Lil' Dude

It makes you want to go down there and help those people. (I'll send $ instead). I've also wondered (since we visited there) why a million + people have gathered in that below sea level place just waiting for a catastrophy. Imagine what it was like when the Spansh took it over and when the French moved in (or was it the Spanish first)? When Jefferson arranged to buy N.O. and most of the rest of the western U.S. (a good investment) from Napy (Napoleon for those in Rio Linda) I wonder how many floods they had before that and later before we built the levees. There must have been tremendous loss of life. Yet people continued to move in to be near the Mississippi delta. Was God pushing to populate the South or was greed motivating the people to move there? An end product in recent yearswas a series of Casinos indicating a pattern of greed to me. Well, Casinos are gone now! It's not that the people down there are deserving of problems, it's more that we need to pray so much more for them. So put them and their families on your prayer list and see change in the people and in their circumstances. Donations to the Salvation army would be good too.
I hope that ths old science/math teacher got some of the history correct.

Playing-Playing-Playing

We were around the yard and this little fellow showed up.
Remember this yard?

GUESS WHO!

The Next Generation

I’ve been reading blog postings made by members of my family and now I’m wondering what to do with the rest of my life. I must speak with Dot about that. Dennae issued a broad challenge to all Christians in her most recent BLOG. Although some cannot go to Africa for various reasons—school, family, money, health, advanced age, most can make a serious plan for the future, the near future. It doesn’t have to be Africa. How about Frisco, Manhatten, Chicago, Houston, Boston? You could help in a food bankor Salvation Army facility,
I didn’t plan to get on a ship a few years ago and travel half-way around the world; the government made it for me, and it changed my life. Oh that I had been a Christen then. I just hope than I would have accepted the challenge. Maybe there was a Dennae around then too.

STILL FIDDLIN' AROUND

I was living a happy enough life when I was introduced to "blogging." Now I'm wrestling with a help menu that doesn't help, pictures that don't pic, and terms that aren't ....... This all started today when I tried to get to adding pictures. I'm having a senior hour. It will all work out?


I just stumbled onto pictures.

still stumped?

still stumped?

Fiddlin' Around

I remember going to Nicholson House in Olneyville (Providence) with my mom to arrange for violin lessons. I don't remember any request of my parents for this, but I do know I desired to do this when I was about 11 yrs. old. Mom reminded me to practice everyday. I remember coming home to practice on summer nights when the other kids were on the corner across the street. I never resented that. I joined the orchestra in 7th grade and enjoyed it. I played in a concert at Nicholson House on a Sunday afternoon December 7th 1941: The 1st Pearl Harbor Day. We left the concert on a sunny December Day to headlines: Roosevelt declares war with Japan. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." I actually remember hearing that on our radio. I continued lessons until High School when I asked to stop because of so much homework; that was 1943. I wasn't getting any better at playing anyway. I believe that the Lord was teaching me faithfulness, perseverance, respect, obedience and other character traits.

God's gifts

Looking back at my 77 yrs (today) it isn't difficult to see how God has blessed Dot, mom, grandma, and Arnold, dad, Beepa, puppa, grampa and me. It all comes to a head on special days like today. We spent the day at Ninegrit Park in praise and worship and fellowship with family and friends. We can't help but ask on a day like this, "Whatever did we do to deserve this?" The answer, of course, is nothing, zilch, nona, nada and we have to wonder how our great God even died for unworthy, ungrateful us. "...and our King died for us." Mom and I have actually asked that many times as we give thanks.

I'll add some links and some pictures as soon as I learn how. I currently have some 3000 pics and I will use your gifts (birthday) to buy a new digital camera. Mine still works but is nearly an antique. (over 3 yrs old). God bless you for listening to this old man for awhile.

NEW TO BLOGS!!

I JUST REALISED THAT THE LATEST POSTING IS ON TOP OF THE PILE. I hope that you will read my earlier postings.

and a little MORE too! AND THAT'S ENOUGH OF ME

Return to College
I returned to URI in the fall of 1952 with tuition, room and meals covered by the GI Bill. Wally began college as I returned again for my third year. It was great being with my brother again. He, four other returning veterans and I, rented a house in Wakefield, and that’s where we lived and studied for a couple of years. It was a great experience.

But something else happened during the summer of 1952. I was at the Cape with a couple of friends on a Saturday afternoon when I remembered an invitation to a “shower” for my cousin Claire Lafayette. I really didn’t want to leave the beach, but a second trait that I acquired from my mother kicked in, faithfulness or commitment. I had promised my mother that I would go to this event, so we headed back to Rhode Island on a hot summer afternoon. It was at this shower that I met my future wife, Dorothy Burke. We began to date in June and I proposed just before Christmas 1953. Her father said to me, “You’ll do.”

Marriage and family
We were married in September 1954 just after Hurricane Carol. I was completing my senior year at URI and Dot worked at Trifari Jewelry in the office. We rented an apartment in Cranston, and our first child, Dennis, was born in February 1956. Dot was pregnant for most of the next four years with Stephen and then Kathleen; after another four years we had Jimmy. She was a very busy young woman. She managed the household and stayed at home with these very active children while I worked second jobs and took courses for my first Master’s Degree until the youngest of the first four children, Jimmy, began Kindergarten. We managed to have some camping vacations for a number of years and they were very enjoyable and memorable times. I remember traveling with the kids in back of the station wagon and singing, laughing and playing road games. At the campsites we would swim, hike, and build campfires. Our most ambitious trip was a two-week trip to Indiana to see my brother just before he was to be married. We went to Kentucky to meet his wife-to-be, Peggy, and then to Cumberland Lake in Kentucky and on to West Virginia on the way home. We had several outstanding “adventures” on the trip like being stuck in Kentucky mud and dealing with a vicious dog at 2 A.M. in West Virginia. These were the happenings that we look back on with pleasure. There were many weekend camping trips over the next few years. It was a part of our lives and made it possible for us to vacation on a minimum of money.

Teaching Career
My career began as a Physics and General science teacher at North Kingstown Junior-Senior High School. I enjoyed it except that we immediately went on double sessions that made for a compressed day and little time to prepare because a teacher for the next session was usually waiting for the room at the end of the five-hour school day. They did announce the construction of a new high school due to open the following year. Science teachers were much in demand in 1955 and Superintendents would call science teachers at home. I received such a call and accepted a position in Cranston before the year was up. For the following twelve years, I taught the sciences and mathematics at Hugh B. Bain Jr. High School. Married male teachers with families had a difficult time with finances. Most worked another job on weekends and during the summer. After a couple of summers at menial and low-paying jobs, Barry Smith, a friend of Wally’sI went to work part-time at Johnson & Wales Business College in a new program to improve reading and study skills among business school students. A friend of Wally’s, Barry Smith, had called me and asked me to help him at the college in a reading and study skills course for business school students. After teaching that summer and on to Saturdays during the next school year, I was asked to join with Barry and four other teachers to author a packaged reading program that was named “Programs for Achievement in Reading (PAR).” It was quite successful and I was offered a full-time position, but I remained as a part-time teacher for the College and full-time teacher in Cranston. I did author several more stories in the PAR package and also a manual for teachers. After three years, I decided to open my own part-time reading school (Basic Reading Skills) in Coventry on Saturdays and during the summers; we had purchased a home in Coventry in 1959. For several years, I rented a part of Coventry High School for six weeks of every summer to teach my own classes. I had as many as forty children enrolled and employed another teacher. In this way, I earned more in the summer than I had in summer jobs and had half of the summer off with the family besides. We had more wonderful camping trips with our four children. Dot also began a college program in Early Childhood; she desired to become a kindergarten teacher. Those plans were, however, destined to be put on hold when we were blessed with our fifth child, Christine, in December 1970. It had been nine years since the birth of Jimmy; it was a surprise, but a great blessing for the whole family in several ways.

During this period I also became active in and was also elected as the President of the Cranston Teachers’ Association. It was an extremely, time-consuming, non-paying position. That year the City of Cranston was in financial difficulty and announced during the summer months that the teachers would have to wait for our first pay of the school year until October—delaying two paychecks. This would have been disastrous for many male teachers and it was up to me (as the President) to confront the School Committee and eventually force payment of salaries when school began. For five years, I was very active in the politics of Teacher’ Associations. In 1966 I applied for and received a sabbatical leave at half pay to go to URI in the Master of Arts program for the teaching of reading. Dot went to work to make up the other half of my salary. Jimmy had started in kindergarten and my mother was available to care for him afternoons until I returned home for the day. The year was very fruitful for me and I received a Master of Arts Degree and a new job; I returned to Cranston was assigned as a Reading Consultant in the elementary schools. During the following summer, I was asked by the Superintendent to fill in for an elementary assistant principal for a few weeks at the beginning of the next school year. and, as that came to completion, I applied for and was appointed as the director of a federal program to formulate an experimental curriculum: The Fifth Quarter. The object of this curriculum was to form a “year around school program.” With a staff of forty part-time teachers writing all parts of the curriculum it was completed and the course objectives and suggested classroom activities for every secondary subject for the two high schools and three jr. high schools were printed for all teachers. The curriculum was adopted for the Cranston Secondary Schools even though the community rejected the actual year-around-school concept which was not surprising. Just before the end of funding and the completion of that project I was appointed to head the Vocational and Adult Education Department for Cranston Public Schools.
A Family Experience
Some time after I began this new position, the family had a life-changing experience. In November 1976, my oldest son, Dennis, and I were the last of the family to find salvation. Our youngest child, Christine, was then six years old and the grown children were Dennis, 20; Stephen, 19; Kathleen, 18 and James, 15. This was the 1970’s and the four oldest had been in the marihuana scene to various degrees. Jimmy tried “pot” and was caught. Dot felt helpless and got on her knees and prayed for God’s help. The help that came was completely unexpected; it came in the form of personal salvation for each of us and much activity in a little Assembly of God church. Jim was the first to visit the church and the night he returned home from a church service with some of his new friends it was clear to us that something drastic had happened in his young life. His actual countenance changed from a rebellious teen to a kind and gentle, loving son. We each visited the church and individually accepted salvation over the next few months. I later served as the first Deacon of the church, Gospel Temple Assembly of God and Dot was the bookkeeper for many years. The kids became very active and leaders in the Youth Group. We were all very active with the church and continued activity as the church grew. Kathy was the first to marry in the church, followed a year later in marriage by Dennis who had graduated from URI and followed his CPA career and his fiance to Phoenix, Arizona. Steve and Jimmy married Christian girls later. Christine attended our Christian school and graduated; she later married another graduate. I must mention that we had a surprise one evening shortly after we joined the church. Jimmy, at age fifteen and a few months before he was saved caused a girl to become pregnant. Her parents offered to care for the baby rather than put it up for adoption. The baby was a boy and we all loved him very much. He is now a fine young man and is welcomed into our gatherings.

Adult/Vocational Education
Meanwhile, I worked very hard to develop the Adult and Vocational Education Program in Cranston. It was at that time that the “Great Society” reached its maximum funding so I spent much of my time writing for federal grants and was very successful. The program grew and by 1984 it encompassed programs in three cities. During this time, I served for a year as the president of the RI Adult Education Association and for several years after that as the Executive Secretary of the Adult Education Directors’ Association. One of the perks in my position was traveling each year to an annual conference. I was fortunate to travel to many cities in the U.S. in this way. Dot accompanied me on some of these trips. On two occasions, I spent time with Dennis: first in Seattle and later in Santa Monica after he was married.

Federal funding was winding down in 1982 and 83 and in 1984 I became eligible for retirement (at 30 years and 55 yrs old). I took that retirement in 1984 and then became the Principal and Administrator of our new Christian school: Gospel Temple Christian Academy. This offered a new challenge; I soon discovered that running a Christian school was a bit different from public school administration. In the six years I was at the academy, I concentrated on building the organization and on strengthening the curriculum. Dot also joined the staff and fulfilled an ambition she had had twenty years before when she became our first kindergarten teacher. She was very successful in that and much loved by students and parents. The school grew to eighty students and I retired in 1990 to allow for younger leadership. My efforts were recognized by a “Retirement Sunday” attended by most of the church. Although I retired from active administration, I did continue on as a consultant to help the new administration and also as a consultant for the New England Region of the Accelerated Christian Education Program with which the academy was affiliated. I also prepared a computer applications curriculum and taught that as an individualized program for several years. Kathy had also joined the staff while her two boys were at the school. At one point we had five grandchildren, two daughters and my wife and I at the school.

RETIREMENT
Both of us retired from active employment in 1994 to become full-time grandparents. There are thirteen grandchildren as of now: Matthew and Tom, Audrey, Lana, Stephen, Dennae, Lauren, Allison, Patrick, Nicholas, Danny, Aaron and Cole and two great grandchildren: Aiden and Torie. Since 1995, we have gone to Phoenix almost every year. We have flown a couple of times but we have usually driven. That has given us opportunities to see much of the country. Our favorite stop has been San Antonio. St. Louis, Colorado Springs and Dallas have been good stops too. We don’t care much for New Orleans or Houston. We also visited Toronto and Niagara Falls on a trip to Indianapolis for Valerie’s wedding. It was good to be with Wally’s family.

We keep pretty busy around the house most of the time. Dot does a lot of sewing; We bought her a super sewing machine, and she makes many gifts. I do some woodworking, teach computer applications and do a lot of reading along with yard chores. We’re both active with our church. When we feel like taking a day off we do.
In 2000 we went to Kingdom Bound in Buffalo, N.Y. with much of the family and the church. At the end of the week we continued on to Wisconsin with Bill and Pat Fooks to visit his family. We had a great time.

Posting III - Wednes, Jun 22- 9pm

It was in the Spring of 1952 and we were ordered to change into Spring uniforms before going out on a patrol. The change involved shedding layers of clothing and exchanging the “Mickey Mouse” boots (very warm and very heavy) for leather combat boots (relatively) light. We started off on the patrol and fairly flew up and down the hills on our patrol route. We suddenly came to the top of a ridge and looked down upon a group of Chinese soldiers having lunch. I was at the top of the ridge looking down on them when they opened fire. I had the Browning Automatic Rife and was the leader of the 30 cal machine gun squad at the head of the thirty man platoon and right behind two of our scouts. The scouts had moved too quickly and over-run the Chinese. I don’t remember much except setting up the ‘AR for a few minutes, and saying a quick Our Father while I jumped down from the ridge. The next thing I remember I was half-way down the hill and dragging a couple of my best buddies, the scouts, away. One of them was George Schmidt, an Alhambra, California boy and my best friend in the army. I was later awarded a Bronze Star for “Valor” and the citation said that I did some things that I don’t believe I could have planned for. I hardly remember what happened. Anyway, we made it back to base with our two casualties in tow. I don’t remember much about the rest of my army time except for a very funny incident. The platoon went out on a routine patrol and on the return and uneventful trip a mile from base camp we rounded a turn and came out of some woods when a deer suddenly jumped from the woods into a clearing. Well, thirty rifles went up and fired on the frightened thing. Somebody hit it and we laid it on a litter to carry it the rest of the way back. Somebody threw a blanket over it and it was thus concealed as we walked into Headquarters Company. The cooks and other HQ types began asking “who got hit?” But we were too tired to answer. We just walked on through them to the bunker of the Montana guy who then dressed the deer and prepared the venison steaks and stew that replaced ‘C’ rations for a few days for our platoon.

Speaking of ‘C Rations,’ we were on them continuously from when we took the positions vacated by the 24th Infantry Division in January 1951 to a few weeks before we were relieved in October 1952. They consisted of three 4 oz. cans of: hamburg and franks, hamburg patties, beans with pork, mixed vegetables and sausage patties. The very salty patties went down the hill to hungry chinks (minus the little can opener; they had to have some initiative for getting this free ride with chow). The rations were good food packed with energy to the extent that most of us ate only one can a day (plus the little chocolate bar and cocoa and/or coffee.

After the first three months on the line, we began receiving three day R&R leaves to Japan in groups of three or four soldiers from each company. I went with ‘Red’ Mulholland a very nervous guy and Jack Phelan, a very funny guy. First we went to a restaurant and ordered several little plates of fresh vegetables. Well we couldn’t eat most of the food, even though it was so appetizing. Our stomachs had shrunken so very much. We had the same experience on arriving in Seattle on the way home.

At the end of October 1952, most of the 40th Division was “rotated” back to the United States. We were flown in groups to Sassabo, Japan. About five hundred of us boarded a small ship while many others boarded large troop ships. Our ship was the U.S. Marine Phoenix. It was only five hundred feet long, not a large ship for crossing the Pacific. About half-way into our voyage from Sassebo to Seattle we encountered a typhoon (the ocean-going equivalent of a hurricane). The waves were as high as the ship and a trough (between waves) was a little less than 500 feet. I remember how the ship shuddered as the props left the water in between these huge waves. I guess it was something like a modern-day huge water park ride where you don’t know how long the ride will be and whether you want to ride it again. We did have a good time on board the ship though, even during the storm. The Chief Steward was very proud of his baked goods and those of us on kitchen duty had a good time with him and eating his pies. We landed in Seattle and received our mandatory one-pound of steak and a quart of ice cream. Most of us still couldn’t eat much. After a night’s sleep we were entrained to Camp Kilmer, NJ for separation. On arrival the three of us surveyed the area and quickly determined that things were moving very slowly. There were men there who had left Korea a few weeks before we did. There was chaos with the thousands of men drafted in 1950 now there for separation. We three, therefore, walked out of the main gate and went home for a few days. On our return to Kilmer, we found a long line still waiting to be processed and most men assigned daily KP and other details. Phelan also noticed that everyone went into a small building to complete final separation in a matter of hours. We got into that building somehow and were on our way home within hours. I was separated on November 5th, 23 months and 29 days after I entered.

It was really great meeting my mother and father when I arrived at the train station in Providence. My brother was on his way home from Tripoli.

more of me!

I became very active in a Boy Scout troop when I was 15 years old. Since I was older than many of the scouts, I was selected to be a patrol leader and later as the Senior Patrol Leader. It was at this point that our two Assistant Scoutmasters (Brooksie and Howie) were sent off to the Navy and I was left to run the troop along with an older man who hardly did anything or said anything. I did that and learned much about leadership for the following two or three years. A man named Walter Hagenau took over the troop just before Brooksie and Howie returned. He was an excellent Scoutmaster. I served as his Assistant Scoutmaster for several years when I returned from army service before I went back to college.

I also became active in the Sea Scouts in a smaller way. A man from Mt. Pleasant Ave area named Bernie Tubert had a 30’ sailboat (a Swamscot Dory—very heavy) and he liked teen-agers. He formed this troop to take us sailing every weekend of the summer. We spent the first couple of Saturdays sanding, caulking and painting, but then it was an adventure every Sunday afternoon, and at least one week long camping trip on Narragansett Bay. We had no motor, just oars when the wind didn’t do its job. There were five or six boys and “Skipper” Tubert. There were only four of us boys the day that we rowed it from Oakland Beach (Greenwich Bay) to Gaspee Plateau where the boat was moored. He was a good adult influence on me.

I was selected to be a crossing guard in the eighth grade and elected “Captain of the Guards” in the ninth grade. I was quite proud of this at the time. One of our duties was to blow a bugle out of doors to signal the end of the lunch period. Earl Shaw and Merrill Jennison were also crossing guards. We were inseparable in junior high (The Three Musketeers). Toward the end of the eighth grade I asked to go to Classical High School for ninth grade instead of to the regular high school. Apparently, one went to that high school from grade eight only with the recommendation of the guidance counselor. The counselor felt that I shouldn’t try that and sent two other boys and a girl instead. At the end of 9th grade my mother said to go ahead and try the school if I wished to. (No recommendation needed). I did that and was the only one of the four students coming from OHP Jr High School to graduate from that college prep school in 1946. Earl and Merrill went on to Mt. Pleasant High. I worked very hard at my studies for the next three years. High school was not really enjoyable for me, but the study habits and the determination to prove myself served me well for the rest of my life.. I was a bit shy and not confident in high school. Of course, bearing on that was that I was one of only two boys in the graduating class that did not go on to Harvard or MIT after graduation. Doctor and lawyer families were in abundance. I graduated in 1946 and proved that if I was nothing else, I was persistent. That was a trait inherited from both my mother and father. WWII ended just after graduation so when I tried to enlist in the army they were not in need of many recruits. After the physical: I was given a choice: acceptance into the army with a good chance of having a heart attack during basic training or “go back home and live a long life.” I returned to Providence even though I didn’t look forward to returning all the presents that I received at a send off party. I don’t remember whether I returned them. I remember a really nice billfold that I received.

When I finished high school I went to work at Brown & Sharpe Mfg Co. as a hand Trucker (moving machine parts to new locations in the plant. The Floor Foreman told me one morning: ”Laddie you need to become a toolmaker, and I will help you. I began the apprenticeship program the following Monday. I liked it and did well and even tutored some of the other young men in shop math. They had attended the city trade school. My exposure to high school math was in algebra, geometry and trigonometry while the trade school curriculum centered upon basic math. One other member of the class was from Moses Brown Academy. Our apprenticeship program required working on and learning how each of a dozen machines worked and were set up. It was necessary to spend about four months on each machine. The young man from Moses Brown progressed much more rapidly. He completed the whole program in about eight months. In a few years he would be the President of the company. His name was Henry S. Sharpe, Jr. Near the end of the second semester I was given an important decision. I had applied to the University of Rhode Island (then R.I. College) when I finishing high school; I had forgotten all about that. For one thing, I knew that my family couldn’t afford it. Then all of a sudden I was accepted in the engineering college and after a discussion and much encouragement from the foreman (Mr. Mitchel) and a good job he gave me for the summer, I was on my way to college.. It was a difficult task to commute daily and work a couple of nights a week washing pots and pans and working for the caterer on the weekends. I had to drop out to go to work full-time in a chemical lab (chemical engineering was my major at the time) at the end of the first semester. After working for six months, I returned to college with some more tuition money. The next year I had to drop out again. It was 1950, the Korean War began and so did the draft. In October I received the call that I had been selected and, after a physical at Fields Point, I was on my way to Korea by way of California and Japan. This physical was much quicker than the one in 1946. None of this bothered me a bit. It was something I had do.
The army was a great experience for me for the most part. I really didn’t have any direction to my life and even less confidence in myself. Living among men from all over the country, I began to realize that I had some talents that the average soldier didn’t have. We had an extremely long and arduous training time in California and then in Sendai, Japan for a few more months of hills and rice paddies (and no heart attack). In January, 1951 the 40th Infantry Division, 223rd Regiment shipped from Japan to Seole Korea. We moved into positions along the front about 50 miles north of our landing. This area along the defensive perimeter being vacated by the U.S.24th Infantry Division was in 20-50 degrees below zero weather. We had so many layers of clothing that moving along on the frequent patrols was as difficult as was using the “bathroom.” Our “houses” were bunkers dug into a hill overlaid with large logs and sandbags. There were two men to a bunker—not too pretty, no heat or light but no mortgage. They were pretty strong as we found out when we sustained a direct hit on the roof from an artillery shell. Later a large shell landed right in front of our bunker as we were leaving. It was a dud. God was saving me for a great family. Most of the time was spent sitting, patrolling up and down hills, running down our large hill and picking up a case of beer ration or of ‘C’ rations or directing artillery fire from the observation bunker we built, and an occasional fire fight when meeting a Chinese or North Korean patrol. They were always as eager to leave the area as were we. The day before I was due to leave the hill in preparation for going home, I was assigned as a part of a six-man group that went down to the valley below to rescue a man shot down in a “mosquito” surveillance plane. We were the first in the army to wear the new “flack jacket.” They were air dropped to us for that mission. We got the guy out, and nobody was hurt.
Well, that's enough of me for now.

This is me!

I was born near the beginning of the “Great Depression” that continued pretty much up to the beginning of WWII. My dad was out of work for several years and finally went to work for the WPA during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration. I remember being in line for shoes and for cans of spam, but I also remember how my dad would go looking for work sometimes walking as far as Pawtucket. I also remember seeing him study a course in electricity. He was self-taught and gained his Journeyman Electrician license due to his own efforts. He later worked as an electrician for Brown & Sharpe for many years and retired from there. We did not have much, but my mother saw to it that we had clean clothes; she often referred to our “clean patches.” We didn’t have a car or even a telephone until I was about fifteen years old. I remember the piles of loam in the backyard and the six foot fence that the landlady put up around the yard. I played in the dirt pile with a toy steam shovel. I also remember spending an entire summer in a chair when I was about six years old. I had had Rheumatic fever (it was thought) that left me with a heart murmur. Presently, this would be treated as a rather minor childhood ailment, but at that time it meant total inactivity for the summer months. Imagine that for a six year old! My most vivid recollection is of my mother sitting with me in the backyard reading “Black Beauty.” I was not allowed to take physical education throughout the rest of my school years although I played with other kids normally.

When I was about ten years old we had to move from the first floor tenement at 248 Union Avenue in Providence to a 3rd floor attic tenement at 256 Union Ave. When we moved in there were holes in the plaster and a general mess. Mom enlisted everybody including my little brother, Wally, and we patched and papered and washed. The tenement was quite comfortable after that. There was a fire escape from our third floor bedroom window, and Wally and I would play “make-a-believe” ship captains at the window and even Superman. Those are fairly vivid memories. Wally and I were great buddies during our pre-teens.

We went on a vacation in about 1940; it was a real treat. I don’t know what the occasion was but I’d like to know how mom managed to save the money. She did have a set of envelopes (a budget?). We took a ship from Providence to New York City and stayed at the Taft Hotel on 42nd St. in Times Square. I can still smell the little bar of soap I put in my scrapbook. We went to Rockefellow Center and saw TV images of ourselves. Nobody had TV at home as yet. Times Square was all lit up brightly for the last time for several years; it was just before Pearl Harbor and it was said that we could be bombed, so the lights went out everywhere and we had “air raid drills” from time to time at home and in school, too. A popular song: “When The Lights Come On Again All Over The World.” Anyway, that was a vacation to be remembered. We had one other vacation that I remember. We rented a cottage at Oakland Beach for a week. Besides the beach there was an Amusement Park. I remember riding the Roller coaster then and also a few years later when our class from the Assumption Church Summer School went there on an outing. I lost my dollar, but the teacher (a nun) made it all right somehow.

My dad worked the night shift for many years while we were we growing up. I remember playing board games with Mom and Wally on cold winter nights. On Saturdays Dad would come home in the morning, sleep for a while and then we would sometimes take a walk to “Crofton’s” store on Cranston Street. When Wally came with us he and I would play in the corner of the store while Dad argued politics with Crofton. Mr. Crofton was a local politician and also a bookie, and Dad spent his 50 cents a week on a horse bet or the “nickel pool.” When we were older Dad tried to get us to go to Narragansett Race Track with him. I think that Wally went a few times, but I would never go until the day before I left for the army. I just could not refuse him that time. I took twenty dollars (a couple of days pay). At the track I bet all the favorites, and Dad thought that was pretty dumb. I came home with all of my money. Dad bet on a lot of long shots. The fact that He wouldn’t talk about it seemed to indicate that he didn’t do so well. We did have a good time though.

I also remember walking with Dad to the (Assumption) Church on Potters Avenue to attend a CYO boxing match. He had promised me earlier in the week, but that morning it started snowing and there was quite a bit by the time we left. Events were not readily cancelled in those days. (No TV announcements). We started off and as we entered the long empty lots before Cranston Street, the snow was too deep for me to walk so Dad carried me on his shoulders. I hardly remember the boxing match, but I remember the walk and the carry.

A near-tragedy occurred when Wally was given a few pennies by a lady down the street. (Mrs. Blue, who was considered a rich lady in the neighborhood). He was seven years old (1939). He ran excitedly across the street to buy candy at Sam’s (Schwartz’s)* Pioneer (grocery) Store and was hit by a car. My mother and I walked to St. Joseph’s Hospital, three or four miles, many times during the next six months. The surgeons did an amazing job in saving his leg, his eye and other battered parts of his body. I remember bringing him lemon ice cream (his favorite). A 5 cent cone was almost as big as a grapefruit. My dad was earning about fifteen dollars a week at the time. It was a joyous occasion when Wally finally came home.
· *Sam Schwartz extended credit to my family for several years during the depression of the 1930’s. He must have been a wonderful man. I remember how happy my Mom was when she told me how she had paid him back after my dad began working at the Kaiser Shipyard in Providence in about 1939. German subs were sinking our Liberty ships everyday, and we were building new ones to send supplies to England. [We even had submarine nets across Narragansett Bay below Prudence Island].

I liked school and had perfect attendance reports throughout Old Webster, New Webster, Laurel Hill Elementary schools and O.H. Perry Jr. High. I have a few good memories of elementary and junior high school and was quite active in the schools. My 3rd grade teacher was Miss Mullens who taught us phonics (“ea says e ). Miss Henry (5th grade who taught geography that I still remember) and Mrs. MacDonald in 6th grade who had spelling B’s. I won a 3-color flashlight once. In Jr. High there was Miss Curry who forced the boys to learn to dance in 9th grade. She paired me with Janet King who was much taller than I. She was a good algebra teacher though. She taught us discipline and structure in math. Then there was Miss Kelley, the typing teacher in 8th grade; the boys were all in love with her.