was early on a Sunday morning as I remember), checked the engine oil level, and drove north along the coastal highway.
This was a time long before the Interstate Highway system. Intercity roads, while generally well constructed, were not designed for speeds over forty mph. Nor was Matilda capable of long runs at high speed. She was likely to heat up at little provocation. So our goal was to average forty miles per hour so that we could get to Santa Clara in less than thirteen hours. The drive was spectacular, constantly challenging our time schedule with temptations to explore the coastal vistas. Occasionally the temptation won, and we skipped lunch to catch up on the schedule. By evening we were driving through the Santa Margarita mountains tired and hungry, and looking in vain for some sign of a restaurant. It was getting dark, as we approached King City. A light gleamed in a store window and we saw many happy folks dining inside. We parked and hustled to the door. It would not open, and a big sign said. “Closed at Eight”. It was five past. We drove into the city proper and stopped at a restaurant – the only one we had seen. When we tried to enter we found the door locked – the sign said they closed at eight. The folks inside grinned. Only we cared.
Many miles later we reached Salinas, a town that lives happily in our memory. For Salinas had a reasonable motel, with the best sandwich dispenser and most comfortable bed in our memory; and a spot for breakfast the next morning.
The next morning, in much better humor, we completed the trip to Santa Clara. Again, we located and checked out the campus prior to doing anything else. Santa Clara was partially known to me through its reputation as a football power house in the tradition of other Jesuit schools as Holy Cross and Notre Dame. So I had been expecting to see a major campus. But not so. The entire collection of University buildings occupied only one city block. But a handsome block it was. The dominant building in the center of the campus was the old mission church with its bell tower. It was built of adobe blocks in the Spanish style, common among the churches on the California mission trail. Clustered nearby were the University buildings. We noted the location of the Administration building, and then briefly checked out the others. Interestingly, the classrooms were located on the first floor of the dormitory buildings which seemed like an arrangement that could well be copied by schools in more rugged climates like New England.
HC, Santa Clara
We needed an off campus place for Fran. We must have sought out help – but I don’t recall where. In any case, by evening we had located a bedroom with kitchen privileges in the home of Mrs. Tower, a widow living just adjacent to the campus on Washington Street. Mrs. Tower was most helpful in getting us organized, and we maintained mail contact with her and members of her family for many years thereafter. It seems to me that she was even understanding when one night the bed collapsed.
Fran in front of Tower house at 100 Washington St., Santa Clara, CA
The next day I reported in to the Army unit at Santa Clara. I was early – the summer semester was into final exam week – my classes would not be ready to start until the next week. But the Colonel was glad to see me particularly because of the S/Sgt stripes on my sleeve – most of his students were Privates with only a sprinkling of non-commissioned officers. As a matter of fact, as I later learned, I was the ranking enlisted man while I was there. This translated into a few more perks as well as a few more chores. The Colonel immediately assigned me to proctor a final examination that afternoon. But he was also quite understanding about having a wife with one – he needed no persuasion to allow me to be with Fran on every weekend as well as one other night in the week. And when I mentioned that I had missed some paydays, he arranged that the local Red Cross Chapter loan us money interest free until we did have a payday. We were impressed, and grateful.
When I was assigned a dormitory room, I began to feel more like a college kid rather than a soldier. Other members of the class were arriving daily, and soon I had a roommate. Benny Rosenburg, a short dark haired Jewish chap hailing from Brewster, New York. Benny was a character, and we became close friends. It turned out that Benny had a grudge against the Army. Seems that he had just managed to get set up in Brewster with his own Card and Candy Shop which was beginning to make some money, when Benny was drafted and he had to liquidate his store. He wasn’t happy about that and figured he had some getting even to do. So he applied for special training schools – stayed in them until near the end of the course – and then goofed off so that he was thrown out of the class. He had worked this process twice and intended to do the same with the ASTP. In the meantime, Benny was fun to be with – a very bright guy – always ready with a joke or snappy line. A typical entrepreneur too – it became his practice to copy my home assignment and then to peddle the work to others in the class for a cash fee. Benny was a superb pool player and I learned that game from him.
There were lots of other talented and likeable fellows in the group. John Powers from Poland, Ohio was there. He also had his wife, Emily, along. And there was a chap by name of Thomas who also had his wife with him. So soon Fran had some company when the girls were able to get together. Our friendship with Emily and John has lasted to this day.
John Powers with HC
Fran with Emily Powers
Soon we learned that we had been entered in the Electrical Engineering School. Courses were to include Calculus, Differential Equations, Strength of Materials, DC Machinery, AC Machinery, as well as close order drills and lots of physical education. On top of that there was the morning formation, the noon formation, and the retreat formations when the Army officers took attendance. That made us look like a service academy.
Having already earned both a B.Sc. and a M.Sc., the course was not as challenging for me as it was for most of the guys who were generally younger and had been drafted out of college. I was busy tutoring and keeping Benny supplied with enough completed homework to keep him in business.
After a few weeks, Fran found a vacant apartment on the ground floor in the rear of a tenement house near the University. It had a combination living room bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. Such luxury while serving in the army! Then Fran got a job in the millinery department of Hale’s Department store San Jose. Twenty-one dollars a week she made. She didn’t know how to cook, hated lighting a gas stove, tried to feed two on ration stamps of one, but with two incomes, we could buy food to practice with. The first meal featured macaroni and cheese prepared step by step according to Mr. Kraft’s direction and acorn squash which never did finish baking in the gas oven. Halloween came around, marking our first wedding anniversary, and we doubtless ate out that night at the Round Table.
By the middle of November, I thought about winterizing Matilda. Permanent anti-freeze in an automobile engine’s radiator was a future convenience. When we tried to buy alcohol at the local service station, the attendant scoffed at our ignorance. He assured us that in Santa Clara, the temperature never dropped below freezing. Indeed, in due time, I noticed guys cutting their lawns on Christmas day.
Thanksgiving was marked by a special turkey dinner with the traditional fixings set in the University dining hall and families were invited. As ranking student, I was invited to sit at the Colonel’s table. Fran sat next to the Colonel, and when he inquired as to how things were going, she responded with enthusiasm, telling how much she had enjoyed a movie I had recently taken her to see. Problem was, my pass from the University dorm did not cover running around town. But the accommodating Colonel did not take notice.
We had our first Christmas together in the little Santa Clara apartment. We bought a Christmas tree – for 75 cents – about two feet tall complete with a stand – Charlie Brown never did any better. Money and decorations were scarce, but we found a box of a dozen small red glass bulbs. They hung with elegance on the little tree in the window of the rear apartment. Seven of the ornament have survived cats and kids and have decorated more than forty Christmas trees.
There was ample opportunity for Fran and me to explore the San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Cruz area. A favorite trip involved driving to the San Jose train station, taking the local to Oakland, walking to the ferry terminal and taking the Bay ferry to San Francisco. Delightful on a moonlit night. In Frisco, we would ride the trolley down Market street, then take the turntable cable car to the top of California Street and the Mark Hopkins Hotel. The lounge at “The Top of the Mark” was a landmark. The view was spectacular; the rum cokes didn’t have to be. Later from the Frisco train station we could catch the late local for San Jose.
On other occasions we explored the Stanford University campus in nearby Palo Alto. We took pictures of the handsome stained glass windows in the chapel, (Fran feeling guilty) listened to the Hoover Memorial Bell Tower, and roamed through the library and museum.
Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is remembered for its lovely Oriental gardens, with delicate design and atmosphere of another culture. In the nearby Pacific, Seal Rocks was the playground of sea lions and California gulls and sea birds too far distant for a neophyte to identify. Several times we went to Kezar Stadium to see football.
Kezar Stadium
The East vs. West game on New Year’s Day was a memorable one. It was sponsored by the Shriner’s for their program to aid children, and they entertained at half-time with a couple of events. First the “largest American flag in the world” was carried on the field by an army of Shriners, and spread for the admiration of the spectators. And the heavens opened and baptized the spectators and the flag and the Shriners beneath, with its blessing. Undaunted, a group of mounted Shriners, complete with red uniforms and fezes, continued the program. Their horses were handsome Arabians, some white and some black. And the riders presented their drill with disregard of the driving rain. One beautiful black stallion, carrying a large Shriner not of his liking, found the exhibition distasteful. The patterned choreography skillfully followed by the disciplined group, was livened up as Black danced and pranced to a different drummer, and the large Shriner clung and tugged to no avail. It must have been fairly warm; we remember laughing hilariously under a poncho we had brought, oblivious to the distress of the flag people who thought the flag was ruined and the discomfiture of the unfortunate Shriner. Some all-stars of the day played in that game, but they are overshadowed by the side show. And as we settled down to the serious purpose of our presence, a friend came to share our poncho. Jim Duckworth, Fran’s cousin from back home, spotted us from high in the stands, and joined us. He was serving in the Navy, but we had no idea he was stationed nearby at Treasure Island. And he did not know we were in California at all. Three wet people celebrated the New Year 1944 with an unbelievable afternoon at Kezar Stadium, dinner and a movie in San Francisco. Jim joined us many weekends after our fortuitous meeting, and slept on our sofa bed in the kitchen.
Fran and Jim Duckworth, Stanford
Fran’s mother came out for a visit. When we met her at the Oakland Station she was escorted by two handsome young navy officers, who assured us that they had taken good care of her on the transcontinental trip. During the weeks she was with us we showed her the area attractions including a visit to the Top of the Mark. We went to see the Winchester House – the place with a hundred or so rooms – Mrs. Winchester’s phobia drove her to keep adding rooms and other spaces to her house.
Jim, Renie Field, Harold
Fran’s brother Ken Field, in Seabees, also visited
All good things must end, as did our Santa Clara interlude. In the spring of 1944 after the final exams the whole contingent was sent to the Signal Corps at Camp Kohler in Sacramento. We loaded up trusty Matilda with all our possessions, and on a Saturday, in company with the Powers and the Thomas couples, set out to drive to Sacramento. We arrived late in the afternoon, needing a place to stay. Undaunted, we drove into downtown Sacramento and stopped at a mid-town hotel. They must have had cancellations because amazingly, they could accommodate us. We discovered the Hotel Cluny had mince pie with hot raisin sauce that was unforgettable.
But we needed a permanent place, and early on Sunday morning before breakfast, Fran and I set out to find an apartment. We drove first down “L” street, one of the town’s main thoroughfares. In the 1900 block, we spied a lady on her front lawn hammering in an “Apartment For Rent” sign. We stopped the car and ran over – just ahead of another couple on the same mission. We rented that place. It consisted of a bedroom living room plus a kitchen plus a shared bathroom with an older couple. We soon realized that our new home was adjacent to the railroad line. The apartment shook when the Feather River Express tooted by and checking the trains became part of our routine.
Van Zile Hall, Kansas State, Manhattan
Memorial Statium, Kansas State
Stanford University Chapel
Fran and HC in Tower yard at Santa Clara
Snow in June, Lake Tahoe
SIGNAL CORPS
On Monday morning, I reported to the Signal Corps Headquarters at Camp Kohler, a large permanent Army facility on the outskirts of Sacramento. I was assigned to the casual company, a way the Army has of taking care of strays until a real assignment comes along. The company was already large and the additional contingent from Santa Clara was a strain. I found myself assigned quarters in the Sergeant’s barrack – along with about two dozen other men of equal or higher rank – so many that we had to take turns filling the roles of company sergeants. So I had a light work schedule – on occasion I was responsible for running the close order drill – on other days, I ran the gas mask drill – and sometimes, I ran the cross country march. But rarely was a day filled with activity.
However, there was an unwritten rule among the sergeants that we should not ever appear to be unoccupied – the Army wouldn’t approve. So, even when there was no routine task for me, I left the barracks with a purposeful stride toward some destination – any destination would do. Sometimes I went for a hike over the countryside – other times, I found a large shady tree in a field and stretched out under it for a nap. But finding “work” was boring. One day, as I walked around the camp, I came upon the radio operator school. I went in, and after chatting with the officer in charge, I learned that I was at liberty to copy code whenever I wanted to do so. Thereafter, I added a code copying session to my daily round of duty.
Soon I got permission to live off the post; so I commuted from 1900 “L” Street. Matilda, though a coupe with comfortable seating for the driver and two others, had a large trunk which, when the lid was up, could take another three or four persons who crouched awkwardly and hoped the trip would soon end. Many times the trunk was filled with guys.
Fran, house on “L” Street, Sacramento
In the meantime Fran was hired by the Sacramento branch of Hale’s and once again sold millinery and other ladies things. Life in Sacramento was similar to life at Santa Clara. There were new sights to see and more of the Old West to discover.
The Governor’s mansion was on “L” street – about 19 blocks away – but still we considered the governor a neighbor. The governor at the time was Earl Warren, later to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The Capitol building was nearby, and we toured it and its lovely grounds a number of times. The big attraction was Capitol Park. Here kangaroos bounded around with abandon, and Fran was most interested in the little guy who insisted on riding in his mother’s fine carriage long after she thought him too big.
One weekend, in the wee hours of the morning, I had a severe attack of appendicitis. We had no idea of the cause of the problem, but I was obviously in trouble and could barely walk. Fran managed to get me down the stairs and into Matilda and out to the base hospital. At this point I was little help in directing her to anywhere. Once on the base, she found the hospital and banged on a door. It was a ward, and several patients, in various hospital attire, appeared, all anxious to have her bring me in through their quarters. They produced a wheel chair, and broke up their boredom by wheeling me through countless corridors to the admitting office. A sleepy Captain appeared in grey underwear, somewhat perturbed at the unusual entry we had made. But our benefactors had evaporated and there was no one to question. The doctor thought I would live until morning, and I was trundled off to the isolation ward. The first army diagnosis seemed to be too much to drink, but he wouldn’t take any chances.
Fran drove around the base looking for the guest house until a soldier on guard duty stopped her; he guided her there, and she slept on the couch in the living room until the ungodly hour when the army awakes. She went back to the hospital to see if I was still among the living. No, the isolation ward did not permit visitors. She would have to wait until I was discharged. The hospital had a lot of purposeful people walking around, so Fran looked purposeful, found the isolation ward, and stationed outside the door. A common sense Captain came by, and sent me out to the corridor to reassure her. By then I was in fairly good shape. Now we were afraid I would catch some exotic illness in the ward and getting out became top priority. Fran went back to the guest house and the soldier on guard duty had sent his wife, who worked in the chaplain’s office to help her out. By the next day I was discharged and back to routine. It was ten years before my appendix came out.
Among the historic places that we visited was Sutter’s Fort, where news of the discovery of gold in 1849 populated the West. The atmosphere is there: a typical Western fort with dirt roads and soldiers barracks, and an intangible something conjured up by the association, GOLD. So we must drive through the Mother Lode country, by the old mining towns, and the cable bridges, that had returned to nature after a spate of hope and violence.
Lake Tahoe, with its reputation as a top vacation resort, was nearby; one hot summer weekend we drove up there to check it out. I had cajoled Fran’s boss into letting her take the Saturday off, although Saturday was probably the only day they really needed her. We drove along the Truckee River in the Mother Lode country, where a hundred years before the cry of “Gold!” had sent adventurers into the mountains. We shivered as we went by Hangtown. But as we stopped to unsuccessfully “frying pan” for gold in the Truckee Canyon, an imperious buck, with his doe and fawn, watched our intrusion with majesty, then melted into the woods. At Tahoe the snow had not yet disappeared and we had a snowball fight. We rode around the sapphire lake and saw breath-taking scenes of snow in the mountains and ice falls that would become waterfalls soon. Especially impressive was the bend around Emerald Bay, where the glorious green water far below the curving road, is an awesome sight. To an Easterner the West offers expansive scenery that only our ocean views can approximate. A car came along and stopped. Their Massachusetts license plate identified a fellow New Englander and for moment they joined our adulation of this wondrous place. In a more mundane mood we found a vacant cottage on the shore with a dock and a rowboat that we could rent for the weekend. I had my replaced my “army bathing suit”( made from a laundry bag so that I could join some of the Ninth Armored boys in a dip in Lake Mead) with conventional swim attire. With my army shoes it was quite an outfit, suitable for a row on the lake. It was June and the water was too cold to swim. The next day we rented some golf clubs and hacked around a stony course. Because it was too early in the season for many vacationers, we were not inhibited by our novice golf.
Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
Golf!
Then “D” day occurred, and it seemed as if the war were entering its most crucial stage.
I had made it known that I wanted to go to the Signal Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS), and, although I was not given any great encouragement, I was also not turned down. So I kept up my daily routine, increasing my attention to the code practise sessions. One day, the officer-in-charge tapped me on the shoulder and said he wanted to speak to me outside the room. He advised me that he had orders to select the best operator for a special mission – but he also knew I wished to go to OCS – so would I please make a few mistakes so that he wouldn’t have to select me. That wasn’t hard to do since I was up to the 25 words per minute level – I thereafter found that my copy was full of errors.
In those days, a routine movie show meant a cartoon (Popeye, the Sailor Man was my favorite), plus a Pathe Newsreel, plus two full length movies, one of which was billed as the feature attraction. Sometimes a promotion involved adding a bingo game between the two movies. And all this was for a modest price which was reduced for servicemen. We went to the movies with some regularity – one cold and rainy Sunday, we even went to two movie houses for about nine hours of the stuff! Our favorite show place was the Alhambra, named for its architecture which imitated the original Alhambra, a palace of the Moorish monarchs of Granada in southern Spain. The name in Arabic means “the red”, and probably refers to the color of the gravel and clay bricks used to construct the outer walls.
Nearby, in the town of Davis, the University of California operated a branch college. Some of the college facilities were leased to the Signal Corps for instruction in communication services which included radio operation. One day, the Signal Corps master mind decided that I should report to the Davis facility every day. There I copied code and soon reached the twenty five word per minute level which is the cutoff point for copying by hand – most people can’t print any faster than that. Then one switches to typing. But I did not know how to type. No matter, one learns touch typing while listening to code groups at five words per minute. As one’s typing becomes more proficient, the speed of the operation is increased. In a relatively few weeks I passed the twenty five word level again, this time, typing. When I left Davis shortly after that, I had passed the forty word test; I could copy forty words per minute for five minutes without error. Most amateurs can’t do that well – I can’t any more either. Interesting; whereas I could touch type listening to code, I was not able to transfer the touch type skill to other inputs – I could not write a letter by touch typing – nor could I look at a text and type it out using the touch system.
The townspeople in Davis were most hospitable. On the Fourth of July the town put on a barbecue on the green for servicemen and their families. The social was arranged in true Western style, and Davis will remain a favorite town to all of us who enjoyed a fabulous meal.
Among our sightseeing trips was one to Sutter’s Fort and the State Museum of History. We gaped at the relics of the original gold rush days, scanned the historical exhibits, and enjoyed the antics of the antelopes at a nearby zoo. On other days, we hiked in William Land Park, and one day I even tried out their golf course. I played until I had lost all three golf balls that I owned, which might have been by the seventh hole.
At long last, I received orders to proceed to the Signal Corps Officer Candidate School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, subject to first passing the standard OCS physical examination. I reported to the Camp Kohler Base Hospital expecting this to be just a pro forma exercise. It seemed to go that way until I got to the dentist – a Captain – who said there was no way he could approve my teeth since a molar needed extraction and two other teeth needed filling. “But you are a dentist – and you do this kind of work – why don’t you fix me up,” I challenged.
“You’re on,” he said, and he proceeded to do the required work. While he was waiting for a filling to harden, he glanced over the rest of the physical form sheet.
“Hey”, he shouted. “This says you are color blind – they’ll never take anyone who is color blind.”
“I have a red-green deficiency,” I agreed “but it has never given me any trouble – I have a driver’s license.”
He thought about that for a few minutes, then said, ” I’m not going to let all that fine work I just did go to waste. Open your mouth!”
He packed my mouth so full of cotton wads that I couldn’t speak a word. Then he directed me to follow him. We marched down the corridor to the room in which the color test had been given. A Tech Segeant was in charge. The Captain immediately challenged him.
“Say Serg, this man is not color blind – just look here”
He upended the jar of various colored yarn balls. He grabbed one – held it up to me and said. “That’s green, isn’t it?”
I made the only noise I could which was a grunt.
“See that, Serg – now let’s try the red ball.” He held another ball up to me. “That’s red, isn’t it?”
Again I grunted.
“See there. This man’s O.K. for OCS. Fix up that form.” The Captain stood over the Sergeant while he made the necessary alteration in the record.
“Good,” said the Captain. And he strode out and down the corridor with me tailing.
So I passed the physical and received my orders to OCS.
But there was another problem. OCS started in ten days. The Army standard was that a man driving his own vehicle could only go two hundred miles per day – and Fort Monmouth was three thousand miles away. The Army insisted that I go by train and furnished me with the necessary tickets. Fran would have to drive the car back across the country alone.
But I never used the tickets. (I still have them.) I picked up Fran at her job at Hale’s. My face was swollen and my mouth was packed with cotton to inhibit the bleeding from the extraction. She had reservations about my condition for the trip. But we piled all our possessions in Matilda’s spacious trunk, counted out our carefully hoarded gas coupons and thought we could get home. That evening we set out for New England, and landlady Alice could put her For Rent sign on the tree in the morning. It was Friday, 21 July 1944 – I had reached my 27th birthday the day before.
The road east out of Sacramento was U.S.Highway 40 – today it is an Interstate – but then it was an average two lane intercity road. We could average forty miles in an hour. The mountains to the east of Sacramento are grand and lofty Sierra Nevadas. We crossed through the Donner Pass; and gave Matilda a rest to prevent “vapor lock” which, we had been told, was a car problem at this altitude.
Here is a twenty-two foot monument, bronze figures of the Donner family on a stone pedestal, erected on the site of their ordeal in the winter of 1846. They had taken a short cut to California over the Sierra Nevadas and were caught in a blizzard in late October. They were snowbound in forty foot drifts; rescue parties did not reach them until February. Almost half of the eighty-seven had died and the survivors had resorted to cannibalism. The twenty two feet of the monument marks the depth of the snow that winter. It was a sobering sight and Fran still remembers the steep incline, the poignant statue.
Donner Pass
Beyond the Pass, we descended into the Truckee Gorge carved out by the rushing Truckee River – we stopped to look across the river at a family of deer that seemed to be just as curious about us. Late that evening, we reached Reno, Nevada. We found a room in a hotel over Harold’s Club. It had been a long day; the sophistication and elegance of the club made little impression. The bed was very comfortable.
Early the next day, we took a picture to record our presence; Fran is crossing the street under the sign: The Biggest Little City in the World. Then we set out to reach Salt Lake City by evening. The road led us through Winnemucca, on past Battle Mountain, and into Elko where we found some lunch. Then we pushed on to Wendover on the Nevada-Utah border. Whenever we passed a state line, we took a picture. Wendover was on the western edge of the Great Salt Desert, and we were now faced with crossing a hundred miles of flat white crystalline sand. Fortunately, it was late in the day and the intense heat was subsiding. The road was straight and flat. We didn’t know it, but we were passing the Bonneville Track where daredevils set automobile speed records. It was dark by the time we reached Salt Lake City. We needed food, gasoline, and sleep. We stopped at a gas station, asked for assistance in all categories, and the Mormon station attendant most courteously serviced our car, located an open restaurant, and found a comfortable room in one of the new fangled motels that were prevalent in the West but had not yet replaced cabins in New England.
“Tax Free” Nevada
Fran in Reno
On leaving Salt Lake City, on local advice, we switched to U.S. Highway 30 which went through southern Wyoming. It was not in as good condition as Highway 40. Wyoming did not attempt to repair frost heaves. However, their highway department spent considerable money on warning flags. The local folks said they were too far away from the capitol to get much attention. The road went through the Flaming Gorge National Recreation area, on past Rock Springs, and on to the Continental Divide. Passing the Divide seemed like a milestone and we took a picture. We drove through Rawlins and Laramie, and stopped at Cheyenne for the night. It was Frontier Days in Cheyenne – but we couldn’t take time for the rodeo.
Continental Divide
It took the next day to drive through Nebraska. Until that day, I had never appreciated how gigantic this country really is. We drove and drove and drove – mostly by a flat never-ending corn field. About noon we had lunch at North Platte. We didn’t know it, but North Platte is the site of the Buffalo Bill Historic Park. We did realize that the Platte River in July is a broad expanse of mud with rivulets running here and there. Too we realized that July heat on the Plains was adding problems. I was wearing my army uniform complete with GI boots. I gradually became aware of itching around the toes of my right foot and took off the shoe. Athlete’s foot had invaded, and despite going barefoot and drenching it with stuff from the drug store, it plagued me all the way home. That night we finally ran out of Nebraska; we crossed the Missouri River and stopped in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I remember a delicious steak dinner – at 66 cents each.
We were getting punchy from the grind – but we were determined to get home for a few days before reporting to OCS. So the next morning we drove an hour before stopping for breakfast. I remember dimly that we continued on Highway 30 to Cedar Rapids, and then to Clinton where we crossed the Mississippi River. That was a significant milestone – we were in the East! We drove across Illinois, touched Aurora, skirted the south side of Chicago, and finally stopped for the night in Hammond, Indiana.
We changed to U.S. Highway 20 out of Hammond, and crossed northern Indiana. The largest community was South Bend, and we tipped our hat to Notre Dame. By noon we were passing south of Toledo, and followed the Lake Erie shore towards Cleveland. Our view of the countryside was limited to oil stops for Matilda. At Ashtabula our destination seemed in sight. We sent a telegram home; we would be in Holyoke the next day. Then we drove on to Buffalo, New York, where we stayed that night.
New York is big state – but we were on the home stretch. It was a countdown: Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Albany. And Massachusetts. Route 20 to Pittsfield and Westfield. In our absence, the route at Westfield had been changed – but we knew better – we knew the correct road. But we found out that the old road was a dead end. By following route numbers we finally arrived in Holyoke late in the afternoon. We were home. We had made it across the country in less than six days, and still had three days of leave before I had to report at Fort Monmouth. We got into Holyoke late in the afternoon, and had a joyous reunion with all the family.
Matilda, ’37 Plymouth Coupe, home to Holyoke from California, Summer j’44 – Then off to OCS
HC, Matilda, Holyoke
Holyoke on leave
OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL
Leave went by much too fast, and then I had to take the train for Fort Monmouth – alone – OCS was no place for a wife. Our concept of OCS was limited by the saying “He’s a ninety day wonder”. We didn’t know that a 30 day field exercise had been tacked on to the 90 days schooling. Commission as lieutenant was given the survivors of 120 days training. Round trip train tickets were good for 90 days, and in my optimism and ignorance, I bought a round trip ticket to save money. Actually, it was a good buy for I was commissioned early, prior to the field exercise, in 88 days. But that is getting ahead of the story.
My Army life to this time had been a lark compared to the intensity of OCS. Within minutes after checking in to the Headquarters at venerable old Fort Monmouth I had been assigned to a Drill Officer. “Mister, you have no rank here! Remove those Sergeant stripes immediately! Then get over to the barbershop and get a proper army haircut – on the double!,” he roared.
The day was filled with activity from dawn to well after dark, with never adequate time for anything. Before breakfast, we were called out to the company street in underwear and shoes for a half hour of close order calisthenics. Then dress for breakfast – there was a check off – so one could not skip breakfast. Then tidy up the barracks, according to OCS meticulous. There was one way to make a bed – and the top blanket had to be so taut that a quarter would bounce. Spare shoes, shining like a beacon, had to be precisely under the head of the bed on the right side, with toes out (never in). Spare clothes had to be in order on the clothes rack with all buttons buttoned. When not part of the days uniform, the gas mask had to be displayed in approved fashion at the end of the clothes rack. Failure to observe any of these details would earn one a demerit, which was a partial ticket to dismissal – one demerit a week was the tolerable limit!
The group consisted of about thirty men. We went to all assignments together – in formation – at double time. Classes, conducted by officers, covered all the areas of interest to the Signal Corps, usually from the perspective of the ways an officer would teach raw recruits. My teaching background was handy.
The morning was filled with classes. Then came lunch, followed by a check off to prevent guys from by-passing the meal. Attendance at mail call was not obligatory; however, an automatic demerit was given the man who did not pick up his mail. A daring few sent word to their folks not to send letters.
A spic and span well-pressed uniform was demanded at all times in class. We had been issued only three full sets of uniform. To meet the standard, I put one uniform in the cleaners each noon, and picked up the clean one at that time. This volunteer activity was part of my noon routine.
The afternoon program started out with a class or two. Then back to the barracks to change into fatigues, and then the dread maneuver of the obstacle course which was followed by a cross country run. The obstacle course required great agility and strength. I was usually among the last of the group to struggle past the last wall, or water crossing, or whatever. But then the cross country run started. Fortunately for me, most of the guys used the wooded sections of the run to rest, and I, the tortoise, overtook them. It was a rare day when I was not among the first to finish the run. And that is what counted.
Then we went directly back to the barracks to change into dress uniform in preparation for close order drills and the day’s parade. I noted that, if I dashed into the barracks, and then into the shower, I would be revived sufficiently for the drills. I was joined by others, and it became shower scramble in our barracks.
The evening meal, another check-off function, followed with a slightly longer time allotment. Then back to the classroom for evening study hours which lasted until nine thirty. All of the instructors had assigned homework, so there was always too much to do. From nine thirty until ten o’clock, our time was completely free. Lights out and bed check came at ten o’clock. The thirty minutes sailed by.
The first Saturday morning, the Drill Officer called us outside and announced that we were going to clean the barracks. He said he wanted the floors scrubbed on hands and knees, and he would give a weekend pass to the first six volunteers to do the floor washing chore. Lots of guys leaped at the chance for a pass and volunteered. The officer selected six of them and told them to get to work. The rest of us would help by moving the beds and other obstructions out of the way. The scrub job got underway, but almost immediately, the Drill Officer was bellowing, “You are not following my orders! You are directed to wash the floor on your hands and knees. Toes are not to touch! Now proceeded as directed!”
All of us had been taken in by the Drill Officer – but particularly the poor guys selected to do the washing. They had to keep their toes from touching the floor as they went, and it was an exhausting process. But they stuck with their bargain – it would have meant a pile of demerits otherwise. But, when they finished, none were in shape to take the offer of a weekend pass.
The War in Italy had resulted in the taking of many Italian soldiers as prisoners. Fort Monmouth was one of the places to which these prisoners were sent. But they were not considered dangerous and were used for many labor intensive chores. One of these was the preparation of meals for the OCS. The kitchen help was entirely Italian, so none of us ever had to do KP. And the Italians seemed to be quite satisfied with their treatment – they certainly prepared excellent meals.
The prisoners also had the job of keeping the fires going in the many pot bellied stoves that kept the classrooms and barracks warm. One day, in one of our classes, an Italian prisoner came in carrying a coal bucket. He stopped next to the stove and watched what was going on in the classroom. Seeing this, and guessing that the guy didn’t know what to do next, the Instructor inquired if anybody in the class could speak Italian. One lad raised his hand, whereupon the Instructor directed him to tell the Italian to dump the coal into the furnace. The student stood up, and, in English, shouted “Dump the coal into the furnace.” And the prisoner did.
I thrived on the rigor and routine, but not everybody did. Already, in the first two weeks, a few guys had so many demerits that they were dropped from the course. A few others voluntarily withdrew. One fellow, a Southerner, had to share a double bunk with a black candidate, and when he had refused to do so, he was dropped. Another guy, a veteran from the Pacific jungles, had applied for OCS as a ploy to get back to the States – he let it be known to us guys that he had no intention of being commissioned and running the risk of getting sent back to the Pacific – he intended to accumulate enough demerits to get himself thrown out of the course at his own time.
Near the end of the first month, there was an unusual chore, which we were to have to do twice more in the weeks to come. Each candidate had to write a confidential letter to the Commandant in which he assessed which five of the group would make the best officers along with reasons. And then he had to list the five worst candidates along with reasons. It was made plain that our choices would be compared with the choices made by the Drill Officers and our judgment so evaluated. I found it a tough chore – not so much picking the best, because the place was full of good officer material – but citing the worst was onerous.
Finally I had a weekend pass. I telephoned Frances with the good news and we arranged to meet in New York City in the lobby of the Hotel Pennsylvania. Somehow she had reserved a room. I took the bus into the City and found Fran at our planned rendevous. We had a splendid time in the big city. After about six weeks, enough guys had been dismissed from the program that the administration decided to consolidate the remainder and eliminate need for one of the barracks. I, and several of the group, moved in with another group in another barracks. Shortly thereafter there was a formal barracks inspection with all hands standing at attention while the Drill Officers prowled around. The Drill Officer shouted at me. “Mister, come here. Look at your gas mask. Tell me what’s wrong with the way it’s hanging.”
I did as directed, and after looking carefully, said, “There’s nothing wrong, Sir – that is the prescribed way to display the mask.”
He stuck is nose next to mine and shouted, “Mister, if you can find another mask in this barracks displayed like yours, show me.”
“Yes, Sir!”
I stepped to the guy on my right to check his mask display. It was exactly like mine. “Here, Sir,” I shouted, “here’s another mask displayed like mine.”
The Drill Officer came and looked, saw I was correct, and immediately turned on the barracks sergeant who was standing nearby and blasted him for the non-uniformity of gas mask display. None of the candidates drew demerits. Afterwards, the guy next to me came and whispered, “You know, I didn’t know how the damn mask should be hung up so I just copied yours.”
One of the classes was Driver Education. It included a session in which we paired off to administer to each other the usual battery of driver readiness tests, one of which was for color-blindness. My partner pulled me to one side and whispered, ” Give me a break – I’m color blind – but please don’t give me away.” Never letting on that I also had a red-green weakness, I whispered back, “Don’t worry; I understand.” We both passed Driver Ed with flying colors.
The pedagogy used in the classes was elemental. The instructors had standard lesson plans that were usually followed without deviation. The plan involved distribution of yesterday’s quiz with some minimal discussion of the correct responses, then a lecture on something new, and then a quiz on the material of yesterday’s lecture and homework. There was one instuctor who, as he was passing back the corrected quizzes, delighted in repeating over and over “Winners laugh and tell jokes; losers weep and moan.”
Close order drill, held late in the afternoon, exercised one’s skill at directing marching men. The entire school was turned out on the quadrangle. Although it was a large area, with many squads marching about simultaneously, each under command of a student, two or more often collided. The chagrin of the student leaders was great; the sarcasm of the Drill Officers, devastating. The quadrangle was rimmed by barracks, and occasionally a confused leader’s commands ordered his squad into the side of a building. One mischievous Drill Officer directed me to halt my group facing him and centered on him. As I maneuvered the group into position, he took two steps to the side. I marched the group again into position, and he turned around to face in the opposite direction. The S/Sgt job of drilling men at Camp Kohler came to the rescue. I ordered my men to fall out and reassemble faced on me. I took the position needed to conform to the Drill Officer’s directive, and the guys ran to the new position before the Drill Officer got any other ideas.
One day, a few of us decided to break the daily routine by taking in a movie show during the evening free half hour. So at nine-thirty we dashed out of the study hall to the post theater, paid our admission and dashed inside. I don’t remember the film, but we weren’t concentrating on the show anyhow. It had taken three minutes to get into the movie from the study hall, but we were not sure how long it would take to get to the barracks for bed check. We kept one eye on the movie, and the other on a watch. The least daring of the group, I started back first and was in bed in plenty of time. The others stayed too long at the movie, were late for bed check and caught demerits.
Meanwhile the war raged in Europe. We were so busy that we could not follow its progress. I did hear that brother Robert’s outfit had moved from England to France, but only after the war did I really know where he had been. Sometimes I wondered what had happened to my buddies in the 9th Armored Division, but again I learned little until the war had ended.
Near the end of September, I qualified for another weekend pass. So again I telephoned Fran, and we arranged to meet in New York City. I don’t remember the hotel, but it was one near the Pennsylvania Station, and Fran had been able to reserve a room. We probably did some sight seeing, maybe took in a movie, and certainly had some meals.
About three weeks into October, I was summoned to the Commandant’s office. It was unexpected. How had I goofed up enough to get thrown out? But good fortune was with me. The Commandant congratulated me on a fine performance at OCS; the Drill Officers had concurred that I should be commissioned early. I need not attend the thirty days of field maneuvers. October 24 would be my last day as an enlisted man. On 25 October 1944 I would be commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Signal Corps!
There were half dozen of us who were to be commissioned early. I felt lucky to be included in the group. Now we had a new problem – we had to outfit ourselves with officer’s uniforms in very limited time. Fortunately, one of the guys had a wealthy father who had influence in the clothing world. He sent a salesman and tailor to visit us, take measurements, and advise on clothing needs. Interestingly, the Army takes the view that Officers buy their own attire. However, a clothing allotment covered the whole bill. Our uniforms arrived, beautifully packed, and elegantly tailored, on the day before they were needed.
On the Saturday evening before our commissioning, the wealthy father invited the group of early officers and their wives to dinner at the 21 Club in New York. Fran had come down for the commissioning ceremony and was staying at the Molly Pitcher Hotel near the Fort, and she joined the affair. Wearing her lavender print she was a bright spot among the black cocktail dresses and dark suits of a sophisticated New York evening. We were suitably impressed when the Maitre D’ greeted our party as we arrived and led us by a long line of waiting patrons to our table. The detail of the evening has been forgotten, but the New York gentleman who played host to his son’s army friends is a pleasant memory.
The commissioning evoked mixed feelings. There was the satisfaction of having slogged through the rigors of OCS. But I was turning a corner. My career to this point had had many interesting episodes. As a staff sergeant I had the privileges that go with that relatively high enlisted rank. I was exchanging this for the officer’s world where I would be the lowest man on the totem pole. It was not at all clear that I had done a wise thing in going through OCS – but it was too late now. I fell back on my philosophy that I don’t purposely make bad decisions. Fran had no reservations about the commissioning. An officer’s pay was definitely better. And occasionally she had lived on short rations as she followed me around the country.
The morning of 25 October 1944 was certainly different. The day started at the same time, but I wasn’t expected out for calistenics. I was self-conscious as I put on the officer’s uniform without the 2nd Lt gold bars. (I wasn’t commissioned yet.) I walked to the mess hall alone; my buddies were struggling to get dressed after their workout. Along the way, several misguided fellows saluted – even though I wasn’t an officer yet. I returned all the salutes anyhow. The Italians working breakfast in the mess hall seemed to know what was up, and they smiled. Although I couldn’t understand them, I think they offered best wishes. Or maybe something else!
The only formation I remember was one for taking pictures. Then the graduates were marched to the auditorium. After some General gave a speech, we were sworn in as officers, handed certifcates of completion of OCS, and awarded our commissions. I was 2nd Lieutenant Harold C. Hemond. 01 650 573.
OCS Candidates – HC is back row, 3rd from left
Officers – HC 3rd row back, 3rd from right
Enlisted record
Enlisted discharge
Completion OCS
Commission, 2d Lt
With the commission came a ten day leave. As soon as possible I gathered Fran and my uniforms and caught the train for home. I was free of the Army until 4 November and we spent our second wedding anniversary on 31 October 1944 in Holyoke. We stayed at 174 Pearl Street where Fran was living with her folks when she was not following me around the country. We visited with my folks at Fairfield Avenue. And we wondered what the next move would be.
RADIO SCHOOL
Upon closer reading of Special Order 291, I realized that, after my ten day leave, I was to report to the Officer School at the Eastern Signal Corps Training Center at Fort Monmouth “for the purpose of pursuing the Radio (Sec 453) Course thereat.” I had no idea as to the content or length of the course, but it did appear that I would be at Fort Monmouth for a time. So we decided that we would both go to New Jersey.
We set out in Matilda a day early, mindful that we must find lodging. On arriving we went to the United Service Organization (USO) housing desk for information on rentals. The service representative told us of a furnished apartment at 100 Poole Street in Long Branch. I hunted it up, and checked it out. It was on the second floor above a garage, and was reached by a stairwell that led into a large kitchen. Off the kitchen were two bedrooms with a bath between. A dining room, and a living room completed the apartment. The furnishings were attractive for a rental. But the rent, $100 per month, was twice as much as our budget would allow.
But there were two good-sized bedrooms. Obviously, the thing to do was get someone to share the place with us and pay half the rent. I went back to the USO housing desk. A series of coincidences awaited.
An attractive young lady was inquiring about a rental apartment. The representative was discussing the scarcity of housing. So I interrupted and said, “I need someone to share a place. Why don’t you come and live with me?”
She was speechless; so I hastened to clarify my offer. As we discussed an arrangement, we discovered that her husband had just been commissioned, and now was returning to attend the Radio School at Monmouth. Claudine and I decided that we should meet at Poole street with Fran and Virgil and propose an apartment sharing to them.
They were quiet and congenial folks. We had much in common and it was certainly the best housing we could find. Too, we solved their transportation problem. Matilda would take the boys to the Fort each day.
In the days that followed, we became good friends. Virgil and I had the same schedule of classes – and with the Army’s fixation on alphabetic arrangements, Hemond and Hinshaw always sat together. Because Virgil had been the licensed engineer at a radio station, he was familiar with everything we studied. This was a big help to me and the others in the class. Claudine and Frances lugged groceries from the shopping center a half a mile away, and did a lot of laughing when the wartime paper bags split on the way home. They shared ideas on meals and ways of feeding two people on one ration book. Because both couples were making the most of the short time until the boys were sent overseas, we had dinners separately. Fran and I ate at the kitchen table, Virgil and Claudine used the dining room. On special occasions, we had dessert together. Eventually they bought a later model Matilda, and the girls no longer giggled their way home from the grocery.
Virgil and Claudine Hinshaw
At school we were learning to construct and operate fixed radio stations and radio teletype. This type station furnished the backbone of the Army’s long distance communication network. The principal courses were:
Communication Receivers
Standard Test Equipment
Medium and High Power Transmitters
Diversity Receivers
Single Side Band Receivers
Principles of Wire and Radio Teletype
Antenna Design and Construction
Frequency Prediction Techniques
The instructors were generally competent and helpful. But there was one exception – the guy who had the communication receivers course. He was arrogant and sarcastic to anyone who was slow to absorb the material. He took particular pleasure in the trouble shooting lab work where he would disable a receiver and then assign someone to find the trouble in a limited time – with a running commentary of nasty comments. I was glad to finish his course. But, as I guess happens in the Army, I wasn’t completely finished with him – later, in Manila, after the war ended and we were waiting our turn to come home, a contingent of replacement (read low point total) officers appeared. The instructor was in the group. He was much more friendly.
We had survived New Jersey’s hot summer with its vicious mosquitoes; now we were dealing with New Jersey’s bone-chilling winter. Mostly we managed O.K., but there were times in the field when I could have believed we were in Alaska. One of the worst days was when the schedule called for us to erect a fixed station rhombic antenna. That is a major enterprise even when the weather cooperates, because it involves setting four 75 foot poles, one each at the corners of a diamond shape, and then stringing wires to form the diamond. But the day we did this was below freezing with a brisk wind. We were thoroughly chilled just marching out to the antenna practice field. The work starts with the erection of a large “A” frame from which is hung a block and tackle which enables grappling the long pole. But one also has to dig a deep hole in the frozen ground. And the guy wire anchors must be set suitably deep in the frozen ground. By the time we were ready to set the first of the required four poles, most of us were so frozen that efficient work was impossible. Fortunately, the instructor was similarly frozen. He shortened the assignment to a simple discussion of what had to be done to complete the antenna – then we packed up and went back to a warm classroom.
As was our custom in new places, we explored the Fort Monmouth area on weekends. Because gasoline was in short supply and rationed, most of our wandering was done via local bus or train. Still we saw most of Red Bank, and Asbury Park and its famous ocean shore.
I don’t remember having time off at Thanksgiving. As Christmas fell on a Monday for a long weekend, we went home. Took the Jersey Central line with its old fashioned smoke belching steam engines to New York, transferred to a subway to get across town to the Pennsylvania Station, and then hopped the Montrealer to Springfield. I suppose Connie or Laurence got us home from there. The return journey after a holiday must have been hectic – the trains in those days were full to overflowing. Seats were at a premium. But I do remember playing chess with our travel chess set, and a kibitzing audience helping out.
We grew up going to parties on New Year’s Eve. A staple of such parties was listening on radio to the music of Guy Lombardo as the final hours of the old year went by, and then hearing the description of the antics of the New Year’s crowd in Times Square as the New Year arrived. Since we were fairly near Times Square, we decided that this was our chance to attend in person. We would go to New York on New Year’s Eve. But then the icy rains came – the weather was miserable – wet, cold, treacherous. We actually set out from Poole Street intent on going to New York, but as the reality of the weather sunk in, we thought better of it. We and the Hinshaws listened to the celebration on radio as 1945 arrived. We could hope, but did not know, that this would be the final year of World War II.
The school program concluded at the end of January. On 4 Feb 45, I received a copy of War Department Movement Order, Shipment OM-042-UU(a), which said, “Each of the following named officers is relieved from assignment and duty as indicated, and is assigned to permanent station outside the continental limits of the United States, tropical climate, Shipment OM-042-UU(a). He will proceed from his present station to Camp Beale, California, and report not later than 15 February 1945, to the Commanding Officer, ASF Personnel Replacement Depot, to await call of the Port Commander. Upon arrival at final destination, he will report to the Commanding General for duty.”
Many names are listed, but included are four Fixed Station Radio Officers:
2d Lt Harris A. Childs
2d Lt Phillip Ryan
2d Lt Frederick E. Hollowell
2d Lt Harold C. Hemond
plus an officer qualified in Single Side Band:
2d Lt James D. Nordahl
LT Hemond, Signal Corp
LT Nordahl
LT Hollowell
Plainly our New Jersey sojourn was over and Frances and I loaded up Matilda once again to drive back to Holyoke. Virgil did not have orders, but he was expecting some soon. The Hinshaws remained at Poole Street until his assignment. So we took leave of our good companions. We hoped to maintain our ties and for several years exchanged Christmas notes with our Quaker friends from Kansas.
TO THE PHILIPPINES
Like all leaves, this one, filled with visits to family and friends, seemed over almost before it had started. My orders were to report for duty back in California at Camp Beale.
My assignment was outside the continental United States in a tropical climate. It was not hard to hypothesize that I would be joining the forces in the Southwest Pacific. With that prospect, it did not seem wise for Fran to go west with me. So with great reluctance, we parted for what would turn out to be fifteen months. Nearly every day of that time is chronicled in a series of 417 letters that I wrote to Fran and are now filed in separate notebooks.
The train ride west was long and tedious, and I don’t remember much else about it.
Camp Beale is a well established post in Marysville, California, a small town about 30 miles due north of Sacramento. Beale’s main function is to process men and or units for shipment overseas. I was assigned to a barracks full of junior officers all waiting for shipment. Processing consisted of checking out a trunk locker and supplies that the army thought a man should have, as well as getting shots and inspections that the army medics deemed essential. This was quickly accomplished. Having hurried up, we now waited – for days and days.
Here I became well acquainted with Fred Hollowell, a fellow Fixed Station Officer, recently commissioned, who hailed from Acton, Massachusetts. Our friendship continued for many years.
Beale, being old army, had a lush Officer’s Club, with a bar, dining hall, reading rooms, and game rooms with pool and ping-pong tables. Whiling away time there was no hardship. The nearby town of Marysville offered little to interest servicemen. However, on the outskirts of town a two mile walking path circumscribed a foliage-bordered pond. A pleasant pastime was to walk to town, walk around the pond, and then stroll back to camp.
The war in the South West Pacific had entered its Philippine stage – General MacArthur had waded ashore at Tacloban on the island of Leyte, with the famous pronouncement, “I have returned”. His assurance was contagious and in the States no one doubted that Japan was on the run. Recently, the campaign had begun to retake the island of Luzon with its capital city Manila. MacArthur had landed troops at Lingayan Gulf north of Manila and was moving south toward the city. Fred and I and the other Fixed Station Officers speculated that we had been called up to assist in the building and operating the GHQ radio communications hub at Manila. But, of course, our orders said nothing of the sort. So we continued to wait, for days and days.
One morning at muster we were told to be ready to board a troop train within the hour. Of course it was longer than that, but we finally moved out – again, destination unknown. We had been summoned to the Port of Embarkation at the town of Pittsburg on the Sacramento River up the bay northeast of San Francisco. There we once again found a well established army facility where our group occupied an entire barracks. We were told that our stay would not be long – but no one said how long.
The next morning, a number of us were selected to join an officer group that was to meet a shipment of men returning from the Pacific area. We went over to the dock area where we waited inside a large covered terminal. Many canvas covered troop carriers were lined up ready to take the men through town to the camp. Soon the ferry boat arrived – no one was visible on deck. The men disembarked through a covered gangway, after which I had my first view of them. I was shocked at their appearance; they looked like a rag tag army – most of their clothes were worn out – often in tatters. Small wonder that the army did not want this group to be seen in public!
My job was to supervise a half dozen junior officers, each of whom had the responsibility of taking command of about 50 men, getting them to an assigned barracks, and seeing that each was re-outfitted as necessary. Most of the officers were up to the task. But there was one unfortunate 2nd Lt who was confused as to where his barracks was located, and he kept marching his men in close order up and down the company streets as he searched for the building. I stopped him and learned his problem. Then I relieved him, shouted to the men, “Follow me!” and headed for their barracks. The men, not yet ready for stateside methods, cheered. Inside the barracks, the men made out requisitions for an entire new set of clothes and equipment. The army was sending home well attired heroes. The next day, a band led the parade through town, as, flags flying, they went to board trains for home.
There was a theater on the post. The next morning a sign appeared indicating “Show Tonight”. Of course we went. The show was the USO version of the recent Broadway block-buster “Oklahoma” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. We would have appreciated anything – but we were delighted with this extraordinary treat. Small wonder that “Oklahoma” had captured the approval of Broadway. The music was outstanding, the story line entertaining, and in our version certainly, the actors talented. It was a marvelous evening – the first of many with “Oklahoma” – for this cast went overseas on the same ship as we, and they entertained us nightly.
On the morning of 12 March 1945, we left the Pittsburg camp. Our movement was shrouded in secrecy – at least we went in covered carriers to the dock – boarded the ferry via a covered gangway, and were forbidden to appear on deck. The ferry took its time going down the river, out into San Francisco Bay, and across the Bay to a ship terminal in the vicinity of Fisherman’s Wharf. On the way, we had box lunches.
We debarked the ferry, loaded down with all our gear, onto a covered terminal. We crossed the terminal, and, via a covered gangway boarded a troop ship. We learned that this was the General Blatchford operated by the Army Transport Command. It was a ship especially designed for the transportation of troops. There were three thousand of us aboard, mostly enlisted men. About thirty of us officers were assigned bunks in what was usually the hospital ward – so we traveled in relative comfort. The bunks were three high – mine was the lowest. But there were sheets on the bed – even bunk lights. And there was a wash room and toilet facility for our own use. We also had a wardroom table where the card game soon began and held forth continuously.
Apparently, we officers had been the last passengers to board, for shortly the ship cast off. Again, no one was permitted on deck. It was late in the day, and the Bay must have been dark.
We were called to supper, which was served in a well appointed wardroom, and most welcome; we were all hungry. I don’t remember the menu, but we ate well – not yet having felt the insidious effects of a ceaselessly rolling deck.
When the ship had cleared the Bay, we were allowed the freedom of the ship. I went top side. The city could still be seen in the dim light off to our rear. It was a forlorn group that stood around and watched the States disappear from view. Nor was our mood improved when the loud speakers sprang to life. “Now hear this! Tokyo Rose has been picked up by the radio operator.” Then came those dulcet tones of the famed Japanese broadcaster. “Welcome to the men on the General Blatchford which has just left San Francisco Harbor. Our boys are waiting for you.” So much for our secret shipment!
By the next morning, everyone was sea sick. As a consequence, the ship was filthy. By experiment, I found that the deleterious effects could be lessened by breathing fresh cool air out of doors. So I spent most of the next day on the top deck curled up on top of a lifebelt locker.
After a few days, the sickness was past, the ship was clean, and the passage settled into a routine that was dominated by eating and sleeping except for the boys who frequented the card game around the ward room table where I was an occasional onlooker. Large sums of money changed hands from one to another to another.
All the officers were subject to a four hour watch once a day in one of the enlisted men’s areas. The principal duties were to assure order (fights were hypothesized as the cruise got on people’s nerves), and to break up the card games. I never understood why the army opposed the card games. They certainly kept guys occupied. They were impossible to break up anyhow. My policy was to let the guys know that my orders required me to break up any card game that I saw. They said to stay out of the washroom. I never saw a card game among the enlisted men.
One day when I was on duty making my rounds, I got talking to one fellow who seemed unusually happy. Seems he had made it big in one of the card games – couple of thousand dollars. To protect his money, someone had suggested he buy a money order, which he had done at the ship’s office. I told him that was a fine idea, but to be sure to protect his voucher. Perhaps he should send it home via registered mail. He looked blank. “What voucher?” “The voucher they gave you when you bought the money order.” Another blank look. “Gee, that must be what I tore up and threw away.”
The cast of “Oklahoma” practiced every night on the top deck. Usually they concentrated on one or two of the musical numbers in the show, going over them a number of times after coaching by the director. Of course we all gathered around and were enchanted by the great melodies. Before the cruise was over, we all could sing “People Will Say We’re in Love”, and “Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'”, and “The Surrey With the Fringe On Top”, and “Everything’s Up To Date In Kansas City”, and of course “Oklahoma”.
One morning after breakfast I sat around in the Officer’s lounge watching a chess match. It was interesting primarily because it was no contest; one of the players was clearly dominant. After a while the loser got discouraged and left. I volunteered to play. That’s when I met Sammy Hines, a former State champion of California. He was extremely talented, and I was no match for him. But he was still willing to play. So thereafter we went ten or twelve matches every day – Sammy winning them all. One day Sammy offered to change pieces in the middle of the game – whenever I felt my cause was lost, I could ask to swap – he would play game, and I, his. We did that several times, and Sammy still won even when I had left him in what seemed like a hopeless mess. Near the end of the cruise, after I must have been beaten a couple hundred times, I finally won a game. It seemed like a great accomplishment.
One gorgeous sunny day, as I was lounging on the top deck and contemplating the vast sparkling expanse of ocean, the public address system came to life. “Now hear this. The ship has just crossed the equator. All hands who are crossing the equator for the first time are now qualified to become members of the Ancient Order of Polywogs.”
No effort was made to advise us as to either our location or our destination. However, plainly we had been on a generally south or southwest course with few course adjustments. Now the ship began to effect a zig-zag course. We assumed that the purpose was elude any potential Jap submarine action. Soon we picked up an escort vessel – a destroyer escort type ran along several miles away. The escort had gun drill every afternoon which livened our day. We wondered if it was just a drill or if he had a real target out there.
On still another day we were told that we had just crossed the International Date Line, and an entire day dropped out of sight (not to be regained until the trip home).
One afternoon, as I was lounging on deck, there was a noticeable stir among the fellows around me. Their attention had been drawn to the sight of land off the starboard bow – the first land we had seen in days. Soon the ship’s announcer advised us that we were passing south of the island of Guadalcanal, and we were not stopping there. He did not say where we were stopping. Lying there in the afternoon haze, the island looked beautiful and peaceful; our view was not at all compatible with the battle reports that we had read.
It was a beautiful sunshiny day in April when the ship put in at Finschaven, a small town with a handsome harbor on the north coast of New Guinea. For a time we wondered if this was where we would debark – but having been given no word about packing, we just stood about on deck and admired the lush tropical jungle. After a while, personnel boats appeared, and the USO troop was loaded aboard. “Oklahoma” went ashore to entertain the boys in the jungle. However, we ran into the same troop later when their rounds took them to Manila.
Our journey resumed immediately. The ship proceeded up the coast, and late in the evening arrived at the port of Hollandia. After having viewed the black out condition of San Francisco Harbor, Hollandia, in a blaze of high power lights that made the night into day, was a shock. It was explained to us that the high power lights were a protection against night bombing since the enemy pilots could not see from above looking down into the bright lights. Of course, one could well ask why the same problem called for one strategy in San Francisco and an altogether different one in Hollandia.
Hollandia was major supply port for the island hopping campaign that was in full swing. Many ships transporting men and supplies were at anchor in the harbor, and we were fascinated by the activity. After a while at anchor, our ship nudged up to a wharf and much material was off loaded – but no personnel left the ship. Finally, attention centered on the mail. Countless mail bags were thrown from the hold into a large basket suspended from the dock crane. Then the bag was swung ashore and dumped into a waiting truck. One could easily imagine that poorly packed brownies for some fellow would arrive as mush. Several bags never made that shore. They fell into the drink on the way.
We hung around Hollandia for the better part of a day. Speculation as to the future was the primary occupation. All kinds of scenarios were invented by the guys and freely passed around. Most of them involved some kind of action in the Philippines since fighting was heavy in Leyte and Luzon. But, as the ship got underway, there was no authoritative word. Our untutored concept of troop movement procedure required us to be in a protected convoy out of Hollandia if we were heading deeper into the war zone. Because there was no convoy – not even a destroyer escort – the Philippine rumors were put down – for a time.
Early on the morning of 12 April 1945, those of us on deck could see that we were approaching another landfall. Within minutes, the public announcer was heard. “Now hear this. We are about to pass Corregidor at the entrance to Manila Bay. All personnel shall be ready to debark the ship in two hours.”
The word was received with cheers for the thirty days aboard had taxed most guys’ patience. The deck was soon crowded with GIs, for everyone was curious to see the famous landmark. The inward passage found Corregidor on the port side scarcely a mile distant. The towering cliffs were studded with coast artillery, now silent, thanks to the recent retaking of the island by MacArthur’s forces. One could easily imagine that passage by ship would be impossible if those manning the shore batteries didn’t want it. As we passed Corregidor, Fort Drum came into view and we were advised to go below. Fort Drum was still held by a Jap force. So we went to our quarters to begin to collect our gear.
It was a lot more than two hours before we left the ship. As we waited on the main deck, in full combat regalia, luggage at hand, ready to climb down the rope ladders to the Landing Craft along side, the announcer came on again. “Now hear this. We have just been advised of the death today of our President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Vice-President, Mr. Harry S. Truman, has been sworn in to the office of President.”
A hush fell over the ship. For the moment, all activity stopped. People stared at each other in disbelief. The popular hero was gone. What would that do to our war effort? An untried rookie in most people’s estimation was now in charge. What would that do to our war effort? When the debarkation began, I was glad to have something specific to do.
I had never left a ship by going over the side on a rope network, nor had we ever had any instruction in the best procedure. This was a one time only, learn as you go, deal. It was a scary sight from the deck. About thirty feet below those little boats bobbed precariously on the water. And not just hundreds of guys, but rather hundreds of guys each with about sixty pounds of equipment on his back would clamber down to an uncertain landing. It took all my strength, concerned as I was not to tread on the guy below me, and more concerned not to be stepped on from above, but somehow I got down to one of the boats which had magically increased in size as we approached. It was an LCM (Landing Craft Men), a big iron tub with five foot high sides that one could barely see over. The engine and pilot were in the rear and the landing ramp in the bow opened on hitting a beach. There must have been forty or fifty of us aboard when she took off for shore.
Manila Bay is a huge circle, about a thirty mile diameter. It is not very deep – someone said thirty feet maximum. This noon it was sparkling blue in the hot sun. Ahead lay the beach, stretching a brilliant white line as far in each direction as one could see. Behind the beach were low buildings, their features not yet discernible. And between here and there were sunken Jap ships. Many of them were sitting on the bottom, usually, but not always, with the main deck awash. They were forlorn relics of an invasion force.
Soon our vessel hit the beach – the bow ramp dropped down – and we were ordered out onto the beach. Unlike General MacArthur’s famous landing at Leyte that required he wade through the water, ours was dry since the boat ramp reached right to the sand. We were ashore in the Philippine Islands.
IN THE PHILIPPINES
Although our mission was anything but recreational, my first impressions as I stood among the confused crowd, related to the beach. What a place for a beach party! The gorgeous fine white sand strip, probably two hundred yards deep, extended as far as we could see. Every beach in my experience was trivial by comparison. I dug my hand into the sand, let the hot grains sift through my fingers, and thought how the family would have reveled in a beach like this at Indiantown, thousands of miles away on the Connecticut shore.
But we were here on business. “Here” seemed to be on the southern part of the city. Ahead was a road where army trucks were gathering in great number. Army doctrine specifies a Beachmaster in this situation, one whose orders are to be followed. But there was no sign of a Beachmaster – although he may have been swallowed up in the crowd.
The gang began to move toward the trucks, and Fred Hollowell and I trudged along. Someone said that the trucks would take us to the Replacement Depot, and since that seemed like a reasonable destination, Fred and I climbed aboard one of the vehicles. About four or five other officers joined us, and the driver started off.
We went south along the road that hugs the beach. We later learned that this was Taft Boulevard, so named to honor the memory of William Howard Taft who served as Governor of the Philippines for four years around 1900. I looked for evidence of the destruction of war – but there was little immediately evident. I later learned that the heavy action had been around the Old Walled City and north of the Pasig River that cuts Manila approximately in two. As we rolled along, we passed a number of large beautifully kept estates. The predominant architecture was Spanish. Spain had governed the Philippines for some three hundred years prior to losing the Islands to the U.S. in the Spanish-American War.
After a while, it was clear that we had left the Manila suburbs. The road gradually became narrower and eventually there was no pavement. We went through a small barrio and the people came running to the side of the road to cheer and wave small American flags. Gradually we realized that our truck was alone. There was no vehicle either in front or in the rear. Our driver must know a short cut.
We continued beyond the town. The way was now clearly through tropical undergrowth, and the road, full of pot holes and bumps, had become most uncomfortable. Soon we came to a small stream. The driver stopped with a jolt. The bridge had been blown apart and the remnants collapsed in the middle of the stream. A Filipino jumped from underbrush. He gestured wildly across the stream. “Jops! Jops! Jops!” he was hollering.
But we were on our way to the Replacement Depot. We had full field packs, and carbines, and looked like fighting men. But, we had no ammunition. It was obvious that our driver was lost, and the prudent course was to withdraw from the area. What was a Filipino civilian doing on the front line. He must have wondered the same about us.
We turned around and started back along the same road. We were jogging over the rugged terrain and our progress was blocked again. A squad of American soldiers with mine detectors was gingerly sapping along the road, testing for mines and booby traps. We assured them that we had already checked the road up to the bridge.
The driver recovered his bearings and delivered us to the 5th Replacement Depot, a huge encampment in South Manila. It was a typical army tent city, and after we checked in at Headquarters and been given a tent assignment, we were on our own. A permanent assignment could be expected in a few days we were told. Fred Hollowell, Harris Childs, and I shared a tent and began another interval of “wait”.
Since we had no assignment, and nothing whatsoever was expected of us, we decided to learn what we could about the area. The next day we bummed a ride on an army truck into Downtown Manila. Because Manila was said to be secure, we left our weapons in our tent (we didn’t have any ammunition, anyhow). But the truck driver said the Japs still held the Old Walled City and advised us to avoid that area. However, we didn’t know our way around, and we were likely to stumble into most anything.
The driver left us on Rizal boulevard in the heart of Downtown Manila. Destruction was at every hand. It was apparent that this was the site of fierce fighting. The Japanese resistance had been stubborn. Downtown Manila had been recaptured building by building. Point blank range field artillery had reduced the buildings to rubble. We came upon the Old Walled City and were amazed to see its ancient ten foot thick wall that had stood firm for centuries now breached by artillery fire. An MP was on duty near the breach advising us not to enter; “Lots of Japs still in there,” he said. So we hiked the other way down a side street largely blocked by collapsed buildings. Amazingly, there we ran into a Red Cross Station. It wasn’t much – just one worker, with a table on which there was a large vacuum bottle of ice water. We were offered an icy drink; it was sheer delight.
More exploration and we came upon a building that seemed relatively whole. It had a Signal Corp flag posted at the front door. “Ha,” I said, “These must be friends of ours. Maybe they will know something about our assignment. Let’s go in.” And we did. The reception was most cordial, but we didn’t know anybody because these fellows were all telephone men – there wasn’t a radio guy around. But they broke out some cold beer for us and we had a gab fest.
After a couple of empty days had gone by, we accepted the reality that the army was in no hurry to put us to work. So we concentrated on making our situation as comfortable as possible. The tent was large and airy, but extremely hot during the day. We speculated unsuccessfully on ways to fabricate a refrigerator.
However, it cooled off at night. This aspect of the climate was not unlike the cool nights I had experienced in the Mojave desert during the 9th Armored maneuvers. Somehow the strange climates never oppressed me. Some men did not adapt at all. Because mosquitoes were a problem at all times, especially when one tried to sleep, we rigged netting over and around our bunks. The Depot had a PX, and we recharged our supplies of toiletries, writing paper and such. Once a week, the PX had a sale of rationed products, i.e. beer (one six pack per man) and cigarettes (one carton per man). I didn’t use either; however, I always bought the allotment because they were good trading items with the natives. The natives were constantly in evidence, ready to barter fruit for cigarettes. The melons were delicious. They were something like cantaloupe. I would break open the melon and eat it – but some fellows allowed them to ferment into a powerful alcoholic beverage. Our foot lockers had arrived; miraculously, we thought. They had gone their own way from San Francisco – and were at the supply tent ready to be claimed. Mine contained lots of cold weather clothing – useless to me in the tropics. So after their long arduous trip overseas, several wool shirts and pants were packed up and sent back across the ocean to Massachusetts.
We were starved for mail, having had none since we had left San Francisco. But one morning, we hit the jack pot. Accumulated mail arrived all at once and I spent the morning catching up on the news from Fran and others on the home front. One of the letters contained word about the capture of the Ramagan Bridge across the Rhine River by the 9th Armored Division and its preservation from German destruction. This action provided a bridgehead for the thrust into Germany that led to the Allied victory. I was glad that the Division’s intensive training had paid off. Later I learned that it was my old buddies from Combat Command “B” that were responsible for the breakthrough – and that several of my friends had not survived.
One day, Harris Childs and I decided to see some of the native countryside. We bummed a ride to the small town, a barrio, just south of the camp and walked around. Dominating the town was a huge white-walled Catholic Church, with immaculate grounds surrounded by a high ornate iron fence. In stark contrast, the native housing outside of the church grounds consisted mostly of small square bamboo huts. Typically the structure consisted of a raised bamboo platform that had a thatched roof. Family members, often a new child through an old grandparent, lived on the platform, while the live stock, usually many chickens, scratched around in the space beneath. Sanitary facilities were crude. I will not describe the typical odor of the area.
The main road in the town ran by the church and along it were a number of small shops. We checked their wares in hopes of finding suitable souvenirs. I purchased a fine linen table runner for a few pesos (a peso was worth fifty American cents). Later we came upon a family run shoe factory where the product was wooden shoes. They were fashioned out of wood, the sole an elaborately carved block painted in bright colors, the tops heavy magenta felt embroidered with flowers. I bought a pair for Fran.
Language was no problem; practically every Filipino could speak English in at least a fragmentary manner. Their native language, which they used among themselves, was Tagalog, a dialect that seemed to have developed from Spanish. I thought it a good idea to try to learn some elementary Tagalog, so I bought a text-book intending to teach myself. But the next day, upon closer study of the text, I concluded that learning Tagalog was far beyond my ability. I did salvage a brief sentence, “Ao ko ng saging” which translates into “I don’t want any bananas” which came in handy helping to fend off persistent peddlers.
One of Fran’s letters had suggested the Frank McTigue, one of Fran’s high school gang and a Naval Officer doing weather forecasting work, was now located in Manila. Fred Hollowell and I decided to see if we could locate Frank. We got a ride into Manila and started out to locate some Naval HQ that might be a source of information. As we were searching, I noticed a Navy jeep coming along that was flying a weather forecast flag. We waved the jeep to a halt and inquired if anyone knew Frank McTigue. “Sure do. He’s in our office on the aircraft tender out in the bay.”
“Fine. Any way we can get to see him?”
“Certainly. Go down to the wharf and wait for the bay taxi – it’s a PT boat that circulates around the harbor – just get on and tell the skipper where you want to go.”
Fred and I followed directions. Sure enough there was a PT boat available and willing to take us to the aircraft tender. That was some ride. PT boats are fast – forty knots or so. But the bay is large, so even at that speed, we were probably a half an hour in transit. The PT boat pulled along side the ship’s landing ladder. We climbed aboard to be met by the officer of the deck. “Permission to come aboard to see Lieutenant Frank McTigue,” I said in what I hoped was an official sounding tone.
“Yes Sir!” Turning to a sailor standing nearby, he said, “Escort these officers to Mr McTigue’s quarters.” We followed through the labyrinth of the tender’s interior, coming at last to a door showing Frank’s name. We knocked; the door opened, and there was Frank! It was a delightful reunion – we talked and talked exchanging what news about the folks back home. Frank took us to lunch in the officer’s wardroom, and for the first time in months we had a meal at a table that had a tablecloth and fancy heavy silver knives and forks. We, in our dull army field uniform and gross army boots, seemed quite out of place in such elegant surroundings. It was plain that the Navy did things differently than the Army.
We gradually became aware of the Australian influence on the war effort. The blankets provided in our tents were Australian in origin. They were woven from gorgeous grey wool; they were large and handsome. Beside them the standard U. S. Army issue looked drab and brown and coarse. One morning, Fred and I visited an Aussie unit nearby at breakfast time, and were cordially treated to their standard steak and eggs breakfast – “stoik un eyegs” was the way they put it. We learned that Australia was supplying all the Army meat in the Southwest Pacific area. The Aussie uniform intrigued me. Rank designation was by buttons on the shoulder; but the buttons looked much like the American General’s star. So for a time I was confused – several times I talked with one of their Captains (two buttons) thinking he must be a Major General (two stars).
The airfield south of Manila had been used by the Japs, and many of their planes had been destroyed on the ground during the latest offensive. These had been bull-dozed aside into a mound of junk when the Americans began using the field. But that mound was a great place to get Jap souvenirs. I salvaged some clear plastic that I fashioned into a bracelet for Fran. Another time I took a piece of aluminum strip that I was able to make into a strap for my wrist watch. We had lots of time on our hands as we did our “waiting”.
It was May, and the rainy season began in earnest. Rain could be expected at any time. It would last for anywhere from ten minutes to many hours, but always was followed by rapid clearing and bright sunshine. We got used to being wet – either it was raining and one was getting soaked, or it was hot sunshine and one was sweating profusely. One night the rain came in torrents. Ryan’s bunk was in a low spot and the water gathered there. Soon he had about eight inches worth under his bunk and his helmet and shoes were floating away. We abandoned the tent for higher ground. But the next day the sun had dried up all the rain and the ground seemed parched again. On Tuesday, 8 May 1945, early, before breakfast, the orderly came by to notify us that orders had been cut for the six of us. Hollowell, Nordahl, Tyler, Childs, Ryan, and Hemond had all been assigned to the 997th Signal Service Battalion stationed on Leyte. We would be moving out about ten o’clock. So we had breakfast and then packed our portable gear; our foot-lockers would be held in storage until specific addresses were available. About ten, there was a truck waiting. We got a ride to the airport where a C-47 transport plane was waiting. We clambered aboard. This was to be my first plane ride and it was an exciting time. Soon we took off and flew at about 5000 feet south towards Leyte. It was a glorious sun filled day, and the island scenery was breathtaking. From this perspective one couldn’t imagine that a war was in progress beneath us. As we flew along, our reverie was startled by the pilot’s announcement: “Now here this. I have just received word that Germany has capitulated! The war in Europe is over!” Back home the crowds celebrated V-E Day!
The plane landed at the airstrip in Tacloban just a stone’s throw from the site of General MacArthur’s triumphant return to the Philippines. We debarked, amid the euphoria of the day’s great news, anxious to report to the 997th Signal Service Battalion. But at the airport HQ, no one had heard of the 997th. Go over to the Casual Camp was their best advice. Apparently, we were still lost!
We settled in at the Casual Camp, annoyed, but determined to comb the island the next day and find the 997th. The next day, we made up three teams of two guys each, and agreed on the areas each team would search.. Fred and I set out along the southeastern shore. Our first stop was a Signal HQ about five miles down the road. They had never heard of the 997th, but they knew of a radio site further down the road on the beach. We pressed on, soon reaching the radio site. It was a repeater station commanded by a Lt Colonel, a very affable officer. No, he had never heard of the 997th, but why worry – let them find you – take the time to enjoy life – go down to our beach and have a good swim. We took his advice. For that day, we had done all the searching we cared for. After a swim in water that had a bath-like temperature and finding it debilitating, we made our way back to the Casual Camp to discover that no one else had had any success at locating the 997th. We resigned ourselves to more waiting.
Chess again occupied lots of our time. One evening, near sun-down, two Filipino gentlemen came into the camp. They had been hiding from the Japs in the hills. One of them, who turned out to be a member of the pre-war Senate, said that he was starved for a game of chess – was there anybody around he could play? My reputation as a chess freak was sufficient so that HQ sent him to see me. We set up the game on a spare bunk and began to spar. He was a skilled player, but rusty from too long a layoff. But as the night wore on, he got better. We played all night long, and as the sun was rising, he sat back and made a surprising comment. “Boys,” he said, “This war is nearly over and you are going to win.” This was enough to cause us to notice, because the favorite saying around camp had been “Golden Gate by ’48.”
But the gentleman hadn’t finished. He continued, “Then you’re going to make the biggest mistake of your lives.”
“We are? What would that be?”
“You’re going to go home.”
“You’re darn right we are – that’s what we live for, going home. Why is that a mistake?”
“Because that will be the only time ever that the United States will be able to defeat the Russians and restore total peace to the entire world. But you won’t do it. You will all go home. And pretty soon, you and the Russians will be at each other’s throats, and maybe there will be a fight that nobody can win. Right now, you can win. But you won’t fight them, and that is a big mistake!”
Many times in the last forty-five years, I have wondered about this Senator’s wisdom, and what might have happened had the U.S. taken his advice.
But our situation continued to be unsettled. The camp commander came by one day to tell us he was shipping us back to Hollandia. We balked. He did not have formal orders for us, so we wouldn’t move. After all our orders were very specific.
Plane traffic between Leyte and Luzon was fairly heavy. So one day we decided that we should manage regular trips back to Luzon to check on our foot-lockers, gather mail, and check HQ to see if there was any progress on our assignments. Jim Nordahl and I went on one of these sorties. We bummed a ride with an Air Force pilot who had to ferry a damaged Mitchell Bomber to Clark Field for repair. The plane flew O.K., but the rear windows had been shot out. Riding in the rear, we were close to the open window space. No one told us to block our ears. When we deplaned at Clark, neither of us could hear! It was about two days before our hearing returned to normal. Along the way, the pilot took liberties over Manila. He buzzed the nurses compound. We were not ready for that maneuver and had to hang on tight to prevent being dumped out the empty window space.
Finally on 28 May, Harris Childs came back from Manila with the cheering word that new orders had been cut for all of us. Nordahl, Hallowell, and Hemond were going to a Signal Battalion in Manila, while the other guys were going to other island installations. We had the choice of waiting for the Air Transport people to list us on some scheduled flight, or we could bum our way there. We figured we would get there quicker on our own. So, on the 29th, early – we missed breakfast – we went over to the air strip and negotiated a ride. It wasn’t until near noon that we got in the air. We missed out on lunch – but we figured it was all worth while. We were getting to our jobs in Manila.
But, once again, upon arriving and consulting the official island directory, there was no record of the outfit cited in our orders. Exhausted, hungry, and frustrated, we went to the nearest camp – an Air Corp outfit at the end of the runway – and begged some food and shelter. They were most accommodating. The cook fixed us a big supper, and then they found us bunks. We went right to bed and slept soundly until early in the morning when air activity began. Here at the end of the runway, it sounded as though the planes would plow right through our quarters. We got up and out early.
Quite indignant, we made our way to the General Headquarters building in the heart of Manila and stormed into the Signal Corps Office where we found an attentive ear on a WAC Major. She went to the heart of the problem immediately as she looked at our orders. “That outfit doesn’t exist. It is a device only used for shipping people over here from the States.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I’ll issue new orders. What are your specialties?”
“We are radio officers, and we have a hunch that we are needed in the fixed station site here in Manila.”
The lady listened; then she consulted the office files. “You are right. We have a requisition from the Radio Receiver Site. I’ll make up orders for you right away.” She assigned us to the GHQ Radio Receiver Station, WTA Manila. It was now nearly four full months since that day at Fort Monmouth when we had been told we were being shipped overseas. – So much for Army efficiency.
The Radio Receiver station was still in its initial phase. It was operating out of a commandeered home in the south of Manila. The antenna field was very small. It could support only a few di-poles. The permanent situation was planned further out of town where there was room for rhombic antennas. We knew about that site. We had looked it over back when we were at the Replacement Depot, speculating then that this must be the reason the Army had called us overseas.
The station complement included plenty of enlisted men. They really did all the work. But it was deficient in officers. The Commander, temporarily Lt Griggs, was very happy to have the additional help. Nordahl was put on the Single Sideband circuit, while I was given chores on the fixed station radio teletype circuits. Fred was made power officer at the signal center, and was disappointed having hoped for a radio job.
Lt Wendal Griggs of Iowa
I was surprised how quickly a routine was established. Officers worked eight hour shifts per day supervising the circuits. The station operated continuously around the clock; so, once a week there was a shift rotation. Thus, in a three week stretch, everyone had a week of day duty, a week of evening duty and one of night duty. Off time could be used in any fashion one was inclined; mine was dominated by eating, sleeping, writing letters, playing chess, and attending a movie when one was available. However, there were variations.
Being more or less permanently assigned, I tried to get in touch with Frank McTigue at the Navy Weather Station. In the process, I learned that the Station had been moved from the aircraft tender to a shore site at the Cavite Naval Base. So, one day I borrowed a jeep and went over to Cavite. Historically, traffic in the Philippines had driven on the left side of the road. But on 1 June 1945, the Army had decreed that vehicles would drive on the right. The change was intended for the benefit of the Americans who had a hard time with the left hand rule. But officialdom had not considered how hard it would be for the Filipinos to make this change. So driving to Cavite was a constant challenge. At any moment a Filipino cart might appear, heading straight toward me on the right hand side. But I got to Cavite – a most impressive permanent Navy Base – and found Frank. He was up to the minute on news from home. But he was in need of sun-tan trousers. Seems the Navy supply had run out – and the Army supply depot wouldn’t sell to the Navy. I delivered a pair a few days later.
One night, the enlisted men put on a dance. They decorated the center of the transmitter hall, recruited a dance band from somewhere, and invited all the native girls. Officers were also welcome, so Lt Griggs and I paid a visit and got a taste of local custom. The scene was not unlike a typical high school dance back in the States. The girls were decked out in handsome party dresses – and they even had on shoes. But their fathers were present too. And the custom is that father asks a boy to dance with his daughter – no other procedure is permitted. No one told me this. I found out when a father came over and asked me to dance with his daughter. It hadn’t been my intention; but what could I do. She was a little thing, and a good dancer. The problem was that she fixed her hair with some kind of smelly grease – it had a horrible odor and made the dance most disagreeable. When that dance was over, I was beseiged by other fathers with similar requests. I tried to accommodate them, but after a few such episodes, I was pretty well gassed out, and I escaped to the receiver building for safety.
Duty as a radio officer was no problem, for I had been well trained in the business. Our problems usually rose as part of our collateral duty. The most distasteful of these was being a censor of the enlisted men’s mail. Rules were that all outgoing mail had to be read by an officer who had to certify that the censorship rules had been followed. Basically the rules involved not divulging one’s location or his specific activity or anything that could be presumed of interest to the enemy. Thus letters were reduced to very personal matters. It was no fun to read that stuff – one always had the feeling that he was intruding into affairs that were none of his business – some of the notes containing extravagant terms of endearment were an embarrassment to review. And it all seemed so unnecessary – I don’t recall ever cutting up a guy’s letter because the fellows followed the rules.
Equally frustrating was one’s turn as mess officer. In theory the mess officer is in charge of feeding the outfit; but the reality was that the mess sergeant was the boss. He made out the menus; he picked up the food allotment from the central depot, he made his personal deals with other mess sergeants in the process; he bossed the cooks; he requisitioned and assigned the guys needed for KP duty. So he was in charge. But the mess officer got all the complaints, and there was no end to them even though the meals were uniformly excellent.
The new receiver site in the outskirts was very nearly ready to take over the entire function, in fact for several days now we had been in the process of turning circuits over to them. On 20 June, it was decided that the need for some of us was greater at the new site than in town. So Taylor, Nordahl and I moved to the outskirts. It was to be our Philippine home for a while.
Mail was addressed to: Det 1, 4025th Sig Srv Gp,
4th Platoon HQ,
APO 75
%PM, San Francisco, California
It was an impressive place. Three main buildings housed the receiving equipment. Two of these were large quonset huts. The third, which contained an office for the station commanding officer, was an oversize quonset made by putting three conventional huts together in a “T” shape. These buildings, rather spread out, for there was lots of room, occupied three corners of an immense square area. The fourth corner had a cluster of three small buildings that housed three 100 Kw diesel generators which furnished electric power for the station as well as our living quarters. In the center of all this was a swimming pool!
Main receiver station
Looking across pool toward Intercept building
Aerial view
The antenna patch panel
Single side band receiver
Receiver hall
Al Barancik monitoring circuit using Super Pro recivers
Control panel
Power station
Power plant
Mess Hall
HC
Fred and HC
The pool had been built by the Japs as a communal bath tub and had been captured undamaged. They had provided a well with a good supply of water as well as a chlorination facility. All we had to do was get it running. The depth was essentially uniform – about five feet – awkward for a fellow who did not know how to swim, but quite adequate for the swimmers. It was rather larger than the conventional 75 foot pool. I used it as often as my schedule permitted, doing about 100 lengths each time, which I estimated was about one mile.
The antenna field lay all about the buildings. There were 52 rhombic antennas evenly spaced in a full circle. A rhombic antenna is shaped like a four sided diamond. Each rhombic was supported by four 75 foot high metal frame towers so arranged that the rhombic’s long axis pointing away from the station was 600 feet long, and the other axis at right angles to the first was 200 feet long.
Rhombics have the merit of being very high gain antennas, hence were desireable when our objective was round the clock operation when some signals at some times of the day are very weak. The disadvantage of a rhombic is that it is highly directional, tending to receive signals only along the direction of its long axis. Our system overcame this disadvantage by having rhombics facing all around the compass.
Our principal receivers were known as diversity units; that is they consisted of two receivers interlocked through their automatic volume controls. Thus when one receiver had a strong signal, it would shut down the other. Having antennas around the compass enabled us to feed one receiver from an antenna on one side of the circle and the other one from the other side of the circle thus avoiding the problem of local fading of signals.
Living arrangements were quite adequate considering that we were in the middle of what once had been a rice paddy. The tents were the conventional Army pyramidal shape mounted on a bamboo platform that was raised a few steps above the ground (real mud in wet weather). The officers were separated from the enlisted men in our own compound with separate toilet and shower facilities. We new officers were assigned a separate tent, and we immediately arranged it as comfortably as possible.
Wash stand behind our tent
The receiver site had its own motor pool, as well as its own kitchen and mess hall which was divided into enlisted men’s area and officer’s country. My reputation as mess officer at the other place had preceded me, and shortly I was notified that my collateral duty was again as mess officer.
Motor pool
The station was in charge of Lt. Polston, about whom I remember very little since he wasn’t there very long. His assistant, who succeeded him, was a blond, blue-eyed, enthusiastic officer from Texas by the name of Earl Hartman. We became good friends – and our friendship lasted the rest of our lives. Earl had been a graduate of Texas A & M University, predominantly an R.O.T.C. school, where he had been the Cadet Colonel in his senior year. He had gone directly from school into the service, and was now a 1st Lt. But he retained his school boy looks and his boundless energy.
Earl Hartman
We new fellows fit immediately into the routine of standing regular shifts as duty officer. It was not hard work since there were talented sergeants who actually assigned and directed the men on shift. The officer merely supervised the entire operation.
My principal station interest, which soon became my assignment, was to determine what frequencies were needed to keep each circuit in service for the greatest amount of time every day. It turned out that frequency allocation was done on a theater wide basis. We, as the General Headquarters station, had some priority; however, we still had to petition for frequencies and couldn’t use one until it was authorized. Even then, we could have no more than four frequencies for each circuit.
The circuits went to many places. I don’t remember them all, but principal places included San Francisco, Honolulu, Brisbane, and Karachi. There were perhaps twenty other places where we had regular business. The San Francisco circuit was the most troublesome not only because it had the most business (all Washington messages went through there), but also because at certain times of every day no signal at any frequency could get through.
So I was constantly logging circuits, keeping book on what frequencies worked best to what places, for how long, and at what times of the day. This information was the basis for my monthly requests for radio frequencies. By the time I went home, I had become quite skillful at this business. In fact, by then, our San Francisco circuit was consistently in service several hours a day more than the commercial facility run by RCA.
Not long after we arrived at the new station, it was beer ration day. The beer ration had lately been increased to a case per man per week, which I thought was a lot. But I was told that it all came from the plant north of Manila which the GIs had liberated from the Japs undamaged and was now back in production. It was suggested that we buy our full ration so that production and distribution which furnished employment for a lot of Filipinos could be kept at a high level. So I bought my allotment, borrowed a jeep, and took it into Fred’s place in town. Fred would use all the beer he could get. He, along with several other officers, had lately rented a private home. After Fred repaired their refrigerator, there was ample room to store and cool the beer. Fred was glad to get it. He had other problems, however. A couple of nights before, a uniform containing his wallet and other valuables had been stolen. He had left it on a chair near an open window and guessed that someone – probably a Filipino – had fished it out the window when he was sleeping. There was merit to our living in the boondocks in a rice paddy.
Now that I was more or less settled, I thought that I should let Frank McTigue know about the set-up. About a week later, I borrowed a jeep, picked up Fred, and we drove out to Cavite. We found Frank in a euphoric state. He had just received word that he had been selected for an advance course in weather forecasting to be given in San Francisco. In a few days he would be flying home on one of the China Clippers (a large flying boat that had lately entered trans-Pacific service), and in the process he could expect 15 days leave back to Massachusetts. After that he thought he would be sent back to Manila. We cheered for him while we envied him.
Our Manila experience was uniquely influenced by two other “M’s”, mud and mosquitoes, to both of which we gradually became accustomed.
The mud was apt to be found anywhere. Particularly, out in the rice paddy where we lived and worked, one expected to have to pick his way through the thick goo going to and from the station, or even going to the mess hall. So we always wore our combat boots which were well matched to mud walking. What we did not like was tracking mud into the tent. For a time we tried rigging shoe scrap bars, but they broke, or if they didn’t break, they were soon clogged and unuseable. So we made a rule: Take off your shoes before entering this tent. The good result pleased us, and our visitors acquiesced, more or less graciously.
Mosquitoes were a constant menace. They bred in quantity in the brackish water that surrounded the rice fields. Not only were their bites painful, but they resulted in malaria and yellow fever. The Army supplied repellents, but no self respecting mosquito was turned away by the stuff. And the medics supplied Attabrine tablets. Their consumption was a required ticket to dinner in the mess hall. These were said to protect one from malaria in particular, and maybe they did, although several of the boys got the disease and were sent home. The tablets were not popular because, after a week or so of taking them, the consumer’s skin developed a yellowish hue. The most effective mosquito barrier was the netting that we draped around our bunks; then, at least, we could sleep without being bothered by the bugs.
“Wash Room”
One night late in June, Jim Nordahl who was our Special Service Officer, turned up with twenty free tickets to the Manila Symphony. I was shocked that none of the men cared to go. However, our Filipino house boy wanted to go. So he, Jim and I dashed into town to attend. The concert was held in a dingy, small, hot theater, one of the few buildings not blown apart in the fighting. The orchestra had eighty-five members, and they barely were able to crowd onto the stage. But, oh how they played. Their rendition of Brahms Symphony #1 in C Minor was professionally and gloriously done. Beethoven Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was highlighted with a violin soloist whose technique was impeccable. This beautiful music was an anomaly in yesterday’s war zone.
Jim Nordahl
It was apparent that, even at this station with a full time permanent assignment, there was going to be lots of free time. To put it to good use, I signed up with the Armed Forces Institute for some correspondence courses. For $11.50, I bought the Introduction to Astronomy given by the University of California; and, for $15.50, I bought Photography from the University of Michigan. Courses materials were promised in two to three weeks.
Read up!
There was a Finance Department at the Replacement Depot which was nearby making it relatively easy to get paid. The pay problem was expedited further when I got the department’s radio repaired for them in our shop. This record is my Second Lieutenant’s pay voucher:
Base Pay $150.00
Overseas 15.00
Quarters 60.00
Rations 42.00
Total 267.00
Deductions
Allotment $150.00
Insurance 6.75
85 meals 21.25
Total 178.00
NET 89.00 or 178.00 pesos
Money accumulated, and frequently I made transfers to Fran.
I was happy to find that this new station was not excessively GI; no one tried to have reveille or other formations that had no purpose. I recall back in the city at the temporary receivers, Lt Hunan, about whom I remember very little, unfortunately decided that the whole platoon should stand a reveille formation at 6:45 each morning. He posted such an order to commence the following morning. Stupid as the formation order was, I was present – so was Lt Hunan – but nobody else! Hunan blew his stack. We went the round of the quarters ordering every body out. About a half hour later every body was there. Hunan was angry, frustrated, and baffled. But he couldn’t decide what he should do about the mutiny. Fortunately, he smartened up and forgot the whole episode. When guys are working shifts around the clock, the reveille formation makes no sense.
Cot and Reading Lamp!
It was Sunday, 1 July, when we learned about another local Filipino custom. On that day the church celebrates St. Jean de Baptiste Day. The locals carry around bottles of water so that they can throw some at persons they meet. Our houseboy tried it on us – once. But the Engineers, whose camp was down the road, got into the spirit of the day. They hitched a 1000 gallon water tank trailer with a pump and hose to a jeep and rode around the area spraying everyone they saw.
I noted on the officer’s duty bulletin board that I had been appointed in charge of Plans and Training. I wasn’t sure what was intended, so I made some discreet inquiries, and was told that I was responsible to see that every man got three hours of training every week. I was rather certain that this could get me in trouble with the men if it was handled wrong. Then I got an idea. Since the evening movie always captured practically every one off duty, and since it already contained a news reel and an occasional Army informational film, and since it normally lasted over three hours, I would simply certify that the minimum training was already being carried out. Nobody ever took exception.
The war was ever on our minds. Everyone was anticipating the big push, the invasion of Japan. When the conversation turned serious, someone usually remarked on the activity in Manila Bay. And every day, countless cargo ships could be seen at anchor with lighters running never-ending shuttles to the beach loaded with crates. The crates were off loaded by shore crews and placed in piles on the broad beach. Already the accumulation of stuff extended for several miles along the shore, and the pile was still growing. We were getting ready for something big.
One day when I was visiting Fred, we decided to drop in at the Officer’s Club. There, on a table, was a saxophone. There was no sign of an owner, but the instrument looked as if it could play. So I idly picked it up and ran my fingers over the keys – it seemed in good condition. I decided to toodle a bit. It must have been three years since I had played a sax, but even so, when I tried, “Stardust” came out rather respectably. Fred was amazed. He had no idea that I could play because I had made a point of not letting anybody, including the Army, know about this skill. I had no desire to be stuck into an Army band. But now the cat was out of the bag. Fred knew. I stopped playing and put the instrument back on the table.
Some days later, on a Friday evening, I got a telephone call from Fred. Seems there was a dance scheduled at the Club, and the orchestra was minus a sax player – would I come to town and play. I was scheduled on duty for the evening shift and declined. Later, Lt. Polston came to see me. Seems he had a call from the Colonel directing him to relieve me, and to take me to the party where I was to play the sax. So be it. Polston, Hartman, and I took a jeep and rode to the Officer’s Club. I was met at the door by a Brigadier-General who had a drink in one hand and the sax in the other. He held both out to me. “Here, let’s get started.” I played for an hour or so when an officer came over and asked if he could have a turn on the sax. Gladly I surrendered the sax and went back to camp. The party was at such state that no one would notice my absence.
The Army began to publicize the policy it would use after the war when the time came to bring men home. They would use a system of points, with those having the highest number of points going home first. Points were to be scored as follows: one for each month of service in the Continental U.S.; two for each month of service overseas; and five for each combat star earned. Everyone carefully counted his point total. As of July, my account was, 27 for stateside service, 6 for overseas service, 5 for Luzon, and 5 for Leyte, making a total of 43. But many men had numbers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It was plain that I wouldn’t qualify for a trip home soon.
Our rhombic antennas were all complete, but the ultimate antenna system still needed lots of work. The lead-in wires all terminated in the large “T” shaped building. But we also wanted every antenna to be available to each of the other two buildings. This required a set of isolation transformers, one for each rhombic, a panel where it would be possible to hitch the line from any receiver to any antenna, and a series of co-axial antenna cables running from the “T” building to each of the other two. I had been put in charge of this work, and by the end of July it was nearly done and ready for testing. The system worked beautifully. It was entirely flexible: any receiver on the site could be fed from any antenna.
In July, the Radio Intercept Platoon arrived on site. They would set up shop in the building on the other side of the pool. Their job consisted of using Super-Pro Receivers to monitor continuously all signals originating in Japan or with the Japanese forces. They also had a few other routine tasks like continuously copying the U.S.Navy “Fox” broadcast, which was a transmission in Morse Code at about sixty words per minute relating news of the day. So the fellows in Intercept were remarkably talented at copying Morse Code. Some of them were so good that they could copy the “Fox” signals while carrying on a conversation and not miss a beat of either theme.
The third building was rented by the RCA Corporation for the Manila terminal of their world-wide communications network. The man in charge was named Mathews, and we became good friends. RCA used Collins receivers, which most of the radio men envied. It might have been a matter of it being greener in the other man’s pasture, for we had outstanding equipment built by Federal. In any event we often admired as Mattie tuned his equipment.
“Mattie” Matthews
Mattie was a big help one day. Our Single Sideband receiver had taken to drifting off frequency, not badly nor rapidly, but enough to garble some words in the received message. The signal center down town was getting irritated at us for not fixing the problem. But Schmalback, Nordahl and I had been trying to do that with no success at all. It occurred to me that Mattie could help and I went to see him. “I don’t know that equipment,” he said, “but I know a guy at our Frisco station who does. I’ll give him a shout.” Soon he had the guy over the private RCA telephone line and the matter was under discussion. The guy recognized the problem immediately. Seemed that a certain condenser was vulnerable to high humidity, and we should replace it with a sealed type of comparable value. We followed directions and the problem vanished.
On 20 July 1945, my twenty-eighth birthday came and went, swallowed up by one more day of Army routine.
One day, as the camp’s Mess Officer, I had an unfortunate confrontation with 1st Lt Keller, our Power Officer. Seems that the diesel generator supplying electric power to the kitchen failed just about the time the cooks were ready to prepare breakfast – so the breakfast was substandard – there was nothing hot – no coffee. And Lt Keller was unhappy about this and bawled out the mess sergeant and his help including the Filipinos. I was on duty at the station at the time. When I learned what had happened, it was nearly time for lunch and the kitchen help was on the verge of a slow down strike. I prevailed on them to feed the men and they did, and then I went to see Keller. He was his usual obnoxious self and I got no satisfaction. So I went to see the Administrative Officer, 2nd Lt Barksdale, and demanded that the kitchen be placed off limits for Keller. Barksdale didn’t want to do that, so I quit as Mess Officer (even though one can’t quit in the Army). Barksdale made Lt Griggs the new Mess Officer, and I was appointed Information and Education Officer. It took Griggs about two weeks, but he got the kitchen placed off limits to all persons; but the Mess Sergeant always gave me credit for getting Keller out of his hair.
My letter #143, dated 21 July 1945, reads as follows:
Was driving down the highway this afternoon, when we came upon a Lt. hitching a ride – picked him up. “You look rather familiar, Lt.,” he said. “By any chance were you ever at Mass. State?”
“Why, yes, Class of 1938”
“I thought so – you are the fellow who married Frannie Field!”
Well, of course I was amazed that a stranger – a picked up hitch hiking Lt – way out here in the Philippines should know my wife! I did not recognize him and he introduced himself as Jim Kline, Class of 1941, from Boston, Massachusetts, – wanted to know the news on Doris and Rose Elaine as well – so we had quite an old reunion.
One Sunday afternoon there was a football game at Rizal Stadium and Jim Nordahl and I went to see it. We were amazed at the sight, because at least 50,000 other GIs were there too. The Air Transport Command was playing the Port Engineers. Though Rizal had been the scene of much heavy fighting, on this day it could have passed for Kezar Stadium. Two bands were there, and the crowd sounded just as boisterous as they do at home on Saturday afternoon. I was impressed by an inscription on the outfield fence. It read “4th Home Run, December 10, 1934, by Lou Gerhig”. The brand of football was good.
The ATC boys were bigger and heavier, and they were up by 20 to 0 at half time. Then the rains came – in torrents – and Jim and I left.
That something big was in the offing could be inferred by two observations that we could easily make: first, that the PX was having so much business that practically everything was rationed; and second, that we didn’t try to go into town unless the motor pool had a jeep available because bumming a ride was too competitive. These observations translated into a massive buildup of forces. The most recent arrival was the 86th Infantry Division. It had been sent to the European battlefields, but, at this point in the war, was not needed in Europe, and continued on to Manila.
One morning, business took me to GHQ in downtown Manila. It was a brilliant sunny day. As I approached the entrance to the headquarters, I noticed that an olive-drab limousine sporting a flag with five stars was parked in front of the building. Two armed MP’s were standing by. I paid no other attention to the scene and continued up the walk. At that moment the doors swung open and out strode General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. I recognized that commanding presence instantly, came to attention, and saluted. Directly there was a return salute, along with the greeting “Good Morning, Lieutenant” delivered in his famous sonorous tone.
The official word had come down to employ Filipinos in every capacity possible. We figured that some of them would be good gardeners landscaping around the receiver buildings, setting out gardens, and growing a lawn. We had lots of applicants, selected about half a dozen of them and set them to work. The results eventually were spectacular, but there were some surprises along the way. To begin with they did not want a watering hose; their preferred method of watering was to take a big two gallon can left over from the kitchen, punch a series of holes in the bottom, fill the can with water from a larger supply jug, and allow the drippings to fall on the area of interest. It took forever, but perhaps that was their intent. They wanted no lawn mower either. Grass was kept an appropriate length by individually shaving each blade using their trusty all-purpose machete. Then one day, they could have put us off the air. Someone of them planned to plant a banana tree, and had dug a large hole for the root. In the process, he ran into one of our underground electric cables but did not recognize it as something important. He got help to pull the thing out. By the time I noticed their operation, three of them were tugging away, trying to dislodge the cable. I stopped that, of course, but I don’t think the Filipino gardeners ever really understood.
Word was passing among the men about the betting the Air Corp boys were doing on the end of the war. In July they were taking bets that the war would be over by Christmas. Some of our men went for this, but the conservative ones like me saw no basis for such optimism. Then about the first of August, the odds were dramatically raised, and the time was shortened. One could get very favorable odds betting against the Air Corp boys who were then asserting that the war would be over in 48 hours!
As Information and Education Officer, I found myself responsible to carry out the latest Army directive that ‘all troops shall be indoctrinated concerning the Japanese Islands. Obviously, in preparation for an invasion, the troops should know something about where they were going. We had always known Japan to be the objective – but that was way down the road. Now, all of a sudden, invasion seemed about to happen. In any event, I had to make up some lectures dealing with the Japanese homeland. I managed, but it was tough – I had no background in the subject. But the Army had several booklets that seemed to have pertinent material, and I leaned on those. Nobody fell asleep during my lectures.
About the first of August, Harley Taylor was transferred downtown to the Control Center, and his place was taken by Lt. Ira Weil, a new face to most of us. Ira moved into the bunk space in our tent where Taylor had been. Ira was from Montgomery, Alabama, and a perfect prototype of the White Upper Class Southerner. We got along very well, but it was plain that Ira retained remnants of the Southerner’s antipathy for Yankees. He also had a love affair with the bottle; it wasn’t long before he was known as “Souse Weil from the Deep Souse”. Many a time I stood duty for him while he sobered up from a torrid night on the town. We remained friends long after the war was over.
THE BOMB was dropped over Hiroshima on the morning of Monday, 6 August 1945, and although we did not know then, the world would never be the same. Word of the Atom Bomb came to us quickly, and few people had any concept of what it was, though all were willing to believe that it must be a weapon of terrible power. Now we understood why the Air Corp boys had been willing to bet on the course of the war. Lots of barracks lawyers tried to tell the rest of us what was now going to happen in Japan; and lots of men who thought they knew tried to tell us how the bomb worked. But that was all conjecture. There was no immediate response from Japan, and we went back to our routine chores.
On Wednesday, 8 August 1945, the Russians declared War on Japan. Everyone thought it was awfully late for that gesture, but we welcomed it nonetheless.
On Thursday, 9 August 1945, a second bomb was dropped on Japan, this time over the city of Nagasaki. Again the word spread swiftly, and conjecture about the possible impact on the Japanese war machine was on everybody’s tongue. But still there was no positive indication that our tasks could be relaxed.
The next day, 10 August, I had the evening shift. It must have been about ten o’clock when the duty sergeant from the Intercept crew came into my office carrying a message form. He handed it to me without saying anything. I gave the form a perfunctory glance, for I was busy doing my frequency projection work, and dropped it into my “IN” basket for later attention. But the sergeant stood there, staring at me with wide eyes; so I did a double take. It was a message in plain language that one of the Intercept operators had just copied, broadcast from Japan, saying that the Japanese were ready to accept Peace on the Allied terms, reserving the right of the Emperor to retain his throne.
Immediately we sent the word on to the Signal Center where it was rapidly processed for wide spread distribution. Within minutes, high ranking brass began descending on the station. Any number of Majors, Colonels, and even a couple of Generals came to the site apparently believing that by some magic we could pull more information out of the air. But we had all there was for that night. That didn’t stop the brass from twiddling the dials and knocking circuits off frequency. Most of our regular circuits suffered this hazard. In desperation, I steered the brass to our massed bank of Super-Pro receivers, gave each a set of ear phones and his own receiver to twiddle all he wanted. That kept the station in business. But celebrations started everywhere as soon as the word was received. At the Officer’s Club the scene was wild. The majors and colonels spent the the night climbing out of the swimming pool where the exuberant junior officers had tossed them.
There was lots of discussion among the officers as to whether or not Truman would accept the Japanese stipulation that the Emperor be spared. Most thought that an acceptable condition, but some hot heads were opposed. Then on 14 August 1945, our station copied the following message:
MARSHALL TO MACARTHUR INFO NIMITZ
YOU ARE HEREBY OFFICIALLY NOTIFIED OF JAPANESE CAPITULATION
YOUR DIRECTIVE AS SUPREME COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS IS EFFECTIVE WITH RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE
15 August 1945 was officially declared V-J Day and the celebrations began in earnest all over again. The cheers could be heard all over the camp; impromptu parties started up everywhere. Many a bottle, carefully preserved for this day, was broken open and consumed in a wild orgy of joy. In town the celebration got out of hand – several men were killed and many were seriously injured.
It was hard to believe that the war was over, and for a number of days in August, it really did not sink in. In fact, the Russians did not cease their efforts. They had begun an offensive which continued for several weeks until they had driven the Japs from Manchuria and the Kurile Islands. And it was late in the month before all pockets of Japanese troops in the war areas had ceased to fight.
Some troops now had to occupy Japan. The first group to go in was the radio team consisting of transmitter, receiver, and message center equipment, plus people to man these items. Everything had to go by air from Manila to Atsugi Airdrome. To maximize the pay load, every effort was made to minimize material needed for the initial station set-up. To this end, the radio group had to select its three lightest weight qualified officers. I was not one of the three, hence never got to Tokyo. But Lt. Polston was selected and went as commanding officer of the advanced radio team. With his absence, Lt. Earl Hartman became commanding officer of WTA.
It was about the 24th of August when the troops went to Tokyo. Polston’s radio team set up shop at the airport as soon as they arrived, and established contact with our receivers immediately. The first message was from MacArthur to his Chief of Staff directing that the Chief inform Mrs. MacArthur that her husband had arrived safely.
The formal surrender ceremony was held on 2 September 1945 on the deck of the battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. Two representatives of the Japanese Empire signed the surrender documents in the presence of General MacArthur and the entire array of Allied Military leaders in the Pacific Basin while we all listened intently to the radio description of the activity. The War was truly over.
Going home! That’s what we were interested in! When was it going to happen? Well, we knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight – but hopefully by Christmas? – not a chance. There were about 1,800,000 guys in the Pacific area, and it could be presumed that most wanted to get home as soon as possible. Realistically, the ocean trip was long, and the number of troop carriers limited; the prospect was for months of delay. We made no allowance for the possibility that the ruling military and civilian authority would not necessarily share our enthusiasm for going home – in the end, home front political pressure had to be exerted on the Congress to get the homecoming process speeded up.
In the meantime, we had to keep busy. The station had to stay in service. The end of the war had not changed the need to communicate; so we continued to have the routine of station duty. Mostly the messages were in plain English. There was no need to encode anything. Subsequently the work load at the message center dropped off, making a few of their people available for other assignments. Some came out to the receiver site. Also, the Intercept work was shut down and, with no enemy to monitor, about 100 fellows were reassigned.
On 4 September 1945, the Army announced the end of the censorship of mail. Thereafter letter writers could discuss anything at all in their letters without concern for prying eyes. I was most pleased that this rule had taken effect so promptly; censoring the men’s mail had always been an odorous duty. Curiously, however, I had not fully realized how much time had been eaten up by the censor chore; that time now became available just when we were burdened to occupy the time we already had.
The Armed Forces Radio Service operated a standard AM station for the entertainment of the troops. The station, WVTM, was located in downtown Manila. They liked to retransmit news and other broadcasts from the States, but the quality of the signal that they could pick up was always poor, and there was much complaint. I suggested that we could pick up signals from the States much better than they could – perhaps we could provide the service for them? They jumped at the offer. Soon we added the daily chore of tuning in the Stateside programs that were wanted by WVTM. That added some interest for our operators.
The Engineers came around one day to start work on a new Quonset hut that they had been directed to build for us. That started a discussion; Lt Barksdale decided that the best use for the new hut was for officer’s quarters, but I suggested that the enlisted men should be given the use of the place as a day room where there would be a pool table and a ping-pong table. There wasn’t much discussion; I was overruled, and the place became Officer Country. However, I was perfectly satisfied to stay in the tent, and did not join the trek to the Quonset. Then the Engineers agreed to build another hut, this time for the men. Finally they got their recreation hall.
Fred liberated a boat from among the many that the Army had on the Pasig River; how, he didn’t say and I didn’t ask. He invited me down for a ride. The boat was a typical cabin cruiser painted the Army’s favorite olive drab, about 26 feet long, with a cabin, head, and galley, covered deck aft, able to sleep four, and powered suitably with a gasoline engine. The diesel generator station for which Fred was responsible backed up to the Pasig River, so Fred had a fine spot for docking his boat. His only problem was in getting enough gasoline, but usually he could trade rides for gasoline furnished by motor pool men. At any rate, we went down the river, through the heart of the ruined section of the city which was fast being reclaimed by the Engineers, past the stout forbidding rock ramparts of the Old Walled City, on out into the Bay. Dozens of Jap ships lay on the bottom with large portions of their super-structures out of water. We approached close to one of those, contemplated going aboard, but finally thought better of that. Further out in the Bay, a British aircraft carrier was swinging at anchor; we took a turn around her and got ourselves a cheer from a group of sailors on her deck.
Fred’s boat
The electric power supply for the living area was a small diesel generator. It required frequent service which it rarely got; consequently it was frequently shut down for repairs. Nordahl, who was our power officer at the time, suggested that we should run a power service line to the living area from the station area; it would provide more power, and more reliable power since there were three machines at the station with a crew to keep them running continuously. We decided to do it even though the power line would have to be underground, crossing the antenna field to minimize interference. That meant a big long ditch had to be dug. I proposed that we get some Jap prisoners to provide the labor.
That was a fine idea, and I was told to do it. I called the Major in charge of a Jap prisoner of war camp that was several miles south toward Batangas and found that we could borrow prisoners on a day to day basis. Just come and get them he had said. So I selected a sergeant and six men, saw that they were well armed with carbines, and sent them off. They returned soon with a truck load of young Japanese prisoners, and the sergeant reported to me. “They laughed at us down there for being so well armed,” he said. “The Major said the Japs will not try to escape unless ordered to do so by some officer. Just don’t let anybody order them to escape.” That turned out to be accurate advice. We found that the Japs did exactly as directed. Told to dig – they dug until told to do something else. They literally had to be directed when to pause for a rest. There wasn’t a sign of interest in escaping. For a noon meal, all they wanted was a plate of rice. Within a week, the ditch was dug, the power line laid, the ditch filled, and our reliable power was in service pleasing everyone.
We were not the only outfit trying to keep the men happy waiting for the return home migration to start – the Navy had problems, too. One weekend, the cruiser ESSEX came into port and gave shore leave to about 2000 crew members. It was a disaster. Between fights and bad liquor, twenty of their sailors died.
As we expected, word came that a fixed station was to be built in Tokyo for the use of MacArthur’s new headquarters. Hemond and fifteen of the men were advised that they had been selected as the cadre for the Tokyo station – we should be ready to move on 15 September. But the 15th came and went and nothing happened. I never did find out which radio men went to Tokyo.
In conversation with Mr. Matthews of RCA, I learned that he had proposed to his company that they lease the station from the Army, use it for their own commercial purposes, and rent service back to the Army. This way all the Army boys could go home. In addition, a lot of civilian jobs would become available to man the station – jobs that Matty thought would be worth anywhere from $400 to $600 per month and be attractive to some signal corps men. We wished Matty lots of luck, but the idea never caught hold at RCA.
Matty also advised that RCA was starting up an overseas phone service for military persons. They were offering three minutes at a modest charge. Matty said don’t try it – first minute, the lady cries – second minute, nobody can think of anything to say – third minute, she cries some more – end of conversation.
Final points were reckoned as of V-J Day when my total was 50. But the word passed around was that the first returnees would be people with 85 or more points. So I knew I had a long wait. However, the Army also announced a goal of returning 75% of the officers by 1 July 1946.
In October, the PX announced a new gift service tailored to the Christmas season. Simply pick out a gift from their new catalog, identify it by catalog number, and pay for it along with mail and handling charges. They would assure that the gift, appropriately wrapped, would be delivered in time for Christmas. I used the service for gifts to Fran and our parents.
From time to time, various men had animal mascots. Probably our favorite was Peso, a little white short haired English terrier. He was an energetic and sociable tyke – enjoyed going to the movies where his yipes were regarded as applause, and his growls were disapproval ratings. Peso usually made the rounds of all the living quarters at least once a day. But, of course, his favorite hang-out was the kitchen where he got special notice. Peso had a friend, a perky white female we called Queenie. The boys had a betting pool as to when there were going to be more Pesos. I forget who won the pool.
The dogs
My letter of 17 September contains note of a trip.
“Today the boys arranged a trip to Tagaytay Ridge, so I went along. It was a fizzle, however, for when we arrived the clouds were too dense. The Ridge is about 30 miles south of Manila. On good days, I am told, one can look straight down on Lake Taal with its volcanic mountain out there in the middle. But the fog was so thick it was like trying to look through some ice cream at the bottom of a dish. But we could see back to the north where Manila Bay (cluttered with ships) spread out, and back to the east separated by a narrow land corridor from the broad expanse of Laguna de Bay. I can easily believe that, on a bright clear day, this is one of the scenic spots of the world.”
The weather pattern in the Philippines follows an interesting pattern. One could generally anticipate lots of hot sunshine during the day when the temperature would be in the nineties, so we usually wore a sun-tan uniform, with the collar open, and the sleeves rolled up partially. Strictly speeking, the correct uniform required a tie, but nobody wore them. Sometime almost every day, one could also anticipate a sudden rain storm. The rain would be heavy for periods of ten to sixty minutes, but would then shut off like somebody turned off the faucet, and the hot sun would reappear. So we became accustomed to a wet feeling; either we were wet from perspiration, or we were wet from the sudden downpour. The weather terror was the sometime typhoon. Then the rain would be accompanied with very high winds causing the rain to seem to fall horizontally, and things in our tents would get soaked. And sometimes, the wind would overturn somebody’s tent. Frank McTigue often talked about the Navy’s fear of typhoons because they could be fierce enough to sink ships.
The days crawled by as we hoped for signs that the homeward trek had started. Our biggest problem was how to fill up the “wait” time and make it tolerable. Work didn’t do it; there were so many officers available that we went on an 8 hour on, 24 hour off cycle, which simply supplied more hours to be filled up. We wrote letters. I wrote one every day to Fran, and often to others including my mom, my brothers, and friends like Benny Rosenburg and Johny Powers. We saw movies. There was a double feature every night. The Navy had a receiver station adjacent to ours. They had a much grander living style which included a large day room with handsome movie facilities. So we shared movies at their place. They had a daily allotment of one show, and we did also. Not infrequently, the movie was a repeat, but that seldom made any difference; we went to see it anyhow.
We read books. I think I read two or three a week, which was fast reading for me. We lingered over meals, and we lingered over showers when there was lots of sun heated hot water. We slept a lot. We played games a lot. Card games, especially poker, appealed to most guys, but my passion was chess. Hardly a day passed without one or more bouts of chess with another officer. And we went sight seeing when a jeep could be wrangled from the motor pool. Lots of guys took courses from the Armed Forces Institute. And later, when it was allowed and cameras became available, we took lots of pictures which we also printed and developed.
The World Series that year was between Detroit and Chicago. Because of the great interest in the games, WVTM intended to put them on in real time as well as several taped replays. The need for the real time broadcast was to keep honest the betting that was sure to ensue throughout the services. The problem with a real time broadcast was that it started at three AM our time. But, in view of the importance of a good signal, I kept for myself the task of selecting the stateside signal that we would pipe downtown to WVTM. It turned out to be an interesting challenge, because it was a time of day and a frequency band when conditions could be quickly changeable. I learned that when the direct path signal via San Francisco fell apart, there often was a very good signal available via the Armed Forces station in London.
One day in October, Lt Barksdale, who had a point total of 96, got his orders to report to the Replacement Center for shipment to the States. We cheered for him and for this concrete proof that the home bound process had indeed started. Barksdale turned the administrative reins over to Lt Griggs and left.
Got talking to our Filipino houseboy, Frisco, one day after he had happened to see the collection of photographs on the inside of the cover of my footlocker. He expressed the opinion, “You rieesh – you rieesh!”
“No,” I said, “I’m not rich. That’s my father’s house; but most houses back home are like it. Tell me about where you live.”
Then I got a pathetic tale. Frisco was married with two baby sons (he looked like a young kid himself), and they lived with his parents in a one room bamboo hut down the Batangas road. The Army pay was thirty pesos a week, but rice for the family cost him three and a half pesos per day. No wonder he thought me rich.
As each day went by without visible signs of people leaving to go home, the matter of returning the boys became a political issue. The Signal Center had been putting out a news bulletin called GROUP GARBLE. The editors started a movement to get everyone to write a slogan on the outside of their letters home – the slogan to read, NO BOATS, NO VOTES. I don’t know if it had any real impact, but when a note from my dad said the activity had found its way into the Congressional Record, we felt better at least. Then the Manila Port Commander announced that he would be willing to use Liberty ships as troop transports. He would have to have forty-eight hours work time, and money enough to add facilities for feeding and caring for men for a thirty day trip – the Liberty was designed as a cargo carrier. Apparently, he was given such authority – by November a Liberty left Manila taking 500 men home.
31 October 1945 was the third anniversary of my marriage to Frances. I marked the day with a telegram to her, and she sent a wire to me. But cables were a sad substitute for in-person celebrations. We would just have to make things even next year on the fourth anniversary.
The Army announced a major re-enlistment plan; we officers were supposed to spread the word. The idea was to collect lots of volunteers for overseas service by offering an attractive deal. There would be a major re-enlistment bonus, a choice of duty assignments outside the Continental limits, and a ninety day furlough at home, with priority shipping, prior to the start date of the new enlistment. The idea had an immediate appeal to the low point men whose prospects for going home were remote, and these men signed up in droves. It apparently mattered little to Army authority that this plan would further delay the legitimate return home program based upon point totals. Nor was it ever explained why the Army needed more men – we thought the idea was to dismiss the troops as fast as possible. These days we would have been aware that high ranking officers never are willing to diminish the size of their commands.
One day in November my attention focused on my carbine which was perched convenient to my bunk. I realized that I hadn’t given it any attention in weeks and it was due for a systematic cleaning and oiling. I set to work putting it in first class shape, all the while thinking why do I need this thing anymore? When I had the gun shining like new, I took it over to the supply room and turned it in. I noted that it had never been fired in anger. The sergeant was quite willing to accept it, and as he made out a receipt for the weapon, it seemed like another symbolic gesture that the war was over.
It turned out that Peso had a son, and the boys named him Lucky. Lucky was a chip off the old block, full of pep and enthusiasm for rough house. He trailed along after Peso to the movies every night; but soon bored of the pictures, he usually busied himself chewing on somebody’s boots.
Amateur radio was officially authorized on 15 November, but Fred, and Ryan, and Taylor had already been busy building and testing transmitters. Soon there was a contest to see who could make the farthest contact using no more than 5 watts of radiated power. Most of the boys operated at 20 meters on CW, and made frequent contacts in California.
Fred tuning up
The mess sergeant came back from his daily run to the supply depot for rations with the very happy news that he had some ice cream which he would serve at dinner. It was quite a treat when he set out banana splits with the vanilla ice cream smothered with butterscotch sauce. For a moment or two we could imagine we were back in the States.
Word had been passed that the Army Recreation center at Baguio was open, offering golf, tennis, fishing and swimming along with fancy quarters and delicious dinners. We had a surplus of officers, so Lt. Hannah was authorized to be absent for a week to try out the new facilities and report on them. Hannah was gone a week, and he returned quite satisfied. The golf course was top notch, so were the tennis courts, but he hadn’t tried out anything alse. Seems that the catch was that time spent officially signed in at the Center would be deducted from one’s terminal leave. So Hannah bummed a place to sleep at an MP camp, and ate at the USO and the Red Cross station, and never signed in to the Center, thus protecting his terminal leave time. All of us felt the same way about terminal leave – we wanted all of that when we got home – so none of the rest of us went to Baguio.
A notice on the bulletin board indicated we were entitled to wear two more ribbons. Everyone could wear the Victory ribbon. And anyone who had served in the States for at least one year was entitled to the American Theater ribbon. So I had those two added to my Good Conduct ribbon, my Philippine Liberation ribbon, and my Southwest Pacific ribbon with two stars (Leyte, and Luzon). So that made a total of five ribbons to decorate my dress uniform. We also were notified that the official shoulder patch of the 4025th Signal Service Battalion had been determined. Patches, to be worn on the left shoulder of the dress uniform would be available in about two months; however, the company tailor made some up and sold them to the men. I got one and sent it home to Fran to attach to the uniform. We also learned that any patch of any unit that one had formerly been in could be put on the right shoulder. So I asked Fran to put a 9th Armored patch on the right shoulder. But, the other day, some 45 years later, I checked my olive drab winter uniform and found that neither patch has been sewn in place. So there is a 45 year old chore waiting for Fran.
In November we learned that the long term plan for operating WTA was to hire Civil Servants to augment a cadre of regular Army people. The Civil Service jobs were tentatively put in the salary range of $2900 to $4500 per year which was assumed to be enough to interest lots of enlisted men. But there was no big rush to sign up because everyone wanted to know what the policy would be about bringing wives to the islands. The wife question was initially answered affirmatively – of course you can bring your wife over. So several men signed on for a Civil Service appointment. Then they got the truth – wives would not get transportation to the islands for another six months. So all the candidates cancelled out. But then one of them got a letter from home saying that both his brothers who had recently been discharged were unemployed and desperate to find jobs – so he changed his mind again and signed up.
The 16th of November 1945 was the first day of my fourth year in the Army. I was now eligible for “longevity” pay, which meant a 5% increase in base pay, which figured out to $7.50 per month.
There was a smart Alec announcer at the Armed Forces Radio WVTM. He frequently had nasty words for our service. “We’ll now give you the latest State-side news – that is, we will if somebody is awake at the receiver site and smart enough to turn on the receiver.” We decided to get even. There was another service we picked up from the States which was news bulletins dictated slowly enough so that they could be directly typed by a secretary. This was popular as a support for the many commands in the area. From that service we deliberately selected the noisiest hardest to copy signal we could find to transmit to WVTM. After several days of that, and after WVTM had got numerous complaints from the various headquarters, I had a telephone call from the WVTM officer, with humble apologies for their past insults. We gave them first class signals again.
I tried to swim every day, gradually increasing the number of lengths of the pool I did each day. Around mid-November, I finally did 100 lengths without stopping, all breast stroke; that was well over a mile and I was totally bushed by the effort. After that I raised my sights to do a 200 pool length swim, but I never made that.
Blasting caps were very popular with the natives for their use in fishing. A cap detonated in the water would stun the fish for yards around and they would float to the surface where they could easily be picked up. So blasting caps were frequently the target of the Filipino raids on the Manila ammunition dump. One night things got out of hand. A burglary was interrupted in progress, and the Filipinos threw away the evidence, which promptly detonated and started a fire in the dump. There followed three days of non-stop fire works that could be seen and heard for miles.
One day in late November, Fred and I went for another ride in his boat. We ventured out into the harbor to see what activity there was. We didn’t like what we saw. There was a large Japanese transport ship loaded with Japanese prisoners of war – all going home! How come they get to go home while we still have to stay here? Didn’t we win this war? And then, at Pier 6, we saw the Lurline, one of the fastest and largest of the American tourist fleet, loaded with GIs. But on close inspection, they informed us that they were a boat load of re-enlisters going home on their 90 day furlough. We saw more red! How come they all go home first? And over at the fitting dock, there was a lone Liberty ship being altered to carry men home. But it wasn’t moving, and when it did it would only take 500 men at a time, and consume nearly two months for a round trip. So, downhearted, we rode back up the river and stopped at the small boat repair depot where Ryan was on duty as radio repair man; Phil was always good for a laugh or two and he obliged us again.
A letter from brother Robert indicated that his prospects were good to be home from the European Theater by Christmas. That was great news. I reflected that Robert had gone into the service after me, had been to England and France, and now was getting out before me, and I had never seen him while a member of the armed services.
Thanksgiving was early that year in the Franklin Roosevelt custom. The mess sergeant out did himself. He served breakfast, and then a mid-afternoon dinner that had everything a turkey feast could include, and all one could possibly eat. It put everyone in a festive mood in spite of our disappointment over the slow pace of the homeward trek. Irrepressible Earl Hartman was in great good humor – at the start, that is, while singing the cook’s praises, he piled his plate high with all the good turkey, dressing, potatoes, gravy and everything else, then set the plate down at his place, and, as he was settling to enjoy the feast, managed to tumble the whole thing into his lap.
One natural result of the slow pace of the homeward movement was that everyone had more and more free time, and they naturally gravitated toward Manila seeking diversion and amusement. A recreation center was opened there, adding its attractions to the USO and the Red Cross canteens. But this led to more soldiers getting drunk and rowdy, and the posting of more and more MPs. By now there were even three check points to pass on the way into town. I went with the courier one day in our motor pool’s armored scout car. We were flagged down at the first check point outside the nurses’ compound, where the MP directed that we provide transportation to two nurses, which we did. On the return trip we were flagged down by the check point at the end of Dewey Boulevard, and the MP directed that we give rides to a bunch of men, which we did. But when we got to the next check point, we were flagged down and the driver was given a ticket for having an overloaded vehicle.
One day, we were surprised by the arrival of a contingent of some 100 men commanded by a Captain Grant, who announced that this was the 2nd Signal Service Group, providing secret Intercept service directly for the War Department. They had just flown in from the States, would make use of our intercept building, would expect to use our antennas and other technical facilities, and would expect to be fed and housed in our camp. Friction promptly developed. To begin with, Captain Grant wasn’t satisfied to sleep on a cot; only an iron bed with mattress and sheets would do. He didn’t get them, nor did he get any of the other State-side amenities that he wanted.
Shortly after that, our first Civil Servant arrived. He was a young fellow who had been trained in the RCA school, and seemed well qualified for radio teletype duty. We got him settled, and that evening he came to the officer’s mess, a precedent already set by Mr. Matthews, also a civilian. But Captain Grant blew his stack – for our Civil Servant was a black man, and Captain Grant did not eat with “niggahs”! It was a tense situation, but when the Captain discovered that his rank was not enough to get our system changed, he backed down. In subsequent years, I was to wonder if this had been a precursor to the famous lunch room scene in Georgia. Weil, from the Deep South, was, of course, in the Captain’s corner. He announced that it was only because he was about to go home that he could tolerate this breakdown of decent race relations.
On 1 December, we switched to Daylight Saving Time, the only noticeable effect of which was that the open air movies could start earlier. After that I got more sleep at night.
Early in December Lt. Hannah, whose home was in Los Angeles, was released from duty and set to the Replacement Depot for shipment home. We cheered and bid his farewell. But we were to see him a number of times in the following days. It was his luck to get to the Depot as an entire Signal Service Battalion was also checking in to go home as a unit. They were an officer shy, so they picked up Hannah. But home for them was Fort Monmouth – the unit was going there to be deactivated. This meant that they would wait for a boat to take them all the way to New York: and the push out of Manila was to San Francisco. So that outfit, with Hannah, sat and waited for a boat. Hannah came back for supper many days giving us a blow by blow account of the mess he was in. One day he was excited, for the aircraft carrier Yorktown had come into port to assist in moving personnel and his outfit had been put on the Yorktown shipment. But then the next day they were taken off because the Yorktown skipper had declined to take his ship through the Panama Canal. But the episode lost the Signal Boys their place in line for a boat and they had to wait some more. It was nearly Christmas before Hannah finally left.
Lt Hannah of California
Sgt John Lane of Tennessee
Sgt Harold Perry of Rochester
Lt Alfred Mack of Brooklyn
Lt Earl Hartman, left; dentist – name forgotten; Lt Murray Hannah
Photography gradually absorbed our interest. The correspondence course I had take had gone fairly well, and I was ready to take pictures. Problem was I didn’t have a camera. Dad had sent me one, but it had never arrived. Weil had one, and Fred had one, both 35mm, but borrowing was not too satisfactory. However, film, paper, and chemicals were all readily available for free from the Air Corp Photo men who had a depot nearby. They went strictly by the exposure rules; when film or paper passed the expiration date, it was giving away. But the stuff was actually still useful. So we set up our own photo lab in the corner of our tent. There were plenty of bottles for developer (Weil always had plenty of bottles around). We got started by developing films shot off by Fred and Weil. We followed the photography text exactly and did fairly well. Prints were another matter because for some time we didn’t have an enlarger.
One day there was advance word of an important transmission coming in over the Single Side Band circuit. It was expected at three in the morning, and was to be relayed to the Signal Headquarters. The brass downtown was quite anxious about this circuit, and we had to demonstrate that we were ready. At the appointed time, I was in the station to be sure that the signals were in good order. It turned out that the important transmission was a broadcast of the Army vs Navy football game for use of the Downtown Officers’ Club. No wonder the brass was anxious for good signals. But, at about half time, the San Francisco circuit, as customary, began to fade out. Fortunately, I had learned from my frequency work that a signal of about 5000 ck originating in London would be strong in Manila at that time. I searched that part of the spectrum using a Super-Pro receiver and found the game broadcast coming in strong from an Armed Forces station in London. We switched to it from our fancy side band receiver and finished the game in great style. I don’t suppose anybody at the Officers’ Club was conscious enough to hear it.
Early in December, about twenty of our men were released from duty, but they weren’t sent to the Replacement Depot immediately. That was a mistake. While waiting, it was a non-stop party with a high alcohol content. Someone decided to have fun with the company bulldozer which was parked in the motor pool. They decided to mow down our tent city, but were dissuaded by some of the men not released. So then they decided to tackle the antenna field and knock down the towers. Fortunately the dozer got stuck in the mud before they got to the poles. The CO was all for holding a Court Martial but I persuaded him to send the exuberant drunks off to the Replacement Depot instead.
The headquarters officers put the fancy Wac-Wac Country Club back in commission. One Sunday, Bill Gausman invited Fred and me to accompany him to check out the place. It was pure luxury. They had the best of everything. There was a bar and lounge, there was a dining room with waiters and tablecloths, there was a large swimming pool with numerous WACs and Nurses lounging around the edge, and there was a championship golf course. The golf course was still being reworked, and play was not yet permitted. And the tennis courts needed lots of work. But a good time was had by all.
Hemond and Gausman
Bill Gausman
Officers’ pool at Wac-Wac
On December 17, 1945, Headquarters Order #177 was issued. Therein, Hollowell, Nordahl and Hemond were all promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. The most immediate impact was a pay raise: I now earned a total of $308.60 per month. Shortly after that, both Nordahl and Hollowell moved from town out to the site. Fred moved into my tent bringing with him some nice tables and a fancy Australian radio receiver that he had liberated. Jim Nordahl preferred the officers’ quonset. Weil was expecting to leave soon, and as a parting gesture he had found enough plywood to make us a new tent floor and even put it down all by himself.
Christmas was a strange day. From time to time, packages and cards had been arriving – I saved all such to be looked at on Christmas. Fred and Ira Weil took the other approach and opened everything the moment it arrived. So on Christmas, they had nothing new and shared my packages. I learned later that things I had sent home had at least arrived in the Christmas season. I had sent Fran a blouse made here by a Filipino tailor using material salvaged from one of the parachutes that the Airborne troops had used in the recapture of Corregidor. The mess sergeant did even better with the Christmas meal than he had done on Thanksgiving. We spent most of the afternoon eating it. Earl came in for more kidding as the fellows remembered his embarrassing food spill at the Thanksgiving dinner. He did better on Christmas – until dessert, that is – then his exuberance got out of control again and he spilled a glass of cider all over his trousers.
Fran’s parachute silk blouse
There were wild parties on New Year’s Eve. The Enlisted Men’s Club whooped it up and could be heard for miles. Most of the officers went to the downtown club for a night of revelry. Hemond volunteered to man the station and had a very quiet evening – scarcely any radio traffic. And thus Hemond was the only sober guy in camp on 1 January 1946. The mess sergeant had another grand meal for New Year’s Day, but there weren’t many hungry chaps around.
On 2 January 1946 I decided finally that I must have my own camera; too many photo opportunities were getting lost without one. So, with Weil along for his bartering capability, we went into Manila’s shopping district. A number of little stores were in operation, and some of them had cameras for sale. We looked them over closely but failed to find a unit that fit our requirements. Finally we ran into a soldier from the 86th Infantry with a camera he was trying to sell to the shop keeper. I asked what he had, and he showed us. It was a German made unit that he had bought when the 86th was in Germany; now the man was going home on points and he wanted to get rid of the thing. It was a Weltix, well preserved in a nice leather carrying case. It was a 35mm that folded into a compact package that fit into my shirt pocket. It could stop down to f2.9, and it had shutter speeds down to 1/3000 second. It would do the trick. I paid him 100 pesos (that would be $50) and the camera was mine. To celebrate a successful mission, we went over to the Manila PX which had lately started to sell ice cream cones and had ourselves several. That camera took lots of pictures in the Philippines, on the way home, and for years afterward until it was superseded in 1980 by a Canon AE-1 reflex unit.
LT Ira Weil, Jeep
One day, Fred liberated a big roll of nylon screening. We set out to tack it up all around the tent openings to try to keep the mosquitoes at bay. It was a big job, but proved worthwhile – it kept the critters out and we could devote attention to our photographic work on dark nights. After than Fred found a large tarpaulin that could be used as a second roof, thus forming an air space which should keep the temperature in the tent at more manageable levels during the heat of the day. It was tough getting that in place, but Weil even helped out and we got the job done. It too worked like a charm.
My letters are overflowing with comments and complaints about the way the job of getting the boys home was being handled. Nothing however irritated the men more than the monumental goof by Secretary of War Patterson. When he addressed the troops in Manila over the radio station, he displayed almost complete ignorance about the policy as well as the status of the home trek. The following day there was a spontaneous crowd of about 20,000 angry soldiers in front of GHQ shouting obscenities and demanding an explanation. Lt. General Styer, the ranking officer since MacArthur was in Tokyo, tried to mitigate their fury, but he got booed for his trouble. The MPs finally had to break up the meeting, but it was a long time before the men could forgive and forget.
Our photographic “lab” was badly in need of an enlarger if we were to get decent size prints from 35mm negatives. Once again Fred was equal to the challenge. Somewhere he found a set of lenses that had been used in a camera, and these became his projection lenses. The kitchen yielded two large food containers, which, when soldered together made a fine housing for the light source. A couple of pieces of brass strips were used to make a negative holder, and we were in business.
Photo enlarger
And what a business it became. Hardly a night went by when someone wasn’t developing film or making prints. And with this facility, there was great impetus to take pictures of the area. Most Sunday afternoons were used for photography junkets. We revisited Tagatay Ridge one day, went to see the Ipo dam north of Manila on another day, toured out to the Wawa Dam east of Manila on another Sunday, all the time taking pictures of scenes and scenery. The Weltix did noble duty and proved to be a fine camera. (Editor’s note – see end for gallery of Philippine photos.)
On 21 January, Ira Weil got his orders to report to the Depot for shipment to the States. Within thirty minutes, Ira was packed and the courier took him to the Depot. Ira was back for supper, however, because there were no ships that were ready for loading passengers. It was another week before Ira actually got an assignment to a boat. During that time his main interest was figuring out how to smuggle enough booze on board to last him the trip.
About that time, the personnel situation for running the station was getting highly confused. The regular enlisted men had decreased greatly in number, the recruitment of Civil Service personnel had increased, the number of Filipino operators had increased, and there were too many officers. Earl Hartman made me his Assistant and gave me responsibility for keeping all circuits manned properly at all times. With the continuing mix of people available, it was a challenge. Civil Servants in particular were hard to deal with because they would do only what was in their contract. Thus a repairman would not operate, and an operator would not repair. This is not exactly the situation we had had with all enlisted personnel. The Filipinos were very willing, but all of them were beginners and it took more time to see that they did the work correctly than it would have required to do the work oneself.
One hot day I wondered why I continued to wear combat boots when they made my feet uncomfortable. Somebody said there were low cut shoes at the PX. So I went and bought a pair of fancy officer shoes. They cost me three pesos and sixty centavos.
As noted, Sunday afternoon had become the time when we went on photo and sight seeing expeditions. About mid-February, I set out to see the Malacanan Palace, the home of the Philippine President. I didn’t know the way for sure, so I stopped to inquire of a Filipino standing beside the road. He said sure he knew the way; and he was even going that way so could he have a ride? I readily agreed, whereupon he turned and beckoned to a group of natives that were huddled behind some shrubbery out of my sight. The gang, consisting of children and adults, came pell-mell jumping in and on the jeep grasping every hand hold. I was inundated with ragged odorous humanity. But I had made an agreement and stuck with it. So did the guy, and after a short drive, we were at the Palace, the gang debarked, and I could breathe again.
The Palace grounds were surrounded by a wrought iron fence, but the gate was open and unattended. I walked inside. The grounds were immaculate. Gorgeous gardens were everywhere, providing tempting targets for my camera. I explored the grounds all the way around the mansion, expecting to meet someone who would challenge my presence – but I met no one. I approached the front entrance of this ornate Spanish style structure, and, finding the door wide open, I entered. There was not a person in evidence, so I continued my exploration wandering through room after room, all richly furnished and decorated, all gleaming and polished. I exhausted my roll of film and left, totally amazed that I could have seen their “White House” all by myself totally unchallenged.
Malacanan Palace
Malacanan Palace
On 19 February, the names of Hartmann, Schmalback, and Hemond were posted on the “90 Day List”. This was great news signifying the beginning of the end of our Phillippine sojourn. The 90 day List was the General Headquarters method for warning the various commands that the people whose names were there would be available for duty no more than another 90 days.
Chuck Schmalback
The scene was gradually changing. We learned that one day when we went to call on Phil Ryan at his small boat radio repair shop. Phil wasn’t there – in fact the radio facility had moved out and in its place was a store, run by some natives. We hunted around and finally found Phil – the owner of the property had reclaimed it from the Army and gone back into business, forcing Phil to find a new spot for his service. That same day we went down to the wharf area to see what troop activity there was. There wasn’t any, but we did find that two commercial sea lines had reopened their docks for business. And back at the site, we found Mr. Matthews steamed up over the fact that he had to give up some of his space because the Army was renting it to Mackey Radio Company – RCA was to have competition. And then one day, we were ordered not to let civilians in to see our movie shows; seems the commercial theater interests were complaining that we were spoiling their business. We conformed to the order by putting a low rail fence around a small section of our open air movie ground and calling that the theater in which civilians were not allowed.
The power line from the power house to the living quarters was not properly protected from short circuits because the proper power switch had not been available at the time we had strung the line. We had promised ourselves we would fix this as soon as possible. One very hot afternoon, I looked at Earl Hartman, and he looked at me and we mutually suggested that we should go into town and locate a power switch. We took off in Earl’s jeep, and when we got to town we stopped off at this place that had a long line of guys. We joined the line, and after a wait, discovered that they did not have power switches – only double chocolate hot fudge sundaes. To be certain, we even stood in line twice – but they still only had double chocolate hot fudge sundaes. Thereafter, on succeeding days, we went on a number of power switch searches, but always the lines led only to ice cream concoctions.
Ryan’s jeep was stolen one day emphasizing the problem of protecting one’s transportation. The Army had started selling surplus jeeps to civilians, but there was no policy for spare parts or tools. So the Army’s jeeps became targets of civilians needing something; tires were frequently stolen, but it was easier to take the whole machine. Fred took action to protect his jeep; he installed three great big padlocks; one sealed off the engine; one held onto the spare tire; and the third locked the steering wheel; all in addition to the ignition lock plus an additional hidden ignition switch. One would have to know the combination to get away with Fred’s jeep.
Fred with Jeep
HC – same Jeep, same place
Checking the dipstick
Army Recreation started to offer a day trip out to see Corregidor. One Saturday, Fred and I decided to go. We had to start early, for the boat left from the wharf area about 8:30. Turned out the trip was only for enlisted men who had reserved places; but the sergeant running the show let us get aboard anyhow. The boat used was similar to the 100 foot vessels that the Coast Guard uses for harbor patrol. At fifteen knots, it took a good part of the hot sunny morning to cross the broad bay and reach the pier at Corregidor’s narrow waist. Then we tramped the island from end to end taking many pictures. The fortifications and structures were in complete ruin, and so rapid is jungle growth that much of the destruction was already being buried under the foliage. The island consists of two major rock mountains separated by a small low plain in between. The smaller mound, to the east, is honeycombed with tunnels which were used as the island’s hospital. The larger mound, to the west, facing the ocean, was studded with coast artillery. Standing on the edge of the sheer cliffs that face the sea, and observing the narrow harbor entrances, one on each side of the island, I could easily imagine that the island was impregnable. Yet MacArthur and Wainwright had lost it; and so, in their turn, had the Japanese lost it.
Headed out to Corregidor
Control of the Civil Service personnel became more and more of a problem as their numbers gradually increased. With enlisted men, an order could be issued, and it would be complied with. That process with the Civil Service only invited trouble. After much thought, I decided that we had to resort to a system of Delinquency Reports. Orders to the Civil Servants would be posted on their bulletin board. If someone did not comply, a Delinquency Report was issued. The Report had a place for the person to reply in writing. The system multiplied the paperwork, but it worked – Civil Servants do not like a paper trail defining their delinquencies.
On 18 March, Earl Hartman was relieved of duty, and the responsibility for command of the radio station WTA was turned over to Hemond. Earl signed in at the Paranaque Replacement Depot that day, but was back in camp for supper. He wasn’t assigned to a ship until 26 March. In the meantime, we managed to fit in a few more “power switch” searches.
Two of the Civil Servant shift chiefs were men with merchant marine backgrounds who had been hired by the personnel Major downtown. One of these fellows struck me as unreliable, and I began to wonder about him. So I made inquiry one day of the Manila F.B.I. representative, who said that merchant marine personnel frequently were a source of trouble. “Ask to see their Draft Cards”, he suggested. So I did, of both of the men. In both cases the answer was evasive, “It’s down in my luggage in my tent.” The next day, the one I was suspicious of was nowhere to be found – he had disappeared into thin air. And the other one sheepishly admitted that he had no draft card because of his age – he was only seventeen, and had falsified his age on his application. I gave him the choice of being fired, or requesting demotion to shift operator. He took the latter. The two shift vacancies then generated some healthy competition among the other Civil Servants.
Pay scales for the Filipino civilians had become a problem. The whole battalion was now employing about 1400 Filipinos without ever having tried to put together a sensible pay policy. The natives were conscious of this; for instance, our power plant operator got less money than a day laborer at the Control Center. One of the HQ Majors was told to straighten this mess out, and he put together a committee to help. I was one of the group. We met for three straight days at the Transmitter site north of Manila before we finally got a handle on the problem.
A typhoon struck the Philippines on 4 April. Thanks to Fred’s ingenuity in finding sufficient numbers of cables and anchors, our tent suffered no damage. But the camp generally was roughed up. At least six of the tent quarters were completely blown away, and most of the permanent buildings had roof damage.
On 10 April, I was released from duty. Command of the station was turned over to Fred Hollowell, and I was free to plan ahead while awaiting shipment orders. My first concern was the condition of my luggage. We could ship a foot locker and a duffle bag. We were permitted to carry whatever we could personally manage. I planned to carry my Val-Pac. Upon checking it out, I discovered that it was occupied by a family of mice. I routed them out, and then noticed that the straps were mildewed and frayed. They needed replacement. Fred helped. He had some good straps liberated from somewhere.
All luggage had to have name and final address painted on in large black letters. There was some satisfaction in doing that and observing the results. Maybe this was real, and I was going home! 1ST LT HAROLD C HEMOND 01650573 174 PEARL ST HOLYOKE, MASS
On 12 April, exactly one year to the day from when I had first set foot on the Philippines, I was advised to pick up orders at Battalion Headquarters. I did so, learning that I was to report to the Paranaque Depot on the morning of 16 April 1946. Chuch Schmalback also received orders, except he had to report on 15 April. Phil Ryan and Steve Taylor were included on the 16 April order. I reported to Col. Beck and expressed appreciation for having the good fortune to serve under his excellent leadership. He was gracious, assuring me that no officers were any better and that there was a place for me in the Army at any time. I saluted and left HQ – for good! I went back to camp and sent a telegram to Frances.
But that wasn’t the only biggie event of the 12th. That night, Fred and I got robbed! Probably by some native, although that is speculation. The uniform I had been wearing that day, I had put on my trunk locker as I went to bed. It was gone in the morning. Along with it went a fountain pen and a pocket knife. Fortunately, per a long standing Army habit, my wallet was safe under my pillow. But Fred wasn’t as lucky; he lost a uniform and his wallet. After that Fred made up a booby trap using a long trip wire around the tent that would knock over a pile of coke bottles if disturbed. They call that locking the barn door after the horse has run away.
Fred’s amateur radio station finally got on the air the next day. The Colonel had forbidden amateur transmissions out of the receiver site, and that had slowed Fred down a bit. But he arranged to set his transmitter up at Control downtown, and operate it remotely over one of our spare telephone lines. So on this day he was finally ready for a test. He called CQ on 20 meters using the call KA1ZU, and immediately hitched up with a fellow on Guam. After that he tried for a Massachusetts contact, but didn’t make it.
On the morning of 15 April, using Fred’s jeep, I drove Chuck Schmalback over to the Paranaque Depot. Then I came back to the site, walked up to the station, and, with some strange sentimental tugs, looked the whole place over for the last time, wondering all the while whether or not my presence had made any significant difference. That evening, the mess sergeant having also departed, the all Filipino kitchen put on the dinner; it was a delicious roast chicken meal with all the traditional fixings plus pie and ice cream for dessert. After that there was a movie, and then I played Jim Nordahl three games of chess, winning two. Early on the morning of the 16th, Jim Nordahl drove me over to the Paranaque Depot.
It was important to get there early, because the order in which one signed in was the order in which one would get assigned to a ship. I was not the first there – far from it – the place was overrun with officers with orders to report on the 16th. I got in line and finally got into the processing deal which amounted to much paper work plus a bunch of shots by the medics.
The medics seem to be the most important people to impress at the depot – can’t get on a ship unless they pronounce you fit for the trip with no infections, etc. After that, I got assigned to a barracks and began another wait.
Paranaque, which is on the Batangas Road on the way into town about three miles from the site, had been originally built to house the Nurse Corps. It therefore had a high dense fence all the way around to assure the ladies of privacy. But that fence also assured the occupants of little breeze. Of all the hot places I had been on the islands, this was certainly the hottest. So, although we were technically restricted to the Depot grounds, most everybody ignored that order at will.
The routine at Paranaque was simple. There was shower and shave, dress, and breakfast. Then wait for the posting of ship assignment which happened around ten o’clock – if your name did not appear, you were free until the next day when the process was repeated. Four transport ships were in the harbor: the Sea Star, the General Bundy, the General Pope, and the Admiral Sims. Everybody speculated as to which ship he would draw. My guess was that I would be on the General Pope which would be interesting because it was a sister ship of the General Blatchford that I had come to the Philippines on.
But for the present, there was nothing more to do but wait. Chuck was there. So was Phil Ryan and Steve Taylor.
On the 18th, Chuck’s name appeared on the list for Sea Star, leaving the next day. We went out to the site for dinner, and Chuck bid everybody good bye. The next morning, the two of us had breakfast, and then I helped him in his final packing. He discovered that his toilet case did not have any soap -so I found an extra in my case and gave it to him – it was highly optimistic that he would get a chance to use it on the ship. But then he was off, and I checked the bulletin board once more for my name with no luck.
On the morning of Saturday, 20 April 1946, the shipping list for Admiral Sims was posted. My name was there. So was Ryan’s and Taylor’s Shipment was set for Tuesday, 23 April 1946, at 9:00 AM. That would be two days after Easter, which somehow seemed fitting. I rushed to send a telegram to Frances.
GOING HOME
There was nothing I was required to do save wait for the Tuesday morning ship loading activities. Theoretically I was restricted to the Paranaque grounds until then, but I wanted to use RCA for sending a wire to Fran, so I slipped out, went back to camp, got the telegram off, and then stayed for dinner, the Saturday evening movie, and a last round of good-byes.
The next day, Easter Sunday, happy speculation at breakfast that the Sims was a speedy ship and we would have minimum time at sea with her was rudely interrupted by the public address horn. “Now hear this! Sims passenger list has been corrected. All hands should consult the corrected list when it is posted at 1000.”
Disaster! We’ve been bumped from the list! Everyone conjured up his own version of what had happened. I would be heartbroken if I had to rescind the happy telegram that I had sent yesterday. The wait until 1000 was pure torture. At last the list was posted. My name was still there! But thirty-three men had been dropped. I didn’t know any of them. Ryan and Taylor would still be on the Sims with me.
Shaken by the event, I went off to the Easter Sunday service, which had a calming effect. And after that I did some laundry. Very little needed washing, but washing was doing something and it filled up time, so most of my clothes got washed. It was a good move because it later turned out there were so many people on the Sims that access to the ship’s laundry was a lost cause.
About noon, we were advised that luggage for the ship’s hold had to be ready on the shipping platform at 1600. So I completed packing my foot locker and duffle bag, and surrendered them to the supply sergeant, wondering if I would ever see them again.
Monday was a long, long day. The only thing I had to do was pass by the doctor – he had the last word on whether of not a fellow could get on the ship and he was quite pro forma about it. After that I got a haircut – not that I needed one, but it was something to do. And then it seemed time to load my Weltix camera with a roll of Kodachrome film that I had been hoarding. I planned to record this trip on film as best I could. Fred came around to deliver some pieces of mail that had arrived at the camp, and he stayed for supper and the evening movie. After that I wrote letter #417 to Frances – it was my last letter from the Philippines.
Tuesday, the 23rd, was a typical cloudless warm tropical day. I was up early, having tossed about in bed most of the night. Ryan and I had breakfast together, and then we packed up. I was ready to go at least an hour ahead of time. I sat on my Val-Pac in the hot sun and wondered what criteria I would use for taking pictures, and never did develop a suitable answer. As I looked about at the busy scene, I recognized many potential good shots, but my film supply was very limited. This uncertainly was to plague me all the way home. Some shots I took too soon rather than miss the chance for a picture; some shots I missed altogether waiting for a better angle or better light.
Packed up – ready to go
About nine o’clock a convoy of GI trucks drove into the compound and we were told to climb aboard. We did, and soon the caravan departed Paranaque, driving down the main street of the little village on the now familiar road to Manila. None of the natives took any notice; it wasn’t like the cheering waving greeting we had had the year before.
GI truck convoy going home
Troop ship loading up, Manila
The Manila dock area was not far, and soon we were rolling past the MP gate heading for Pier #6 where we could see a large grey ship; its name board, Admiral Sims. The convoy stopped nearby, and we were told to dismount, and respond to a roster check. This took time; and it was hot. Finally, we were directed to the gangway midships which went from the dock level up to the main deck, a vertical height of at least four decks. At the bottom of the gangway, somebody else was making a roster check. After he checked my name, I trudged up the steep narrow incline trying to keep my Val-Pac from snagging on the rail and wondering if we were supposed to observe the Navy tradition of saluting the flag on boarding. Nobody was; so I didn’t.
Admiral Sims
From the main deck, we serpentined through a hatch and down a stairwell – down several levels – at least four decks – through another hatch into a compartment with four high stacks of canvas bunks supported by iron pipes. Aisles were barely as wide as a man. The scene was already crammed with humanity – assorted officers all – 2nd Lts., 1st Lts., and Captains all in a jumble. The grumbles were more than audible.
“Is this what they do fer officers?”
“Yeah, man, this is it.”
“I wouldn’t put the horses in here.”
“The god damn gooks – they must be on board – this ship supposed to have quarters for 500 officers.”
I was no less chagrined by the sparse quarters, but determined to make the best of it. If the ship went in the right direction, it served me well enough. I struggled through the mass of men finally finding an empty bunk in a side aisle. It was the bottom one of the stack. I inspected it momentarily, figuring that there was room for me or the Val-Pac but not both. But I was more interested in getting back topside to witness the departure and take a few pictures. I put the Val-Pac in the bunk, strapping it to the nearest stanchion and assumed that was enough to mark the bunk as mine. Noting carefully where I was so that I could bet back, I fought my way out of the compartment and got back to the main deck.
Loading was still in progress, and as I gazed down at the dock, it became evident why thirty-three men had been bumped from the passenger list and the rest of us bumped from the officer quarters. There below was a line of at least 150 pairs, male and female, GI and native girl, and an occasional child. Many a guy was bringing home his Filipino wife! Rather than watch the family migration, I turned my attention to the ship. I was going to be on it for a while so I wanted to see what there was. It certainly was big. Later I learned that it was 608 feet long, with a 75 foot beam, and a 29 foot draft, weighing in at 22,000 tons, and capable of 19 knots cruising speed. I walked fully around the main deck, looking at the ship first, and then gazing out across the bay trying to decide which of the many photo opportunities merited one of my precious shots. Somewhere the ship announcing system was giving directions about lunch, but I was not ready for that hassle, and anyway, I wanted to watch the departure.
It probably was about noon when the lines were cast off and the Sims began to move. I noticed with some gratification that the engines could not be heard – probably because they were rotary steam turbines – and probably because they were new. Pier 6 drifted away as Sims backed off to her full right rudder. Then she went ahead and turned west toward Corregidor and the harbor entrance. I climbed to the top deck for the best all around view. Although lots of GIs were on deck, I was somewhat surprised they were not all there. No doubt many were seeking lunch.
Ships – Manila Harbor
The blue expanse of Manila Bay, some thirty miles across, was flat as could be for there was no breeze at all. I was glad of that – it would reduce the onset of sea sickness. Thinking of sea sickness recalled the frightful mess on the Blatchford on the way over. Stay out in the fresh air as much as possible was a lesson I recalled from those days.
Light cruiser
A picture of Corregidor was a must. But when? The island was already well defined on the horizon. But much too far away for my little Weltix. I watched as Sims gradually narrowed the gap and Corregidor grew. When the island and both channels around it could be framed in the Weltix view finder, I was tempted to flip the shutter. But I held off. I knew I wanted shots of the island’s head walls and that would use up my picture budget.
As we passed Corregidor close in at a few hundred yards distance, I took the photos that I apparently had programmed myself for. I stayed on deck to get a further view of the island and Bataan Peninsula, for it became quickly apparent that Sims was going to round Luzon to the north leaving Bataan to starboard. Well into the afternoon the Philippines had disappeared over the stern. I got tired of watching and decided to try to find my bunk.
Corregidor
Bataan
It wasn’t easy. I got lost several times. Finally I came upon a side aisle and found my Val-Pac in a lower bunk quite as I had left it. Trouble was that my neighbors had encroached on my limited space. When they had been cajoled into removing their gear from my bunk, I had to fit my gear and myself into that little hole. I opened the Val-Pac its full length and used it as a mattress. Not the Hilton, but it worked.
The main problem was passing time. As I had learned from experience, a daily routine would help to subdivide the day into manageable segments. The routine was built around the meals. When dinner was announced, one stood in line to enter the mess hall, ultimately was handed a divided tray which he carried to the food window. There each segment of the tray was filled with something – meat, potato, vegetable, dessert, fruit, drink. The eating area was beyond. Long tables at waist height just wide enough for two trays, accommodated men on both sides. It was a boisterous scene; eat quickly and make room for the next group was the rule.
We were given three regular meals a day, and there was always plenty.
My daily routine started early. I woke and got up early when there was little competition for the wash facilities.
Then the line, and breakfast.
About ten o’clock, read the ship bulletin board and news report.
Then the line, and lunch.
After lunch, check the ship’s log. At noon the ship’s position is reported. Soon the venturesome were running gambling pools based on the best guess as to distance the ship traveled in the past twenty-four hours.
Mid-afternoon, the line and the ice cream cone.
Then the line, and supper.
After dark, watch the open air movie on top deck (no matter what is showing).
About eleven, get in bed. Sleep if you can.
In between, lounge in the open air on top deck; that will suppress sea sickness and avoid crowd illness. Play chess if a player is available. Steer clear of the gamblers. Thus the days dragged by.
I hadn’t seen Ryan since we boarded It must have been the second or third day when I saw him. He had been assigned responsibility for the ship’s “zoo”. This was a screened off segment of the top deck where animals belonging to the passengers were housed. There was every kind of pet imaginable. Ryan had to see to their welfare, arrange food and other essentials, and keep the area sanitary. I went up to see Phil expecting to hear a tale of woe. but not so. He was having a great time. He had drafted the GI pet owners to do all the physical work.
The days dragged by, a week dragged by, and it was May Day.
On the evening of 6 May, the public address sounds: “Now hear this. The Captain estimates time of arrival, Port of San Francisco, 0900 tomorrow.”
Cheers rang out throughout the ship!
Little sleep that night. I wanted to be up and on deck when we made the Port. I overdid as usual. By 0400, before sun-up, I went on deck to look around, but could see nothing. And it was cold; not really cold; just balmy Frisco weather; but cold by standards of the tropics. I went below and struggled to fish my great coat out of the Val-Pac. It didn’t have a liner – but it was the best I could do. I went back top side to take up my vigil. I wanted a picture of this event.
Gradually I was joined by others. As dawn was breaking I suppose the entire contingent of some 5000 men must have been on deck taking advantage of every possible perch.
Some sharp-eyed fellow called out, “There’s the Golden Gate!”
I couldn’t see it. There was a low-lying fog bank.
The sun rose higher, the fog thinned out, the bridge came faintly into view, and Sims was heading straight towards the center arch.
The gap between Sims and the bridge decreased, and an optical illusion worried me though I knew better. The masts of the Sims which I was standing beneath looked too tall to get under the bridge.
Couldn’t be.
But as the bridge got closer, the bridge got higher. So then I took a picture.
At last we were under the bridge and back in the States. Almost home. I took another picture.
Past the bridge we looked back at it as the morning sun turned it into gold. Yes, it was truly the Golden Gate – and I took another picture. Sims coasted to a halt. The anchor was dropped. We were lying just off Fisherman’s Wharf. It was about 0900 – just what the Captain had predicted.
But we had to wait. All morning we waited during which time we watched as the General Blatchford came into the harbor, passed right on by, and headed for the docks in Oakland. It was a great chance to take a picture of the ship I had gone out on, so I used another photo. A great view of Alcatraz completed the views in the harbor.
Alcatraz
General Blatchford – Frisco harbor
There was a call for lunch, but I was too busy absorbing the sights and sounds of the Frisco harbor and shore to bother.
Waiting to debark
It must have been 1500 before Sims began to move. Slowly she headed for the Bay Bridge. We went under the bridge and passed the harbor ferry that plies between Oakland and Frisco. Dead ahead was the Oakland Army Base. Sims nudged up to the pier and cast her lines ashore. The order to disembark was passed.
We were let into a huge covered shed lined with steel cots, told to select one and wait for instructions.
They were simple. Trains to all points would be leaving per the schedule on the bulletin board. Find yours and be sure you are on it. A steak dinner for everybody was being served in the terminal dining room. And then he told us where the telephones were located.
The rush to the phones was instantaneous. I was as fast as anyone. I placed a call to Frances. Soon we were connected and I was able to announce my presence back in the States at the Oakland Terminal. I think Matty must have been exaggerating. We didn’t use up our telephone time with tears. After that I called my mother with the same news.
The steak dinner was terrific, partly because it was good, and partly because I hadn’t eaten all day. I ate with Steve Taylor. Ryan was still on the ship tending his menagerie.
Then we checked the train schedules. Train to Devens departed at 0900 the next morning. Taylors’s train to Los Angeles was later.
We looked at each other. “How about a run over to Frisco?” I asked.
Steve was game, and, in spite of our fatigue, we caught the cars that traversed the Bay Bridge to Frisco, and got off at the foot of Market Street. Why does everybody walk so fast?
The city was ablaze with lights. We were the only service men around. It was business as usual. Of course it was eight months after V-J Day. For the vast majority, the War was old hat. We decided to go to the Top of the Mark. So we walked over to California Street and took the cable car to the Mark Hopkins Hotel. To the Top we went. We had rum cokes as we viewed the incredible Bay Area at night. Then I ran out of gas. Fatigue had caught up with me fast. We left the Mark, and parted – Steve still had some places to visit. I went back to the Terminal- to bed.
Up early on 8 May. Needed a shower most desperately, and got one in before breakfast. Then some food. Neither Ryan nor Taylor was in evidence – probably still in bed. Concerned about my foot locker and duffle bag, I sought out the Terminal office and asked a Captain on duty. “Everything is out of the ship’s hold,” he said. “Have you checked the storage pens? They are arranged by train destination.”
With that advice I looked for the storage pens which were near the train loading dock. One was marked Fort Devens. I looked in through the heavy wire mesh, and there in plain sight was a foot locker marked Lt HAROLD C HEMOND. I didn’t see the duffle bag, but seeing the locker was enough assurance that the luggage matter was under control.
Then I repacked the Val-Pac, putting the dirtiest thinks in the bottom of the pockets and the still usable stuff where it would be more accessible. Laundry would have to wait until I got home.
It was 0830 and time to look for the Devens train. I went to the loading platform, and a train was there already. I asked a man in a conductor’s uniform, “Is this the train to Fort Devens.?
“Sure is. if that’s where you are going, climb aboard.” I needed no further invitation. Only for a while I was still uncertain because there were parlor cars! With recollection of previous experience on troop transports, I certainly had not anticipated the Army would use parlor cars! But other men began trickling in, and they were all headed for Devens. So I chose a likely seat, stowed the Val-Pac, and relaxed.
By 0900 the car was filled. I had a seat mate – a Captain of Infantry as I remember. The train began to move. I had my camera ready. I had budgeted some photos for likely scenes on the train ride across country. But, of course, I was again uncertain when I should trip the shutter.
By all previous standards, that was a luxury trip. Comfortable seats during the day; Pullman beds with sheets at night; plenty of fine food three times a day; magazines to read; games to play; and the marvelous American countryside flashing by the windows.
California town – from train
California scenery
Nevada
Mining town
Royal Gorge
But I was anxious to get home.
Rest stop
Late afternoon of the second day, the train made a service halt at Salt Lake City. I ran into the station and sent a telegram to Frances.
ARRIVED SALT LAKE CITY 500 PM 9 MAY LOVE
Great Salt Desert
The train went on, and our routine of eat, sleep, and whatever continued. Two days later, we pulled into Kansas City in the morning and stopped at the station. I dashed into the terminal, which was no stranger to me, and sent a telegram to Frances.
ARRIVED KANSAS CITY 1030 AM 11 MAY LOVE
Kansas City
Kansas City airport
Missouri town
Missouri farm
I sent another telegram that day also.
ARRIVED ST LOUIS 830 PM 11 MAY LOVE
Sunday and Monday dragged by as the train rolled along at a leisurely pace. There was no further opportunity to dispatch telegrams.
Muddy canal near Cleveland
Ore carrier
Refinery
On Tuesday morning, 14 May, as I woke and looked out the car window, the scene was clearly that of upper New York State. After breakfast the train rolled to a stop at a small station bearing the sign NORTH ADAMS. Massachusetts at last!
North Adams, MA
Williamstown, MA
Massachusetts – white birch
Fort Devens is located in Eastern Massachusetts in the Town of Ayer near to Route 2. The rail line we were on would go through Greenfield, Athol, Gardner, and Fitchburg. We ticked off the towns with mounting anticipation. Shortly after the noon lunch, we rolled into the Devens depot, and debarked.
Separation from the service was by the numbers in typical Army style. There was an orientation, of course; I could scarcely listen; I wanted to get on the phone to Frances. But, as usual, the doctors had the first priority. It was probably 1400 before I had a chance to use a telephone. Frances was ready to leave; Matilda was raring to go; they set out immediately.
Most of the processing was scheduled for the next day. No there would be no exceptions; the schedule was quite fixed. Yes, officers were free to leave the Fort when not required at a processing session.
So nothing to do but wait some more. This time for Frances. We had agreed to meet at the Visitor’s Center. I walked over and checked the time – few minutes had gone by. Tried to get interested in something to read – but impossible. Every so often I would walk out the front door looking for a sign of Matilda in the parking lot. But the car wasn’t there. I checked my watch. Only five minutes had gone by since I last checked for Matilda. Time had stopped.
During what must have been the umpteenth check, I saw somebody walking toward the entrance – it looked like Frances. She came closer. Yes! Yes! It is Frances! I rushed to sweep her up. JOY! JOY! JOY!
It was evening and the bugler was about to sound RETREAT. All over the post time came to a stop and soldiers stood at attention as the flag was lowered. We didn’t care. The processing sessions were fully complete by late the following afternoon, so on 15 May 1946, Frances, I and Matilda drove to Holyoke, civilians all. Our Army days were over.
Home
Fran – Fort Devens
Mom – 59 Fairfield Avenue, Holyoke, MA
PHILIPPINE GALLERY
Corregidor
Ruins
Legislative Building – artillery point blank
Old city walls
Downtown Army
Headquarters
General officers quarters
Exchange – PX
Rizal Stadium
AIRCRAFT
SHIPPING MANILLA HARBOR
Patrol boat powers up
OFF BASE
Intersection of Azcaraga and Rizal
Directing traffic
Manila Hotel – MacArthur’s residence
Santa Thomas
Pasig River – Heart of Manila
Fishing rig – Pasig River
Evaporating ponds for salt
COUNTRYSIDE
Japanese gun – 120 mm
The Life and Times of Harold C. Hemond
The Life and Times of Harold C. Hemond
by Harold C. Hemond (1993)
Copyrighted – world rights 2020
See also Army Years
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HAROLD C. HEMOND
EARLY DAYS
No one has asked me to write this manuscript, nor indeed has anyone shown even the remotest curiosity about these events. So the only justification for this story is that the idea intrigues me: it’s a kind of challenge to try to piece together a tale that covers so many years when one’s main reliance has to be on memory with its many holes. Distortions. And fanciful notions. Nevertheless we shall make an effort at telling of the life and times of Harold Crean Hemond. The first day was the twentieth of July in the year of 1917. I do not remember the big event of that day, but I have some solid evidence that it must have taken place. I am told that the locale was in a bedroom of the upstairs apartment in a frame house at 126 Waldo Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. In the fashion of the time, I was born at home. At later dates, I came to realize that I had Agnes Louise Crean, from the James Crean family of South Hadley Falls, as a mother; Conrad Joseph Hemond, from the Joseph Hemond family of Chicopee, as a father; and Conrad Joseph Hemond, Jr. as an older brother (by thirteen months) which made me the fourth member of this family. Still after, in October 1920, Robert Lee Hemond arrived confirming my position also as the “middle” son among three boys.
Agnes Hemond – Mom – Wedding Picture
I have been told in later life that there was some initial confusion on the matter of my name. The first press notices indicated that I had been named Kenneth. But the Birth Certificate shows I had been named Harold. I supposed I would have eventually heard the story but that never happened, so I have assumed that the press account was simply in error. I doubt if anything I ever did would have been altered had my name actually been Kenneth.
James Crean’s wife, my maternal grandmother, Mary Ann Wilmott, had died at their family home in South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts on 3 October 1915 which was only four months after my parents had been married on 8 June 1915 and taken up residence on Waldo Street.
Mary Wilmott
James Crean
The oldest Crean daughter, Mary Virginia, married Charles Zack on 17 February 1917. They settled first in an apartment in Holyoke. Some time thereafter, James Crean decided to discontinue his household in South Hadley Falls. He and the youngest daughter Jean Loretta (then about 15 years old) came to live with my folks on Waldo Street; while two other daughters, Adele Geraldine (about 19 years old) and Ethel Imelda (about 17 years old) took up residence with Mary and Charles. The only boy in the family, Cornelius Joseph Crean, was at the time serving with the Balloon Service in the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.
Hemond – Crean get together after Agnes and Joe Wedding 1915: L to R – Lucinda Hemond’s mother, Jean Crean (Judge), Edward Hemond, Lucinda Hemond, Armand Hemond, Ethel Crean (Donovan), James Crean, Mary Wilmott Crean, Joseph Hemond, Emma Richard Hemond, Neil Crean, Agnes Crean Hemond, George Hemond, Mary Crean (Zack), Conrad Joseph (Joe) Hemond, Adele Crean (MacDonald)
My earliest memory is still vivid. I was in a crib – the kind with high sides the little tykes can’t even see over. A kindly elderly gentleman was handing me a piece of buttered bread that had been sprinkled with sugar. What a treat that was! Later I was to learn that the gentleman was my maternal grandfather, James Crean. Since he died at the Waldo Street house after a long illness on 18 March 1919 when I was age one year, seven months, and twenty-nine days, it appears that my first recollection was at a remarkably tender age.
The scene shifts to a larger two story frame house at 159 Pleasant Street at the corner of Beacon Avenue in Holyoke. It was not far from the Waldo Street house, since Waldo is a side street of Beacon Avenue. I do not remember this relocation, but it occurred sometime after my grandfather James died.
My next recollection concerned my brother Conrad’s bout with poison ivy. He was plainly very miserable, and it must have been my first impression of what it is like “to be sick”. The family doctor, the well known Dr. Cox of Holyoke, made daily visits to dab stuff on Conrad’s rash as he lay face down on a leather couch in the living room.
The Pleasant Street house was a big sprawling place in my memory; and that impression was confirmed when we revisited the site recently. But I do not remember the entire layout equally well. There were however, two first floor front rooms that I recall, and I suppose in the fashion of the times these would have been designated as the living room and front parlor. I remember the kitchen probably because, in addition to its function as the food center, it contained the “disciplinary corner” where I spent a lot of my time. There were two porches; one wrapped around the front – facing Pleasant Street; the other outside the kitchen, facing Beacon Avenue. The yard was unfenced, which might have been an oversight on the part of my parents in view of the very busy trolley car line that traveled along Pleasant Street, continually tempting little minds to mischief.
Pleasant Street
I remember the front parlor best for the Christmas tree which appeared there in all its splendor on Christmas morning. What a time Christmas Eve must have been for the folks: for they held steadfast to the belief that there should be no sign in the house that Christmas was approaching. So after we kids were put to bed on Christmas Eve, the tree had to be erected and decorated, the house decorations had to be displayed, the presents wrapped, the stockings filled! No wonder I remember those Christmas Days.
I suppose the folks, prior to Robert’s birth, prepared me to accept a younger brother into the family; but the effort did not pay off very well. I remember, after Robert arrived, being puzzled as to where he came from. And as I watched him being nursed by my mother under the watchful and attentive eyes of a visiting nurse, I was resentful of all the attention the new one was getting. The only attention-getting act I could think of was to refuse to wear my shoes, a ploy I’m told I often tried with indifferent success. But I suppose the folks were glad to see the shoes escape some wear and tear.
Then came that most exciting and expectant day, which must have been sometime in 1919, when Cornelius (Uncle Neil) came home from the War! He was a stranger to me, but I got hugged in turn and dubbed “Shorty”, a name he used to address me for the rest of his life (though my eventual six foot stature did little to justify the nickname). Uncle Neil did not stick around the house very long that day but dashed up Beacon Avenue to re-establish relations with the “girl up the street”, Yvette Martineau, who was to become Mrs. Cornelius Crean in October 1920. In the meantime, Neil lived with us in the Pleasant Street house.
So World War I had come to a conclusion on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918, a day since known as Armistice Day. It had been the war that “made the world safe for democracy,” but, like so many slogans, that one proved not to be true. The next major challenge to world peace was to await my coming of age – but more on that later. The War was chronicled by many persons, but among the more interesting reports was the one prepared by Uncle Charlie Zack. Charles was a newspaper man, so it was fitting that he should undertake to write a book about the Holyoke people who were involved in the armed services. Recently I reviewed a copy that I found in the Holyoke, Massachusetts library. He called it “Holyoke in the Great War”, and it was published by the Transcript Publishing Co. Holyoke, 1919. I found the following reports of my relatives:
p142 CREAN, CORNELIUS J. Sergeant, 5th Balloon Section Air Service. Enlisted August 17, 1917.
Stationed at Fort Slocum, N.Y. Transferred to Kelly Field, Texas. Transferred to Fort Omaha. Later
with American Expeditionary Forces. Wounded in Action.
Opp p 144 There is a picture of George MacDonald. (George was later to marry my Aunt Adele).
from the Willimansett section:
opp p 343 There are pictures of Edward, George, and Armand Hemond. (These are all younger
brothers of my father).
p 343 HEMOND, ARMAND, Private. Ammunition Train. Entered service August 1917. Stationed at
Camp Devens. With AEF.
Edward Hemond
P343 HEMOND, EDWARD, Wagoner, Ammunition Train. Entered Service May 1, 1918. Stationed at
Wentworth Institute. With A.E.F. Gassed four times in action.
P343 HEMOND, GEORGE, Private, Medical Corps. Entered service June 1917 after two months in
the Naval Coast Service. Stationed at Camp McClellan, Alabama.
A few additional comments: Edward was so badly injured by the gas attacks that he lost his memory. He was listed as missing in action and finally was identified by a friend who happened upon him by chance in a Veterans Hospital. Edward was then released as a permanent ward of my father who ever after saw to his well being. Edward gradually recovered a semblance of normalcy, although he was always pensioned by the Veterans Administration as 100% disabled. George, while at Camp McClellan, met an Army nurse by the name of Helen Howard Holbrook of Mendon, MA. In September of 1919, she became Mrs. George Hemond.
My father, being married with two children, was never called to armed service. At the outbreak of the War, he was employed as City Editor of the Holyoke Telegram, a paper which was later to be merged with the Holyoke Transcript. But sometime during the War, he was recruited by the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce to be its Secretary, a position he was to hold continuously for the next thirty nine years. So throughout my youth and adult life to past age forty, Dad and the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce were synonymous.
The Folks – Joe and Agnes Hemond
Holyoke Transcript
Holyoke Chamber of Commerce 2020
Sometime during or shortly after the summer of 1921, the family moved from the Pleasant Street house to a new two family residence at 43 Pearl Street in Holyoke. I do not know why this move was made, but I conjecture two contributing reasons; (1) it was a more fashionable address than Pleasant Street since it was in a developing area of the Highlands; and (2) after the fashion of the times, it was considered good business to own a two family dwelling place, occupy one of the apartments, and let the rent from the other apartment pay the carrying costs. I cannot say for sure, but I don’t believe this move ever fully measured up to the folks’ expectations. However, as the years went by, and the responsibilities of home ownership meant devotion of lots of time to home maintenance,my brothers and I were introduced to an ever expanding need to learn how to use tools to do things around the house. My later willingness and capability to become involved in home construction can be traced back to the years we lived at 43 Pearl Street.
I remember the house very well since the family lived there until sometime in the later 1930’s when I was attending college. It was a very large place but situated on a somewhat confining lot. There was a front parlor, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen with separate pantry, two bedrooms and a bathroom. There was also a large porch across the front of the house and another porch outside the rear door. The rental apartment on the second floor was similar. The cellar was spacious, with provision for a coal fired steam boiler and coal storage bin for each of the apartments. The second floor apartment was reached by a separate private front entry or by a set of rear stairs which were common to both apartments. There was also a large unfinished storage area on the third floor. A separate two-car garage completed the facilities.
43 Pearl Street
It was an interesting neighborhood, not yet fully built, so as time went on we watched as workmen came and converted good empty playing lots into somebody’s new dwelling. And after a few years the city even paved the road. The Mehieu family was next door; mister was in the jewelry business. There were two children but they were older than me. The Thompson family was at one corner of Pearl Street and Highland Avenue; the Whitehouse family was at another. Older children lived in both places. Around the corner on Pleasant Street, Abbie Ritterman ran a neighborhood grocery. Down Pearl Street a bit was the Welch Dairy. Hampden Street, with Martin’s Drug Store, Howe’s Market, and Luchini’s Fruit store was just four blocks down Pearl Street (plenty close for the young Hemond boys to be dispatched for groceries and other necessities). Trolley car lines were available one block away on Pleasant Street, and two blocks away on Lincoln Street, so transportation throughout the city was convenient. The Highland school, in which we would soon be enrolled, was on Nonotuck Street only three blocks from our house. The church was further, being on a parcel of land between Dwight and Suffolk Streets, a circuitous eight blocks away.
Soon after we moved into this place, I contracted a severe case of blood poisoning in my right leg. I have no recollection of any event or injury that could have been the cause of this problem, but I sure remember the consequences. No treatment was adequate to contain the infection, so there was an operation performed which installed drains in my leg. However, these did not initially work either. In a desperation move, Dad applied steaming hot packs, keeping up the rotation of the hot compress around the clock for several days. At last his efforts were rewarded by a break in the infection, the leg drains began to work, and the worst was over. The scars from the operation remain visible on my lower leg (now amid the varicose veins) to this day.
Dad
Early on, my father started to make improvements in the property. We boys helped. I think the first project was to rebuild the front stairs. These had been poured concrete, probably without sufficient foundation, for they were crumbling and something of a hazard. In retrospect, I don’t think Dad knew how to do the job, but that never seemed to stop him. We learned as we went. All went well as we dug out the old steps and carted the debris off to the nearby “dingle”. The forms for the concrete looked adequate. But when we mixed the concrete, Dad got too much water into the mixture and everything got out of control. Much of the watery mixture oozed out of the forms and rolled down the sidewalk to make unplanned formations that remained for years as a momento of that day. But the front steps never after gave us any problem.
The next project that I remember involved the repair of the dining room ceiling which had become necessary when a large portion of the plaster let go one day and fell on top of the table. Luckily there was no one in the room at the time, so there were no injuries. Mom thought Dad should use the occasion to create an “exposed beam” appearance, and he obliged. That was my first taste of working with finished wood. Dad made false beams – they were really hollow pine troughs. Lots of hand sawing was necessary (power tools were still along way off), and Dad took the time to show us how. He was very tolerant of my work; I’m sure he must have had to do a lot of touching up on it. The “beams” then had to be stained and varnished; so I also had an introduction to that process.
That ceiling job was so successful, and my mother was so appreciative of it, that Dad was encouraged to take on many more construction projects. There were a number of bookcases fabricated, finished and installed; the section of the front porch in front of the entrance door was totally enclosed with windows to make a sunny entrance foyer and support Mother’s bent for gardening; and the remainder of the porch was enclosed with screens to make a summer addition to the living room where one could usually count on a cool breeze. Nor were the grounds forgotten; there were decorative concrete rails around all the flower beds; the clothes line area was fully enclosed with lattice work (that forever after had to be painted each spring – yes, we boys did the painting); and in final proof of his mastery of concrete, dad built a large cement walled tank out behind the garage. The tank was filled with water, stocked with gold fish which grew to monster size, and rendered extremely attractive by the addition of various floating plants and pond lilies.
Connie and Harold?
Bob, Agnes, Joe, Connie, Harold
The Pearl Street era could well be referred to as the proverbial “good old days”. Transportation relied heavily on foot, the horse, the trolley cars, and the trains. The day of the automobile for the common man was still to come; and the day of air transport for the common man was years away. The telephone system was in its infancy; there was no such thing a public radio; and the wonders of television were not even suspected. Electric refrigeration was as yet unknown for the home, nor had the day of “electrical appliances” arrived. We were to witness all of these developments and more in the years to come.
Tradesmen and/or peddlars could be expected to tour by each home almost daily. Mr. LeGrande brought the large chunk of ice for the ice box, and in the process could be counted on to have a small chip of ice for each of us young fry. The baker usually came around after lunch, always with bread (a whole unwrapped and unsliced loaf) and hopefully with doughnuts or other goodies. The vegetable man came by in the morning, his horse drawn cart teeming with fresh produce which Mother (and the other neighboring ladies) examined closely before making their purchases. The grocery order, called in over the primitive operator run telephone system, was delivered from a horse drawn cart by Mr. Howes’ delivery man. And then there was the laundry man from Highland Laundry delivering the fresh clean clothes and taking away the dirty ones; there was the garbage man who had a franchise on collecting the food wastes; and there were the ashmen who worked for the city collecting ashes and general trash. In the fall, one could expect to see the coal men making their rounds loading up everyone’s coal bins; and on occasion throughout the year one could expect a visit from the ragman who collected and paid for old rags and newspapers.
In retrospect, I think that, for me, the “good old days” began its slow and inexorable change one day in the fall of 1922 (I was now five years old) when Dad drove home a brand new Oldsmobile. What a car! It was a large black touring phaeton with a folding canvas top. And it was so big that three adults could sit comfortably side by side on both the front and back seats! And it was so tall that I could stand fully erect in the back without my head touching the canvas top! I was later to realize that the engine even had four cylinders and an electric starter! That car changed the family habits almost instantly. Dad no longer rode the trolley to work each day but proudly rolled away in his “Olds”; and on Sundays, the family no longer walked to church but instead rode in the “Olds”. And Sunday afternoon was the time for the family “ride” which often as not brought us to South Hadley Falls to call on Mom’s friends, and then on to South Hadley Center via the river road and then back to Holyoke via the Connecticut River bridge below the Holyoke Water Power dam, up the hill and through the center of Holyoke, and on up the further hills to Pearl Street.
1922 Oldsmobile
Hemond kids with Olds – Unidentified man
One summer evening, Mother took us for a walk. We were heading for Martin’s Drug store, and we had been promised ice cream cones (they cost five cents in those days). When part way there, Mom stumbled on an uneven section of the sidewalk, sprained an ankle and went down in a heap unable to move. I went dashing home for Dad who quickly arrived and managed to get Mom on her feet and into the Olds and then home for treatment. We never did get the cones that night.
Dad was an avid reader of newspapers. In the morning delivery, we received the Springfield Republican and the Springfield Morning Union (these papers later combined), and in the evening delivery, we received the Springfield Daily News, the Holyoke Transcript-Telegraph, and the Springfield Evening Union. On Sundays, it was the Springfield Republican and one of the New York papers. As we boys grew up and learned to read, we, too, acquired the daily habit of perusing the news. Mom was an avid reader of magazines, and she usually brought home an arm load of them when the new monthly issues appeared on display at Martin’s. Typically her magazines would include the Ladies Home Journal, and the Saturday Evening Post.
Dad was also a chain cigar smoker. At any time of the day, he could be seen with one of his cigars, usually clenched in his mouth, but sometimes set for a moment on a safe perch. As he devoured his newspapers after supper, and smoked away, there was always a kind of blue haze that would envelop him and gradually spread across the living room. One never was in doubt as to the kind of gift Dad would enjoy for birthday or whatever – just get him a box of cigars and he was in seventh heaven.
But that cigar habit came to a screeching halt one night when he had a heart attack. I remember the occasion vividly. I was in bed and was awakened from a sound sleep by great activity in the house. Quite scared at seeing the house all ablaze with lights, I peeked cautiously out the bedroom door only to find that there were many strangers there including a policeman and some firemen. As I later learned, Dad had collapsed and Mom had summoned both the firemen and the policemen who managed to get Dad to the hospital. He was a long time recovering. Doctor Cox said he had a kind of nicotine poisoning from the chain use of cigars, and that if he was to recover completely, he would have to give up smoking. In his remaining years (he lived to be 84), he never again smoked.
Joe Hemond, cigar in hand
Aunt Jean was still living with us, and as a lively girl in her late teens she was the center of attention of a number of young men, but none were so ardent as Arthur Judge. He even had the inside track with we kids who looked forward to his visits and the usual box of chocolates. And I remember getting a present of a ukulele, probably on my birthday – or maybe it was Christmas. And then one day, Arthur came to call driving a Ford Phaeton Model T two seater. He was all smiles as he proudly showed off his wheels to Mom and Dad as well as Aunt Jean. I don’t know but that might have been the day he proposed marriage to Aunt Jean. Anyway, it wasn’t too long after that day that the wedding took place. It was February 5, 1922. I can still remember Aunt Jean tossing her bridal bouquet from the second story front porch to a large group of girls assembled on the front walk – I was four years and seven months old at the time.
Holidays provided many of the high points of our lives, for all holidays were observed enthusiastically according to the traditions of the day. I especially remember Fourth of July and Christmas. Personal fireworks were quite acceptable in those days, and Dad believed in supplying us with plenty. So the day started, even before breakfast, with a salvo or two of giant firecrackers that Dad set off to the accompaniment of the rapid fire popping of our cap pistols. Usually there was a parade downtown complete with bands and marching soldiers – many of the soldiers were veterans of World War I marching as members of the American Legion (Uncle Neil was always among them for he was one of their officers for many years) – and there still lingered sizable contingents of both Spanish-American War and Civil War veterans. In the afternoon, we went with Dad to watch a baseball game between two teams of the old City League that Dad had been instrumental in founding – the game had less appeal than the hot buttered popcorn and peanuts that were always available at several vendor’s carts. The city fireworks display was held in the evening on the hill behind the Tavern on Northampton Street. Dad piled us into the Olds, and off we went. After parking the Olds (Dad always seemed to know the most favorable spot) Dad rolled its top down for an unobstructed view, and we settled back to enjoy the sights and sounds of the celebration of freedom. When the last rumble had died away, we hastened home to set off our own private set of roman candles and sky rockets (after Mom had assured herself that the garden hose was at the ready, “just in case”).
The Christmas events at Pearl Street were no less spectacular than they had been at Pleasant Street, except that after a few years, there was a gradual relaxation of the custom of having no sign of Christmas until Christmas Day. I guess the folks were less equal to that custom as the years advanced, but, in addition, as we kids were learning to read, the arrival of Christmas Greeting cards from friends could not be concealed. But Christmas was still spectacular with a huge balsam spruce in the parlor corner, decorated with lights (the new fangled series type that would only glow if all were working – a rare treat) and balls and sparkling strings and dancing icicles, with numerous presents strewn all about. But before we saw that sight, as we woke early (probably about four o’clock or so), there were the stockings that had been carefully hung in the kitchen (there was no fireplace at Pearl Street) and now bulging with their contents to be inspected with the first taste of that Christmas delight. Then, when we could be suppressed no longer, the family trooped into the front parlor, Dad turned on the tree lights, and voila! – there it was! Later we had Christmas dinner – always there was a turkey to observe the tradition – and a special roast for Dad who was not fond of turkey – and I usually liked Dad’s fare best too – and there were pies and candies and fruit cake too. In the afternoon, one of the new games was selected for a tryout, and Dad and we kids gathered around a table, agreed on the rules of play, and went to it – usually the game was suspended briefly for a modest supper and then continued until bedtime. The folks must have been very glad to see us all bundled into bed!
Events taking place outside the family circle usually did not arouse my attention or interest, but as we began to read, that began to change. One of the earliest of these outside events came in August 1923 when President Harding died and was succeeded in office by Vice-President Calvin Coolidge. I suspect even this event would have passed notice except for the impact on the folks. For they knew Coolidge personally – he having been Mayor of Northampton not long before – and Dad had met him there and been among his supporters when he ran for, and was elected, Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts – Dad’s friendship had continued through Mr. Coolidge’s term as Governor, and he had cheered when Coolidge became Vice-President. So when Coolidge became President under dramatic circumstances in the middle of the night on August third in his father’s home in Plymouth, Vermont, the event was of great interest to the folks and it trickled through to me too. In time, Cal Coolidge was to become my favorite President.
SCHOOL DAYS
Conrad was eligible by age and quite ready by disposition to attend first grade in September 1922, so off he went to the Highland Grammar School that was located in the city block that corners on Nonotuck Street and Lincoln Avenue – about two and a half city blocks from our place on Pearl Street. I am told, though I do not remember, that I made a terrible fuss at home because I was not allowed to go to school. Mom apparently put up with that for a time, but then decided that since I was also able to read, that I should be allowed into the first grade even though I had only just passed my fifth birthday. Dad agreed and was able to arrange it with his friend Bill Peck, the Superintendent of Schools. So, shortly thereafter, I too was attending Miss Lynn’s first grade.
Highland Grammar School – housed elementary school and junior high
At first, it was an overwhelming experience – for I had never seen so many kids before – all strangers – all older than I – most having already spent a year in the kindergarten. Mostly I remember sitting on little chairs arranged in small circles with the teacher, Miss Lynn, whom I thought was a nice lady, directing something or other – I suppose these were reading groups arranged by similar ability, and I don’t remember where I fit in, although I also don’t remember having any particular difficulty. Fact is, I may have got into some mischief because I do have some remaining images of the cloak room which was an enclosed area for hanging coats immediately outside the classroom, and frequently utilized by the teachers for temporarily sequestering youngsters who were making their lives difficult. But overall I must have been a satisfactory pupil because at year’s end in June I was promoted with the others to the second grade.
Miss Sears was in charge that next year, and I remember her particularly for her readings. If the pupils had generally performed during the day to her satisfaction, it was her habit to read stories aloud during the late part of the day. I still can hear her as she did “The Wizard of Oz”. For months afterward, that remained my favorite story, until it was in time displaced by the fascinating series of books chronicling the exploits of Tom Swift.
We boys did well in school, and there were no doubt many reasons for this – skilled and dedicated maiden lady teachers whose entire life was wrapped around the schoolhouse – a school environment that was well disciplined and projected a studious atmosphere – but mostly parents who took a personal interest in and paid frequent attention to their offspring. Returning home each day had its own ritual. We were met by Mother who sat us down for a simple after school snack while we related the activities of the day, followed by the doing, each of us, of our “chore of the day”, for Mother was firm in her opinion that each member of the family had to contribute a share of time to maintaining the family comfort. It could have been dusting the living room furniture, or it could have been washing the bathroom floor, or, in season, helping to put on the window screens, or weeding one of the gardens, or whatever there was to do. So we grew up ready, willing, and quite able to do many things around the house.
When the chores were finished, we were urged to “go out to play” which we did. Play was always seasonally governed, with the typical rotation being football (with some dilution from soccer) in the fall, skating, and sliding on winter days, and baseball as soon as possible in the spring. (Basketball, which was still a relatively new activity, didn’t get any attention at all until we were in high school). The playing field, like as not, was the street out in front of the house which for many years was a wide dirt strip. With the absence of vehicular traffic, we felt perfectly at liberty to use the area.
Usually there was an hour or more of playtime before Dad came home, which was the signal that playtime was over and we were to come in and get cleaned up for supper. Mom always had a big supper fashioned after Dad’s favorite dishes, so we were very well fed. But suppertime was also a time when kids were expected to be neat, orderly, and quiet, because it was a time when Mom listened to Dad tell about his day, and Dad listened to Mom tell about her day. The kids were rarely expected to contribute to the supper conversation. We were, however, each assigned a part of the after dinner clean up (only Dad was excused).
So I made it into third grade, where Miss Brennan had been the teacher for many years. She too was a kindly caring lady. It was that year however that I first remember the “special” teachers that would come on occasion. There was the music teacher whose name I have forgotten, but who seemed to enjoy singing and opened my ears a bit wider, no doubt a precursor to a very active interest in music that was to develop later. And I’ll never forget the art teacher, for it was because of her that I became aware of my red-green color difficulty. She had been directing the production of a house and lawn scene by each of us on a piece of drawing paper at our desks, and of course the lawn was to be colored green. When she saw that mine had been done in brown, she nearly had a fit – unfortunately she diagnosed my problem as a lack of discipline, and assumed that I had deliberately disobeyed the direction to color the lawn green and complained to my mother – Mother was more understanding and thorough in her action – I think she had been suspicious of my deficiency anyway – at any rate, I had the phenomenon of color blindness explained. It never really inhibited me in school, and in later life there were some interesting episodes centering on my inability to see reds and greens as others do.
It was also in the third grade one day that I was dramatically impressed that girls were somehow different from boys. It had never dawned on me before. Eileen Austin, whom I always had thought was a nice enough kid, had this day done something to pester me, and I had given it to her, pummeling her a couple of times. But Miss Brennan was a witness, and her response was swift and sure. I was collared and lectured like I had never been before. The fact that I was only responding to provocation made absolutely no difference whatsoever – Miss Brennan screamed that I was never to strike a girl! Ever! And for good measure, all the other boys in the class got a similar lecture, and all of us lost our recess that day. I never did like Eileen after that.
It was about this time that my father became interested in the emerging phenomena of broadcast radio. KDKA Pittsburgh had begun regular programs in 1920, and by now there was WBZ Boston, and WBY Schenectady, putting out signals. Dad went all out. He purchased an Atwater Kent receiver and plunked it down on the dining room table along side a large horn speaker. Power was supplied by batteries, a six volt storage type for the heating of the tube filaments, and a couple of 45 volt dry cells for the plate voltage – and these were arrayed around on the floor. It was a great moment when he managed to get the several dials on the Atwater to the proper alignment for receiving a real live radio signal! Night after night he indulged the new craze. Finally, at Mother’s insistence, he gave up the dining room table, and arranged his new toy in one of the drawers of the bookcase in the parlor, with the batteries stashed in a battery holder in the cellar below. The electronic age had arrived for the Hemonds.
Miss Moriarty was awaiting our promotion to her room for the fourth grade. She too had been a long time fixture at the school, and her reputation for no nonsense was well known, so I eyed her with some misgiving. Since I had picked up a small reputation by then, she must have eyed me with unusual care too, for I soon found myself on the erasure cleaning detail (the chalk board cleaners gathered much dust in the course of the day, and had to be cleaned – the process involved whacking them against the building foundation outside the boiler room where the janitor would keep his eye on you and see that you attended to your chore). Miss Moriarty believed in fully using one’s time, so, even before the school began, she insisted that we practice reciting the multiplication tables. I didn’t mind because I knew the tables better than most of the kids, but I think I might have otherwise resisted Miss Moriarty’s encroachment upon our “free time”.
The highlight of our fourth grade year, remembered ever after, was the family trip to Washington D.C. Dad, as Secretary of the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, was sent to attend the national conference of the Chamber in the Spring of 1926. I don’t know how the decision was made that all of us should go, but it was. Times were prosperous – post World War I was a time of industrial expansion – there was full employment – the financial collapse of Black October of 1929 was still in the future and not foreseen by very many people.
We traveled in the best style in a steam train in a private room on a fancy Pullman car where we were attended by black porters at every turn. Our arrival in the nation’s capital was greeted by a chauffeured limousine, courtesy of Congressman Allen Treadway of Greenfield who was a close friend of my father, whereby we were transported to the Lafayette Hotel which was directly opposite the White House. Accommodations there were in similar style – a suite of rooms were available for the entire convention week – and as I remember,we took most of our meals in the room. Dad of course attended the convention. In the meantime, Mom and we kids were escorted daily to some part of the capitol scene by Mr. Treadway’s chauffeur. Thus we spent a day in the Capitol Building attending sessions of the Congress. We spent a day in the Library of Congress. We spent another day in the Smithsonian Institute. And then there was the most memorable day when we went to the White House to meet President Coolidge.
After the fashion of the times, the White House was open to all visitors. And we joined the tour to see the East Room, the Red Room, the Blue Room, and other places of note. And those who wished to meet the President had only to stand in line at the Oval Office at 11:00 A.M. and take a turn to shake the President’s hand. Dad came with us this day, and he and Calvin greeted each other warmly since they had known each other for many years since Coolidge had been Mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts. Coolidge patted us boys on the head and assured Dad that he had “fine young stock there”. And then we moved on carrying an indelible memory of that friendly pat on the head by the President. I had not yet reached my ninth birthday, and did not then appreciate the high privilege we enjoyed in being able to meet this most modest of all men who have ever been President. But as time went on, and I became more attuned to the political scene, and observed the successive Presidents, I came more frequently to realize what a remarkable leader the country once had in Mr. Coolidge.
Calvin Coolidge
Joe with “Fine Young Stock” – Harold, Connie
Couple years later – Joe with Conrad, Harold
The fifth grade had Miss Bradley for a teacher. She was also a veteran – a good teacher – more brusque than any of the others. However, few images of the activities of the class remain. Mostly the year stands out in memory because of the Lindbergh flight – for in May, Charles Lindbergh, in a specially designed and built single engine monoplane, flew non-stop cross country from San Diego to New York, and ten days later, continued on non-stop to Paris, arriving after a solo flight of 33 hours and capturing the huge prize of $25,000 for the first such flight. The world went “bananas”, and the event and all the follow-up celebration of it made a deep impression on this about-to-be ten year old boy, for it was a clear signal that the age of flight was here, and the world would inevitably be changed in some fashion by the availability of air travel for anyone.
There was a Mt Tom mountain house fire in the late summer of 1927. The mountain house was a landmark for the area, perched as it was atop the craggy precipice, and reached by its own cog railroad that originated at the base station in Mountain Park. The house was built and operated by the Holyoke Street Railway as a tourist attraction, but for us, seeing it there on clear days, it had all the attributes of an old family friend. Lit up at night, it had always been a spectacular sight. So to see it enveloped in flames that towered into the night sky was indeed a shock that we all were days assimilating.
MT Tom house burned in 1927
Though I generally knew all my classmates, I think I was slow to make real friends. But by fifth grade, several of the class were in the close friend category. There was Ed Blount, who lived on Harvard Street in Highland Park – his parents were most cordial after school and we often went there – his father was a paper company executive. There was Ed Barrett, who lived on Fairfield Avenue in a big brick house with a very large side yard perfect for football scrimmages – his father was President of the Holyoke Water Power Company. There was Duncan Farr, who also lived on Fairfield Avenue in a large wood house that had a very intriguing barn – his father was a member of the Farr family that owned and operated the Farr Alpaca Mills. There was Teddy Callahan, who lived in a large white house at the corner of Nonotuck and Fairfield that also had a large barn to adventure in – his father was a judge. It was this group that generally congregated during recess, and frequently played together at someone’s home after school. Ed Barrett was the fastest runner – Ed Blount was the best at the running jump – Teddy Callahan was the easiest to wrestle down.
A few girls were noticed – although little more than that. Mary Elizabeth Streeter lived in Highland Park near Ed Blount – her father owned and operated a hardware store. Mary usually could be seen with Elizabeth Humphries who also lived in Highland Park. Harriet Pellisier lived in a large brick colonial home located on the Northampton Road – her father owned and operated the Holyoke Street Railway Company.
Miss Dunn had the sixth grade, and she too was an energetic hard-working person whom we all liked. I can remember her teaching the principles of navigation using longitude and latitude – she delighted in placing a mark on the blackboard, then erasing it, and asking someone to volunteer to show her where the mark had been – her net raked in many including me, certain that we could show her where the mark had been, everyone with a different location – and then she let us in on the story of how easy it would be to relocate any mark if the board had first been prepared with a system of latitude and longitude.
Unbeknownst to us young Hemonds, the Holyoke School System had employed a talented former Bandsman, Mr. Fred Grady, to stimulate interest in the playing of instruments. Mr. Grady had called on Dad one day and got him to agree that his two sixth grade boys should join the Junior High School Orchestra – one was to play the tuba and the other would learn clarinet. Conrad was selected to learn the tuba using an instrument owned by the school, while Dad and Mom gave me a clarinet for Christmas that year. So by January of 1928, music lessons had begun in earnest. Once a week, we both trod all the way to Elmwood to Mr. Grady’s house, where he entertained us in his cellar and instructed Conrad on the tuba and me on music theory in general. And also once a week, Mr. Ed Misch, a professional clarinet player came to our house to give me lessons on the clarinet.
Connie, Bob, Harold
Our association with Fred Grady and his wife lasted for the remainder of their lives. Fred had been a professional bandsman all his life. As a young man, he had played with the great Sousa. He was such a jovial likable man that his love for band music rubbed off easily on me. More on this later, for I played in bands of one type or another until my entry into the Army in 1942 when I laid the instruments aside for good.
With the completion of Miss Dunn’s course in June of 1928, my elementary school days had come to an end. I had earned promotion along with my buddies and most of the class to the Highland Junior High School which happened to operate in the same building and took care of both the students from the Highland Elementary grades and those who had attended Nonotuck Street Elementary School. So horizons were about to expand as the next three years were devoted to the Junior High School experience.
By this time (1928) I had many cousins, all younger than me. Let me list them.
Offspring to my aunt Mary Virginia Crean who had married Charles S. Zack in February 1917, were
the following cousins:
Charlie and Mary Zack
Albert Joseph Zack in 1917
James Gordon Zack in 1919
Ruth Mary Zack in 1920
Eugene Crean Zack in 1922
Madeline Dorothy Zack in 1925
Zacks: Albert, James, Ruth/ in front are Eugene, Madeleine
Zacks, with George MacDonald, Jr. (“Junior” on left)
Later there would be the twins:
Clare Regina Zack in 1933
Carol Regina Zack in 1933
Carol and Clare
Offspring to my uncle Cornelius Joseph Crean who had married Yvette Martineau in 1920, were the
following cousins:
Edmund Joseph Crean in 1921
Marguerite Louise Crean in 1923
Thomas James Crean in 1924
Charles Bernard Crean in 1926
Later there would be one more from this marriage:
Patricia Mary Crean in 1929
Following the untimely death of Yvette in 1943, and the subsequent marriage of Cornelius to Alma
Tessier in 1949, there was one more cousin:
Anne Marie Crean in 1951
Offspring to my aunt Adele Geraldine Crean, who had married George J. MacDonald in 1919, was the
following cousin:
George J. MacDonald, Jr. in 1920
A later offspring to my aunt Ethel Imelda Crean, who married Raymond Joseph Donovan, was the
following cousin:
Raymond Joseph Donovan, Jr. in 1933
Ray Donovan and Ray, Jr.
Ray Donovan, Jr.
Later offspring to my aunt Jean Loretta Crean, who had married Arthur Judge on 5 February 1922,
were the following cousins:
Arthur T. Judge in 1938
Jean Elizabeth Judge in 1942
Jean and Arthur Judge
Offspring to my uncle Armand Hemond, who married Lucinda Millette, were the following cousins:
Roger Hemond in 1920
Eunice Hemond in 1922
Lucinda and Armand Hemond
Offspring to my uncle George Louis Hemond, who married Helen Howard Holbrook in 1919, were the
following cousins:
Marjery Richards Hemond in 1920
Lora Hemond in 1926
So, in the summer of 1928, by the time I was eleven years old, I had already acquired fourteen first cousins to go along with two brothers (seventeen persons in all), and there were to be five more in the future. Parents made an effort to see that the cousins knew each other, so there were frequent gatherings, most of which were Crean oriented and occasionally one that was Hemond oriented. However, I don’t recall ever that all of the cousins were in one place at one time.
A few words are in order about church school. We were brought up by our parents in their faith of Roman Catholicism, so our Sundays were rather regimented with the morning being dominated by a church service and the afternoon being occupied with a church school, all run by the Holy Cross Parish located at the top of the hill between Suffolk and Dwight streets. I was never enthusiastic about anything that went on there. The church service, conducted in Latin after the fashion of the day, was completely lost on me; while the sermon, which was the only part in English, too often told us what bad people we were – and that didn’t make much sense to me – certainly my parents were good guys, and there must have been a few more good people in that vast audience. The church school was little better since it dealt solely with a rote memorization of answers to certain questions, all of which were found in the Catechism. It seemed that the only difference between being a good boy and a bad boy was the ability to spout out the answers to the questions with total accuracy. Sunday was indeed the low point of my week, rescued only by the long standing custom of my mother to have banana splits for dessert after the evening meal.
Holy Cross aka Our Lady of the Cross Parish
However there was a church related activity that did get my attention – although it had no relevance to religion. It was the annual fund raising Minstrel Show. After the fashion of the times, this was a black face farce, complete with an Interlocutor and Sideman, as well as a whole itinerary of vaudeville acts. The participants were all recruited from among the church membership, and I used to be amazed at how entertaining these amateurs could be. There was always candy, usually fudge and other homemade goodies, solicited from the ladies of the church, for sale to the audience – that is actually one of my most vivid recollections. Of course the whole show was racist and in the poorest of taste, and fortunately the Minstrel has long been expunged from modern society.
I should say something about the summers between school years. Initially they must have been largely uneventful for I have no clear recollections beyond having plenty of time to read the sports pages in the morning newspapers where my early heroes were the New York Yankees and Babe Ruth. But the folks were interested in the beach, and my earliest recollection of this fact was a day trip to Misquamicut in Rhode Island. There were Aunt Jean and Uncle Arthur, Aunt Adele and Uncle George, and our family. Everyone went swimming – and after the fashion of the day, putting on a swim suit meant dressing up – particularly for the ladies – full length dresses, hats, stockings and shoes! The ocean was a mystery to me – no one had explained there would be a nice sloping sandy beach – so I was pleasantly surprised. After the adults had finished their “swimming”, we all went over to the roller skating rink – Arthur and Jean tried skating – I remember Arthur having to hang on to the fence posts.
On still another occasion, the adults planned an excursion on the Block Island steamer out of New London. At the time, Aunt Mary and Uncle Charlie had moved to New London where Charlie was employed in the editorial department of the New London Day. Aunt Ethyl and Uncle Ray were also in New London, because Ray was a linotype operator for the Day. At any rate, those two couples, along with Jean and Arthur and my folks, went to Block Island, leaving all the cousins at Mary’s house with Connie and Albert having joint responsibility for the good behavior of everyone. It was a very dull day for the cousins, with no one daring to get out of line. The folks came home quite late, having had a shore dinner on Block Island. All were in good spirits save Arthur who had been touched with sea sickness on the way home and lost his shore dinner overboard.
Then one summer, and I don’t remember exactly which one, the folks rented a shore cottage at Bay View on the Connecticut shore west of New Haven for the month of August. Preliminary packing was a big job – Mother insisted on having two large steamer trunks. She packed sheets, towels, tablecloths and clothes for everybody – I’m sure we could have survived for a year. Arthur, who worked for the Railway Express, took care of shipping the trunks. And then the “Olds” was loaded too – suitcases for everyone – most carried on the right hand running board where they were contained by a luggage rack. Extra tires were also loaded on the back along with the regular extra. The trip to Bay View took the whole day – Mom had fixed a picnic lunch for eating at noon time. The beach grey cottage was a wood frame box, with two floors, and a front porch, sandwiched in with others just like it on one of the number of roads that branched off Route I and went down to the beach.
Mom
The beach routine soon evolved. Dad and we boys went to the beach in the morning on every nice day, while Mom concerned herself with the meals. Mom had invited a young girl from the Pearl Street neighborhood, Helen Underdorfel, to spend the summer with us and to help Mom with household work. In the morning, the two of them walked to the grocery store at the end of the street to get the meat and staples for the day; and they also greeted the itinerant vegetable man as he displayed his wares on his wagon, and they carefully examined his stuff for freshness. Then dinner at noon – the big meal of the day; often there was a pile of corn to be consumed. Then rest – Dad always wanted a nap. After that everyone went back out on the beach which was then quite crowded, especially if the tide was in and the swimming was good.
It was here that I gradually learned to swim – first by just wading in the water – then by doing the “dead-man” float – finally by daring to do something resembling a “dog paddle” – and then actually swimming a crawl stroke. I think we went to Bay View three summers in a row, the last time being in 1928. After that we went to Black Point Beach in Niantic, Connecticut for two summers, and then to Indian Town Beach at Saybrook, Connecticut where the folks built their own cottage. More about those years later.
Bay View
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
It was September 1928 when I was eleven, nearly sixty years ago now (1988). Connie and I were ready to start the three years at the Highland School devoted to the junior high school curriculum. But first let’s review the times.
It was still the day of the peddlar.
Daily we would expect Mr. LeGrande, the ice man, to make a visit and load a new supply of ice into the ice chest. He would appear with a big rubber mat across his back on which he hoisted the block of ice. The new block would sit momentarily on the floor while he took out the remains of yesterday’s ice and placed that on the floor. Then the new piece would go into place, and the old piece would be fitted into the remaining space, usually only after he had used his pick to subdivide it. The ice would gradually melt over the course of the day and the water would be collected in a large pan placed under the box. The task of emptying that pan was normally assigned to one of we boys. On occasion the chore would be forgotten and the pan would overflow and not be discovered until there was a considerable amount of water on the pantry floor. A messy clean-up job followed. One year I proposed to Dad that we install a pipe to catch the water and lead it outdoors. He thought that a great idea and one Saturday we did just that. It worked pretty well for a year or so until it stopped up, clogged by the accumulation of small amounts of dirt that was contained in Mr. LeGrande’s ice that had been cut from his pond in South Hadley. Cleaning the pipe turned out to be a bigger chore than emptying the drip pan had been. Since the refrigeration capability of this ice system was limited to the cooling capabilities of melting ice, it was apparent that there were serious limitations to what food could be stored and for how long.
We had a telephone. It was still the day of the lady operator – she handled all calls – one need only pick up the receiver and depress the cradle several times which would flash a light at the switchboard, signaling the operator that you needed attention, and she was there. You gave her the phone number of the party you wanted – but if you didn’t, she would find it for you. And if the lines were not too busy, you would soon get the party you wanted. If on the other hand you heard conversation when you first picked up the receiver, you would know that other parties on your line were using the facilities. The polite thing to do was to hang up – but the polite thing didn’t always happen – gossip tended to be made that way. Incidentally the operator was efficient in an emergency – just tell her your problem and she would take care of the rest.
Anyway, daily Mom would use the telephone to talk to one of the Howes boys at the Howes Market on Hampden Street, discuss what fresh foods and meats were available, and place her order. Later the delivery would be made by one of the Howes employees. Mom was an exacting customer and she would immediately inspect the merchandise. I have known her to reject stuff, which meant the delivery man went back to the store for an exchange. From time to time, Mom would dispatch one of us boys to the market to fetch something. If it was meat that she wanted, only the meat man, Mr. Hassett, would do. “Don’t let anyone else wait on you” was a common admonition. Howes, as well as all the other merchants, ran their business with the folks on a strictly credit basis – they simply sent their bills once a month.
Many other peddlars came to the house periodically. There was often a vegetable man. He was usually an Italian, bursting with pride over the quality of his produce. When Mom agreed with him, she made purchases – when she didn’t, she sent him packing. The baker man came by with his cart full of baked goods. He usually stopped by in the afternoon with a loaf of bread which was unwrapped and unsliced. Slicing bread was another home chore. Everybody in our family had trouble getting the slices uniform in size except me – so I usually had that job. The baker had other goodies, but Mom never bought anything else, preferring to make her own cakes and pies.
Mom did not enjoy doing laundry, so most of the heavy work, especially bed sheets, tablecloths, towels, and shirts, was assigned to the Highland Laundry Company. Their business was located on Pleasant Street opposite Beacon Avenue, just across the street from the folks’ former Pleasant Street house. So the laundry’s horse drawn wagon came by early in the week to make a pick-up, and later in the week to return the cleaned and pressed goods.
Occasionally someone was ill and needed medication. Then Mom made a call to Mr. Edgar Martin, owner of Martin’s Drug Store on Hampden Street, who promptly sent the stuff via his delivery boy. Mr. Martin had a son, Edgar Jr., who at this time was attending Wesleyan University where he was a member of the varsity football team. We boys kept track of his exploits via the local sports pages – once he helped beat Amherst with a fourth period drop-kick field goal.
Refuse didn’t seem to accumulate quite as fast in those days, probably because the modern packaging systems had not been developed. Many foods were bought in bulk, and placed in paper bags or waxed paper for delivery. Those bags or cartons were usually recycled and rarely discarded until worn out. Since most foods were prepared for the table at home, there was always more actual food waste than is common today. This material was disposed of in a separate “garbage can” which each family kept outside the back door where the “garbage man” would collect it on his rounds. The “garbage man” in turn fed the waste food to the hogs back on his farm. The other refuse, and all the ashes that accumulated in the winter from running the heating system, were collected in large metal containers kept in the cellar. The “ash man” came for those about once a week, and someone had to be sure the cellar door was unlocked for him.
Milk was delivered every morning – early – usually before anyone was awake. One of the first chores of the morning was for one of us boys to bring in the milk and stow it in the icebox. If, in the winter, the milk was left outdoors too long, it could easily freeze. When it did, it pushed the top off the quart bottles (quart was the maximum size container permitted by law). Frozen milk was not viewed by us as catastrophic since frozen slivers of milk on cereal was regarded as a treat. A family like ours with three boys usually consumed four quarts of milk a day. So logistics of handling empty bottles that had to be put back out for the milkman was also a daily chore. It was an early experience at recycling long since superseded by the thrown away plastic container.
Our house, like most, was wired for electricity. However, the day of the vast number of household electrical appliances had not yet arrived. As already mentioned, we didn’t even have an electric refrigerator. So most electric power consumption was for the lighting fixtures. Energy for running the cook stove, as well as for running the hot water heater, was derived from burning gas which was piped into the premises by the City of Holyoke owned gas utility. Both electric and gas service were metered, so once a month the “gas man” came by to read the meters. Incidentally, in those days, in Holyoke where there was an extensive reservoir system, water was supplied to all households without direct charge. Revenue needed to run the system was derived through the real estate tax.
Coal for firing the heating system was delivered by the “coal man” in appropriate season. These fellows appeared, faces and hands black with soot, with large horse drawn wagons containing the coal. They set up a chute to the coal bin through a cellar window and let the black dirty stuff rumble on down. Dad was partial to hard anthracite coal, and that’s what he ordered as long as the price was right. But some people in the neighborhood used pea coal, and some even used the soft bituminous stuff. Dad usually made it his responsibility to keep the fire going properly in the winter season, for lots of damage could accrue if the steam system ran out of water. But once in a while, one of the boys was directed to go down and shovel some coal into the fire box.
At that time in our lives, I don’t recall any serious illness. However, whenever any one needed medical attention, the doctor, usually Doctor Cox, was contacted over the phone. The standard cheering response was some version of “Keep the patient warm and in bed, and I will be there right away.” And he was. On arrival, Doctor Cox made his diagnosis, issued directions for the necessary treatment, and alled Martin’s Drug Store to issue a prescription, which Martin’s delivered in short order.
By 1928, Dad was well settled into his job as Secretary of the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce. That body, now entering its fourteenth year, was headquartered on the top floor of the Smith Building on High Street adjacent to the Holyoke City Hall in the heart of the busy mercantile district. On occasion, I was allowed to visit Dad’s office. This entailed a ride on the elevator, which, like all the latest model elevators, was an open screened affair piloted by a uniformed operator who took care to caution against poking any object through the screen and against dismounting until he had secured the cab and given the word.
Holyoke City Hall
City Hall Entrance
The Chamber office occupied most of the top floor, and most of that was a large flat floored auditorium with numerous folding wooden chairs. I suppose the membership meetings were held there. Adjacent were work stations for the office girls who took shorthand and did the typing on the old time Underwoods. “Lottie” was in charge of the girls. I don’t recall her last name (could it have been Smith?) – maybe I never knew it, for everyone knew her as “Lottie”. Dad’s office was a big room at the far end of the floor with lots of large windows from which he had a marvelous view of the city. He had a big oak desk, a huge oval oak conference table and numerous matching oak chairs, several bookcases crammed with stuff, all underlaid with a handsome office rug. It was an elegant place, well in keeping with the prosperity of that day that had been building steadily since the end of World War I. It was my first model of what one meant when he referred to “his office”. In time, that image was radically realigned.
The Chamber sublet one portion of the top floor to Mr. Joseph Martin’s Mailing Service. He provided an advertising function for the merchants. He would write and print handbills, and then mail them out as directed. His business involved a lot of hand work for which he recruited young ladies. Aunt Jean worked for him at one time. When visiting the Chamber, I usually took time to look around Mr. Martin’s place too, for he usually was in the midst of some intriguing project, and often had a spare pad of paper he was willing to give to a young fellow.
Holyoke, as a community, has a rich history extending well back to colonial days. It is told in many books and pamphlets that have been prepared over the years, and it is not my intention to repeat the tale here. Suffice to note that, in 1928, the incorporated City of Holyoke was only 55 years old. The City had developed rapidly after the water power available at the rapids in the Connecticut River had been harnessed, and was now a thriving community of some 55,000 persons. “Downtown” was the term we used to refer to the mercantile district which stretched along both High and Maple Streets from Dwight, past Suffolk, to Appleton. Here were the principal stores including Steiger’s Department Store, McAuslan and Wakelin Department Store, Child’s Shoe Store, Besse-Mills Department Store, Woolworth’s Five and Ten Cent Store, Gallup’s Clothing Store, and Murray’s Men’s Clothing Store. Here, we boys, in the company of Mother, were outfitted as the seasons demanded to the satisfaction of Mom whose standards for quality merchandise at reasonable prices were widely understood by the various store owners and their clerks.
Holyoke Power Canal
High Street showing Caldonian Building 2020
Steiger Building 2020
A word about clothing, which for the most part for boys was made of cotton or wool – none of the modern fabrics had yet been conceived. Perhaps the most notable feature of clothing for boys was the wide-spread use of knickers. These were pants that terminate just below the knees in an elastic fitting or a buttoned one that was intended to secure over a long pair of socks that stretched above the knees. The arrangement was never popular with boys who looked forward to the day when they would be allowed to wear long trousers. Knickers presented another problem. For when the season had become “cold” by Mom’s standards, and for so long as it remained “cold”, we boys were expected to wear long underwear. But long underwear was incompatible with long socks that had to go with the knickers. The underwear legs went to one’s ankles and so had to be covered by the socks which went up to the knees. Fit was never right. After a bit of wear, the underwear stretched and the fit got even worse. Since it was still the era of the Saturday Night Bath, and therefore underwear had to do for an entire week, the fit problem became quite desperate.
Having no sisters, I was never conscious of the complaints the girls might have had about their attire – but, no doubt, there were a number.
So, in September 1928, Connie and I returned to school and entered the Highland Junior School at the seventh grade level. We were immediately impressed by the increased size of the student body due to the fact that the kids from the Nonotuck Street School (long since torn down) had joined us. It was not long before I had become acquainted with a pretty black-haired girl named Clare Hartnett, who played the violin, and lived at the other end of Pearl Street. In these Junior and Senior High School years, Clare was to become my favorite girl friend. Two boys stood out from the new pack and soon became good friends: Edmund Banas and Albert Delude. These two, together with Connie and I, formed the nucleus of “the gang” which gradually expanded to include other boys and everyone’s girl friend.
Connie, Ed Banas, Harold
The school was organized so that each student was assigned to a home room to which he reported each morning and from which he was dismissed each afternoon. Each such group then moved to designated rooms to meet the teacher of a particular subject.
My home room teacher that first year was Miss Delaney, who also happened to be our teacher for history. Miss Delaney was young and pretty and did not remain long in the teaching business. After that year, she married a young doctor, and we never saw her again.
That was the year that we were introduced to Manual Training or “shop”. Mr. Wynn was the teacher, and he provided our first extended experience with a male teacher. His methods were brusque – no nonsense whatever. But he knew about tools – insisted that they be respected and properly used. Our first project was to build a birdhouse completely from rough pieces of wood stock that Mr. Wynn laid out. We learned about using patterns, about sawing, about sanding, about drilling, about nailing, and about staining. Before the house was considered complete and allowed to go home, it had to pass numerous rigorous inspections by Mr. Wynn, so that most of us became heartily sick of that birdhouse.
There must have been classes in English, and mathematics, and other subjects; but, at this time, I cannot recall them or the teachers. Mostly I remember the school orchestra which was run by Fred Grady. I was continuing to study the clarinet, and Connie continued on the tuba. Both of us attended all sessions of the orchestra. At the time, Mr. Grady was promoting an annual contest among the orchestras of the five junior high schools in Holyoke. The contest was held in the spring on the stage of the auditorium of Holyoke High School. Before a panel of judges and an auditorium well-filled with parents and friends, each orchestra presented its piece. Typically the Highland and Morgan orchestras shared first and second place, Metcalf was third, Lawrence was fourth, and West was last. But each school turned out some talented musicians as we were to understand better later on when we all got to Holyoke High School.
It must have been about Christmas 1928 that we got interested in ice skating. One of the gifts that Connie and I each received was a pair of ice skates. They were the old fashioned ones that fastened on to one’s shoes with a set of clamps and straps. If the clamp was not positively secure, it could pull loose in the middle of some maneuver and send the skater flying. But we were mighty happy to have skates because we could now begin to play hockey – that is, we could begin to skate – once we had some ice. The city provided several places to skate by having the fire department flood certain playgrounds on cold nights. But they did not permit hockey. So we boys decided to make our own skating rink in the back yard. That turned out to be more work than we originally thought. It meant clearing snow off the back yard and piling so that it could help contain the water. Then we had to drag out the garden hose, hitch it up, and spray the area on cold nights when the water could be expected to freeze rapidly, which it did, not only on the ground but on us as well. And when we were finished spraying, the hose had to be drained and stowed in the cellar where it would not freeze. But we persisted and finally got a passable skating rink where we could flail away with hockey sticks. We made our own hockey rinks many years in a row, until we realized that there might be more fun skating in the evenings at the city rink on Beech Street where all the girls were.
Winter sports also included lots of sliding. We all had sleds, and usually the sliding was great on the street in front of the Pearl Street house. The street was usually packed with compact snow or ice since the horse drawn plows were very primitive and merely broke through the top layer of the stuff. We would get a running start on the top of Mr. Maheu’s bank, dash into the street, and coast all the way to the dingle. Not unlikely there would be competition among the boys on the street as to who had the fastest sled. The Flexible Flyers were always the fastest sled, and the owners were envied. We were not fortunate enough to have Flexible Flyers.
Harold, Connie, and Bobbie – Presumably not a Flexible Flyer
On occasion, we also went with Mom and Dad over to the hills on the Haywood property on Northampton Street where the Haywoods allowed public sliding and we could use the toboggan. For some reason, which I never understood, the toboggan had to be piloted by an adult, so we boys never had a chance to fully experiment with it. Nonetheless it was great fun to be on that skidding board as it hurtled down the slope. The hills were steeper and the speeds were higher, and the slide was longer than the Pearl Street run. I noticed recently that those wonderful Haywood hills are now criss crossed with roads which are lined with large expensive homes, and I wondered what was left for kids to slide on.
I should mention that our parents never permitted sliding after a snowstorm until after all the snow removal chores had been completed. That meant a lot of shoveling. The sidewalk out front of the house had top priority so that neighbors could walk by. Then we had to shovel out the driveway all the way from the street to the garage at the rear of the property so that Dad could get the Oldsmobile running. If there had been any appreciable snowfall, that was a lot of shoveling! Then, quite possibly, Mom had checked to see if any neighbors needed help, had found someone, and we boys were dispatched to do that person’s sidewalk. Mom didn’t permit us to accept money for our work, but a piece of candy was acceptable.
As June 1929 rolled around, we had finished seventh grade, been promoted to eighth and were dismissed for the summer. Summer was a time when we gave lots of attention to the fortunes of the various professional baseball teams. It was an era when the New York Yankees were perennial topdogs, so they were our favorites (it was some years before my allegiance switched to the Boston Red Sox – Connie has never switched). There was also a minor league team in Springfield that competed in the Old Eastern League, and we also followed that club. The only means for keeping up with the games was by daily perusing the sports pages in the morning newspapers, which we did observing not only winners and losers but batting averages and home run records and pitching records and all the rest.
We also spent a lot of time playing a game of “baseball” with a pocket jackknife that we boys all carried. The knife had to have two blades. The shortest blade was opened 180 degrees, and the longest blade was opened 90 degrees. The player whose turn it was to “bat”, placed the knife in the starting position with the long blade stuck somewhat into the ground with the handle resting on the ground. Then, using the forefinger under the handle, the knife was flipped spinning into the air. How it fell was significant. If it did not stick in the ground, it was an out. If it landed in the start position, it was a single. If it landed on the large blade, it was a double. If it landed on both blades, it was a triple. If it landed on the short blade, it was a home run. It was dangerous to fling that knife around, and in retrospect, I am surprised that the folks never banned that game.
On 20 July, 1929, I was twelve years old. It was around this time that I got the idea that the excitement of the single birthday in a whole year could be magnified many times by the process of celebrating one’s birthmonth. So I lobbied the idea, not totally without success. It turned out, that in addition to the traditional birthday, Dad arranged, on another day, a trip to the Springfield baseball park to see an exhibition game between Springfield and the New York Yankees that included the great Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The thrill of seeing those players practice hitting balls out of the park lasted a long time.
So I had achieved family recognition with the notion that a birth could be celebrated throughout the month as well as on a given day. With that minor success, I set out to challenge another hallowed tradition – that of the birthday cake. While I liked cake, it was not at the peak of my list of favorite desserts. I liked chocolate cream pie far better! So it seemed reasonable to me that I should be free to request chocolate cream pie on my birthday in lieu of cake. The idea was greeted with some skepticism, but by the time my birthday rolled around, I had sort of made my point. In addition to the traditional cake with all its icing and candles, Mom had also made a chocolate pie.
August, as usual, was set aside for Dad’s vacation, which was spent at the Connecticut shore. This year the folks opted for a place at Black Point beach in Niantic. Black Point was much less developed than Bay View, probably because it was a newer place. The beach was not nearly as satisfactory as the one at Bay View. The Black Point beach had been situated by setting out a breakwater and allowing sand to collect behind it. The process created a rather small beach. However the house the folks rented was much more substantial than any of the Bay View places. It was full two storied with four bedrooms upstairs; typical wood frame construction, with room dividers made of knotty pine boards. Here and there, knots had fallen out – one could peak into the next room if he were of such a mind. A significant feature of Black Point was that it had two well built clay tennis courts. We boys grabbed the opportunity to get started learning tennis. Dad cooperated by supplying the rackets and some balls, and Connie and I had at it. In those days the racket construction was laminated wood with catgut strings. The string pressure was low, making a pretty soft bat, not at all like the modern carbon frames with their high tension strings. We also were without coaching, so it took a while for us to generate any kind of skill. Older players occasionally took us under their wing and gave us a few pointers.
Harold, Connie
Tennis
Beach, HC on left
It was September of 1929 when we entered the eighth grade. My memory is, at present, quite blank about the teachers and the curriculum. The format of the school was as before, one in which the classes moved to the room in which a particular subject was taught. And, no doubt, we had classes in English, mathematics and history. I think, too, that we had our initial taste of Latin (the school spent two years covering the standard first year of Latin). We also had a science class which was taught by the school principal, Mr. Edwin Keough (who happened to be a neighbor of ours on Pearl Street). He was an interesting teacher with a good grasp of his subject. Then, too, there was a physical education teacher, Mr. Apple, who visited the school and rounded up the boys for some seasonal activity that had to be adaptable to sparse facilities. The school had no gymnasium, nor any locker rooms or showers – only the dirt playground along one side of the building. Mr. Apple had twin sons whom we met when we got to high school where the Apple twins were a year ahead of us. Connie tells me that he remembers the teacher of mathematics to have been Miss Kane, and the teacher of Latin to have been Miss Smith; however, I have no present memory of these persons.
I find I neglected to mention the return home in Northampton by Calvin and Mrs. Coolidge in March of 1929 after the completion of Mr. Coolidge’s term as President of the United States. It was a memorable day and we were there because Dad wanted to be among those welcoming the Coolidges. The Coolidges came to Northampton on the train, and took a taxi to their place on Massasoit Street which was one half of a large wood frame two-family house that they rented for $36 per month (Coolidge had always been known for his thriftiness). The news cameramen were also there, ready to record this event for showing on the next newsreel at moving picture houses across the country. The director wanted to have some applause available for his microphones on demand. So he rounded up boys our age from the audience of neighbors that had gathered, and clustered us about his microphone to applaud and shout when he gave the signal. Soon the Coolidge vehicle came in sight and rolled up and parked directly at the curb in front of the house. The Coolidges got out. Cal picked up their two bags, and they went up the steps to the porch. Mr. Coolidge gave his speech: “We’re glad to be home.” A few months later, to escape the continuous flow of curious sightseers, the Coolidges left Massasoit Street to reside in a more secluded estate nearby called “The Beeches”.
I should mention that about this point in time, Dad and some of his friends had become very interested in promoting the growing aviation business. He, along with four others, put up the sum of $5,000 with which they founded Barnes Airport on the plains of Westfield, Massachusetts. They had the scrub plains smoothed for a long dirt runway; they built a substantial hanger with the necessary facilities to service and maintain airplanes and their engines; and they began a succession of Air Shows. Mostly I remember the Air Shows. They would usually be scheduled for a Sunday afternoon. They seemed to attract all manner of flyer sporting his version of the latest in flying machine (the machine I recall most vividly was the Waco Biplane with its radial air-cooled engine. The flyers performed aerial stunts, engaged in “dead stick” landing contests, ran off several races, and concluded with someone doing a parachute jump. In between events they sold short airplane rides for two dollars a person that consisted of a turn around the valley. I never had that much money, so I never had a ride. It was all very thrilling stuff. We boys ran the refreshment concession, and sold candy, cold drinks, and other goodies to the gathered crowds. Since there was no admission fee, the crowds were always large and enthusiastic, exactly the environment the promoters were trying to generate. I don’t think Dad ever made any money from this enterprise; however, the Barnes Airport that Dad started is today Westfield’s thriving link to air transportation.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
The Stock Market “Crash” came late in October 1929. It is interesting to me that this event that so colored my life and those of everyone I knew, could have occurred without having enough of an impact to scorch it on my memory. But I do not recall the day of the Crash even a little bit. I suppose that means that Dad had no money directly invested in the stock market, and therefore our family was not immediately impacted by that economic calamity. The Crash was the inevitable result of too free speculation by many people with the easy money that had been flowing in the wake of World War I. It was certainly fanned by the fever of “margin” buying of stocks. The trading rules permitted buying on as little as 10% margin, which worked as long as the market kept going up. But in October, with the market at an all time high, and clearly greatly over-valued, the moment of truth arrived. The market paused and then began to go down. The 10% margin people had to advance more money to cover the loss. Many people had no more money to advance and were wiped out. Some tried to cover their losses and ride out the storm, but as the market kept retreating, they, too, were wiped out. By the time the day was over, many of the leaders of the industrial and mercantile communities had been reduced to the poverty level. The subsequent impact on the economic community directly brought forth the Great Depression that was to persist until World War II forced a rejuvenation of the economy. The Great Depression gradually forced itself on every family in the country, including ours, and, within a few years, changed the lifestyle of the entire population. This fact will become more evident as my tale continues to unfold. But for the moment, life continued as before.
I think it was 1929 that I remember the first time the World Series was broadcast on radio. Dad took time off from work to listen to the afternoon games, and as I remember several of his friends did likewise as they gathered in our front parlor to listen to Dad’s radio (he had advanced beyond the Atwater Kent by then, but I can’t remember the type set he had). We kids had to stay in school until the bitter end of the day’s classes, so by the time we ran home to hear the event, it was nearly over when the game was played in the East, but it still had several innings to go when the game was being played in the West. Naturally we preferred games that were played in the West so that the time difference gave us a chance to hear some, so ever after we rooted for the National League champion to be from the West playing against our favorite Yankees. The series matchup that we did not want was one involving both league champions coming from the East because we would miss those games when played on school days. The announcer in those days was usually Graham McNamee, the first of the great describers of sports contests. He had the ability to make the game come alive. Through his eyes, I saw the great Babe Ruth point his bat to the far reaches of Yankee Stadium and send the very next pitch there; I saw the great Connie Mack, owner and manager of the Philadelphia team, upstage everyone by selecting Howard Emkhe, an unknown batting practice pitcher, as a World Series starter; I saw Mickey Owen, catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, drop a third strike, allowing a Yankee to get to first base and start a sensational last inning rally that was to win the game; and much, much more.
Late in the fall was the time that we harvested the grapes in the arbor over at the O’Donnell’s place. Frank O’Donnell was one of the four O’Donnell brothers who ran the O’Donnell construction business that was started by their father. Frank’s wife was a particularly close friend of my mother’s, sharing as she did a South Hadley Falls background. So we kids often were dispatched to do some chore for Mrs. O’Donnell, and the grape harvest in the fall was typical. Of course, after we picked all Mrs. O’Donnell wanted, we were free to take the remainder. So we usually brought home several large baskets full, which Mom subsequently processed into juice or grape jelly. I also remember Mrs. O’Donnell as always being willing to share the contents of her candy jar.
About 1929 and 1930 I began to get some inkling of the vast world of politics. My father would always deny that he was a politician, meaning, I think, that he never ran for elective public office. But he was a politician. My early introduction to the Dynamiters Club proves the point. Ed Alden, owner and operator of the major printing shop in Holyoke, opened up the back room of his place every Sunday morning for discussions by the Dynamiters, and on a few occasions, I was there. The Dynamiters consisted of all the makers and shakers of public policy in town. Dad, as Secretary of the Chamber, usually ran the meeting and controlled the agenda. Clustered around in that smoke filled room were the Mayor, the Chairman of the Board of Alderman, the Editor of the Transcript, and maybe a half dozen other mercantile and industrial leaders. The group discussed issues of the day, hammered out a consensus view, and then pledged everyone to back that position. And there was enough influence in that room so that they usually got their way. So, in retrospect, I think Dad was a master politician. I used to ask Dad why the newspaper editor was there, and he said that the way to deal with the press was to always let them in on the ground floor, but to insist they respect release times set for any news item. They would adhere to release times, he said, because a failure to do so would dry up their access to the ground floor. And a judicious use of the release time control provided maximum impact of the news when it was released.
Dad also was a frequent attendee at the political rallies that were held in Hicks Horse Barn on Hampden Street, occasionally taking us boys along. Hicks Barn had a very large central alley that could accommodate several hundred people. There were no seats of course. One stood on the dirt floor, shuffled among the straw and hay trying to avoid the deposits of the horses, and make believe the odor was pleasant. The programs were impromptu, but always pitted political opponents against each other. They hurled savage verbal abuse which was always punctuated by pithy remarks that flowed up from the crowd. It was a time when the electorate was truly involved in the democratic process of selection of public officials. Dad was especially interested in the newcomers, for he had a firm belief that the existing office holder should be turned out before he had a chance to know the system well enough to become corrupt – the newcomer was still too inexperienced to know how to corrupt the government process.
Consummate “politician”
The summer of 1930 was typical of that era. July was devoted to outdoor activities that always included cutting the lawn. The tool for cutting the lawn was a hand-pushed mower for we were still years away from any power assist tools. Connie and I shared the mowing duty, with the front lawn being prized more than the back since there were fewer edges, so that the hand trimming was somewhat easier. When that chore was done, there were always flower beds to be weeded. I did not mind the weeding job since the neat display that remained after the weeds had been pulled out appealed to me. However, my services were at times suspect after my mother once observed me pulling out as weeds some delicate seedlings that she had been nursing carefully. So before doing the weeding, I had to identify to her what I thought were weeds. We boys did lots of painting too, mostly on the several trellises that dotted the yard including the one that enclosed the clothes line area. We also painted the lawn furniture and the two-seater garden swing. The care and feeding of the goldfish that inhabited the large pool that Dad had constructed in the area to the rear of the garage was a daily chore.
When August came, it was off to the beach for the month. Again we went to a summer cottage at Black Point, where we now felt quite comfortable since we had become well acquainted with the Niantic area and its stores and shops that catered to the summer resident. We also got reacquainted with the osprey, a fish hawk that was very numerous in those days along the shore. They usually built their nests atop the utility poles from which they carried out their unique lives. Mom in particular enjoyed watching their antics as they caught their daily diet of fish. We renewed our interest in tennis with a consuming passion, and consequently Connie and I were acquiring a passable skill at the game and became increasingly interested in having better grade rackets. But better rackets were not forthcoming, which, no doubt, was a mild foretelling of the future when money got tighter and tighter as the grip of the Depression became ever stronger.
Rainy days at the beach can be problem. But we had a solution to a rainy day. The whole family would pile into the Oldsmobile (after Dad had put up the isinglass “side curtains” that enclosed the passenger seats) and off we would go to New London, the big city of the area with its busy shops and its fascinating waterfront. Usually there were some purchases that Mom wanted to make, so a tour of the shops along State Street had the first priority. Then we walked down to the docks across from the railroad station at the foot of State Street. Frequently there was a side-paddled steam boat docked there, pausing either on a run to Providence, or one to Block Island, or one to Saybrook and up the Connecticut. Occasionally we saw one of the Fall River Line boats on its New London stop on the New York – Boston route. Tiring of that, we would return to the Olds and motor along the Thames waterfront down toward Ocean Beach in order to view the many yachts that were moored there. Or, in a different mood, Dad would drive across the draw bridge that connected with the Groton bank so that we could take a tour around the Submarine Base that was on that shore of the river. It was still early days of the underwater service, and the Navy’s principal submarines were diesel-electric powered “S” type boats. That was my earliest introduction to the submarine. Years later, the engineering and design of nuclear-powered submarines became my major career.
I have not mentioned our dog Buddy. We always thought of Buddy as a male and we used a male name. Actually the dog was a neutered female English Bull-Terrier, but we boys didn’t worry about her sex. Though a dog, Buddy claimed rights as a family member. So she was offended when the family went off in the Oldsmobile and left her at home. She apparently had a timetable for tolerating the family’s absence; for if it were only a short time, she would behave; but, if we were gone a long time, she would begin to unmake beds. Depending on how long we left her alone in the house, there would be one or more beds with the covers and sheets pulled completely off and piled in a heap on the floor, and Buddy would be sitting triumphantly in the middle of one of the piles. Buddy had certain rights at the dinner table which she knew and enforced. The family rule was that all bones belonged to Buddy. So, if dinner involved pork chops, the meat that could be taken by using the knife and fork was all we boys could have. It was against the rules to pick up the bone and chew any meat from it, for that was Buddy’s territory. She kept a close watch on the dinner table for any violation of the rules. On occasion when I attempted to eat the bone, Buddy would let out a low snarl alerting Mom to the transgression. That was all that was needed to set things right. Buddy also claimed a share of the double bed that Connie and I slept in. She wanted a segment at the bottom, and if she were pushed out, she had only to let out a sharp bark, again alerting Mom to the fact the boys were dumping on her. But Buddy was an outstanding watch dog. She knew precisely the limits of our property. She usually lay on the porch or near the window, and if a stranger crossed that boundary, she let out a warning bark and then monitored the situation until she was assured that all was right.
Buddy
Buddy with boys
After Labor Day in September 1930, we went back to the Highland Junior High for our ninth grade. As before I have difficulty remembering the teachers, except for Mr. Keough who still taught science, and Mr. Wynn whose manual training course that year consisted of the print shop, and Miss Sullivan who taught English. I remember Miss Sullivan’s crooked forefinger. When she pointed at a student, which she often did, the effect was quite ambiguous, since the finger did not point at the person she was looking at.
That was the year we were enrolled in a Dancing School. I don’t remember its name, or the name of the lady who taught it, but it was a private school with a select clientele that was held in a small ballroom at the Hotel Nonotuck, the main hotel in Holyoke, owned and operated by Sue Dawson’s father. It was the social center of the area at that time. Boys and girls had been recruited from all over the city, and I suppose the group must have been about fifty in all. Sue was there, and so was Clare Hartnett. There was also a girl from Elmwood, who attended the Metcalf Junior High, and was a cousin of Fayette White and Don McAuslan. Her name was June Doerpholz. She was a delicate blond who became my favorite partner – not that we were encouraged to have favorite partners – the lady in charge assigned partners and went out of her way to mix things up. Anyway, the word seemed to get around that I liked to dance with June. About the same time, in Miss Sullivan’s English Class, we were reading, memorizing, and reciting from James Russell Lowell’s classic, “The Vision of Sir Launfal” which contains the lines
What is so rare as a day in June,
Then, if ever, come perfect days….
It was a perfect target for mischief. When Miss Sullivan called on one of my classmates to recite the lines, the first one would come out “What is so rare as a day with June”, and Miss Sullivan would go bonkers. She would scold and point out that the line was “in June”, not “with June”. But knowing winks would be passed around the room, and the next day, the gaffe was likely to be repeated. I don’t think Miss Sullivan ever caught on.
The Nonotuck Hotel – Later Roger Smith Hotel – as it stands today
The Automobile business was growing by leaps and bounds. The fever to own an automobile had, by now, infected every family. To exploit this fever, the automobile dealers annually staged an Automobile Show in the National Guard Armory to coincide with their plans for introducing the new year’s models. The country was getting inoculated with the notion of annual obsolescence of automobiles. To keep up, one had to have the latest model car. The shows always featured what was new, different, bigger, better. The Chamber of Commerce was always knee deep in promoting the Automobile Show. Entry was free. Crowds were encouraged by free entertainment. I remember that the Holyoke Girl Scout Drum and Bugle Corp, a top notch precision marching group, was a perennial crowd favorite. It was about 1930, when Dad got bit by his own promotional bent. For suddenly, the Oldsmobile seemed to be inadequate. It was an open phaeton, whereas the best cars were now enclosed with “shatter-proof” glass windows and a hard top that was “safe” in an accident. It had only two wheel brakes, whereas the best cars now had four wheel brakes. There were other points of persuasion; but they were not really needed. Dad bought his second car, a Graham-Paige (a company that went defunct long ago), a four door touring car with a six cylinder engine. It probably cost about $800 to be in the forefront of the motoring clan.
Connie, Mom, Bob, Harold, the “GP’
The Graham-Paige
Suddenly it was June and time to graduate. We spent a lot of time rehearsing for the program. The school orchestra had to perform, so Mr. Grady drilled that group hard. And the graduates were trained to sing several songs. Only one of these do I remember. It was written in Old English, with appropriate pronunciation and music.
“Summer is a cumin in
Loudly sing cookoo….”
The graduation was held on a hot night in June in the presence of assembled parents, relatives and friends. After it was over, I requested a treat of a quart of ice cream. Amazingly, I got it. Furthermore, I ate it all. I don’t remember being sick.
A few days later, Mom decided it was time to talk to her boys about girl and boy matters. I didn’t get her point. As far as I could tell, boys were to play baseball, football, and tennis with, and girls were to dance with.
That summer, as part of the celebration of my “birthmonth”, we began another annual tradition. We went to the tennis matches at the Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. The National Doubles Championships were staged there on the club’s gorgeous grass surface tennis courts. It was still the day of the amateur (professional tennis was years in the future), and the acceptable clothing for men was white tee shirts and long white flannel trousers. We chose to go on Quarterfinal Day because we could see a sizable number of the world’s best players all on the same day. We would arrive early and spend a couple of hours watching the players on the outer courts. Then after a picnic lunch, we would move into the stadium where about 4000 persons could be seated for the performance. The players were uniformly incredibly talented, and it was both inspiring to watch, and humbling to appreciate how much there was to learn about the game. I remember the overpowering games of Don Budge and Ellsworth Vines. I remember the miraculous shot making of Fred Perry. And I remember the persistent ball returns by Bitsy Grant. Especially I remember Alice Marble and her very powerful game that overcame all opposition in the ladies’ brackets.
As usual, we went to the beach in August. This time we went to a cottage in a new shore development at Indian Town which is off Route 1, about a mile west from the Saybrook Town Hall. The development was being promoted by the Chapman family of Saybrook, and Dad’s friend, Ted McAuslan, had already built a vacation home there. Dad had some thoughts of also building a summer home, and we were trying out the location. Since there was a brand new tennis court, we boys liked Indian Town on sight. But there were also exceptionally good swimming facilities, with several sandy beaches, and a large lagoon sheltered behind the breakwater. It was a typical August with guests every weekend. As I remember Jean and Arthur Judge came for a week. Cousin Ruth Zack also came for a week. Everyone expressed enthusiasm for Indian Town, and Dad bought a glorious building lot on the hill overlooking the Sound and adjacent to the McAuslan place. Next year he would build a house, and the approaching Depression would not deter him.
HOLYOKE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Connie and I entered Holyoke High School in September of 1931. I was 14 years old, which made me one of the youngest students in the entering class of well over 400 persons: but I did not feel under any handicap for I had become accustomed to being one of the younger members of the gang.
Everything about our school day was new and different. To begin with, the high school day started and formal classes ended much earlier than they had in junior high. On top of the earlier start, the school was much farther from our home. We had to allow another twenty minutes to walk the extra mile.
The school house was a massive and imposing building that intimidated some of the new students. The building, which had been in use since the turn of the century, was the same one that my father had attended; so, through him, we had an initial familiarity with the place that made our orientation much easier.
The design of the building was unique. An auditorium, capable of seating the entire student body of some 1500 persons, and equipped with a stage that was amply large and suitably arranged for dramatic productions, was at the core of the building. Arrayed on all four sides around the auditorium structure was the classroom structure. The main hallways were adjacent to a window wall that was nearest the center and looked out at the auditorium. The classrooms, which were uniformly large, led off the outer side of the main hallways. There were also rooms available for the school’s principal and administrators, for teachers’ offices, for club activities, and for storerooms.
The building occupied an entire city block bounded by Beech and Pine Streets between Sargeant and Hampshire Streets. The main entrance was from Pine Street, but auxiliary entrances were provided from the other streets. Across Sargeant Street and along Beech Street was the Vocational High School. It contained, in addition to the vocational class facilities, a large gymnasium and a swimming pool along with supporting locker rooms and shower facilities. We regarded the gymnasium and pool as part of our high school.
Holyoke High
Connie – new suit
Harold – new suit
Further along Beech Street, beyond the Vocational School, were the playgrounds which were equipped to support seasonal activities including football, hockey and skating, and baseball. Further up Beech Street and adjacent to Northampton Street were more playing fields that included five tennis courts. We regarded all this as part of our high school campus. I can say, in the later years when I was for a time a high school teacher, I never encountered high school facilities better adapted for education than the Holyoke High School that I attended.
Since this was the only public high school in Holyoke, the new class drew students from all over the city, representing all five junior high schools. As a direct consequence, our horizons began immediately to be stretched as we made new acquaintances among these boys and girls. In retrospect, we seemed to have a bent toward meeting the kids that came from Metcalf. Slowly the gang grew and diversified. Al Delude began to pay attention to Doris Bonner; Ed Banas was attracted to Muriel Landers; Connie was interested in Virginia Colby but Clare Hartnett was still my favorite girl friend. Incidentally, June Doerpholz did not attend Holyoke High but went off to private school.
Howard Conant was still the principal of Holyoke High School. He had been principal when Dad had graduated with the Class of 1911. One can imagine Mr. Conant’s sense of service to the community when he began to see families recycle their offspring through his school. Among the students, the principal was affectionately and respectfully known as “Baldy” for very obvious reasons. His stern fatherly countenance, with his dark shell circular glasses perched on his nose, was crowned with a narrow band of thin white hair above which was his shiny bald pate. Always immaculately groomed, usually in a double breasted blue serge suit, Principal Conant presented the classical authority figure. None of us doubted who was in charge; but also, none of us doubted who was our friend.
The school was a model of smooth organization. Every student had a homeroom where some teacher was assigned to take daily attendance, make announcements, and otherwise assist in administrative details. Class schedules for each student had been made out in advance, and were ready for distribution and use on the first day. Since each student’s schedule was especially tailored, each student was expected to find his own way from class to class, and this was another variation from junior high. The resultant turmoil in the corridors between classes was actually more apparent than real, because the teachers stood near their classroom doors to assure that the movement of the students was purposeful.
I cannot recall the precise details of my schedule; but I do remember that I had been assigned to the same room as Connie. That fact distressed me because I had wanted to be out from under the continual shadow of an older brother. I had nothing against Connie; I just wanted to be in a situation where I was not thought to be hanging onto his coat tails. This desire did not seem unreasonable. In such a large school there surely must be enough combinations of classes so that I could take the same course as Connie without having to be in the same classes as him. So, on my own, I made a survey of the alternate possibilities for my schedule, and I quickly learned that there were several alternatives. I headed for the office to make my complaint known to the people there. I was ushered into the Vice-Principal’s office, who took great umbrage at my attempt to schedule myself. He marched me into the presence of Baldy Conant with the recommendation that I be disciplined. But Baldy was fascinated by my information. He wanted to know all about how I had figured out the scheduling plan, then he concurred that the alternatives did exist. But then he wanted to know why I wanted to have a different schedule, saying that he had understood that the Hemond boys would insist on being together. When I assured him that was not the case, he agreed to the changes I had asked for. I later learned (from Dad) that Baldy called Dad that morning to report that he had observed that the Hemond boys must be chips off the old block. I suppose it had been a brash action for a new student.
Connie and I were veterans of three years of music instruction by Mr. Grady in the junior high orchestra, and so we were immediately admitted to both the high school orchestra and band. Connie was switched from the tuba to the more spectacular sousaphone, while I continued to play the clarinet. In general, the orchestra played when the affair was in the school, and the band played when the affair was outside of school.
Mr. Conant believed that he should assemble the entire student body at least once each week, and I seem to remember that these meetings were the first period on Friday morning. The orchestra was always called on to furnish processional music, as well as the National Anthem, so that meant remembering to carry my clarinet to school on those days. The assembly always included a scripture reading by some student; in those days no one seemed to get uptight about reading scripture in the school house. There was usually some message delivered by Conant. He was an old professional at the craft of public speaking and his words set an inspirational tone for the school. Sometimes the assembly was addressed by a visitor of note; sometimes the program involved some dramatic piece, and sometimes there was a special musical presentation. National holidays were always appropriately noted. For the Memorial Day program, real live Civil War veterans came to tell of their experiences.
I think it was the second day of school that the notice went out that candidates for the football team should report to the gymnasium immediately after school. (Football teams did not start school ahead of everybody else in those days.) I had always been enthusiastic about football, so I jumped at the chance to join the team. What a fine opportunity to learn how to play the game! So, along with maybe a hundred other boys, practically all of whom were bigger and older, I dashed to the gym right after school to meet the coach whose name was William Sullivan. Here I should mention that Dad had been Captain of Football when he had been in high school, and was apparently a very talented player. And I should also mention that Billy Sullivan had been a player on Dad’s team and remembered how good Dad was. So, quite naturally, when Mr. Sullivan saw my name on the sign up roster, he got the wrong impression. He assumed that he was getting another super star. Immediately he added my name to his potential starting lineup, and issued me a brand new uniform. Yet I was such a neophyte that I scarcely could figure out how to get into the uniform. I need not describe the fiasco that was. Fact is, I was a good punter and drop kicker; but Sullivan never got to know that. In another era, when specialization had become the rule in the sport, I would have fared better; but, in 1931, a team consisted of eleven men who played full-time and did everything.
Joe Hemond, 3rd from left, back row, Holyoke High c. 1911
I have been trying to remember exactly what subjects I studied, and exactly who the teachers were. I took English, and Anna Gear was the teacher. Anna’s style was conversational, and I enjoyed her classes; however, she did not run a very intensive program. Connie was with J. Louis Keegan, and I think he fared better. Then I took mathematics with John Lacey; although I learned the subject well, I don’t think it was Mr. Lacey’s fault. Mr. Lacey had clearly lost his enthusiasm for teaching. The class annoyed him, and now and again he would throw something at a kid. But I was never his target. There was a French class and I can’t recall the teacher. Languages never did excite me. There was Latin, with Bertha Morgan as the teacher. Bertha had been a fixture at the school for many years, as, indeed, were most of the members of the faculty. So that’s about it. My grades were always respectable, and I was always on the first honor roll.
The annual Eastern States Exhibition at West Springfield was set for early in September. Customarily, the Monday of the exhibition week was designated as Children’s Day and all school children were admitted free. Schools all over the area took advantage of this opportunity making for a very large attendance that day. There was always a competition staged among the high school bands in the valley and Mr. Grady had our band in the thick of things. We had been drilled in Sousa marches, and coached on how to make a smart appearance while playing an instrument and marching at the same time, and trained on intricate maneuvers that were supposed to impress the judges. Our uniforms involved white sweaters and white flannel trousers with a purple cloak and a purple plumed hat. Incidentally, there were no girls in the band; for it was not yet considered acceptable conduct for a girl to play in a marching band. Mr. Grady, with his professional background, was fiercely competitive; more so than most of the kids. So we tried hard, and came off with one of the prizes. When the competition had ended, we had some free time to roam the many exhibit buildings.
The future “wonders” of the world were on display in the Industrial Arts building. Among other things, the “wonders” dealt with advances in the automobile. New storage batteries (they were still all six volt) were being offered to assure winter starts; some manufacturers were offering the latest in tires with 5000 mile guarantees; other manufacturers were demonstrating that hydraulic brakes were better than mechanical ones and were the way of the future; and somebody even had a demonstration of an automatic windshield wiper that was bound to replace the hand operated variety. Of course, all the new model cars were there, each with its claim of significant advancement. One offered four wheel brakes; another offered focused headlight beams; and yet another featured a new hot water heater that would keep the car comfortably warm in winter, and somebody’s banners proclaimed the availability of a 35 horsepower engine!
Household goods, particularly the new electrical appliances, were also given great attention. Electric refrigerators were all the rage since housewives sensed their advantage over the ice box without having to be told. This was about the time that the famous GE model with the top mounted compressor and circular heat exchanger was ready for full production. It was the pride of many a housewife for years to come. Electrical toasters were featured by a number of exhibitors; most of them made toast and offered it as a free sample of what their device could do, and it was a delicious improvement over the “one side at a time” technique over a gas flame that usually left one side hot and the other cold with the whole tasting more like carbon than bread.
Before we had to go home, we just had time to dash over to the State Buildings to sample their offerings. I remember Vermont’s exhibits for the emphasis on their maple sugar industry; the samples of their wares were particularly welcome. I remember the Massachusetts building for the gorgeous displays of apples of all varieties. And I recall that the Maine building featured its vast forests and forest products business, along with displays of their unique fish and wildlife resources. Connecticut and New Hampshire had exhibition halls too; Rhode Island would add a building a few years later.
About the time we started high school, Mother began to show signs of failing health. I never understood what the problem was, but more and more frequently, she needed the services of the family physician. Occasionally she was even bed-ridden. So we boys began to help her by learning how to prepare meals. I’m sure there were some dishes that were disasters, but, if so, I’ve forgotten about them. My recollection is that by following Mom’s directions, which she was quite able to give, the meals always turned out OK. This situation continued throughout our high school years so I gradually became proficient in the kitchen, even to the point of being able to turn out pies and cakes and other desserts. My best effort was chocolate cream pie.
Virginia Colby’s parents were separated which was a most unusual social situation in those days. Virginia lived with her mother in a house on upper Hampden Street. Virginia’s father owned a chain of bakeries, and apparently was well off because he was able to lavish gifts and fancy clothes on her. Anyway, one Friday evening, the gang was invited to a party at Virginia’s home. As I remember, there were six boys and six girls. Virginia had the latest in record players (78 rpm stuff) and a store of records featuring big band names. As the music played, the boys and girls paired off and began dancing. But after a while, Virginia’s mother decided to promote a game. She called it “Spin the Bottle”. Everybody sat around in a big circle on the floor. Then somebody was selected to spine a bottle on the floor in the center of the ring of people. The bottle was an empty quart glass milk bottle. When it stopped spinning, its mouth would be determined to be pointing at some person of the opposite sex from the spinner. The spinner then was supposed to kiss the selected person who would then become the spinner. I thought it was a dumb game. But all the girls were enthusiastic about it, and after a while I changed my mind and entered into the spirit of things. I think that was the first time I kissed Clare, and Sue, and Virginia, and Doris, and Muriel, and Esther. But I think Mrs. Colby had the most fun of anyone.
Connie, Virginia Colby, Sue Dawson, Clare Hartnett, Ester Morgan, Harold – Bob in front – Indian Town 1934
During the winter season, home basketball games were played on either Tuesday or Friday evening. Our gang loyally supported the team with most everyone being at every game even though the folks didn’t think much of kids going out on a school night and we had to show that our homework was complete in order to get permission to go. Basketball was a much slower game in those days. There was a tip off after each time that a basket was scored, which meant the game was constantly stopping and restarting. It also emphasized the need for a very tall kid who could also leap high to play the center position. Since our school did not have any freaky tall kids, our team was always losing the tip offs which was a big handicap. Coaches also were convinced that the only acceptable way to shoot at the basket was with two hands on the ball, so they were constantly harping on the point. This too slowed the game down as players tried to maneuver into a position where they could use both hands as they made their shot. So one never saw any one-handed magic, and the slam dunk was unheard of. But we cheered the team on, and not infrequently they came up with a win. When that happened, we went home to announce “We won”; but if it was a loss, we went home to announce “They lost.”
Both Connie and I were interested in newspaper work, coming by that interest because of Dad’s background. So, when there was an announcement that people were wanted to help prepare the school paper, The Herald, we both signed on. The faculty adviser of The Herald was Gerald Hafey of the English department, who happened to live around the corner from us on Nonotuck Street. My assignments were to report sporting events, while Connie got involved in news and make-up of the paper. Other kids got into social events, and special programs. Still others sold advertisements to local merchants to help pay the expenses of publication. My understanding is that the paper was always a self-supporting venture. Joining the staff of the paper furnished yet another expansion of our acquaintances in the school, particularly with those in the upper classes. So it was that we met Carol Horrigan and Wilhemina Thompson, both juniors, who thereafter pretty much became members of our growing gang. Carol’s father was a doctor, and they lived in a large old mansion downtown. Willy’s folks lived way out in South Hadley Center and preferred that she go to Holyoke High rather than the considerably smaller South Hadley High and had arranged that with the school board. But it meant that Willy had lots of transportation problems.
By spring time, it was apparent that Dad had decided to go ahead and build a beach house on the property that he had bought at Indian Town. One day he went down to the shore to talk to a contractor that had been referred to him by the Chapmans, and wound up hiring an architect to design a house around a concept plan that Mom and Dad had cooked up. After the drawings had arrived along with the contractor’s cost estimate, I went with Dad down to Middletown as he negotiated a mortgage loan with the Middletown Bank. The house was estimated to cost $10,000 of which Dad would advance $5,000 and the bank would loan $5,000. The house was much more pretentious than the place Dad already owned on Pearl Street. It had four bedrooms and two baths, a huge living room and adjacent porch, a formal dining room, a large kitchen, and a separate standing two-car garage. The living room grade was two steps down from the remainder of the house, and the living room had a cathedral ceiling that went up to the roof, making a very imposing space. At the far end of the room, overlooking the salt marches, was a studio type window topped by a semi-circle of glass. Centered on the north wall of this long rectangle was a fieldstone fireplace that rose from floor to ceiling. On the wall opposite the fireplace, two sets of double French doors opened out to the veranda from which one had a panoramic view of Long Island Sound. The rest of the house was a large rectangle containing the dining room, kitchen, and two medium sized bedrooms, and a bath on the first floor, an oak tread stairway leading to two large bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. It was a very liveable house plan.
Indian Town
Indian Town
Same house – different view
With the house underway, Mom turned her attention to the furniture that would be needed. From sources that I don’t think I ever knew, she acquired all manner of discarded furniture; and then she put her boys to work refurbishing the same. Daily, after school, our chores were to paint this chair, or to repair that bed set, or to reglue some loose chair rungs. Whatever was needed to put the piece back into first class condition, we boys were asked to do. When June arrived and school was over, the furniture conditioning went on almost full time. Soon it was evident that we would meet our deadline of having the furniture ready for moving into the house by the first of August when Dad’s vacation would start.
But there were other problems. The contractor had fallen behind in his schedule and was saying that occupancy could not occur on August 1. Dad was disappointed, but Mom was furious. She simply would not accept a failure on the part of the contractor to perform. One day we piled into the car and headed for the beach with Mom in high dudgeon. We found the house far from complete. In the living room portion, the roof wasn’t even on. My feeling was that the job could not be done in the two weeks that remained. However, Mom had words for the contractor that left no room for his doubting her intentions; for on August 1, she would arrive with a van full of furniture that would be moved into the house – it had better be ready, or else! And, incredibly, it was. The contractor was still madly driving to clean up the last piles of saw dust and debris as the furniture van pulled into the yard. The contractor negotiated a few hours more, but the van gang wouldn’t wait after that and moved the furniture into the house. By night time, we boys had set up beds for everyone, and we had our first night in the Saybrook house.
Agnes
In the month that followed, we settled into the new house as the builder’s men continued to work on various loose ends. We boys took care of the yard which had only been roughly graded. We smoothed and raked the ground, and planted some grass seed. We also set some stepping stones for a walk to the front door. Mom wanted outdoor eating facilities, so we helped Dad handle that. The first thing was to build an outdoor fireplace, which we managed out of stones that were available around. As soon as it was finished, we had a cookout, and the new grill worked fine. Then we realized we needed some outdoor furniture, particularly a table, and we set about making one to a design that Dad came up with. Mom also wanted a flag pole so we could show the flag. We discovered a hole in the top of an outcropping near the dining room window which seemed ideal for holding a flag pole. Except the hole needed enlargement. Somebody worked on that when there was a chance between other activities. Of course, we did not forget we were at the beach, so there was daily time allotted for tennis and for swimming. And Mom sent off letters inviting her friends to come visit, and soon some of them did just that. Some days, the major activity was greeting guests and taking them swimming. All too soon, Labor Day came and we had to go back to Holyoke in time to start our junior year at good old Holyoke High School.
Harold at the beach
Thompson Family visit to Indian Town
Connie and I started our junior year at Holyoke High School on the day after Labor Day in September of 1932. I was fifteen years old.
As I remember, I was in Anna Gear’s homeroom that year. Fortunately, the administration had taken note of my desire, expressed last year, not to be in the same classes with Connie. Though we had the same college bound course, all of our instructors were different. Mabel Judd, a very gentle lady who later left teaching to be a Maryknoll nun, was my English teacher. She provided a very pleasant learning experience. In mathematics, I was under the guidance of Samuel Brunelle, a roly poly jolly fellow with a great teaching talent. One time while tending his home furnace, Sammy had the misfortune to be badly seared about the head by a furnace backfire. But he carried out his duties at the podium the next day looking quite strange with puffed red cheeks and minus most of his hair. The chemistry class and the accompanying laboratory periods were in charge of A. Omer Hebert, a severe task master of the old school. Chemistry was a place where mischievous or inattentive kids could easily get in trouble, and Mr. Hebert was always on guard against sloppy work. The kid who wasn’t serious was likely to find himself out in the corridor. I can’t remember my French teacher, but I think it must have been Charlotte Norris, who was another teacher who professed to remember having had Dad when he was in high school. Though Miss Norris tried hard, and though I continued to get top grades, I never could generate much enthusiasm for foreign language study.
As the fall season advanced, presidential politics came more and more to the fore of our attention. Though we kids could not vote, the interests of our adult contacts both in and out of school had an impact. The campaign pitted the incumbent Republican candidate Herbert Hoover against the challenger Democrat candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt. Feelings ran high because of the sad state of the national economy which had steadily deteriorated since the stock market crash of 1929. My folks were normally solidly in the Republican ranks, and might have been expected to support Hoover. However, Dad especially had witnessed the ever growing ranks of unemployed as business after business failed or was drastically curtailed, and he was not willing to vote for Hoover who had seemed either unable or unwilling to marshal government powers to effect a turnaround. At the same time, Dad was not immediately swayed to support Roosevelt, being somewhat skeptical that a wealthy Democrat could care enough about the people’s problems to make effective moves. Mother, however, who had been an enthusiastic voter ever since the Woman Suffrage Amendment in 1920, knew her mind instantly. She was solidly in the Roosevelt camp.
That events in the real world were serious came home to me with great force when Mom sat us down one day to hear the news about what the folks could finance in the way of college attendance. To this date, I had never questioned the matter. I was intending to attend Yale University where I would enter the Sheffield School of Engineering. It was a plan well known in the family and always drew an approving nod from Dad, who thought Sheffield provided the top training in the business. But Mom laid out the basic facts. The Depression had caught up with us. Dad had been asked to take a pay cut to conform to what the Chamber of Commerce, in its reduced circumstances, could manage. Mom thought there might even be times when the Chamber would have to default on the salary payments. So Yale was out of the question, and maybe all colleges would be out of the question. But, in the meantime, we were to consider the possibility of going to Massachusetts State College at Amherst, Mass. It was, indeed, a rude jolt. It riveted my attention, as nothing else could, on the forthcoming election.
It was indeed a desperate time. People talked about the possibility of a total breakdown in the institutions of society. National income had already been cut in half. More than fifteen million men were out of work. Remember that this was the society that believed that men only should work and ladies were to stay home and raise the family and keep the house. So fifteen million unemployed men, at a time when there was no such thing as unemployment compensation, meant fifteen million families with no income whatsoever. Furthermore the banks everywhere were in trouble as cash flow continued to decrease. Hundreds of them, in every state, were forced to close their doors, or restrict their business. Against this background Roosevelt won by 472 to 59 votes in the Electoral College to become the first Democrat President since the days of Woodrow Wilson.
The Depression closed in a little tighter when Uncle George McDonald lost his job. Mom and Dad made room in our house for Adele, George, and Junior until such time as things eased up for them. The house at Pearl Street had a large front parlor which was normally not in use, being saved for company. Our furniture was moved out to the attic, and the McDonalds set up sleeping facilities there. The arrangement was to last the better part of a year when George managed to locate another job, and they were able to move to their own apartment around the corner on Pleasant Street next to Ritterman’s corner grocery store. During that time, Junior had a severe accident when another kid in the area threw a stone at him. The stone struck Junior in the face just below his right eye, causing a severe gash – fortunately it had not hit him in the eye. Also, during that period, Adele’s artistic and creative talents developed as she made efforts to add to the family income. She wove baskets, she did needlework, she did other clever things and sold them to friends and neighbors.
The Depression also had an impact on Dad’s upstairs rental apartment. For now rentals like Dad’s had become highly competitive, and it was difficult to retain a tenant. Rents were on a continuing downward slide. A tenant, finding a cheaper place somewhere, would give notice and move out. Often, the tenant only stayed two or three months. Dad’s charge went steadily down from $45 per month to $35 per month at which point he dug in his heels and would not go lower. But still, in order to attract a new tenant, Dad frequently had to agree to some redecoration, most of which was done by us boys. I can remember completely painting the bathroom for one tenant who remained only three months, and then completely painting it another color for the next tenant. We had a similar experience changing wallpaper. And, of course, Dad would want the floors completely revarnished when the apartment stood idle. Fortunately Dad finally located a steady responsible tenant in the Barrett family. Mr. Barrett had his own gas station and automobile service station down on Suffolk Street, and he kept Dad’s car in good condition. Mrs. Barrett and Mother were most compatible, conferring frequently, and sharing recipes and desserts. The Barretts stayed a number of years until they were finally able to purchase a house of their own on Northampton Street.
I can’t remember the exact date of the Junior Prom but it must have been sometime during the winter. Proms were held in the gymnasium of a Friday evening, with the scheduled starting time about 8:30 P.M. And the finish time about 11:30 P.M. The prom committee was responsible for setting the scene and decorating the hall. They usually did that after school on the day of the big event. Typically there would be card tables and chairs placed all around the edge of the hall in sufficient quantity to seat every ticket holder. The tables would have a covering that fit the decorative motif. The logistics of moving the tables and chairs into the gym (and after the dance moving them out) required lots of committee member power. Others on the committee would attend to the decoration of the hall. Often that involved some spectacular centerpiece since that had to be suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the hall, which meant some daring young man had to climb up a very high ladder to make the thing secure.
The Junior Prom was considered a “formal” dance. Local custom decreed that girls would wear formal gowns to such an affair, while boys were adequately dressed wearing a full suit and tie. However, it was often the case that boys wore tuxedos. Connie and I did. Mom had insisted on it. It was the only proper way for boys to dress for a formal dance.
The boy was expected to buy his date a corsage, and of course the flowers had to be selected to complement the girl’s dress. That wasn’t always easy to do, because it meant finding out what the gown was like. Anyway, it was an expense that ranged from $3 to $5, on top of the cost of the ticket, which would also have been of the order of $5. So a prom would blow about ten bucks, which was no trivial matter in those days. The girls considered their expense to be even greater than the boys; no doubt they were correct as the norm was to have a new gown.
The dance music of the day had to have the “big band” sound. A number of dance bands were available for hire, and the dance committee’s biggest decision involved the band selection. To hire a group of ten musicians would require about $50, which would be one of the committee’s biggest expense items; but if the band had a good reputation among the kids, the ticket sales would be greater. If a smaller band was selected, there was the risk that the event would go bust.
In those days, it was pretty standard for me to ask Clare Hartnett to go to the dance with me, for I was quite fond of Clare and we seemed to be able to dance very well together. Clare was a very pretty brunette, three or four inches shorter than I, with a classical slim figure. She was happy, outgoing, and full of conversation. In those days her hair was jet black, and, in later years after college when she suddenly became a white haired blond, I learned that the black was not natural. She had always dyed her hair black. Her natural hair had been pure white, apparently inherited from her father. She had to stop using dye because of adverse effects on her health. Connie usually asked Sue Dawson to the dances, and they got along pretty well also, although Sue tended to want to do the leading. Since we boys did not yet have driver’s licenses, there was no possibility of getting the family car for our own use on dance night. Rather we got the car along with a driver – Dad. He drove around as we collected the girls, then dropped us off at the gym, and was waiting patiently for us after the dance. I think the parents were all pleased with the arrangement, but we kids would have enjoyed having our own transportation. Anyway, the dance was most enjoyable since the gang was all there. We swapped partners frequently. The band played all of our favorite numbers. I think “Stardust” by Hoagy Carmichael was at the top of my hit parade; and I liked “Tea for Two” also but some of the kids liked the jitter-bug stuff. The dancers were always chaperoned by a small group of teachers, some of whom had their wives along, and one of the required rituals was to go through the teacher’s receiving line. I always thought that was a dumb custom since the teachers knew everybody who was there.
Ping pong was all the rage. Connie and I wanted a place to play the game, so Dad agreed to let us use a corner of the cellar where we partitioned off a room and built a playing surface. It was all rather crude. There wasn’t really enough length to our room to allow for a good base line game, but we used what space there was. The playing board was a standard sheet of plywood with four by eight foot dimensions. That made it a foot narrower and a foot shorter than a standard playing surface. But we played lots of games on that board. Ed Banas and Al Delude also took up the game, and we formed a team which we called the HEAHs. The idea of the name was to use the first letter of each guy’s first name; and that meant H for Harold, E for Ed, A for Al, and C for Connie. But that read HEAC which could easily be corrupted to hics. So we used Connie’s last name. The HEAHs joined the high school ping pong league, and we cleaned up on most everybody except the team entered by the Jewish Community Center. That team had Mischa Barowsky and some of his friends. They were awesome. Against them we felt we did well when we could make the game competitive; a win was entirely out of the question.
We kept up all the usual extra-curricular activities. There was orchestra rehearsal once a week at least, and more when some event was coming along. Clare was the first chair violinist which made her Concertmaster, and I was the first chair clarinetist. Since Mr. Grady arranged the violins to the left of the leader’s podium, and the clarinets to the right, it turned out that Clare and I sat opposite each other. As first chair violin, Clare had to tune the orchestra to her violin which had in turn been tuned to the piano. The band was also active, not only in school functions, but in town affairs. The band appeared in every parade and civic activity. It was also the guest of the Rotary Club at one of their weekly luncheons. The school paper, Herald, took a lot of time too. I was now the Sports Editor, so I had to make a report on all the athletic events. The Editor-in Chief that year was Carol Horrigan, and her assistant was Wilhemina Thompson. Since Clare wasn’t on the paper staff, paper time was when I had an opportunity to get better acquainted with Willy. Willy was a delightful person, almost always with a happy smile on her face. She had long brown hair, but she never wore it long in public. Rather it was put up in a bun at the back of her neck. She was about six inches shorter than I, with a slim trim figure. The Herald sponsored a school dance in the spring. I took Willy that year and we had a great time for she was a fine dancer. I don’t think Clare minded because she was there with Bob Magrane.
Gang parties continued to occur whenever there was any likely excuse. We had become particularly fond of gathering at Clare’s house which was on Pearl Street near the Hampden Street intersection. Of course I did not know it then, but this Hartnett house, in later years, was to become the property of the Kenneth Field family, which included Frances who became my wife in 1942. But that was ten years later. The high school parties there were very much encouraged by Clare’s father and mother. Mr. Hartnett was a tall spare gentleman with snow white hair, usually impeccably dressed in a blue serge suit. He greeted everyone at the door and gave a hearty welcome, which always got him embraced and kissed by the girls. But as the party progressed, he disappeared, probably upstairs, and Mrs. Hartnett was left to keep her eye on activities. Even so, Clare’s house is where we played Post Office. The front hall was the Post Office and it did a steady business all evening. A boy summoned a girl, and they tried out a kiss or two; and then it was the girl’s turn to summon somebody and the kissing process was repeated. At least, that was the way I played the game; some of the couples perhaps made it more interesting than that.
174 Pearl – Clare’s House – Later Frannie’s – from the small world department
On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States, the thirty-second man to hold that office, the fifth President of my lifetime, the third that had a slot in my personal memory bank. The Inaugural Address was eloquent; he said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!” Immediately there was a great euphoria across the country; people felt comfortable with the man; they had a sense that Roosevelt knew how to end the Depression so life was about to return to normal (it didn’t, but we hadn’t yet found that out). For a while I even thought that I could resume planning to attend Yale University (but that didn’t pan out either).
During the first one hundred days of Roosevelt’s leadership, practically everybody’s life was changed in some significant way. Roosevelt began at once to deal with the economic crisis that had been threatening to cause a collapse of the social institutions by closing all the banks and declaring an embargo on gold while the government reordered the banking establishment. My folks, like most people, were caught short of ready cash, and this was a major personal embarrassment to them, especially to Mom who had been such a strong supporter of Roosevelt only to find him responsible for the sudden money freeze. But fortunately, Roosevelt’s plan worked, the economy stabilized, and the banks reopened within a month.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established furnishing a quasi-military organization that offered work to thousands of unemployed young men. They constructed camps in the National forests, and began the work of reforestation and forest management. Later, when World War II broke out, thousands of young men entering the military service were proud to report that they had already served in the CCCs. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was also formed to authorize public work projects that would provide a source of employment to the men out of work. One such project in Holyoke provided for the construction of two clay surface tennis courts in the park area to the rear of Craft’s Tavern. However, some towns were too proud to accept government money. South Hadley built a new school building and paid for it entirely out of town funds even though the project could have had WPA funds.
The Congress was very responsive to Roosevelt’s plans and quickly passed legislation requested. One of their earliest approvals was of the National Recovery Act (NRA) that gave Roosevelt authority to establish control over all industries. He moved quickly to do so, setting up General Hugh Johnson as the chief administrator. Johnson, in turn, needed local administrators, and Dad was chosen to head up the Holyoke office which was quartered in the Chamber of Commerce. Dad now had “two hats”. For the better part of a year, until the NRA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, Dad enforced the new national recovery codes on local industries. It was a task with no precedents. It called for a continual responsible interpretation of the government directives. I never heard of any complaint about Dad’s handling of the job. By now, “alphabet soup” had made its way into the language; Roosevelt was FDR, and there were CCC, and WPA, and NRA. Other acronyms in profusion would follow in succeeding years.
In local politics, Mayor Burnham died in office, and in a special run-off election, Henry J. Toepfert was elected to be mayor. Henry had been a paper company executive, and it happened that he had recently been laid off as another Depression casualty. So his campaign slogan was, “Vote for Henry – He needs a job”. During Henry’s first year as mayor, he declared that the city had been so mismanaged by others that it would take lots more money to set things right. So he boosted the taxes substantially. Actually it was more tax money than needed, which meant Henry could lower the tax rate in small increments in following years and boast of his great management ability. He stayed in office for a number of years using this ploy.
There was a lot of interest in tennis. Several of us began to lobby for a high school tennis team. As sport’s editor of the Herald, I helped push the idea along. I went to the coach, Billy Sullivan, with the idea, but he was very little help. I’m not sure he really knew much about tennis. Anyway, he could not be counted on to push the idea. So I went to Principal Conant, who was much more willing to listen. How many boys are interested? Where would we play? Are other high schools interested? Etc. Etc. I gave him all the answers and he said he would think about it. I think Dad helped too, although I can’t prove that. But Dad had lots of influence with his old friend, Billy Peck, the School Superintendent. Anyway, just in time for the spring season, we heard that John Driscoll had been appointed coach of the new high school tennis team, and had called for all candidates to meet him at the courts at Crosier Field. So the tennis team was formed. John Driscoll was a recent graduate of Worcester Tech where he had been a member of the WPI tennis team. John was trying to break into the Holyoke teacher corps, and coaching tennis looked like one way to do that. Actually, he never made the permanent teaching staff (very hard to do in those Depression days) so after a while, John went to selling insurance where he ultimately became extremely successful. In the meantime we had a very knowledgeable coach. The team that year consisted of Don McAuslan, Fayette White, Myron Solin, Connie and me. We played a full round of matches with all the high schools in the valley league, and did reasonably well, coming in third after Chicopee and Westfield. When I made the team, it was crucial to me to have a first class tennis racquet. I remember blowing my entire savings of $35 on a “Black Knight”, the best tennis racquet made at that time. Mother thought it was a terrible waste of money, but Dad nodded his approval when he saw the thing. And I was certainly the envy of the tennis set. Everywhere I went, the Black Knight was inspected and admired. The best thing it did for my game was to improve my service stroke, which now became a booming blow that won me many points.
National Doubles, Longwood, Mulloy, Talbert
The last social event of the school year was the Herald Banquet. It was a June affair, of a Friday evening, and always at the roof garden high atop the Hotel Nonotuck. All the kids who had worked on The Herald were there, and that was a goodly number. Gerald Hafey and Mabel Judd attended as faculty sponsors. The roof garden was a very popular night spot in Holyoke in those days, providing nightly dining and dancing. Especially in the summer, on a cool evening, with the stars and the moon as a canopy, it was a dreamy and enchanting place. About two thirds of the floor was roofed over and enclosed with French doors; but the other third was open to all outdoors, contained by a half brick wall surmounted by lush planters. The banquet was served to the group seated at tables for six arranged around the indoor dance floor. The main course, usually a half a chicken, was a challenge to see and eat since the only light came from the dim candle on the table. But there were few complaints. The romance of the place overcame all. That year I escorted Willy Thompson to the banquet, and we had a lovely time eating, talking, and dancing. About the middle of the evening, we rested a bit from dancing by placing a couple of chairs in a corner of the outdoor floor, and snuggled together while we watched the stars twinkle. Mabel Judd, ever alert to the possible shenanigans, didn’t like the set up. We got routed out, the chairs were confiscated and moved indoors, and Willy and I went back to dancing.
Holyoke High, The Herald staff, HC on left
On April 15, the Patriot’s Day holiday in Massachusetts, the Hemond men reopened the cottage at Indian Town that had been closed all winter. Connie, Bobby, and I piled into Dad’s car early that morning and headed for the shore. Our transit time in those days had been whittled down to about three hours. We would stay until the job was done so Mom had fixed us a huge lunch, probably emphasizing boiled ham sandwiches (unless she happened to have some roast beef available), along with fruits, and desserts, and drinks. The previous fall, the furniture in each room had been concentrated near the center and treated liberally with red pepper and moth balls to discourage any damage by rodents. Also the water had been turned off and the pipes had all been drained. Our task that day was to clean the entire house, restore services, and make the place ready for weekends. Dad took on the task of restoring the water, since we could use that service right away. It should have been easy. Just close all the faucets, and turn on the water shut-off valve at the street. But then we heard the water gushing beneath the house and the real world raised its fangs. Dad crawled under the house, and soon emerged with the news that a main segment of the input pipe line had a longitudinal split and was useless. It had to be replaced. And that meant a plumber (this was still the era of iron pipes that had to be cut to size, threaded, and screwed into place). Dad immediately drove into Saybrook in search of a plumber.
Meanwhile, we boys were tackling the red pepper and moth balls. That’s when we learned how irritating red pepper can be. No matter how we attacked the powder, it managed to infiltrate the air throughout the house, and then it infiltrated our noses and we couldn’t escape its fiery fingers. We began wheezing uncontrollably. We needed a protective device that would enable us to breathe. The best idea we had was to soak towels in water and tie the wet rags around our faces. But the water was not yet available. The day was rapidly turning into a disaster when Bobby noted that one of the thermos bottles Mom had included in the lunch basket was full of water. We pounced on it and used the contents sparingly to make three wet rags. Thus armed, we also changed our furniture cleaning procedure. One by one, we took every stick of furniture outdoors well away from the house where we could hope to de-pepper it without further contaminating the house air. That significantly magnified what we had thought was going to be an easy job, but at least it worked. We were well along with the cleaning when Dad returned with a plumber.
About the middle of the afternoon, when we finally had the job under control, someone (I think it was Connie) made the observation that since we were at the beach, we shouldn’t let the opportunity go by to have a swim. It seemed like a great idea, even though it was still April and the warm part of the day had passed. So we boys (not Dad) rummaged through the closets and found last year’s bathing suits, changed, and dashed off to the beach. By then, we all knew that we were a bit daffy, but nobody cared to be the first to chicken out. So in we went! Cold – wow! Literally, I could not take a breath of air! Quickly I reversed direction and crawled onto the shore. I was not alone. Still we had opened the swim season. Ever after, as the cottage was being opened in the spring, the tradition of a swim was observed. We also swam on cottage closing day which was always set for the Armistice Day holiday on November 11.
Harold and Willy on the right
Al Delude, Carol Horigan, Connie/ Doris Bonner, Willy Thompson, Harold – Indian Town
Agnes
Joe, Agnes at the beach
Connie, Bob, Mom, Dad, HC
Connie, Bob, Harold
Adele, unknown, Agnes
It was September of 1933. Now we are seniors! What a feeling! We are the bosses of all we survey. We are the privileged ones. We get the best seats in the auditorium. We get the first lunch time, so we have our choice of the entrees and desserts. There are juniors and sophomores around, and we tolerate them. But the school belongs to us!
An early order of business was the selection of class officers. Everyone was well satisfied with the quartet that had served for the past two years. So by acclimation we made Robert Flynn the President, Mary Hickey the Vice-President, Donald Mahoney the Treasurer, and Mildred Kuc the Secretary. But it was only a few days before tragedy struck. During a football game with Cathedral High School, Bob Flynn was seriously injured. He died the next day, leaving his classmates filled with a deep sorrow that cast a shadow over the entire year.
On 24 September, my paternal grandmother, Marie Emma Richard Hemond, wife of Joseph Hemond, died at her home in Chicopee, age 68 years.
The senior year teacher I remember best was Charles Haskell who was the instructor in College Physics. Mr. Haskell was a tall, stern man, with graying and thinning hair, who was typically immaculately dressed in a dark suit and vest with a slash of bright color coming from his tie. He had a habit of keeping one hand in his trouser’s pocket where he kept his loose coins and jangling them from time to time. He seemed to be unaware of this tic for he did it even as he was lecturing. We got along very well, for I took to physics like a duck to water. Everything about the subject captured my imagination, so the physics assignments were at the top of my priorities list. Where many kids were struggling hopelessly, I always found the topics straightforward, logical, and easy to understand and apply. So there is little wonder that I soon became Mr. Haskell’s favorite pupil. He even said as much to the class. “Keep your eye on Hemond,” he would say. “He’s a very colorful student.” The compliment was nice to hear but hard to live down. It was not the kind of image I wished to have with my classmates.
The rest of my teachers included Esther Barry for college mathematics. I remember her as a fine teacher, with whom I did very well. I had Anna Gear again for college English. She ran a fun class, but it was not especially rigorous, a defect that didn’t bother me then, but which made life difficult the next year in Professor Prince’s English class at Massachusetts State. Prof Prince was not at all bashful about telling a student that his high school course had been woefully lacking in quality. For French, I again had Charlotte Norris, with whom I did reasonably well even though foreign language still did not excite me.
There were other teachers whom I got to know even though I did not take any classes with them. Notably was George Frost who was a mathematics teacher. I don’t remember how, but we struck up a friendship that was to last for many years. After World War II, when I was teaching in the South Hadley High School, George was the prime mover in the establishment of the Holyoke Junior College, and he recruited me to join the staff. So to my full schedule of classes at South Hadley, I added afternoon and evening teaching duties at the Junior College which at that time was conducted in the Holyoke High building. I also came to know Henry Fitzpatrick quite well. Again I’m not sure how this came about. It may have been through sports reporting, because Mr. Fitzpatrick was the hockey coach. Anyway, a few years later, during my year at Graduate School at Massachusetts State, Mr. Fitzpatrick was appointed Principal of the Holyoke Evening High School, and he recruited me to teach algebra. Later, when Dr. Conant retired from the Holyoke High Principalship, Mr. Fitzpatrick succeeded to that post.
Connie and I continued to be active in school affairs. Particularly demanding of our time was the school paper. Doris Bonner was Editor-in-Chief and Connie was the News Editor. Those two had the weekly responsibility of putting the paper together. This was done every Wednesday evening at the Bonner house, where most of the gang assembled. Mr. Bonner was in the insurance business, and he had a large home office that he let us use. Mr. and Mrs. Bonner were very cordial to the gang. Mr. Bonner had a hug and kiss for each of the girls as they arrived. Mrs. Bonner always had some confection like chocolate cake ready for the boys.
We continued to be active in both Mr. Grady’s orchestra and band. Particular note should be made of the annual participation of the band in the Memorial Day exercises. We assembled early on that morning at the National Guard Armory on Sargeant Street, where we formed up and marched down town to Maple Street where the Parade was formed. Then we marched along Maple to Appleton, thence along Appleton to High,, back along High to Suffolk, then the length of Suffolk up the hill to the cemeteries. We went to each cemetery in turn. At each, another ceremony would be conducted by the American Legion. About the middle of the afternoon, the process would be complete, except that the band then marched back down the hill to the Armory where we would disband. Connie and I then had to walk another mile to get home. We ended the day quite exhausted. In retrospect, I marvel at the fact that Mr. Grady, even in his advancing years, was able to march the entire route with us.
Connie – sousaphone
Harold – clarinet
Bob – trombone
Harold – New uniform!
I guess I should record that Connie and I always received good grades, and hence our names always graced the High Honor Roll at the periodic marking periods. Of this, Mom was outspokenly proud; Dad usually just smiled his approval as he fixed his signature to the Report Card.
College came in for more frequent discussion as the year rolled along. During the football season, Dad proposed that we go see the Massachusetts State vs. Amherst game, and in the process look over the campus. It was a gorgeous fall day when we drove off to Amherst Town. The campus, which is set north of the town, is amply spread around a pond. On that autumn day, it positively sparkled in the bright sunlight, and we all expressed approval. The game was also fun because Massachusetts easily managed to down Amherst. This was in no small measure to the talents of little halfback Louis Bush who was in the process of becoming the leading scorer in the intercollegiate ranks. This was Bush’s second year in a row to pull down that honor.
We learned that one way to be admitted to Massachusetts State was for the high school principal to personally certify that his graduate was ready to do college grade work. Obviously we opted for this method rather than taking the entrance examination. So after Dr. Conant had made out the necessary forms and dispatched them to the college, Connie and I found ourselves admitted to the Class of 1938. In the spring, the college held an open house day for high school seniors from around the state, and Connie and I attended that year. It was a very satisfactory day. We gathered in the Bowker Auditorium and heard from President Hugh Baker and Dean Machmer, two distinguished gentlemen who were responsible for the conduct of the school, and we were greatly impressed. Then we were escorted around the entire campus, ushered into typical classrooms and laboratories, shown the living quarters and commons areas, and driven through the college farm where most of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture work is done. And they gave a fine lunch in the college dining hall. We returned home quite satisfied that we would profit from attending this college. That of course meant that the folks had to plan seriously for assembling the tuition fee which was $50.00 per person per semester.
Graduation was rapidly approaching. The faculty held a meeting to decide on the Graduation Program (the faculty decided things in those days – not the students!) They selected a science show as the centerpiece of the evenings entertainment, and gave Mr. Hebert and Mr. Haskell the responsibility of determining the content of the show. Those gentlemen felt that a presentation on light and colors could be informative for parents as well as entertaining. And since I was Mr. Haskell’s prized student, it fell to me to prepare and present the main lecture on the topic. It was a fun thing to prepare the demonstrations. My lecture finally met the approval of the teachers, and all was set for the great evening.
On graduation day, the class assembled in the morning at the Victory Theater on Suffolk Street in order to practice for the evening’s festivities. The Victory was the largest auditorium in town, so it was traditionally the place for graduation. The first thing I noticed that day was how very many classmates I had that I did not know. We were over 400 strong, and that’s a lot of kids to get to know. But our gang had been pretty exclusive, quite content with ourselves. Anyway, as the faculty lined us up according to some criteria known only to them, I found my partner to be Jane Zakrocki, a young lady I had never met. How unfortunate! Jane was a quiet and very pretty girl. Her curly blond hair wreathed her face, setting off her brown eyes and pert nose. She had been in the commercial course, which accounts for the fact our classroom paths had never crossed.
When the faculty was satisfied that we all knew what to do that night, we were dismissed for the rest of the day. I went home for lunch, and, as I had often done before, I fixed an onion sandwich. Large slices of Spanish Onion were stuffed between two pieces of plain white bread, and I began to eat. For some reason, the onions that day did not agree with me. Scarcely had I completed that sandwich, when misery struck! I took to bed, soon moaning and groaning and despairing of being able to attend the Graduation. But fortunately the attack spent its fury rather quickly and by supper time I was fully recovered. But how dumb can a guy be? Imagine even thinking of eating onions when one is about to be in a crowd of people. Incidentally, I haven’t eaten any onions since.
The evening turned out to be one of those very hot nights that can occur in June. And, of course, the day of air conditioned comfort in a theater had not yet arrived. With a packed house of students and parents, the temperature and humidity rose rapidly. But I was behind stage waiting for my turn to perform. When I finally walked out on stage, the scene struck me as comical, and I nearly laughed. With the strong stage lights in my face, all I could see out in the audience were programs moving slowly back and forth, back and forth. Practically everybody was fanning himself! Any apprehension I might have had disappeared instantly. Nobody was going to listen to me. So I launched into my presentation and demonstrations, and I think they went over O.K. The audience seemed impressed with the six dancing girls whose costumes had been treated to show a different pattern under ultraviolet light. We were well applauded at the end of the show. I returned to my assigned seat next to Jane after taking a moment to get a breath of fresh air in an alley outside the stage door.
By then, it was hot! Most people were busy mopping up beads of perspiration that were continuously being formed. Except Jane. She still looked as fresh as a daisy as she whispered her compliments on the show. And I wondered again how it happened in those three years of high school I had never met her. Attention was now focused on the awarding of diplomas. Principal Conant entoned each name. Superintendent Peck handed out the paper with his left hand and shook hands with his right. He congratulated over 400 kids that night, a prodigious hand-shaking feat. Years later, when, as Chairman of the Groton School Board, I had a similar responsibility to hand out diplomas and shake hands with 200 graduates, my hand swelled to twice normal volume by the next morning. When the last of the group had received his reward, Mr. Grady’s orchestra (now minus we seniors) led the singing of the alma mater song, “Hail Holyoke High School”, words and music by Fred Grady. Then came the final procession out of the theater to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance”. The cool night air was a welcome relief! I thanked my partner Jane for her pleasant company, we congratulated each other on having graduated, and then we parted. I never saw her again, not even at reunions. The folks were very pleased with the event as I finally located them in the large crowd, and we gradually made our way home.
School Board Chair Harold C. Hemond hands out Fitch High diploma to son Harold
The next night the gang had a graduation party. I don’t recall the details, but we might have gone dancing at the Casino at Mountain Park. That was probably our last big fling as a group, because college was soon to send us all on our separate ways. Ed Banas went on to Harvard, while Al Delude decided on engineering and went to Worcester Tech. Clare Hartnett was partial to Simmons in Boston, and Sue Dawson took on Smith College. Doris Bonner matriculated at Tufts, Willy Thompson at Mt. Holyoke, Carol Horrigan at Wellesley, and Muriel Landers at Emerson.
That was the summer that I got my driver’s license. On my sixteenth birthday, Dad took me over to the Motor Vehicle Department to have the test. The law was somewhat ambiguous in those days. There was no provision whatever for driving prior to one’s sixteenth birthday. On the other hand, at age sixteen, one was eligible to apply for the license. As far as the law was concerned, driving could be learned in time zero! But I was not concerned. I already knew how to drive. Aunt Adele had seen to that by letting me drive her car all around the back roads of South Hadley on more than one occasion. So had Uncle Arthur. He let me drive his car, though Aunt Jean had a fit that my mother would find out. I think Dad really knew all about this. However, he checked me out with a few start and stop maneuvers in the driveway before we went for the test. There was some concern that I might fail the color test, for my lack of sensitivity to red and green was now well known. However, I carefully watched the examiner give the test to others, and I noted where he kept each color card. I passed with no problem. There were now three family drivers but only one car.
TIMES; SUMMER 1934
Some words are in order describing the times as we graduated from high school.
It seems to me that by then Dad had decided that it was proper to upgrade his “wheels” – he needed a new car. He had bought a Graham-Paige, which was a currently popular model (long since defunct) that had a hard top and glass windows that enclosed the passenger area. I don’t remember what the specific selling points of the car were, but, no doubt, it had all “the latest technology.” I recall that there was a stretch of road in Enfield that went straight for a full mile, and was a favorite place for new owners to try out their car. Dad let me drive that stretch in the G-P. I made 35 miles per hour! Wow! Did that ever seem fast.
At home, Mom now had an electric refrigerator. It was the coming thing. All the ladies had to have one. I can’t recall what brand she bought, although I do remember that Aunt Jean had a Monitor Top General Electric model, and Mom’s was different. That GE unit, by the way, turned out to be a superb refrigerator, outlasting the competition in terms of maintenance free service. I’m sure Mom had to replace her unit long before Aunt Jean did. Anyway, the daily cheery visits from Mr. LeGrande as he delivered the ice needed for the ice box no longer occurred. I missed his friendly greeting and his handouts of ice chips.
There also was an electric toaster in the kitchen. It was that early design that had the heating coils mounted vertically in a center housing, with a rack on each side for a piece of bread. The bread was toasted one side at a time. When the first side was done, the bread was flipped over and the reverse side was done. There were no controls, either of heating temperature, or of the length of exposure of the bread to the heating coils. So one had to be alert to monitor the toasting. Frequently the monitoring was not satisfactory and the bread was left toasting too long. We got a lot of burnt bread in our house that way.
Commercial broadcasting of radio programs was rapidly coming of age and was making a great impression on home entertainment. Dad had long since retired his Atwater Kent in favor of a Westinghouse Console Model that now graced the living room where the family was able to gather around to listen to favorite programs. Thus we heard and enjoyed serious musical scores as they were played over the Firestone Hour. We laughed at the antics of Charlie McCarthy, the Dummy, and his mentor, ventriloquist Edger Bergen. We chuckled at the nightly episode of Amos ‘n Andy, oblivious to the racial slurs that would make such a black face program totally offensive today. And we looked forward to the Lucky Strike Hit Parade to find out which of the melodies were being rendered most often by the big bands. Our family paid little attention to the relentless stream of claims of the merits of Lucky Strike Cigarettes, for we had had the lesson of Dad’s heart attack that had cured him of smoking. But that was not the case with my friends – they were smoking cigarettes in ever increasing numbers, frequently making an awkward social situation for us.
A center for fun and relaxation was Mountain Park, located at the base of Mount Tom. This Park was built and operated by the Holyoke Street Railway Company many years before to stimulate passenger rides. The ploy worked for the Park was usually well attended during the summer months. There was a typical midway with a merry-go-round, a roller coaster, a dodge’em, assorted games of chance and other amusements. A Casino, with a large dance floor and a big stage, was on the circuit for all the big bands, and was a favorite spot for the gang and our contemporaries. A “straw hat” summer theater program was offered all summer. They had resident players who put on a different presentation each week, often with a visiting celebrity in the feature role. The folks usually went every week for Mom was especially fond of stage plays.
Mountain Park Casino – last days
The great American love affair with the motor car was well under way. Though available since the turn of the century, cars were just too expensive until, after World War I, Henry Ford’s assembly line techniques put his Model T within the reach of modest income families. So, in 1934, as the Depression deepened, car prices tumbled. Many families now had a motor car, and all aspired to owning one (the day of the two car family was still in the future). The number of car companies had been reduced by competition from more than 1500 that had once operated to about 15 survivors, and this list would be further reduced by the end of World War II. But few people could foresee the full extent of the motor cars’ impact. It was still possible to drive one’s car downtown and have little trouble finding a place to park along the street curb, usually close to one’s destination. The need for developing parking facilities and traffic controls was little understood by public officials. Except Dad. He could see what was happening and did his best to alert his associates at the Chamber of Commerce. Though motor cars were becoming more available, and it was possible to drive to distant cities, that was not the way to go in 1934. For the country was still blessed with a magnificent, efficient railroad system. If one wanted to go to Boston, or any other distant point, the straightforward way was by train. Service was frequent and always on time. The cars were well maintained, clean and comfortable. On longer routes, the train always had a dining car where fine meals were served. None of us could foresee that the motorcar would become a major instrument in starting to dismantle the system, or that the growth of commercial airlines would complete the job.
And airlines were growing. Larger planes were available. Service on a regular basis was being inaugurated by a number of carriers between major points. Daring pilots were continually attempting new long distance flight records, or new endurance aloft records, or competing in high speed races. Everyone knew the new pilot heroes like Amelia Earhart, or Jackie Cochran, or Major Seversky, or Wiley Post. Controversy continued among the engineers as to the best avenue for air transport; that is, whether it should be by ever larger heavier-than-air machines, or by use of the lighter-than-air rigid dirigible. The Navy operated a number of the latter including the Los Angeles, the Akron, the Macon, and the Shenandoah, all of which used helium gas. Germany also had dirigible supporters, even though their machines used inflammable hydrogen gas. By 1934, I had seen several of our airships. The Los Angeles flew down the Connecticut Valley one day, and I saw it float lazily over our Pearl Street house. Later the Shenandoah paid a visit. It was on a school day, and Principal Conant, upon learning that the dirigible was overhead, immediately staged a fire drill so that we kids could get out doors for a look. Shenandoah was probably no more than a thousand feet up, so she appeared immense! I was very much impressed, and on that day would not have believed that these marvelous looking machines would be extinct within a few years. All the American airships were ultimately destroyed in severe storms. And later when the Germans lost their hydrogen-filled Hindenburg in a fiery holocaust on landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey after a transatlantic crossing, the age of dirigibles was dead. The commercial airlines, anticipating such a conclusion to the argument, were already demanding ever larger multiengine planes.
Shenandoah US Navy dirigible
The Depression continued to deepen. Actually the entire world was in the grip of the Depression, but what was happening to the rest of the world did not particularly bother many Americans in 1934. The society was isolationist. What went on “over there” did not interest the man in the street. Consequently the press coverage “over there” was also minimum. There was a revolution in Spain, but one had to dig through the papers if he wanted to know about it.
The Depression at home was another matter. This did interest everyone. As unemployment grew, as more businesses failed causing unemployment to grow again, the press expanded its attention to the problem. Pictures of “bread lines” showing hordes of men standing in lines waiting for hand outs of food were appearing in the Transcript with disturbing regularity. Scarcely a home in the neighborhood had managed to escape from the Depression’s heavy hand. Dad had another pay cut, so Mom instituted another round of costing cutting in the management of the household expenses. But we were assured that there was still money enough to pay for attending Massachusetts State College in the fall.
To help recall the period, I examined the microfilm copy of the New York Times for Friday, June 1, 1934. Some of what I saw there follows.
Col Lindbergh was testifying before Congress concerning the state of readiness of the Army Air Corps. Lindbergh was not impressed with American capabilities in the air. He had recently been touring Europe, and had seen what was being accomplished in Germany. He was warning that the Germans had more and better planes than we had. But Lindbergh’s testimony was not popular. The Roosevelt administration chose to bedevil the messenger rather than pay attention to the message.
There was a full scale review of the Atlantic Fleet passing up the Hudson River before President Roosevelt and his staff and guests on the deck of the cruiser Indianapolis. The parade of ships was also witnessed by naval officers from Italy, Germany, Japan, and others. Concurrently, there was a flyover by naval aircraft consisting of 18 biplanes.
At Newport News in Virginia, the newest aircraft carrier, Ranger, was delivered to the US. Navy for the sum of $21,000,000.
Fiorello La Guardia was Mayor of New York City. We kids remembered Fiorello best for his dramatic readings over the radio of the Sunday comic pages during many weeks of a strike by the New York newspapers.
Principal radio stations were WEAF, WOR, and WJZ. A typical family, in choosing their radio entertainment for that evening might have opted for the following:
The Goldbergs
Billy Jones and Ernie Hare
The Easy Aces
Baseball commentary by Babe Ruth
Lyman Orchestra until sign off at 10 P.M.
The World’s Fair was in progress in Chicago. That was the fair that made Sally Rand and her daring Fan Dance the talk of the nation. But the Times of June 1 made no mention of the attraction.
In baseball, the season was well underway. The American and National Leagues each had eight teams. On this date, the Cleveland Indians were leading the American League, with the New York Yankees in second place. The Boston Red Sox were in sixth place. The St. Louis Cardinals were leading the National League.
Tennis was still an amateur sport. On this date the French Championships were in progress. Sarah Palfrey and Helen Jacobs had just won their way into the ladies semi-final round. Men still in contention included Jack Crawford of Australia, Baron Gottfried von Cramm of Germany, and Fred Perry of England. The players dress was much more conservative than it is today. Men typically wore white flannel trousers.
The advertising layouts were of interest.
Altman’s was pushing buckskin shoes and straw hats for men. Their best ladies plaid jacket and white shirt outfit sold for $22.50. Men could buy their best flannel suit for $28.50. Interwoven socks sold at two pair for a dollar.
United Air Lines Service stressed that they were now using multi-engine planes with a crew of two pilots and a stewardess. A five and a half hour flight from New York to Chicago cost only $47.95 per person one way. A twenty two hour flight from New York to Los Angeles was scheduled daily at a cost of $160.00 per person one way.
The General Electric ad was selling the Monitor Top Refrigerator. It did not list the cost of the unit (unusual in those days that cost was not specified) however, it did proclaim that a lady could have one for as little as twenty three cents per day.
The Book of the Month was featuring a collection of seven stories by H.G. Wells. Cost of the volume was $2.75.
Ladies sheer silk stockings were selling for 77 cents per pair.
A 1930 used Packard was selling for $585.
The movie ads featured the following:
Wallace Beery in “Viva Villa”
Bing Crosby in “We’re not Dressing”
Ginger Rogers in “20 Million Sweethearts”
Shirley Temple in “Little Miss Marker”
Admission was available at 25, 35, or 55 cents.
The Stock Market was on a downward trend. Trading was slow at 438,000 shares.
Newspapers cost a nickel. First class mail went for two cents.
COLLEGE BOUND
The time had come to think about commuting daily to college at Amherst from Holyoke. We needed a vehicle. Dad’s car could be used in a pinch. But Connie and I needed something of our own that was available every day. We turned to Uncle George Hemond who was in the business of selling used cars. George’s place of business in Chicopee consisted of a small garage with attached office and a couple of gasoline pumps out front, all located on a corner lot that stored his inventory of about twenty used cars.
Dad told him what we needed, and we dropped in on him one day to see the car he recommended. It was a beauty! It was a large, long, high-off-the-ground Lincoln touring car that must have been chauffeur driven in its earlier life for the front seat, which could easily take three people, was isolated from the rear cab by a glass window. The rear cab, which was luxuriously upholstered in fabric that was scarcely worn, could take three more people on the bench plus two more on jump seats that folded out from the back of the front bench. Mechanically, it seemed in good shape. It even had an electric starter system that worked off its six volt battery. As with most cars of the day, it also had a hand crank for turning over the engine. When George fired it up and took us for a spin around the block, we found the ride to be smooth and comfortable. As we drove, George pointed out the unusual gasoline feed scheme that was used. The gasoline tank had to be loaded with compressed air in order to force the fuel to the engine. To accomplish the compression, an air pump was incorporated into the dash board. A gauge nearby indicated the air pressure, and the gauge needle had to be beyond a red line that indicated the lowest tolerable air pressure. Once in a while the driver had to give the pump a few strokes to push up the air pressure.
George was a pragmatic man with automobiles. I don’t know how much he really knew about them, but he was quite skilled at keeping them going. For example, I was at his station one cold winter day when a neighbor came to get help starting his car. George listened to his story, and then said he could get it started. He grabbed up a can of kerosene, and off they went. I ran after to watch. George opened the hood, found the oil port, and poured in a generous supply of kerosene. Then after adjusting the controls, he gave a vigorous yank on the hand crank and the engine fired off. George collected a quarter for his efforts and we went back to the garage.
Well, even though the Lincoln had probably not prospered from George’s care, it seemed to run. And all he wanted for it was ten dollars. So we paid him, after which he slapped on a set of dealer license plates, and off we went with our very own commuter car.
Financing the daily commute was our next problem. We estimated that we would burn a gallon of gasoline each way to and from Amherst. Even though gasoline was priced at eight gallons for a dollar during those Depression years, we would need at least twelve gallons for the six days of classes (yes, they regularly had Saturday classes). That meant a dollar and a half each week just for gasoline. We decided we needed paying passengers. But how to find them? Neither of us knew anyone else planning to commute to Mass. State.
Connie had an idea. The High School records would tell who from the class of 1934 was going to college and where. All we had to do was check the record for those going to Mass. State, and then call them until we found potential commuter passengers. The scheme worked. Pretty soon we found out that Edwin Bieniek, who lived in an apartment off Dwight Street, and Edward Rudzki, whose home was in Elmwood off Homestead Avenue, were both planning to commute and looking for a ride. We signed them both up at fares of $1.50 each for the six days of the week. We thought the $3.00 per week would be adequate for gasoline, oil, and an occasional repair.
We didn’t know either Ed, but they turned out to be wonderful fellows. Ed Bieniek, who became a chemistry major, stayed with our car throughout the four years. He was serious, studious, quiet, but always wearing a pleasant smile and ready to offer upbeat comments. Ed Rudzki was a more jovial type, whose appetite for college was large, but whose talent for it was too small. He only lasted the first semester, being unable to meet the academic standards. But that first semester, he was an ideal passenger, paying his fare on time, and being ready to assist in keeping the car running (which turned out to be more of a chore than we had initially allowed).
The Freshman semester began two days before the Upper Classmen had to report. So on Monday, the 17th of September, 1934, Connie and I had an early breakfast, and headed off for Amherst. But first we had to pick up our passengers. This meant stopping by Dwight Street to get Ed Bieniek, and then a trip all the way to Elmwood to get Ed Rudzki. That’s when we realized that collecting the passengers was going to consume appreciable time. But we made it to the campus by eight o’clock, parked the car in a vacant lot that lay across the street from the Physical Education Building, and joined other commuters who were gathering in the adjacent Memorial Building.
Someone knew the schedule. It called for all Freshmen to meet in Bowker Auditorium at nine o’clock. Someone even knew the way. So we followed him as he left the Memorial Building, filed past the Old Chapel, that grey stone pile with its landmark tower, serving as the College Library, down the lane past South College, doing double duty as a dormitory on the upper floors and College Administration on the first floor, around the corner of North College, also doing double duty as a dormitory on the upper floors and College Store on the main floor, over the culvert that contains the spillway from the College Pond that dominates the center of the campus, past Draper Hall which contained the student dining areas, and on into Stockbridge Hall which housed classrooms plus Bowker Auditorium.
The convocation was convened by Dr. Hugh Potter Baker, just beginning the second year of his tenure as President of the College. A tall handsome man, hair partially greying, wearing a blue serge suit with vest and bow tie, Prexy Baker inspired instant confidence and respect. His message, simple and direct, delivered in his powerful baritone voice, welcomed us and urged all to take full advantage of the opportunity to attend this, the best land grant college in the land. And he wanted the college to be a friendly place, where we shall offer a “Hi there” greeting to everyone we meet. We were impressed by Prexy Baker. Only later did we learn that this 58 year old educator had earned a Bachelor Degree from Michigan State, a Masters Degree from Yale University, a Doctors Degree from the University of Munich, and had taught at the New York State College of Forestry where he had earned the position of Dean. Soon he turned the proceedings over to Dean Machmer.
Dean William L. Machmer suffered immediate indignities in our heads by comparison with Prexy Baker. Although elegantly attired in a gray pin stripe suit and vest, complemented by a modest reddish four-in-hand tie, he was noticeably short, almost “dumpy” and when he nervously pushed back his thinning grey hairs, and spoke up in a voice that carried squeaky overtones, he even seemed “mousy”. But in spite of that poor start, we were shortly to come to love and respect this wise and brilliant scholar, even as we continued in private to refer to him as “Wee Willie”. His remarks were also of a general nature, except that he stressed that the Treasurer was ready to see each of us to collect tuition and other fees. Soon he turned the proceedings over to Assistant Dean Lanphear.
Assistant Dean Marshall O. Lanphear won our immediate and enthusiastic approval. As he stood before us, tan suit slightly wrinkled, bow tie slightly astray, ears too large for his head, hair mostly gone, his slow drawl and his keen wit marked him as a true Yankee Gentleman. Later, as we all attended his Freshmen Orientation class, we were to find that “Whitey” was a brilliant scholar, skilled teacher, and loyal friend. This day, in terms couched in humor, he undertook to instruct us in the routines of college life. Classes would meet three times per week, either on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, with the Master Schedule cleverly structured to assure that all Freshmen had at least one Saturday class. All classes started promptly on the hour, with first class in the morning scheduled for 8:00 A.M., and an allotment of ten minutes between classes. As Whitey pointed out, for those fortunate enough to have successive classes on the opposite sides of the campus, the ten minutes was quite enough provided one’s gait was a fast jog. Thus the large campus and the tight schedule assured everyone of some daily physical conditioning.
The main task for the day was to determine one’s schedule. This required consulting the Master Schedule posted in front of the Administration Office, as well as understanding how to read it. Whitey attempted to tell us how to do that. The second task was to visit the College Store to purchase the text books that had been prescribed for each course. While there, Whitey also advised the purchase of a white “beanie” hat that the upper classmen would expect to see atop each Freshman come Wednesday when all regular classes started.
Whitey announced that the Class of 1938 totaled 319 persons. But he said that number won’t last. Look to your right and look to your left, he advised, and take a long look, because soon one of you won’t be here. The one that survives will be the one that maintains acceptable academic standards. I must admit that Whitey was correct – by Graduation time our numbers had shrunk to a few over two hundred.
Classes began in earnest the next day with the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday set. I don’t remember in what sequence my classes came, and I may not remember all of them. But I’ll comment on what I do recall.
I had mathematics with Professor George Marston (he wasn’t technically a professor, just an instructor; but, as far as we were concerned, he was the Prof). Marston was a young man only recently graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He was probably one of the tallest men I have ever known. He had a very slender body that reached a height of nearly seven feet. His hair was black, but thinning. His eyes sparkled behind horn rimmed glasses as he evolved the day’s theorem. When his well modulated voice was not in use, a gentle smile played about his face and lips. His teaching style was simple and direct, beginning with an explanation of the previous day’s quiz, continuing with a new set of theorems or postulates, followed by several examples worked on the blackboard, an assignment for outside work, and the daily five minute quiz. Never had mathematics seemed so logical and understandable. It was the start of a long association that Connie and I had with George Marston, for in a few years George was to be the spark-plug in the establishment of the School of Engineering and became its first Dean.
All Freshmen took a general course called Orientation that was taught by Assistant Dean Lanphear. There, in his engaging and subtly humorous style, we were treated to Whitey’s candid observations on life and life processes as he undertook to coach us on how to have a successful college career.
My English class was run by Professor Walter Prince, a brilliant scholar in his early fifties whose training had been received at Brown University. Somewhere he had picked up the nickname of “Bull”, and when I learned that fact I reflected that it seemed appropriate to his shape, his crouched stance, and the thrust of his head, cheeks, and jowls that all made him look like a typical English Bulldog. His lectures were gems which quickly punctured the notion that we knew anything about the English language. Our outside assignments were long and difficult, and the feeble stuff we did for him was savagely and repeatedly attacked with his red penciled putdowns. But somehow, I limped through the year, even gaining favorable attitudes about Chaucer, Shakespeare and other great works and writers.
Professor Richard Fessenden was in charge of my chemistry class. He was a man in his early thirties, who had earned both the Bachelor and Master degrees from Mass State as well as a Doctor’s degree from Columbia. He always appeared for his lectures in a long white laboratory coat, which seemed appropriate as he roamed behind the long demonstration table in front of the main lecture hall in Goessman Laboratory and punctuated his remarks with vivid experiments. At sometime during that year, either in the lecture hall or in the laboratory period that was scheduled two afternoons a week, I became enough enamored with chemistry to decide that it was to be my major study. That resolve was later diluted by equivalent interest in physics and engineering, but on the college record, I was officially a Chem Major.
My foreign language choice was German for which I was enrolled in Professor Arthur Julian’s class. Prof Julian was about fifty years of age and the father of twin daughters who were both members of the Class of 1938. So we Freshmen had a special bond to Prof Julian. He was a very dedicated, skilled teacher, so I was able to do a respectable job with his class.
However, he was no more able to kindle a spark of enthusiasm for foreign language in me than any other language teacher had ever been. All Freshmen men were also enrolled in the Military Science class run by Army Colonel Charles Romeyn assisted by Sergeant Frank Cronk. In those days, this Reserve Officers Training Corps work was popular with all the boys because those who managed to be selected for the third and fourth year got paid for their effort – in the midst of the Depression, that was worth a great deal. But it also was popular because the Mass State unit was Cavalry. Riding those Army horses was an experience that everybody wanted! But riding was withheld until the sophomore year; for now, as Freshmen, we got to do close order drill and manual of arms and stuff like that which was pretty dull.
Harold, ROTC
Connie, ROTC
Marching in Review
However, later in the semester, we were taught to shoot rifles in the college gallery. I managed to do very well with the rifle and soon found myself on the college rifle team. We got off ten shots at each of four positions; prone, sitting, kneeling, and standing. Usually I was able to get perfect scores at each position except standing where I was unpredictable, but that made me one of the stars of the team. I forget our season record, but there weren’t many college teams that beat us. This experience turned out to be useful several years later when I was hired to teach at Wilbraham Academy, because, in addition to someone to teach Physics, they were looking for someone to coach their rifle team.
HC, left back, with his Wilbraham rifle team
The Freshmen boys were all expected to be involved in some kind of Physical Education program. Freshman football was one of the options, and I decided to try that after I learned that the great Louis Bush was the Freshman coach. So I was outfitted in the standard football garb (a lot simpler than the gear they get into these days) and reported for practice. Louis took a look at me and assigned me to play in the line at the tackle position (he never asked if I knew how to kick the ball which was the only aspect of the game I was any good at.) So, day after day, I went through the drills that included both offense and defensive plays, got myself thoroughly weary, didn’t learn much football, and gradually came to the conclusion that football was not my game.
Although I was not initially aware of the fact, there was a sizable contingent of Holyoke people in the Class of 1938. In addition to the four in our car pool, the Yearbook lists the following: Louis Bartlett, Mederic Beloin, Joseph Bialer, Helen Downing, Lloyd Ellegaard, Virginia Fagan, Agnes Gaughan, Elaine Geraghty, Margaret Goyette, Herbert Halpern, Norma Harry, Martha Kaplinsky, Donald McGowan, James Olivier, William Riley, Mary Streeter, William Welcker, and Dorothy Wilson. That’s a total of twenty two. We could have been an influential political block if we had ever gotten together.
I was never conscious that commuting to college had any adverse effect whatever on the educational process. Fact is it might have improved the process by shielding us from the tempting diversions from study that existed on campus. However, the same statement can not be made about our social life. By not being on campus, we were very slow to get to know our colleagues. In retrospect, I can’t recall ever, in four years, having a date with a girl whom I first met as a member of the Class of ’38. There were plenty enough dates, but the girl was always someone I had known prior to attending Mass State.
Toward the end of that first week, there was a class meeting for the purpose of electing class officers. Here is where the commuter was under a distinct disadvantage if he aspired to a class office, because he had had essentially no opportunity to get to know his classmates or to circulate word as to his interests. Actually I didn’t know the candidates at all. Although I voted for each office, my vote was a very ignorant one. At any rate, we ended up with what turned out to be a most talented group of leaders, as follows:
President Francis Reil
Vice-President Ruth Wood
Secretary Jesse Kinsman
Treasurer Frederick Sievers
Class Captain David Mildram
Sergeant-at-Arms Jack Slocomb
It must have been Saturday evening of that first week that the Freshmen Social was held in the Drill Hall where there was a large floor suitable for dancing. It was a chance to get to know our classmates, and we commuters were in attendance. Alas, we were a few days late. Most of the resident girls already had a full set of dances scheduled. However, by persistence, I did manage one dance with Eleanor Fahey, a charming young resident from Winthrop, and another with Virginia Pond, a fellow commuter who lived in Greenfield. But mostly, the dances were with the Holyoke girls I knew including Norma Harry, Virginia Fagan, and Dorothy Wilson.
The college band had an organizational meeting that first week also. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that the band coach was Bandmaster Charles Farnum from Holyoke. I had not previously known him, but, via Fred Grady, he had been briefed about the Holyoke people he would meet at Mass State. So Connie and I got a cordial reception and were immediately admitted to the band roster where we joined about forty other boys (the society was not yet tolerated of girls playing in a marching band – that was still all male territory). We learned that the band would perform at all the home football games, as well as at one away game where the athletic department would provide bus transportation. My high hopes for the band, however, were not realized that year. The band really wasn’t as good as the Holyoke High units that I had grown up in. We didn’t even have uniforms; we had to provide our own, which consisted of white flannel trousers plus a maroon sweater. Farnum was tolerant and persistent, and gradually the initial “rag-tag” appearance gave way to some smart marching and maneuvering. By the first home football game, we were a respectable bunch, parading to the game, playing marches and school songs during the pauses in the game, and putting on a half time show. I don’t remember what the football team was doing, but the Yearbook reports that they lost to Williams College by 12 to 7. There were to be lots more times when we saw the team defeated.
The “Home-Coming” game, when Alumni are invited back to the campus, scheduled for the second Saturday in October, involved a contest with Rhode Island State College. The day turned out to be a brilliant sunny specimen, and as we arrived on campus and dashed for our eight o’clock classes, we were already anticipating a delightful day, not only because of the anticipated excitement of the game, or the color of the augmented crowd sprinkled with Alumni reliving their younger days, or because of the beauty of the multicolored blanket that nature had placed on the towering trees across the wide campus, but rather because today had a special event in store. This was to be the day of the annual tug-of-war across the college pond between the Freshman class and the Sophomore class. As I dashed up the slope to the math building, I could see a group of fellows already arranging the pulling rope across the pond and up the opposite slopes. All male freshmen would take up positions on one side of the pond, and all male Sophomores would be on the other shore. The pull was to a finish. The winning team would drag the losers right through the pond. The work positioning the line was still in progress as I slipped into the math building for Marston’s class just ahead of the master himself.
It was tough to concentrate on class work at such a time, but I gave it a good try. Many of my colleagues never even got to class on such exciting days. As the morning ended, and we returned to our Memorial Building hangout, there were already large numbers of Alumni gathered there, gladhanding each other as they completed their plans to take in the game, the tug-of-war, and other activities arranged for them. Connie and I gobbled down the ample box lunch that Mom, as always, had sent with us; and then dashed to the band room where we donned our uniforms, unpacked our instruments, and began that weird cacophony known in the music business as “tuning up”. After a while Bandmaster Farnum arrived on the scene, and some order was given to the process. Because I was first chair clarinet, all other instruments tuned to me. Soon we were ready. We organized outside the Memorial Building and played a couple of pieces to the delight of the Alumni. Then we headed toward the playing field, Alumni and students trailing behind like the followers of the pied piper, marched through the open gates, fanned out as we strode straight down the field scattering the footballers from their warm-up drills, all to the provocative strains of “Fight Massachusetts”.
The band took its place in the middle of the student cheering section, the crowd assembled waving banners and orange pom-poms acquired from the hawkers and munched on gorgeous red macintosh apples that had come straight from the college orchard, and the cheer leaders (still all male) stirred up mighty deep throated roars for the team. Soon the teams took the field and the game was under way.
Once again the Statesmen, as they were then known, lost, this time by a 7 to 0 score. But who cared? In the warm sunshine of an October afternoon, with students, professors, alumni, and friends all gathered to savor the special excitement that surrounds a college football game, who won seemed to be of little concern. It was enough that we had all been there. And the tug-of-war, as well as the social events of the evening were yet to come.
Football ended and the crowd streamed out the gates, across the parking lot, taking places around the college pond where the tug-of-war could best be seen. The Freshmen and Sophomores, directed by a contingent of upper class members of the Student Senate, mulled around, tested the pulling rope, and dug anchor holes for their feet among the soggy shoreline weeds. Someone shouted “Ready, Get Set, Go!” putting the masses into action. The Freshman had more people, but the Sophomores were better organized, so, for a time, the issue was in doubt. But shortly, the Freshman weight advantage was felt, the rope started going their way, and the Sophomores were dragged across the chill waters to the cheers of the appreciative spectators (of which I was one – taking an active role in the tug had never entered my mind).
There was a marvelous custom at Mass State, one that we were ignorant of until one fine late October day when the sun was unobstructed in its effort to show all of nature’s fall colors. For this day had been chosen as “Mountain Day”.
It was a day selected by the Administration at the last moment when it was evident that the weather would be fully cooperative in allowing the student body to enjoy a full day of hiking and outdoor recreation. The joyous tones of the bell tower in the Old Chapel provided the signal that all classes had been suspended so that everybody could go to Mount Toby to meander her trails.
Mount Toby is located in the nearby town of Sunderland. The Forestry Department uses its many acres of State Preserve as a laboratory, teaching all the many facets of forest management. Over the years the classes have laid out multiple trails criss-crossing the area, so there were plenty to challenge us that day. We went right for the trail that led to the top, starting with all the excess freshmen steam, but soon found out that Toby did not yield so easily. As the sun got higher and hotter, and the trail got rockier and steeper, the leg muscles found they were in for a tough day. Hours later, when we got to the top, there was yet another challenge – a fire tower. Naturally we all had to climb it too.
But as the day wore on and the mountain’s challenges were met, and we finally had made our way back down the trail to the base cabin that served as headquarters for the people working in forestry, we became aware that Mountain Day’s real charm lay in the friendly camaraderie that the event generated. Someone proposed a bonfire, and soon there was a crackling blaze for us to gather around. Then someone sang out the words of “I’ve been workin’ on the railroad…” and the rest chimed in. And when the time came, there were people able to add certain verses that I didn’t know existed. And there was food – lots of it – all provided by the Forestry Department and other college sources. Hot dogs were roasted over the bonfire. And there were beautiful apples from the orchard. There was cider, too, with doughnuts – a genuine New England fall treat! Then, as the sun disappeared, and “the shades of night are fallen”, the singers among us led many choruses of the college songs. “When Twilight Shadows Deepen”, “Grand Old Massachusetts”, “Fight, Massachusetts”, and all the others swelled out from the campfire. Sterling stuff! We were reluctant to see it all end.
The college was expanding, and we had concrete evidence of the fact on Saturday, November 3, 1934, when the corner stones of two new buildings were laid. Appropriate ceremonies featured a speech by Gov. Joseph B. Ely as he set the stone for the Goodell Library, named in honor of Dr. Henry Goodell, long time librarian and former college president; and another speech by Nathaniel I. Bowditch, vicepresident of the board of trustees, as he set the stone for the men’s dormitory, Thatcher Hall, named in honor of Dr. Roscoe Thatcher, former president of the college.
Of a mid-November weekend, the Department of Landscape Architecture put on their annual horticulture show. But it was more than just another flower show. The students, with an incredible display of their creative talents, had transformed the barren confines of the Alumni Athletic Cage into a colorful wonderland. The centerpiece of the show was a formal garden. At the end of the main aisle, bordered with chrysanthemums backed by an evergreen hedge, rose a large white pylon of modernistic design set off against a background of hemlock. At the ends of two cross aisles, there were small formal gardens with clipped hedges and tailored walks that encircled stone-walled pockets where flowers of all descriptions exuded their splendor. Smaller displays ringed the cage roughly where the running track is found. Here individual students created displays that competed for prizes offered in several categories of exhibits ranged all the way from formal alcoves to wild life habitats. The three day affair, for which admission was free, drew more than 12,000 viewers.
As I remember, there was a Winter Carnival that year. All the Fraternities (to which we had not yet pledged) entered the snow sculpture competition, and some of the work was spectacular.
Mass State Winter Carnival
Winter Carnival
There were formal dances, but as freshman, I don’t recall attending any of them.
As the school year was drawing to a close, our Lincoln blew a main engine bearing as we were passing through Northampton one day. We somehow managed to keep it running until we made it home. But when Uncle George determined that it was beyond repair, she headed for the junk yard. All of us were insensitive to the antique value the Lincoln would have acquired if we had only stored her somewhere.
SOPHOMORE YEAR
The first chore of the new school year was to find adequate wheels for our daily commute to Amherst. Again we called upon Uncle George for help and he soon produced a used Packard Touring car. It was a large machine and was a very comfortable ride. She was a gas guzzler; however with gasoline still selling at one dollar for eight gallons, mileage was not a controlling factor. More disturbing was the fact that she also burnt oil at a rapid rate (a common fault with Packards). However the price was right (ten dollars), so we took her.
Come September and we fell back easily into the daily college routines. Up early, breakfast, collect books and lunch, collect passengers and head for Amherst, arriving in time for the eight o’clock class.
The contingent of commuters had grown. There were now at least two dozen or more car loads of students from Holyoke, from Northampton, from Springfield, from Easthampton, Greenfield, and other neighboring towns. We were a very congenial group, still making our headquarters in the Memorial Building.
One of the most noticeable campus changes was the completion of the new library. Goodell was dedicated during a special morning convocation on November 7, 1935. Under the guidance of Librarian Basil Wood, the new library figured prominently in the rest of our college experience. Unique among libraries of the time, all the books were on open shelves, available to all students who were on the honor system to properly record and return borrowed books. The library reading rooms and study alcoves afforded well lit, comfortable, quiet study havens. The intellect was well served, even as “study dates” at Goodell became popular with the student body.
I am not able to recall the details of my sophomore schedule, but it must have included English, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics. There would still have been a requirement for all boys to take part in the Reserve Officers Training Program. But sophomores got to learn how to ride the Army horses. That was fun, even when we learned that the horses were smarter than we. The order “Prepare to Mount” calls for the rider to place his left foot in the stirrup ready to swing the rest of one’s self onto the horse’s back. But at that moment, my horse took a step backward so that my foot missed the stirrup! “Kick him!” shouted the Colonel. “Show him who is boss!”
US Cavalry
It was a year of rebirth for the college band. Inspired by the enthusiasm of Senior Samuel Snow, the band grew in popularity. From fourteen members last year, there were now thirty six who regularly attended practice sessions. Sammy, working with the Student Senate, organized a fund drive which collected one thousand dollars for new uniforms. A professional band leader, Mr. Charles Farnum of Holyoke, was hired to instruct and direct band activities. As before, Connie played the sousaphone and I played the clarinet.
The Fraternity scene had passed us by as freshmen, largely because of our status as commuters. But as sophomores we were more aggressive in seeking out information on their activity. Result was that Connie and I were both included on the roster of the Alpha Gamma Rho house. It was probably a good move – our list of friends grew. The band practice was always on Thursday night in the Memorial Building. So on Thursdays, we always went to the Fraternity house for supper. There was a Fraternity Hop on one of the Saturdays after a home football game, and I remember taking Clare Hartnett to the affair, and, as always, it was fun to be with Clare. But, generally, fraternity shenanigans did not especially appeal to me, so the Alpha Gamma Rho association was never a close one.
In retrospect, that Fraternity date with Clare turned out to be our last one ever. Shortly thereafter, Clare attended a function at the Naval Academy where she met Cadet John Mutty starting a relationship that led to marriage in 1941. John and Clare raised eight children and recently (1991) celebrated their fiftieth anniversary.
In November, the Annual Horticulture Show, set in the Cage, was attended by more than 14,000 people. The show featured a rural motif, centered around an old Greenwich village house at the end of a winding country lane. The rest of the show was in keeping with the terminal feature.
During the Christmas vacation, I earned some real money at my very first paying job when I clerked in Mr. Murray’s Men’s Clothing Store on High Street. They set me to work selling shirts and ties. The best shirts made went for two dollars, and the best ties for one dollar. There was a bonus interest for me, because Mr. Murray’s was also a center for local politics. The prime salesman was Al Fortin, who was also the perennial President of the Holyoke Board of Alderman. Al’s style, with his glad hand, upbeat stream of chatter as he charmed his customers into buying the best of the best suits and coats was instructive to behold.
The Winter Carnival, held early in February 1936 with great enthusiasm and success, had a long list of events. There were hockey and basketball games, skiing and skating races, a fashion show, a concert by the Vienna Boys Choir, and of course the Carnival Ball. Lois Macomber of our class was chosen to be Snow Queen, and she and her court held forth at the Ball. “Big Band” music was furnished by the Fletcher Henderson orchestra. Connie and I both went to the Ball, but I can’t remember our dates.
As the school year was drawing to a close, the severity of the Depression was brought home to we boys when the parents advised that some effort had to be made to earn some money during the summer. After thinking about this for a while, we decided to compete for the contract to run the City’s tennis courts. The City of Holyoke owned five tennis courts, hard surface, fenced all around, located on the Beech Street playground in Elmwood. It was the Park Department’s practice to ask for bids from people interested in managing the courts. Connie and I bid to return 50% of the court rental fees to the City, and we were awarded the job.
So right after school was over we went to work attending the courts from dawn to dusk collecting 10 cents per player per hour. It was a sometimes interesting, but often boring job. Many an hour there was little or no call for the courts. But on afternoons of weekends, and always on evenings, there were more customers than could be accommodated. So we had to set up a reservation book. On hot days, there was a demand for cold drinks – so we put in a cooler and got a local bottling company to supply bottles of various flavored beverages which cost a nickel and we sold for a dime. We more than made tuition for our Junior Year.
JUNIOR YEAR
By now, our major fields of study had been selected. My choice had been for Chemistry. I cannot account for that interest – it was not based on any particular analysis – we had to make a selection, and I chose Chemistry. In retrospect, it probably was as good a choice as I could have made. As a consequence, most of every day was spent in some part of the Goessman Laboratory attending lectures on Qualitative Analysis, Organic Chemistry, or what have you, or putting in long hours in the laboratory. Thus I became a student of Dr. Chamberlain, Dr. Serex, Dr. Peters, and Dr. Fessenden. My minor field of study was Physics. So, to a lesser degree I spent many hours in the Physics lab where I became well acquainted with Dr. Powers, Dr. Alderman, and Dr. Ross.
We became immersed in Band activity again, playing at all home football games, and away at the Tufts game. The Tufts game was played on a wet muddy field. Even so, the Band marched at half time. In anticipation of wet going, I had worn rubbers over my shoes. But, when we were in mid field, one rubber stuck in the mud and nearly pulled off my shoe. I must have presented a comic appearance to the crowd as I struggled to stay in formation and not lose my rubber.
There were other demands on the Band. In January, we put on a concert over radio station WBZ. In February, we put on a concert as part of the Bay State Review. Later we put on a concert in Holyoke, put on a spring concert in front of the Memorial Building, and performed at Commencement. The Winter Carnival was held in early January – but without snow. The January thaw arrived at the same time. But the swimming team beat the Coast Guard Academy, and the basketball team beat Norwich University. The “Ski Boot” dance was held in the cage. I recall being there, but again I don’t recall my date or Connie’s either.
The College joined in the Community Concert Series this year. Four concerts were presented on the stage of Bowker Auditorium. I do not recall the names of the artists, but there was an outstanding violinist at one of them, and a superior pianist at another.
With the new library in full use, the Old Chapel was temporarily closed for repairs. At the same time a set of bells was installed in the tower courtesy of the Class of 1899. Thereafter, every afternoon about four o’clock, we were treated to a bell concert.
In March, the “American Home” magazine published pictures of the exterior of the folks’ cottage at Indian Town in Old Saybrook. The folks said they were surprised, but I think Mom had sent the magazine a note which prompted their interest. Anyway, the local Transcript newspaper picked up the incident and made a big story about the house.
With the approach of summer, Connie and I again put in a bid to run the City’s tennis courts. Only this time there were two more. The City had completed construction of two clay courts at Anniversary Field up behind the Craft Tavern which was on the corner of Dwight and Northampton Streets. Again we were awarded the contract, and Connie presided over the hard surface courts in Elmwood, while I spent most of my time running the clay courts.
It was while running the clay courts that I made the acquaintance of Dorothy Bach who lived nearby and was anxious to learn tennis. I taught her what I knew and she caught on rapidly. So, in subsequent City tennis tournaments, my mixed doubles partner was always Dotty. One year we made it to the semi-finals. Dotty also introduced us to a friend, Althea Ferguson, who often came to play with her mother who was a talented player. (Yes, the same Althea who, some years later, was to marry Ken Field and live next door to us on Silver Street in South Hadley. But that’s getting ahead of the story.)
MID-SUMMER 1937
Times were perilous, but we were insensitive to the fact. Preoccupied with the deep depression in this country, we paid little heed to the fact that the Depression was world wide and stirring up hatred and resentment on many fronts. But the general isolationist attitudes in this country caused most people to assert that we had enough troubles of our own without worrying about what was happening elsewhere. My mother in particular espoused the isolationist view: my father was more concerned about the big picture. Of course, it was still the day when one’s knowledge of events was keyed to the printed page – and mostly those pages also drummed the isolationist tune.
Yet Japanese aggression was already a firm observable fact. Starting in 1931 with a campaign against Manchuria, Japan had already crossed the Great Wall and was in an undeclared war with China. In Italy, Mussolini was in total control, showing his imperialistic ambition by a conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. The leftist government in Spain, stirred on by General Franco, was in an all out civil war against the conservative elements. Hitler, who had come to power in Germany on the same day that Franklin Roosevelt had first been inaugurated President, was the worst threat to world peace. In 1935, he had denounced the Versailles Treaty arms limitations and re-established the draft in Germany.
Then, in 1936 in further defiance of Treaty agreements, his forces invaded and re-occupied the Rhineland. Rumors were ripe about his designs on Austria and Czechoslovakia. Mom and Pop said not to worry – “England and France will never let him become a menace to any of us.”
In the 1936 national election, Franklin Roosevelt had been elected to his second term in a landslide victory over his Republican opponent, Alf Landon of Kansas. Yet social unrest continued. Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic Priest, had discovered the power of sermons presented over the radio, and had broadened his messages to the field of politics. Weekly, he drummed a tune to the adults of America that warned of the “money-changers” and of “subversive socialism”. He warned that the International Bankers had ruined America, and the “Reds” were trying to pick up the pieces. My mother looked forward to hearing his speeches – I thought they were always extreme.
Then there was Dr. Francis Townsend. He had become famous for his concern for the plight of the elderly people in the nation who had been particularly hard hit by the Depression. Why, he wanted to know, has a country which was built by these people, turned on them in their ripe old age? He proposed the Townsend Plan. He would award each person of sixty or more years, two hundred dollars per month on condition that they would spend it all within thirty days in the United States. Thus the economy would be bolstered, and at the same time, the old folk would spend their final years free from want. Ten million people joined his club, and every politician in the land paid close attention to this block of voters. Ultimately, the Social Security System emerged from all the attention paid to the plight of the elderly during the Depression.
There were others espousing the cause of the poor and oppressed. Chief among these was Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, popularly know as the “Kingfish”. But he was a ruthless man. He came to power as Governor of Louisiana at age thirty five by promising schools, roads, and hospitals. He stayed in power with bribes and strong arm tactics. His state was very close to a police state. As Senator, his “Share our Wealth” program spun into high gear. He promised everyone an annual income of $2500, and a homestead grant of $6000. There would be free education for all through college, old-age pensions, veterans’ bonuses, and cheap food. But he had numerous enemies. And in September of 1935, one of them shot him dead.
On the sixth of May, 1937, the German owned and operated lighter-than-air rigid framed dirigible, Hindenburg, was completely destroyed by fire as it approached the landing terminal at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The Hindenburg, like all German airships, was buoyed by Hydrogen gas. This very combustible gas was ignited in some fashion, and it destroyed the ship in minutes. The episode was captured on movie film, and described by a radio announcer, which made a lasting impression everywhere. The disaster resulted in the total demise of the lighter-than-air airship business. Air travel became the sole province of the airplane.
In mid-May 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, left Oakland, California in a twin engine Lockheed aircraft, intent on a flight around the world in an easterly direction. By July, they had reached New Guinea. On 2 July, they left that place intending to fly to Howland Island, more than 2000 miles eastward across the Pacific. They were never seen again. Their disappearance touched off enormous public concern for Amelia, who was one of the most admired public heroes. That concern prompted the U.S. Navy to launch a search of the area, but all to no avail. Fifty-six years later, in the February 1993 issue of the Naval Institute’s magazine Proceedings, Richard E. Gillespie writes an article entitled “Why the Navy Didn’t Find Amelia”. It is an incredible tale of well intentioned incompetence and mismanagement, which can be told now, but not a word of which was even hinted to the public in 1937. The popular scenario then was that Amelia had landed safely on one of the small islands in the area of Howland and purposely been reported missing to allow the Navy to investigate the Japanese Naval activity around the island of Truk. And of course, in due time, the Navy will find Amelia. But that never happened.
By mid-summer, 1937, the radio had become ingrained in American life. The instrument itself was undergoing constant improvement, and the broadcast industry, with its great appeal and power as a motivator, was growing by leaps and bounds. Already there were numerous competing programs, so that, as the family gathered around the receiver after supper, there was a necessary negotiation over the program selection. Very popular were Burns and Allen, and Amos ‘n Andy, and Fibber McGee and Molly, and Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergin, and Jack Benny and Mary Livingston, and many others. Kate Smith, with her marvelous soprano voice, had installed her rendition of “God Bless America” as the people’s favorite patriotic song.
The movies also had a powerful claim on our attention, although raising the fare (25 cents) was always a problem with money tighter than ever. But Shirley Temple shows always drew a crowd. Other favorites included Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, and Fred MacMurry. The Marx brothers, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, were masters of slap-stick comedy. The team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were greatly admired for their spectacular dance exhibitions. Johnny Weismuller, an Olympic swimming champion, gave convincing performance as Tarzan. Jean Harlow and Mae West were the sex symbols of the day. Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper were perennial favorite actors.
The stage had its share of success, too, although it was more expensive. On occasion, we got to the Mountain Park playhouse.
SENIOR YEAR 1937-1938
And now, at long last, we’re college seniors! Perhaps a bit haughty; perhaps a bit arrogant; perhaps lacking in humility; as I said we’re college seniors.
As I remember, Connie and I had another set of wheels. This time they were attached to an old but elegant Franklin Touring Car that was powered by an air-cooled engine. It was a large heavy automobile, with a plush interior, and gave an excellent ride. The air-cooled engine made it unique. The engine required more maintenance than the water cooled variety, and on a regular basis, we were under the hood administering to it. A welcome feature was that the cooling air stream, which picked up the engine heat, could be diverted into the cab, providing welcome warm air on cool mornings. It served us well, but it was felled by the Massachusetts bureaucracy. One year, the State decided not to register cars more than ten years old – so that ruled out the Franklin.
About the same time, I think Dad had also got some new wheels, trading in the Graham-Paige for a Pontiac touring car that had all the latest features. The motor industry had infected the public with the notion of annual obsolescence, and the urge to have a new car every year was powerfully reinforced by the annual Automobile Show held in the Armory. However, it was still the time when winter driving demanded a whole series of special care. The six volt battery could be severely burdened by cold morning starts, so keeping a fully charged battery was essential. The cooling system was vulnerable to freeze-up which would put the car out of order, so it was important to keep watch over the anti-freeze component of the cooling water. And driving on snow or ice required chains on the rear drive wheels. These were awkward to install, particularly if one waited until the car was into snow. And when the snow had been removed from the road, the chains had to be removed so that they did not wear out too fast.
As before, the 700 acre Amherst campus was at the height of its splendor with all 40 buildings cleaned and sparkling and ready for use when we returned. We fell quickly into the academic routine after listening to another inspiring talk by College President Hugh P. Baker in which he urged all to engage fully in intellectual training, productive work training, social training, health training, and recreational training, as the college embarked on its seventy-fifth academic year. As a chemistry major, my time was heavily invested in courses in Goessman Laboratory. Dr. Serex ran the Qualitative Lab. Failure of one’s experiment was sure to elicit his withering characterization of “Youse Plumber!” Dr. Peters ran the Water Analysis course where we had to analyze the water in the college brook and pond – Ed Clapp regularly fell asleep during the lectures, but always seemed to know what went on – we concluded that the best use of the college pond was for the Freshman vs. Sophomore rope pull (Peters agreed). Dr. Chamberlain held forth over the Organic Chemistry work – his lectures in the main lecture hall were always interesting to me, but bored my neighbor who often doodled on my text book cover (I still have that Organic text with the doodled cover).
Physics took a lot of my attention, and perhaps more of my interest. Dr. Powers spent much of the Electronics course discussing the accelerating interest in radium, the radiation noted from it, the implication on the fundamental structure of matter, and the possibility of somehow securing energy from the atom. Doc frequently made reference to work in progress especially among German physicists in trying to split the atom.
For my senior project, Doc Powers proposed that I think about a way to measure radiation. It was an interesting challenge, and after many false starts, I thought about using a cloud chamber with an optical amplifier to sense leakage across condenser plates maintained at high voltage when the radiation is channeled between the plates. It took most of the year to build the apparatus, but it worked! It was so sensitive that when Doc Powers took his radiation source out of the lead cask in his office, my instrument set up in the laboratory immediately went off scale! A paper detailing the work was presented by me at the year’s collegiate scientific conference at Amherst College. Years later, when I was with the nuclear power project at Electric Boat Division, I was to learn that the same scheme I had described in my senior project was used as the basis for the nuclear instruments that controlled the reactor. Conrad also presented a paper at the Amherst conference. His dealt with techniques for grinding an optical mirror for an astronomical telescope.
Connie and I also dove into the Band activity once again. This year Connie was the Band Manager, I had been selected to be the Student Director, and Ed Bozek was the Drum Major. An immediate problem was to get the Band in shape to appear at the home football games. Even though the Band was a solid forty piece unit that could give an acceptable performance, we wondered what we could do to improve matters. We hit upon the idea of having one of the coeds serve as a Drum Major. It was a radical idea. Females had never been involved in marching bands. But we went ahead with the notion, and called for girls interested in being selected. More than thirty of them responded. Connie and I selected two sophomores, Erma Alvord as the principal Drum Majorette, and Alberta Johnson as the Alternate.
The football season opened with a game against American International College, and the Band appeared for the first time with a Lady Drum Major out front. The innovation brought instant fan approval. We had opened another door for girls. Soon we were widely copied as it became the fashion to have multiple numbers of girl baton twirlers out front of the Band. Before too many years, it became evident that girl players of band instruments should also be admitted to the organization.
Connie and Erma Alvord
Connie, proud Mom, Harold
As Student Director, one of my major functions was to direct the Band while it was in the stands at the football games. We did our best to support the team by stimulating the crowd enthusiasm which we tried to do by playing suitable school tunes after touchdowns. Problem was, the team that year was not very effective and didn’t score many touchdowns. So, at some games, we settled for cheering and playing when the team managed a first down. We also tried to entertain the crowd. One of our techniques was to ape the Goldman Band’s rendition of “On the Mall” where we got the crowd to join in the chorus with “La La La La….La”.
At half time came “The Battle of the Bands”. The opposition Band took the field first and went through their drill. We took the field last, went through a prepared drill, evolved into a block “M” and played the Alma Mater. We always thought we won the contest. Even so, when we played Amherst College, I was always impressed with their song, voiced by a full-throated crowd, as the music rolled across the playing field. “Oh Amherst, Brave Amherst/ It’s a name, known to fame, in days of yore-or-or / Let Amherst, be glorious, till the sun shall climb the heavens no more!”
Harold, Band Leader Farnum, Connie
There was a new contingent of commuters this year. Particularly significant were the freshman girls that Walt Mayo brought in his car from Holyoke: Betty Brown, Muriel Decker, and Frances Field. They were all lively attractive additions to the Memorial Building Commuter Center, but I took special notice of Frances and made a point of coinciding my lunch break with hers. One fine sunny October noon, after we finished lunch we went to sit on the Memorial Building steps that faced the college pond. We chatted, and watched a Chipmunk that Frances knew lived in the area. When the Chipmunk had scurried away, Frances offered to read my palm, it being one of her many skills. When she exclaimed that the lines showed that I was to break up with my present girl friend, then find another whom I would ultimately marry, the plot seemed to thicken. Fact is, I didn’t really have another girl friend – there were just people I occasionally had dates with but no matter. I asked Frances if she would like to go to the next informal hop coming up in several weeks. She agreed. It would be the start of something good and lasting.
Frannie with Keezie Kink
Having made a date to go to the hop, I didn’t see any need to repeat the request. But I later learned that Frances was very uncertain about the whole thing since I had not mentioned the date again – and she had managed a new dress for the dance. But at the appointed hour, I arrived at Fran’s house on Lawler Street in Elmwood. It was next door to the place where our passenger, Wilma Foerster, lived. After meeting Fran’s parents and brothers, we were off to Amherst to the hop. It was a super evening!
Shortly thereafter, Mitch NeJame looked me up to give me a small photograph that he had. He and Stan Flowers had made a project of taking pictures of all the freshman girls as they emerged from the Administration Building after signing in on the first day of school. The picture Mitch gave me showed Frances and Muriel, both decked out in their white freshman beenie caps, as they came out the door. Mitch had heard through the grapevine that Frances and I were now going steady, so he thought I should have the picture. I was most grateful to Mitch. I still have the picture (1993).
Fran with Muriel
Being a senior, and, having a steady girl friend, made for a most interesting and colorful year. As a chem major, I had the run of Goessmann Lab. One day, I decided to drop in on the freshman lab and see how Fran was making out. It happened that an experiment was in progress which required the collection and measurement of displaced water. Fran had chosen a “cute” small Erlenmeyer flask as a collecting bottle. But it was much too small for the job. The flask was overflowing and water spilling all over the lab desk onto the floor. I turned to and helped restore order. Betty Brown also managed a little mishap, letting some sodium hydroxide drop onto her wool skirt, thereby initiating some dissolving of wool and creation of holes.
But there were other mishaps in the Chem Lab. One of my classmates managed to break a two liter bottle of sulphuric acid on the stairway up from the storage room in the basement. What a mess that was to clean up! And another of my friends managed to be overcome by hydrogen sulphide fumes in the gas generator room – we dragged him out in quick order so he was not seriously hurt – just scared!
In November, we were among the 24,000 spectators attending the annual Horticulture Show, the largest crowd it had ever drawn. The show featured a formal garden placed in front of a latticed summer house on a raised terrace. The garden was bordered by paths and beds of flowers.
The Military Ball started off the formal dance season in early December. Fran and I attended – our first formal dance together. As I remember, Connie took Ann Nesworthy who was the younger sister of Jane Nesworthy of Springfield who was engaged to our cousin Albert Zack. The dance was held in the Drill Hall from 9 P.M. To 2 A.M. – so it was the wee hours before we got back home. The “Big Band” music was furnished by the Fenton Brothers Orchestra. Lane Giddings, our class photographer, was there taking candid shots of one and all. He took one of Fran and me which didn’t draw rave revues from either of us.
I still had a part time men’s clothing store job as the Christmas season came around again – this year with A. T. Gallup Co at the corner of High and Suffolk Streets. The pay wasn’t much, but it put a few dollars in my pocket. By now, the Social Security System had been inaugurated, and, through Gallup, I was issued by Social Security Number, xxx-xx-xxxx, which of course is still in effect.
New Year’s Evening, 31 December 1937, there was a party at Fran’s home with her “gang” all in attendance. There was Betty Brown with Don Simpson, there was Muriel Decker with Bill Newell, there was Doris Giehler with Frank McTigue, there was Connie with Ann Nesworthy, there was brother Robert with Dottie Bach, there was Doris Ross and Johnny Mathieson, and of course there was Frances and I, a right lively crew indeed. Bill Newell recorded the scene on his camera and distributed copies to us all.
In February, for the third year in a row, there was a Winter Carnival. For the second year in a row, the event was held without benefit of snow! But no matter. The ice skating was not missed – we roller skated instead. And the dramatic club, know as “The Roister Doisters”, presented an original play by Prof. Frank Rand. There was a basketball game in the cage, swimming events in the pool, and a band concert. Then, to top it all off, there was the Carnival Ball with Frank Dailey’s Orchestra furnishing the obligatory “Big Band” sound. Fran and I went, and I think Ann Nesworthy was with Connie. By vote of the student body, Jessie Kinsman had been selected as Queen, with Lois Macomber, Constance Fortin, and Erma Alvord in her court. In conventional style, these ladies and their escorts led the Grand March.
The Fine Arts Council, chaired by Prof. Frank Waugh, often presented a cultural program in the afternoon in the auditorium of the Memorial Building. One of these programs featured the baritone of Doric Alviani, Supervisor of Music in the Amherst Public Schools. It was tremendously popular, so much so that the College authorities decided to recruit Mr. Alviani to be Music Director of the College. Subsequently, Doric was introduced to the student body at one of the weekly assemblies. He asked the students to sing “Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here”. Getting only luke warm response, he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and called for some noise! That time he got a response which rattled the building. Vocal music had taken hold at the college! Soon Doric was to organize the “Statesman”, a barber shop quartet, which sang its way to college fame.
At this time, the only degree offered by the College was the Bachelor of Science (B. Sc.). For many of us, myself included, that was a perfectly logical degree to represent our course of study. However, an increasing number of students had begun to specialize in various non-science areas. These people were becoming very active in pressuring the Administration to offer a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. The effort to convince the Trustees of the College to award the B.A. had begun in 1936, and in 1938 it was reaching a crescendo. It was not offered in my years at the College, but was voted favorably by the Trustees a short time later, so that Frances, who was a Liberal Arts major, received the B.A. Degree.
By the Spring of 1938, it was abundantly evident that the Great Depression was still dominating the economic landscape. Of 220 members of my class, not even one had as yet any assurance of employment after graduation. Harsh as that sounds, and it really was, I do not recall any wholesale discouragement among my friends. Most accepted the depressed world as it really was, and resolved to make the most of any opportunity that turned up. What we learned about the real world was that, for the few jobs available, employers would consider only candidates having advanced degrees as well as one or more years experience – requirements that slammed the door on us job rookies.
One glorious spring day, when campus was greening up under a bright sunny sky, Frances sat with me at lunch and advised that we were both cutting classes this afternoon so that she could take me to the Farm. I may have heard about the Farm before then, but had not paid much attention. Today was different. We drove north from the college to the town of Montague, through its center, over a washboardy dirt road that heads toward Greenfield, until we came to Cold Brook Farm, a 100 acre spread with a half mile frontage on the Connecticut River, owned by Fran’s grandfather. We drove down a causeway between two ponds to a large white farmhouse opposite. Beyond the house were other farm buildings which I was to learn about later, and I was dimly aware that there were vast acres devoted to a tobacco crop.
But we went in the house to the large living room where I met Grandfather and Grandmother who were cordial in their reserved Yankee way. We all sat down. Grandmother asked if I had seen a certain bird (I don’t remember the species) on our way in. I hadn’t – I wouldn’t have known it if I had (but I didn’t say that). But Frances had seen the bird and she and Grandmother talked about it. Fact is she and Grandmother did most all the talking. The word must have gotten around that Frances was present with her latest boy friend because gradually others appeared – I guess I was introduced, but I don’t remember any except her uncle Scoop. It was a hot day, and not much of a breeze to relieve the hot rays of the sun. There were frequent pauses in the conversation that were accented by the creak of Grandfather’s rocker. Then Frances would have more to say while I kept wishing the interview would end.
The Farm
We finally did leave. The vote on the new boy friend must have been favorable because I subsequently went back to the Farm many times.
The weather was delightful in May that year. But there was tension in the air as the final exam schedule was posted for all to ponder. Graduation was approaching, but there was this one more examination obstacle to get by. My senior physics project was nearly done, but still not finished, and I was somewhat uncertain about its success. To ease the tension, and to enjoy the afternoons, Fran and I took to strolling along Lovers’ Lane, over the drumlin by Thatcher Hall, through the College apple orchard then in full bloom and promising ripe red apples in time for the football games in the fall.
Graduation week-end started off on Friday night, June 10, with the Soph-Senior Hop. The committee had managed to hire Artie Shaw’s Orchestra for the dance assuring a full house even at an inflated ticket price ($10). There was a full moon shining over the warm campus that night as we gathered at the Drill Hall. The room decoration featured swirling colored spots of light that roamed across the girls’ party gowns and the boys’ white jackets. With the first strains from the orchestra we knew that Artie Shaw would be every bit as good as advertised. We danced, but we also crowded around the band stand to get a closer look at the master of the clarinet. It was a thoroughly enchanted evening that we were reluctant to see end.
The next day was Alumni Day. It too was a fine June Day as the reunion classes gathered. I was particularly impressed to see the members of the Class of 1888 back for their fiftieth reunion, wondering how they managed to still be mobile after all those years. Today (1993), as I look forward to the fifty-fifth reunion of my Class of 1938, theirs no longer seems such a remarkable feat. At any rate, the grads were all in a festive mood as the Band led the march to the baseball diamond where everyone took seats to witness the game against Amherst.
That night, we all went to the Commencement Play which was presented on the stage of Bowker Auditorium. It was “Ralph Roister Doister”, by Nicholas Udall, the earliest English comedy. I remember having a fun evening, but I can’t recall what the play was all about. I think Johnny Hoar and Beryl Briggs had the lead parts.
Sunday was set aside for the Baccalaureate Sermon. It probably was an excellent sermon, but unfortunately I do not remember who gave the speech nor what was said. The whole class was there in the Rhododendron Garden, attired in black caps and gowns, having paraded into our places behind the assembled gowned faculty. Mom and Dad were both there in the crowd of parents and friends.
Graduation Day, Monday 13 June 1938, finally arrived. It was a glorious “What is so rare…” day, for which we were thankful since the ceremony was scheduled for outdoors in the Rhododendron Garden which was in full bloom. In traditional fashion, as parents and friends gathered to watch, we graduates, in cap and gown, marched to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” into the Garden and took our places before the podium. The featured speaker was President McConichy of our neighbor Connecticut State College. He built his remarks around the story of an Italian Artist Ghiberti. Ghiberti had been commissioned at an early age to fashion a pair of Bronze doors for the Baptistry of the Cathedral in Florence. [eds note, misidentified by HC as the Sistine Chapel, work for which was in fact influenced by Ghiberti.] Ghiberti held himself to the highest possible personal standards in carving the twelve panel scenes that were desired, and he could never satisfy himself that the work was done. He labored the rest of his life trying to make the doors absolutely perfect. The speech was beautifully crafted and presented, and I long remembered the message. Years later, when I was in Pittsburgh at the Reactor Training Program, I had a chance to visit the Mellon Museum. As I turned a corner and entered a large hall, I saw, at the opposite end, two large Bronze doors. Immediately Ghiberti’s Doors popped into my head. I approached the doors, and indeed found them to be copies of the originals. Even as copies, they were impressive.
So Connie and I both received our degrees that day. Mom and Dad were obviously pleased that their goal for their boys had been reached, and Dad took lots of pictures of the event. We had the parchments framed, and for years I had mine on a prominent wall. But today (1993) I don’t seem to know where it is. Conrad had just passed his 22nd birthday on 8 June, while my 21st on 20 July was still a month away.
It was a difficult summer that year. We had reached a turning point, but weren’t sure which way to turn. The preference was to get a job and start earning some money. Conrad managed to do just that, finding employment as a Civil Engineer with the City of Holyoke Engineering Department. But there was no call for Chemists anywhere near or far, so my inquiries were futile.
Meanwhile, the job of managing the tennis courts went to Don McAuslan who had underbid us. I was disappointed, but then two summers of the job were quite enough. We got in lots of tennis, however, because the folks had joined the Holyoke Canoe Club, and Connie and I played for their tennis team, as well as competed in the weekly club tournament.
Fran and I saw each other as much as possible except when she got a camp counselor job at a girl’s camp on Cape Cod which took her out of town for a few weeks. When she was home we might go see a movie at the Bijou where there usually was a double feature plus news reel plus a Bingo game all for 25 cents each. Or perhaps we would just sit and talk and go for a walk to the Buckley General Store that had a soda fountain. We would splurge and buy chocolate peanut sundaes: vanilla ice cream plus chocolate syrup plus peanuts; for 18 cents each.
As the summer waned on, I made a decision. I would devote one year more to formal schooling. I would return to Mass. State as a candidate for Master of Science. I had to be done in one year – that’s all I could afford. More about that later.
Fran and HC
Fran and Harold – Winter Carnival Ball – 1939
With Master’s 1939
With college behind me, it’s not likely that I paid increased attention to the world scene. Nevertheless, a recent perusal of the New York Times of the period suggests what affairs were like.
Some headlines:
Strong U.S. Note to Japan Demands All Rights in China
Army Quits War Games with Navy
Landing Exercises Not Worth the Cost
Herbert Lehman Sworn in for Fourth Term as Governor of N.Y.
Some advertisements:
Shoes, $8.75 & $12.75
Turkey Dinner at the Brass Rail, $1.50
Young man’s long trouser suit $15.95
Young man’s knicker suit, $11.95
Ladies evening gowns, $8.95 to $14.95
Ladies Fur Coats, Persian Lamb, $265
Beaver, $315
Mink, $995
Stearns White Sale, Damask Table Cloth $2.98
Percale Sheets $1.29
Wool Blankets $6.98
Pleasure Cruise, N.Y. To
West Indies, 12 Days, $162.50
Other Headlines:
1938 “Richest” Year Hitler Tell Nation
Small Submarines are Hope of Reich
Total Could Reach 115
Japanese Bombers Improve Technique
Thousands Crowd Times Square
To Welcome 1939
546 Neediest Cases Aided by
Fund of $254,788
TWA’s Net Income
Reported as $300,000
“Safest City” Award
Won by Providence
N.Y. Stock Market
Closed at 108
From Chronology of 1938:
May 13; Congress passes 1.1 Billion naval expansion bill
June 16; Congress adjourns after passing 3.7 billion
for public works and unemployment relief
June 22; Joe Louis knocks out Max Schmeling
Note: Fran and I listed to the radio report of that fight while sitting outside on the
bulkhead at 51 Lawler Street. Ken was in his room with the radio turned up loud.
July 14; Howard Hughes completes round the world flight in 3 days, 19 hours.
September 30; Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini, & Daladier at Munich agree “never to go to war
with one another”
Sports:
Duke and Southern California will play in the Rose Bowl Game; Radio broadcast over WEAF
N.Y. Boat Show Flagship is a 53 foot ELCO
Donald Budge plays Ellsworth Vines for the professional tennis championship
WILBRAHAM ACADEMY
The day after Labor Day, 1940, I was off to Wilbraham Academy. I was twenty-three years old. Yet it was the first time I had been on my own away from the family home. It was certain to be a new experience.
I don’t remember how I got to Wilbraham. Somebody, probably Connie, must have driven me. Or maybe I had a short term use of a family car. I didn’t have wheels of my own. Come the first pay check and I intended to do something about that.
The faculty was gathering this day – the students would arrive tomorrow. Someone must have met me. I don’t remember who it was, but likely it was Mrs. Vaughan, the House Director. I was shown to my room which was on the second floor rear at the far end of a corridor of student rooms and over the kitchen. There was a stair well outside my door that led to an outside entrance on the first floor. The room was outfitted for two men. There was a private bathroom.
My roommate had not yet arrived, so I selected the corner bed and began unpacking.
Then my roommate arrived. He was a charming, handsome fellow with wavy black hair. He was Charles Crosby, but he introduced himself as “Bing”. Quite unusual to have the opportunity to room with “Bing Crosby” – I wondered how many people would believe that. Bing was a Wesleyan graduate, 1937, who taught English and Art.
Bing was back for his third year, so he knew the school routines which he shared with me and that was a major help. Bing knew that lunch would be served at noon today, but on school days was at 1:00 P.M. And there would be a faculty meeting after lunch at which time the Headmaster Charles Stevens would introduce everybody. There would be schedule and classroom assignments. There would be roster assignments for study hall proctoring. There would be table assignments for the dining hall. Bing and I would share the corridor monitoring, each of us taking every other night as well as every other week-end.
I was glad to tag along with Bing to lunch where I began to meet faculty members. The faculty consisted of twenty-one men, all except three of us being old hands. So most everyone knew each other, while I struggled with a panorama of new names and faces. Everyone was cordial, doing their best to make me feel welcome. Bing was correct about the faculty meeting. The Headmaster introduced the new faculty members, made a speech, passed out some schedule information and made a few announcements about such things as the football schedule. He concluded the meeting with an invitation to the entire faculty to a party at his house that evening (Bing whispered that this was a new wrinkle – there wasn’t a party last year).
After that, Bing took me on a tour of the campus.
Wilbraham is a small town in Massachusetts on the outskirts of Springfield. The Academy is astride the main street in town. Rich Hall is the dominant building on campus, housing all the boys, plus the kitchen and dining rooms. The building features a massive lobby with groupings of overstuffed furniture and small tables that make the place suitable for informal gatherings. Tea is served every Sunday afternoon next to the fireplace. The main staircase to the upper floors rises from the center of the far wall of the lobby. Twin entrances to the dining room flank the staircase. The school library is opposite the stair well on the second floor.
The three classroom buildings are across the street from Rich Hall. They have names which I have forgotten. The Physics Lab in one of the buildings seemed well laid out with a demonstration lecture table, armchairs for the boys, and experiment tables all around the perimeter of the room. The school auditorium is on the second floor of the largest of the three buildings.
Another building, set apart from the three but opposite Rich contains the school gymnasium and basketball court. The ground floor level contains the student “pub”, a place where the boys may gather, generally without supervision, to relax and enjoy snacks and chatter.
Adjacent to Rich, but across the side street that intervenes, is the Headmaster’s house. It is a large Victorian style mansion providing ample living space for the Stevens family.
Further down the side street in the rear to the Headmaster’s house is the school infirmary. It is a conventional large house that has been adapted to the medical needs of a large active group of boys. It is staffed full time and supervised by a registered nurse.
Off in the rear of Rich Hall is the Field House and the playing fields that include typical facilities for football, soccer, baseball, and tennis. The Field House contains locker and shower facilities for the teams and their opponents. The Field House also has a large lounge where the boys entertain the visiting team with refreshments after the games. The lounge also has a large dance floor which makes it ideal for school dances and parties.
The boys came the next day, immediately transforming the place from a sleepy quiet enclave into a noisy, seething, vibrant, restless community. The boys came in all sizes, shapes, and ages (but not all colors). These boys, usually shepherded by two parents, were clearly the off-spring of the privileged class, with “preppy” dress, possessions and mannerisms. All were there to be prepared for college – most were aiming at one of the Ivy League schools (Dartmouth was very popular). Some of the boys were there for post graduate work after having completed high school, which made them only slightly younger than I was. In fact, somebody’s mother, making conversation, mistook me for a student and asked what college I was preparing for. She was only slightly embarrassed to learn that I was an instructor.
School began in earnest the next day and soon settled into a routine. Up at six, breakfast at seven, first class at eight, second class at nine, recess at ten, third class at ten-thirty, lunch at one, athletics for everyone at two, free time or extra-curricular choice at four, dinner at six, evening study at seven, free time at nine-thirty, lights out at ten. The same every weekday. Saturday was the same through lunch. Interschool athletics was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. There was a first run movie show for the school in the auditorium at seven. Sunday breakfast was optional. Church call at ten, dinner at one, tea in the lobby at four, supper at six, vespers at seven.
Settling into my teaching schedule was no problem. I had small classes and bright kids. The Physics lab was well equipped. The problem was the band. Overstating my ability, I had agreed to have a Band at the first home football game. That was ten days away. At breakfast on the second day, I asked the Headmaster to announce that all boys interested in playing in a band should meet me at the Field House at four o’clock. I was pleasantly surprised. About two dozen boys showed up, most with their instruments ready to play. There was even a reasonable assortment of instruments; several trumpets, clarinets, and trombones, three drummers, and one boy who wanted to be drum major. It was a start.
We had no music. I selected a clarinetist and had everyone tune to him. Then we played the National Anthem. I was amazed. It would take some work, but maybe we had something here.
In the week that followed, I managed to get to the music store in Springfield where I purchased the band scores for a half dozen marches which we practiced every afternoon in the privacy of the Field House. Uniforms were another problem. It turned out that everyone had a pair of white trousers and had, or could borrow, a maroon sweater with a block “W” on it. So that was the uniform.
We were weak at some instruments. For the first appearance the coming Saturday I pressed into service, Connie on the sousaphone, Bobbie on the trombone, Frank Smith on the trumpet, and Nate Wilansky on the baritone. They all agreed to show up. Gratis, too.
And I scored the school song for the Band and we learned that.
Two days before the game we were ready to practice marching. We paraded on the green opposite Rich Hall. After getting the hang of things, I had them try a counter march. When they learned that, we tried a counter march into a block “W”. When that went OK, we tried it all while playing. A little rough but OK.
The appearance at the football game was anti-climatic. With the “ringers” I had rounded up I was sure we would make a favorable impression. And we did. The crowd of largely parents and friends was enthusiastic. I observed that the Headmaster was smiling broadly when we counter-marched into a block “W” and played the school song. So Wilbraham had its first ever Marching Band. By this time I had discovered that several of the boys were really exceptionally good players, and perhaps we could form a dance band. Of course, in those days a dance band meant you could produce the “Big Band” sound. The boys were anxious to try.
A dance band needs a solid rhythm section. We had three candidates for the drummer spot. The boys knew a fellow who played the bass violin. I looked him up, and he was interested in playing, but his instrument needed restringing. We got that taken care of with a new set of strings from the Springfield music store. We needed a piano player. The boys said there were several good piano players around. We looked them up. Also found a boy who was an accordion player. We also needed music. There was a good source in Springfield and the Headmaster obliged by setting up an account there.
Every afternoon at four we gathered in the Field House and played. Usually we worked on one tune until we were satisfied with it. Slowly we built up a very fine set of current dance tunes. There was a Parents’ Day coming up. The feature of the day was a three act play by the Drama Club which Mr. Whitney coached. Hearing that the dance band was practicing, Mr. Whitney asked me to provide incidental music the night of the play. I agreed and asked how much time was needed. His response was thirty minutes would be sufficient. So I acquired some innocuous stuff – thirty minutes worth – and we got ready to play the pieces. There was great resistance, but I insisted that we provide the help requested
But on the appointed night, things went very slowly. By the time the curtain went up, we had used half of our repertoire. Between the first and second act, we used up the rest of the numbers and there was nothing left for the rest of the show. I passed the word that we would start over again. But there was mutiny in the ranks! With all the fine dance tunes we knew, why play this junky stuff again. With some sympathy for that position, I relented and selected our version of “Loch Lomond”. When the second act ended, we swung into it, turning loose our authentic “Big Band” sound. It was an instant hit, perhaps by contrast to a stage play. The boys in the audience wouldn’t let us stop. Since the boys in the audience were happy, their parents were all smiles too. I glanced at the Headmaster, and he was all smiles too. Finally Mr. Whitney asked us to stop so he could finish his play. We did. But after the play, the audience wanted more music. So we played a few more of our dance tunes.
That was a turning point. Ever after, Mr. Whitney was mad a me. But the dance band was in big demand. Soon a set of social dances had been arranged in the Field House after games and we provided the dance music. And every Saturday night, before the movie show, we put on about a half hour of music. We also were in demand at several Alumni Dinners. And played two programs for radio station WBZA.
With all that success, we needed a name. We settled on “Melody Masters”, although one popular name was “Hemond’s Demons”. The carpentry shop made us some music stands, and Betty Lincoln decorated them. We had a real professional look. We needed a Theme Song – all Big Bands had one. We thought “It’s the Talk of the Town” was appropriate, and we used a few bars of that to sign on and off all of our presentations.
Hemond’s Demons
In the meantime, on 16 September, Roosevelt had signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. The action required all males aged 21 to 35 to register on 16 October for selective compulsory military training. The country had taken another step towards war.
On October 16, I registered in Holyoke, my home address. The local Selective Service was responsible for processing and classification and serial numbering. In short order, I receive in the mail, a Draft Card. It indicated my serial number. It also classified me 1A, fit for general military duty.
On October 29, the national lottery was held determining the order in which the local serial numbered men would be called up. My number was among the low ones suggesting that I would get an early call. If the military service was in my future, I thought Naval service would be better than Army life. So I went to the Naval Recruiting Center in Springfield and applied for a Naval Commission. The request was favorably processed, and I was given a physical exam. That’s when they found out about my color blindness problem. Sensitivity to red and green is less than normal, making me ineligible for Naval service.
So I went about my business awaiting a Draft notice. It came fairly soon, and I don’t remember the date. But I was in a small group of about seven Holyoke men who went off to the Springfield Center. There was another physical exam. The Army wasn’t worried about color blindness. But they did worry about teeth. Mine did not occlude properly – not enough top and bottom teeth touched at the same time. I was ineligible for Army service. But the dentist assured me that the standard would be lowered when they needed more men, and I would be recalled.
Ed Banas was also called among the early drafts. He went off to camp at Indian Town Gap in Pennsylvania, where he reported that there was nothing to train with. The men marched around carrying broom sticks to simulate rifles.
So I refocused my attention on Wilbraham.
An independent self-supporting young man needed a car – of that there was no doubt. Shortly after the first monthly pay check, I went looking. At the Plymouth dealer in Springfield, I spotted a beauty. It was a 1937 Plymouth Coupe. It looked like new. The tires were barely worn. The seat was wide enough for three persons. The trunk was huge and easily accessible. The price? $350, $50 down and the remainder in twelve monthly installments. It was a deal. I drove it out of there back to the Academy.
Fran with ’37 Plymouth Coupe – Matilda
As I drove the Plymouth, I recognized a problem – it tended to wander – it tended to go some other direction then the precise one steered. The next day I went back to the dealer with my complaint. They turned-to and fixed the problem – rebuilt the front end – no charge. After that the Plymouth served me in valiant fashion at Wilbraham, throughout the war period, and until well after the war when we were living and teaching in South Hadley. Best of all, I was able to keep my weekly date with Fran with no transportation difficulty.
I have mentioned Bing Crosby. I should say a few words about some of the other faculty members with whom I was in daily contact.
Of course, there was Roger Lincoln. He was a Master of English, and the Coach of Tennis. He roomed on the first floor of Rich Hall with his wife Betty (an accomplished artist) and their first born, whom they referred to as “mouse meat”. Roger was a Tufts graduate, with a Master’s from Mass. State. He and Betty came from Ware, MA., where Betty’s father had deeded them 200 acres of woodland, much of which was oak. Rog and his brother, Waldo, were in the process of logging the land for oak timber sufficient to build each of them a house. We saw Roger’s house after he had moved in; most impressive. Waldo also farmed some of the land he owned. His major crop was marijuana in the days when that was not illegal. We have kept in touch with the Lincolns over the years via our annual exchange of Christmas letters.
Then there was Phil Shaw, a tall, handsome guy with reddish hair, Head of the Science Department and Coach of Track and Soccer. Phil had earned both the Bachelor and Masters Degrees from Springfield College. Phil and his wife Florence lived in a home off-campus but nearby. Phil taught Chemistry in the lab next to mine, so we often had a chance to share experiences, advice, jokes, and lab equipment. Our contact with the Shaws has also been maintained over the years via the Christmas letter technique. The Shaws have long since retired to Florida, but usually visit in Maine in the summer.
There were many others, but none with whom we have maintained contact. Bob Taylor, an elegant Harvard man, Head of the Foreign Language Department, often had Bing and me into his room for tea and conversation.
Bill Herbert, a lively Yale man, teacher of Math and Coach of Golf, also had a passion for Photography. He did his own film processing in the bathroom connected to his room on the second floor of Rich. Bill also had an airplane pilot’s license. There was the time he flew over the campus taking pictures only to discover, too late, that there had been no film in the camera. Dave Morey was the Athletic Director and Coach of Football. He had a long career as a coach having assisted at Dartmouth, been Head Coach at Middlebury, again at Auburn, and again at Bates before coming to Wilbraham. Dave insisted his players not over eat – he didn’t want any extra weight on them. So he requested the Masters, at dinner time, to see that the football players drank a glass of water when they first sat down at the table. This was to dull their appetite and keep them from eating too much.
Sunday evening vesper service was required attendance for all the boys. By and large, the service was prepared and presented by one of the Masters. But one Sunday evening, there was something different. Mrs. Tuttle, an accomplished violinist, wife of Guy Tuttle, Assistant Headmaster, was to play a series of religious melodies as found in several different countries. Interesting theme; should be a good program. Problem was that Mrs. Tuttle decided that she should also be dressed in a suitable costume for the country from which she was playing a tune. But the further problem was that Mrs. Tuttle had all the costumes on at once. When she finished playing a piece, she set her violin aside and shed that dress. The operation so resembled a strip tease act that the boys found it hilarious. But, of course, they couldn’t show their laughter and had to shut off their feelings as best they could. But that effort caused the boys to rock in their seats further making the auditorium seats rock. I had the same problem as the boys. Maintaining control and not laughing was shear torture. Mrs. Tuttle’s strip tease was privately reviewed in many a boy’s huddle the rest of the year.
I was involved in a vesper service which may also have caused mirth among the boys. Bob Taylor was in charge that evening. Bob was a pretty good organist, and his plan was to present a concert of religious music based on the organ, but with the company of a violin, played by Mrs. Tuttle, and a clarinet, played by me. (There were no costume changes, however.) I don’t remember what we played, but it went reasonably well. However, it was a weird instrumentation, and Mrs. Tuttle had a reputation. I think the boys probably had fun with that event too.
Within weeks of school opening, I knew all the boys by name who were entered in my classes or lived in Rich where Bing and I proctored. By Thanksgiving, I could identify all the boys in the school (about 200). That was fifty years ago. Today memory of their names and faces has dimmed. I doubt if I could recall any of them. With a few exceptions.
The Sampson boy was unique. A happy-go-lucky fat fellow. Son of the Sampson family of Springfield who owned and operated the largest funeral service in the city. Young Sampson had no interest in scholarly pursuits. His ambition was to take over his father’s business. He used to dash down to the corner store just before dinner each night to buy an evening paper. He came back to the dorm waving the obituary column and announcing how many funerals his father conducted that day.
Paul Jouard was also unique, and I still remember him. He played piano in the dance band. He was a master of the instrument. And he played without music. He could even play a song he’d never heard before. Just whistle the refrain once and he would pick it up, supplying a full score in the bargain, all by ear.
There was an unfortunate lad who was subject to epileptic fits at any time. It happened one evening when he was sitting at my table for dinner. As he went into the fit, his body stiffening up, his arm swung around knocking his neighbor’s dinner off the table as he rolled to the floor. We carried him into the lobby where the school nurse administered to him as the fit ran its course. I often wondered whatever happened to him.
Then there was another unfortunate fellow, who was weak and puny, and suffered repeated insults at the hands of his classmates who had dubbed him “The Prof”. He was so frail that he had been excused from all athletics and spent most of his free time in the library. One day when he was out of his room, some rogue classmates moved his bed, bureau, and all his possessions into the shower and soaked them completely. I never heard of the culprits being identified. The poor kid also had similar troubles when he went off to college at Connecticut State. The kids there delighted in denying him a place in the chow line. One day he fainted after going without food for three days The episode made the press, and I don’t know what the authorities did about it.
Then there was the boy from Virginia, a handsome fellow with impeccable dress and manners. He was seated at my table for dinner one night. Before I had a chance to serve anyone, he politely requested to be excused from dinner. I didn’t probe for a reason and none was offered. Sometimes a boy would decide he didn’t like what was being served. Anyhow, I excused him and he strode out of the room. As he did, I happened to glance in the direction of the Headmaster’s table. There being seated to the right of the Headmaster in the place usually reserved for school guests, was a black man. The boy from Virginia had seen him too and would not eat in the same room. We later heard that the boy’s father called the Headmaster and threatened to removed his son if this sort of thing ever happened again. Such was the state of the society in 1940.
But I should not give the wrong impression. By and large these were good kids. They were polite at the dinner table, attentive in the classroom, played hard at athletics, and enjoyed the Academy life. Once in a while, Bing and I would have a party in our room after study hour for the boys in our wing of Rich. We would perhaps have a cake, or a bag of cookies along with soft drinks.
Having acquired a car, my next priority was a record player. With enough dollars saved, I went looking in Springfield and found a combination radio record player that was within budget. It used the latest thing in needles; fiber ones that made no scratching noise and helped improve the tonal quality of the record. The problem was that fiber needles wore out rapidly and had to be replaced every few records. But I bought the unit anyway along with an album of operatic excerpts, brought them back to my room at Rich, and set the player up on the side table. Bing approved, and so did the boys on the floor, most of whom had records they wished to try out. Thereafter, as finances permitted, I built up my record collection.
The busy life at Wilbraham tended to shield one from the news of the outside world where the war was in full progress in Europe, and a Presidential campaign was percolating domestically. Roosevelt was running for an unprecedented third term, a fact which caused his opponents to charge “one man, one rule”. The Republican candidate was Wendell Wilkie. My Dad, as a long time Republican, was partial to Wilkie, but mother was still enamored with Roosevelt. It would be my first ever Presidential vote. In November, it was no contest; Roosevelt won easily. Apparently his pledge to the American parents that he would not send their sons “into any foreign war” carried the day. But war was closer than anyone of us thought.
The Hemond Brothers: Robert, HC, Connie
“Luella’s convertible” – Willy in middle?
Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos
Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos. Welcome. Wrote Emma Lazarus, “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” With the image of caged children seared in our brains, it’s time to reflect. We are a restless species and everyone of us, or our ancestors, came here from somewhere else. I’m not atypical. Part potato famine Irish and French-Canadian recruited for New England mills. An Acadian great grandmother whose family, French and American Indian, settled in Nova Scotia on the Bay of Fundy, evicted by the British in a forgotten diaspora. Canada Waite, born in Indian captivity. John Howland, who fell off the Mayflower. Scots, Welshmen, Dutchmen, Basque. Oppression, opportunity, fate drove or enticed them all here. Kids in kennels? There but for the grace of God.
Here’s a different look. You may have missed an adjunct to Suffield on the Green at the Congregational Church. My daughter Amy and my new son-in-law, Alejo, Colombian, and citizen of Canada, married in an exciting and ecumenical Catholic/Protestant ceremony by Father Jette and Reverend Bailey. The airlines owe us, as guests flew in from as far as China, Dubai, Brussels, London, and Bogota. Argentinians. Brazilians. Luxembourgish! A “destination” wedding someone exclaimed. A multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, extraordinary group, lawyers, doctors, retired diplomats. Alejo’s brother Fernando and his Montreal posse in our kitchen cooked up a storm. Hablas Espanol? Parlez-vous francais? We spoke with my older daughter Liz, FaceTime from Istanbul. “Sen Turkce konusmayi biliyor musun?” (Speak Turkish?) My granddaughter Leyla does. What a group, disco ‘til the wee hours, Salsa, a Conga line, the Macarena! Maravilloso! Good stuff.
So, when they write about immigrants, when they tell us we need a wall, when they levy new tariffs or want to divide us because “we are different”? Those immigrants? They are us.
(Submitted as an editorial by me as guest co-editor to the Suffield Observer for its October 2019 issue.)
Surprising New Research on Rudy
Photo by Tim Gouw on Pexels.com
I am the recent beneficiary of modern findings by noted polar literary archivist H. Hemond, best known for his expertise on Solstice Festivities. I felt I should share. Hemond reports as follows:
Modern Research Shines a Light on Rudolph’s Nose
Author’s note:
The story of Rudolph, written by Robert Lewis May, was first published in 1939, and ten years later was told in the well-known song, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, by songwriter Johnny Marks. Since then the story has entranced generations of children, and spawned numerous spin-offs, including several movies.
Several investigators have questioned the story as told, as it appears to violate certain physical principles, and anticipates the state of genetic engineering by almost a century. However, the recent discovery of an unpublished manuscript among the papers of Hilja Koskinen, an obscure Finnish reindeer geneticist, suggests that her research group had already developed a tool that anticipated CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing capability and perhaps had already been used to create transgenic reindeer as early as the 1930s [1]. Thus, we can not dismiss the possibility that the incorporation of bioluminescent organs, whose purpose would have clearly been of assistance to reindeer in locating grazing grounds during the polar night, could have taken place. Unfortunately, Koskinen’s laboratory was destroyed early in the Russo-Finnish war of 1939-1940, and little evidence remains to either confirm or refute this possibility.
The confusion between a shiny reflective surface, which would have been of little utility to navigation in fog, and an actual light-emitting organ, which would have been particularly effective for navigation if it operated in the infra-red range, can probably be attributed to May’s wish to simplify the story for young children, though this false equivalence has proven vexing to middle school science teachers, who have to first get their students to unlearn what they learned while singing the Rudolph song in elementary school. Neglect of the obvious issue of flight control under low visibility represented, at best, forfeiture of an opportunity to promote STEM education by stimulating youngsters’ interest in aviation.
While some may question whether May himself understood these technical matters, his correspondence with Marks in the mid-1940’s [2] makes it clear that he had a firm grasp of them and was merely pitching the story to young kids. The May-Marks correspondence also brings to light some other details of the Rudolph story, which, along with a certain amount of artistic license, form the basis of the following more complete story of Rudolph.
H. Hemond
December 2018
1. Achterhov, K. 2016. Zeitschrift Fur Ren Biologische 2077: 197-485.
2. Rodgers, R. 2012. Great American Songwriters. Sprung-Verlog, Newark
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer
I
It was Christmas eve, and the elves were busy loading Santa’s sleigh. They had to work carefully to avoid bumping into each other, due to the thick fog that had rolled in earlier. Hosmer, the head elf, looked concerned as he fretted over his clipboard. Fog was getting to be an increasing problem these days. Even the dullest of the elves knew that warmer oceans evaporated more water, and that this extra water in the atmosphere had to come back down somewhere, turning into fog, clouds, and precipitation.
Santa seemed outwardly confident, though. An experienced and intuitive pilot, he flew by his gut but also could use instruments when called for. He detached a glass hip flask of brandy, thickened with honey, that had been velcro-ed to the dash of his sleigh for flight guidance under poor visibility. Before replacing the flask on the dashboard, he took a swallow to lower the brandy level exactly to a white line he had drawn horizontally across the flask. His jovial countenance showed little trace of anxiety; he had flown in fog before, and his confidence was further reinforced by a few nips of sweetened brandy necessitated by this calibration procedure.
The head elf came over to Santa and, under illumination of a red-lensed maglite, called attention to some numbers on the clipboard. Hosmer was a loyal and experienced helper, but the good saint found this talk about things like center of gravity to be tiresome, and he was downright irked at the mention of being ‘over gross’, an phrase that Mrs. Claus sometimes used when he took a third helping of mashed potatoes and gravy. Never had they flown with such a full load of toys, argued the elf, and with visibility so low that even the roof of the workshop was barely visible. The least he could do, Hosmer continued, was to leave behind that slate pool table for the Winkleton sisters.
Santa demurred. He hated to disappoint children, and besides, old man Winkleton had just funded renovation of the reindeer barn. He dismissed the elf with instructions to put extra wax on the runners, but as a concession he did resolve to add Rudolph to the team. Santa knew that the rest of his team didn’t seem to like Rudolph, but the red-nosed reindeer was good at avoiding obstacles even on the darkest of nights, and the extra thrust would help too. Santa headed toward the paddock, where the reindeer were enjoying their Christmas Eve treat of a trough full of sugar plums. All except Rudolph, that is, whose approach to the treats was blocked by shoves from Dasher and his little clique. None of the other reindeer seemed willing to intervene, save Vixen, who quietly took a sugar plum from the trough and surreptitiously passed it to Rudolph.
“Fly with Rudy Roadkill, that mutant freak?” mocked Dasher, within earshot of Rudolph, the moment Santa mentioned his plan. Prancer gratuitously poked Rudolph in the ribs with his antlers, making sure that Dasher saw the action, while Donner sniggered derisively. None of the other reindeer dared to speak up with Dasher and his buddies in earshot, even though a few of the more experienced among them had been looking anxiously at the fog and had been particularly troubled to hear the elves struggling with that pool table. Santa was not pleased by the reaction he saw in the reindeer paddock, and his instinct was to follow through with his plan to include Rudolph, demoting Dasher if necessary to a position at the rear of the team. But before Santa could speak, Rudolph turned away and disappeared, quickly but sadly, into the thickening fog. Some thought they heard him utter a very un-reindeerlike expletive as he disappeared from sight.
II
Rudolph stood at the rear of the paddock, feeling both anger and self-pity as he ate stale dried reindeer moss and thought wistfully about sugar plums. He occasionally rubbed his nose against the fence; it always itched in early winter, when the sun sank below the horizon and his infraluciferin levels rose. The itch was relieved a bit when he looked into the distance, stretching the shiny membrane on the front of his nose as it focused his biolumnescence into a long, fog-penetrating beam of infrared light. From a slight rise in the paddock he could see final preparations being made for Santa’s departure.
The team was harnessed up and the elves finished their final inspection of the reins and traces. Dasher and Prancer were wise-cracking, as usual, while Santa pulled on his goggles, mounted the sleigh, and took reins in hand. Shouting “Dash away all!”, Santa cracked the reins, and amid a clatter of hooves and a cloud of ice chips, team and sleigh began to gather speed. Santa felt the wind in his face, and the exhilaration of flight, as the rattling of runners on the rough, hardened snow died away. Within seconds, they were in cloud, and Santa shifted his gaze to the brandy flask, working to keep the liquid even with the line on the bottle. The brandy slanted slightly to the right, so he eased in some right rein. There–they must have drifted to the left—but the liquid was now perfectly centered and they were climbing straight away, hooves thundering in the icy air.
III
Santa’s initial exhilaration turned to unease as he sensed that the airspeed was building more slowly than normal, and Hosmer’s admonitions came back to him. There were scattered trees in the field around his workshop, to say nothing of the tall stack of the North Pole power station. Normally they would outclimb the terrain, but if they couldn’t, they would have to steer around the obstacles. Santa called out to the reindeer for maximum effort. Suddenly there was a bellow of pain from the front of the straining team, and Santa felt the traces slacken as the sleigh begin to sink. More yelps of surprise, then a tamarack branch swiped the left side of the sleigh, snagging Santa’s cap from his head; only his goggles saved him from a nasty corneal scratch. Santa almost froze with fear as he suddenly realized that he was low, slow, and losing altitude, flying blind with an injured team among trees that were higher than he was.
Rudolph, with his infrared-sensitive vision, saw it all happening in slow motion. The slow climb, the drift to the left, then Dasher virtually straddling the stiff top of a tall tamarack tree to the south of the workshop, the branches whipping Prancer and Comet in their faces before scraping along the sleigh. Santa, his eyes glued to the brandy flask, handling the reins by instinct as he steered the crippled team in a shallow turn to the left while shouting for the reindeer to pull for their lives. Dasher hung limply from the traces as they completed a 180 degree descending turn, passing barely inches over the workshop, and making a hard landing in the reindeer paddock. Toys bouncing everywhere from the sleigh as it slewed sharply to the side, nearly capsizing as the team came to a stop in a tangle. A pool table somersaulted across the hard-packed snow, coming to rest minus two legs and with a cracked bed.
IV
Rudolph watched from the fog with concern, plus possibly a bit of schadenfreude. He searched anxiously for Vixen and was relieved to see her struggling to her feet, seemingly intact. Santa was as white as his beard as he shakily climbed from the sleigh. Elves poured out of the workshop like ants from an anthill, unharnessing the reindeer and examining them for injuries, gathering up scattered toys. Hosmer himself ran alongside a pair of elves pulling an acetylene torch on a toboggan and carrying blacksmith’s hammers, sure that the runners of the sleigh would need straightening. And there was Dasher, curled up on the ground in a fetal position and moaning.
Santa walked among his team, concern for the reindeer clashing with concern for his Christmas duties. He thought of disappointed children, waking up on Christmas morn to find the stockings limp, cookies uneaten, the tree bare of presents, a year’s good behavior wasted. His other vision was of reindeer, his reindeer, lying disemboweled on an icy ridge, their legs broken, the sleigh in splinters, help unavailable.
Remarkably, most of the team seemed to have only minor sprains and abrasions, except for Dasher. He was now hobbling, doubled over, as a pair of elves led him through the fog toward the barn. Rudolph felt guilty about the small grin he was trying unsuccessfully to suppress, but he could not resist walking over and calling out “You better watch where you’re flying, Bucko… Oh, wait, are you still actually a buck?”
Vixen, hearing Rudolph, approached him through the fog, worry on her face. “Rudy”, she said, “I’ve never seen Santa this upset. Of course we should stand down, but knowing him, there is no way he is going to cancel Christmas. He hasn’t missed Christmas eve for over a century. But if we launch again, there’s no telling what terrible fate might befall us. Could you please go see him? He really needs your help.”
Santa looked up to see a dull red glow emerging from the fog. “Am I ever happy to see you”, he said, sounding a bit insensitive, perhaps because he was still rattled from his close call. “We really need you on the team tonight.” Rudolph was about to say something harsh, about bullies who wanted only to save their own antlers and would soon be back to their old ways, when Comet came forward and said “Rudy, I’d be proud to fly with you tonight.” Rudolph said nothing, and Comet continued, haltingly “There is no excuse for the way Dasher and his buddies treated you, but I was afraid to say anything…” Several of the other reindeer snuffled in agreement, their heads down. Santa reached into his pocket and took out the last of the sugar plums, saying “Rudy, you will need this extra energy if you are going to take lead tonight.”
V
The clinking of hammers ceased, and Hosmer, who had been muttering something about work hardening and metal fatigue, finally grunted in satisfaction and shut off his torch. It made a loud ‘pop’ as the bright blue pinpoint of oxy-acetylene flame abruptly died, leaving a dull red glow from the still-hot runner. A dozen elves, who had been lifting the sleigh to keep the left runner off the snow, gratefully lowered their burden, which hissed as it touched the ground. Santa meanwhile had refilled his brandy bottle and was carefully tightening its velcro straps against the dashboard.
A pair of elves finished their inspection of the 8-reindeer team and its harnessing, and huddled briefly with Hosmer, who then gave a thumbs-up report to Santa. Mounting his sleigh, Santa chuckled with a surprisingly unrestrained “Ho! Ho! Ho!” as he took the reins in hand with a practiced grip. Up front, Rudolph stood in lead position, with Vixen to his right, while Prancer and Donner were harnessed at the rear, within easy reach of Santa’s whip. Mrs. Claus and the elves stood by to wish Santa a good trip. “Dash away all!” shouted Santa, and once again they were off in a clatter of hooves. “Merry Christmas to All!” he exclaimed as, guided by Rudolph, they made a tight farewell circle over the workshop and took up their course to the south.
Copyright 2018 H. Hemond
The Coming of the Hay Reaper
Pedaling on Clay Creek Drive a week ago, along the field, I caught a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye and turned to see a bobolink perched on a stalk in full-throated glory. He’s jet black with white shoulders and back, and a brilliant yellow cap. He nests with his mate in the tall grass of the hay field. If they are quick about it, they will fledge their family before the farmer comes for the hay. And this bobolink is precious, strutting his stuff as only the beautiful can, blissfully unaware of politics in Washington, refugees in the Middle East, and the coming of the hay reaper. Then again, he’s a bird brain.
In the broader world, it’s a year now since the US withdrew from the Paris climate accord. And as I write, President Trump is ordering the Energy Department to “stop the further premature retirements…” of coal-fueled power plants. Therein lies a problem, a threat every bit as real as methane to the canary in the mine. As my brother, an MIT environmental professor pointed out to me, the French scientist Thomas Fourier postulated as early as 1827 that the earth’s atmosphere could have a warming, greenhouse effect on atmospheric temperatures. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius quantified that effect, understanding specifically the warming caused by additional atmospheric carbon dioxide. In over 40 pages of painstaking hand calculations, Arrhenius showed that, for example, a 50% increase in carbon dioxide would raise average temperatures 3.1 to 3.8 degrees Centigrade. Since the industrial revolution, with the consumption of fossil fuels, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from 280 to 400 parts per million and those concentrations continue to spike. The rise in global temperatures has followed Arrhenius’s prediction with remarkable accuracy.
There is an obvious take away from this, as we hear about ice caps melting, the release of methane from the permafrost, the rise of sea levels, the increase volatility of storms, the danger to large areas of the arable land that feed us. The world at large, in the Paris Accord, took an important first step to reducing reliance on carbon-based fuels. European countries, such as Denmark, now generate a large percentage of electricity from wind and other solar power sources. The technology to meet our power needs with a minimized “carbon footprint” already exists. What is missing is the political will, the public demand, to make the change. It may be too late if one waits until the canary is dead.
(Note: I have submitted this blog post as a “guest editorial” to the Suffield Observer for its July/August issue.)
Once a Hack, always a Hack
Hacking or gaming systems didn’t start with computers, and Facebook isn’t the only media that politicians have abused to gain an edge. Consider this article that my wife Jackie, Suffield, Connecticut’s head librarian, wrote for her column in the Suffield Observer. How do you promote your political action book? You get it on the bestseller lists. Here’s how:
Who Hacked the New York Times Bestseller List? By Jackie Hemond
In 1931, The New York Times began a list of bestselling books sold only in New York City. Soon the list tracked book sales in 8 cities, then 14, and in the 1940s, it leapt to 22, the same number as today. The algorithms to prepare the list are mysterious, as are the names of the booksellers. Getting on this prestigious list leads to fame and fortune and a cause for gaming the system (i.e. hacking – tampering with the list), which is not hard to do. Authors just have to buy 5,000 copies of their book in a week. It is not illegal, just untruthful. The New York Times is aware of these bulk purchases and generally, removes the book from the list, or more often, places a dagger next to suspected books. Despite this awkwardness, with memories being short, hackers often call themselves best-selling authors.
The New York Times best seller list was hacked as recently as August 2017, when Lani Sarema bought 5,000 copies of her young adult book, Handbook for Mortals. Her book came off the list but she is reported to have received a potential movie deal.
Among the list of hackers are Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann, self-help author Wayne Dyer, megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll, and Donald Trump. According to his memoir, ex-Trump executive, Jack O’Donnell, bought 5,000 copies of The Art of the Deal to sell in the Trump Plaza Hotel gift store. He wasn’t the only buyer. Trump pitted O’Donnell and his other executives, including wife Ivana, against each other, to see who bought the most. Last year, dealer Trump bought $55,055 worth of copies of his new book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again with campaign funds. However, Trump is not the only politician to game the system.
Herman Cain’s campaign bought $36, 511 worth of his book This is Herman Cain: My Journey to the White House from his motivational speaking company. Ted Cruz, as reported by The New Republic, paid $122,252.62 to his own publisher to buy his book, A Time for Truth. The New York Times took his book off the bestseller list. Mitt Romney received a dagger with his book, No Apology. According to Politico, when Romney went on tour promoting his book, he received no speaking fees but his publisher insisted that the book tour hosts buy $25,000 to $50,000 in books.
No Apology is a great name for a hacker’s book.
(The bulk of this article came from “8 Notable Attempts to Hack the New York Times Bestseller List” by Emily Temple in the September 26, 2017 issue of Literary Hub.
Carole Cadwalladr on Al Gore and Climate Change
Iceberg Calving
Take a moment to read Carole Cadwalladr’s article in The Guardian, “Al Gore: ‘The rich have subverted all reason'”. a discussion of Gore and Gore’s new sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth”. Gore has been at the forefront of the movement to heighten public awareness of the dangers of global warming, an effort dating from before his original blockbuster documentary. His experiences are instructive because, as with the earlier fight against tobacco, the fight against global warming faces a disinformation campaign from the corporate interests who perceive their profits at risk, in this case the fossil fuel producers led by the Koch brothers.
Cadwalladr writes: “One of Trump’s first acts after his inauguration was to remove all mentions of climate change from federal websites. More overlooked is that one of Theresa May’s first actions on becoming prime minister – within 24 hours of taking office – was to close the Department for Energy and Climate Change; subsequently donations from oil and gas companies to the Conservative party continued to roll in. And what is increasingly apparent is that the same think tanks that operate in the States are also at work in Britain, and climate change denial operates as a bridgehead: uniting the right and providing an entry route for other tenets of Alt-Right belief. And, it’s this network of power that Gore has had to try to understand, in order to find a way to combat it.
[Says Gore] ‘In Tennessee we have an expression: “If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be pretty sure it didn’t get there by itself.” And if you see these levels of climate denial, you can be pretty sure it didn’t just spread itself. The large carbon polluters have spent between $1bn and $2bn spreading false doubt. Do you know the book, Merchants of Doubt? It documents how the tobacco industry discredited the consensus on cigarette smoking and cancer by creating doubt, and shows how it’s linked to the climate denial movement. They hired many of the same PR firms and some of the same think tanks. And, in fact, some of those who work on climate change denial actually still dispute the links between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.'”
Notes Cadwalladr, “What becomes clear over the course of several conversations [with Gore] is how entwined he believes it all is – climate change denial, the interests of big capital, ‘dark money’, billionaire political funders, the ascendancy of Trump and what he calls (he’s written a book on it) ‘the assault against reason’. They are all pieces of the same puzzle; a puzzle that Gore has been tracking for years, because it turns out that climate change denial was the canary in the coal mine.”
Gore is nonetheless relentlessly upbeat – noting other successful social movements, he feels that surely, in his view, Trump is a blip in the road. Notwithstanding Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, Gore is heartened by the reaction of the other 19 countries in the G 20.
Perhaps he is correct, but he is more certainly on point when he ties the disinformation campaign of the Right to the other political shenanigans currently in vogue. Here’s Cadwalladr’s wrap up: “Brexit, Trump, climate change, oil producers, dark money, Russian influence, a full- frontal assault on facts, evidence, journalism, science, it’s all connected. Ask Al Gore. You may want to watch Wonder Woman this summer, but to understand the new reality we’re living in, you really should watch An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Because, terrifying as they are, in some ways the typhoons and exploding glaciers are just the start of it. “
For my part, I am less than confident that sufficient action on climate change will be taken. Gore, for all his presence and articulateness, has been at this effort for over ten years and yet the US is backsliding at a terrifying rate even as the environmental catastrophes loom. Nothing guarantees that we win this fight. The current efforts at degrading mainstream journalism and at spreading disinformation through right-wing outlets and social media have been more than successful. A wake up is in order.
Bill Browder’s testimony and the Magnitsky Act
Rosie Gray’s article in the July 25 Atlantic, “Bill Browder’s Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee” is a must read to make sense of the motivations underlying Trump Russia. They reveal a corrupt Vladimir Putin uncomfortably in the sights of the Magnitsky Act passed by Congress in 2012 and willing to risk Russian capital to see it killed.
Bill Browder founded and ran a large capital investment firm in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. When Browder, as now seems inevitable, ran afoul of the corrupt oligarchs that were looting the government, he initially turned successfully to Vladimir Putin for protection. Yet, when Browder and his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky turned up evidence of corruption that ultimately benefited Putin, Browder became persona non gratis in Russia and Magnitsky was detained under allegations of corruption, was abused, and ultimately died in Russian prison. In 2012, the United States Congress sanctioned the involved Russian Oligarchs with the Magnitsky Act, an act that has proved painful to the Russians, and which Putin has gone to great lengths to quash. The meeting between Donald, Jr., Kushner, and Manafort with the Russians concerned making a deal to lift those sanctions. Rosie Gray’s article and Browder’s testimony put flesh on these bare bones and are necessary to understand the breadth and nature of the corruption.
This is from Rosie Gray’s introduction in the Atlantic, “Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who secured a meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, was engaged in a campaign for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, and raised the subject of adoptions in that meeting. That’s put the spotlight back on Browder’s long campaign for Kremlin accountability, and against corruption—a campaign whose success has irritated Putin and those around him.”
Here’s Browder concerning when difficulties with Putin began: “[Assistance from Putin] all changed in July 2003, when Putin arrested Russia’s biggest oligarch and richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin grabbed Khodorkovsky off his private jet, took him back to Moscow, put him on trial, and allowed television cameras to film Khodorkovsky sitting in a cage right in the middle of the courtroom. That image was extremely powerful, because none of the other oligarchs wanted to be in the same position. After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. From what followed, it appeared that Putin’s answer was, ‘Fifty percent.’ He wasn’t saying 50 percent for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50 percent for Vladimir Putin personally. From that moment on, Putin became the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world, and my anti-corruption activities would no longer be tolerated.”
Browder is then expelled from Russia. As he notes: “Eighteen months after my expulsion a pair of simultaneous raids took place in Moscow. Over 25 Interior Ministry officials barged into my Moscow office and the office of the American law firm that represented me. The officials seized all the corporate documents connected to the investment holding companies of the funds that I advised. I didn’t know the purpose of these raids so I hired the smartest Russian lawyer I knew, a 35-year-old named Sergei Magnitsky. I asked Sergei to investigate the purpose of the raids and try to stop whatever illegal plans these officials had.
Sergei went out and investigated. He came back with the most astounding conclusion of corporate identity theft: The documents seized by the Interior Ministry were used to fraudulently re-register our Russian investment holding companies to a man named Viktor Markelov, a known criminal convicted of manslaughter. After more digging, Sergei discovered that the stolen companies were used by the perpetrators to misappropriate $230 million of taxes that our companies had paid to the Russian government in the previous year.”
Believing this to be a case of rogue officials, Browder goes on, “We filed criminal complaints with every law enforcement agency in Russia, and Sergei gave sworn testimony to the Russian State Investigative Committee (Russia’s FBI) about the involvement of officials in this crime.
However, instead of arresting the people who committed the crime, Sergei was arrested. Who took him? The same officials he had testified against. On November 24, 2008, they came to his home, handcuffed him in front of his family, and threw him into pre-trial detention.”
After slightly more than a year in prison, Magnitsky would be dead. Browder notes, “Sergei Magnitsky was murdered as my proxy. If Sergei had not been my lawyer, he would still be alive today.”
In reaction, Congress, in November 2012 would pass the Magnitsky Act and Putin would retaliate by banning the adoption of Russian children in the United States. Browder goes on to detail Putin’s personal corruption: “…since 2012 it’s emerged that Vladimir Putin was a beneficiary of the stolen $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky exposed. Recent revelations from the Panama Papers have shown that Putin’s closest childhood friend, Sergei Roldugin, a famous cellist, received $2 billion of funds from Russian oligarchs and the Russian state. It’s commonly understood that Mr. Roldugin received this money as an agent of Vladimir Putin. Information from the Panama Papers also links some money from the crime that Sergei Magnitsky discovered and exposed to Sergei Roldugin. Based on the language of the Magnitsky Act, this would make Putin personally subject to Magnitsky sanctions.”
Moreover, “There are approximately ten thousand officials in Russia working for Putin who are given instructions to kill, torture, kidnap, extort money from people, and seize their property. Before the Magnitsky Act, Putin could guarantee them impunity and this system of illegal wealth accumulation worked smoothly. However, after the passage of the Magnitsky Act, Putin’s guarantee disappeared. The Magnitsky Act created real consequences outside of Russia and this created a real problem for Putin and his system of kleptocracy.”
Browder’s testimony further provides a history of the Russian efforts in Washington to remove the Act. For example, “Veselnitskaya, through Baker Hostetler, hired Glenn Simpson of the firm Fusion GPS to conduct a smear campaign against me and Sergei Magnitsky in advance of congressional hearings on the Global Magnitsky Act . He contacted a number of major newspapers and other publications to spread false information that Sergei Magnitsky was not murdered, was not a whistle-blower, and was instead a criminal. They also spread false information that my presentations to lawmakers around the world were untrue.
As part of Veselnitskaya’s lobbying, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, Chris Cooper of the Potomac Group, was hired to organize the Washington, D.C.-based premiere of a fake documentary about Sergei Magnitsky and myself.”
And this, “They hired Howard Schweitzer of Cozzen O’Connor Public Strategies and former Congressman Ronald Dellums to lobby members of Congress on Capitol Hill to repeal the Magnitsky Act and to remove Sergei’s name from the Global Magnitsky bill.”
There’s more, focusing on Putin’s determination to undermine current US law for the benefit of Putin and company. Billions of dollars and personal fortunes are at stake. In all, it strongly suggests that Putin’s obsession with the Magnitsky Act significantly underlied his efforts meddling in the 2016 election and his bromance with Mr. Trump. But judge for yourself.
Dave Hemond's Fleet Street 