MY LIFE BEFORE & WITHOUT BOOMERS & YUPPIES
by
Herb Blanchard
My Life Before & Without Boomers & Yuppies
by Herb Blanchard
Copyright 2011 Herb Blanchard
Smashword Edition
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Book Description
First of all, this very short book is autobiographical. Written by a man who lived the title and to this day does not appreciate what these generations are doing to our society. Many others have expressed their opinions in much the same way so the author realizes that he is not alone in his negative opinions of them. He is not trying to change their ways. He realizes that that is impossible.
Defining the Creed of Boomers, Yuppies & their Offspring
I'm assuming that as you read of what life was like for a kid going through the throes of growing up and getting an education in the 1940s and 1950s you do think about and compare it to what it was like to be educated in the 1980s and now, the present time, ABY time, (After Boomers and Yuppies time. Generation X and the now Generation Y and E, [Entitlement] also known as Generation Me.) Because that is what this is all about.
The simplicity of BBY time, (Before Boomers and Yuppies time. The Greatest Generation followed by us, the Silent Generation.) against the complexities and loss of social values, as well as the dependency of technology that ABY time has brought us. A society in which members can hardly think for themselves, seldom if ever, accept responsibility for their own actions and are constantly assured of how great they are even when they screw-up. Their feeling of entitlement to EVERYTHING they want without earning it and never having anything withheld from them.
Teenagers and young adults who have no respect for their elders and think that they know everything because they have been told since the first day of their lives what a great job they are doing and how much they know even when they are ignorant as donkeys of the subject they are going around espousing about. My, we mustn't tell a child that they have to wait until their elders get served their coffee first, or that they fouled out of a basketball game because they weren't playing by the rules, or that they can't exceed the speed limit because the law sets the limit for that piece of road in the interest of people’s safety. But no, it's okay to speed because mommy and daddy speed.
It isn't wrong to stretch the rules, break the laws, or to be condescending to an elder. Just don't get caught stretching the rules, breaking the law or being disrespectful. THAT IS THE WRONG THING TO DO, ----- GETTING CAUGHT!, That is.
GENERATIONS
1901 THRU 2004
G.I./Greatest Generation - 1901 - 1924
Silent Generation - 1925 - 1942
Baby Boomers - 1943 - 1960
Generation X - 1961 - 1981
Generation Y/E (entitlement)
Generation Me/Echo Boomers
Generation Millennial - all inclusive 1982 - 2004 & present time.
PREFACE
When I originally came up with the idea for writing about boomers and yuppies, I had the vision of a book of around 80,000 or so words. As it progressed, I began to realize that I really didn’t have that much to say on the subject of LIFE BEFORE BOOMERS & YUPPIES, my first title. My thoughts and ideas also started to take on a life of their own as they always do when I write creatively. As my thought processes changed, so did the words flowing onto the paper. (On the monitor actually.) Consequently, the title no longer fit so it became MY LIFE BEFORE & WITHOUT BOOMERS & YUPPIES. A more fitting title and it made me happier because as I said, everything changed and it was now more about me and life as I experienced it.
NO! I am not becoming a member of the ME Generation. I just think the best way to get my ideas across is to tell it as it really was and how I, as one to be born into the middle of the Silent Generation (1925 to 1942, I was born in 1937.) sees and interprets what the boomers and yuppies have done to our society.
Please, do not get me wrong, I do not believe that all of the people born after 1943 are stupid,selfish, and/or greedy. But there are surely more of them than in any other generation that I know of, and more than society needs. Anybody with an open mind and anything beyond a sixth grade education, can see where the problem lies. You don’t need to be a sociologist, or other overly educated person to see what is happening. We just have to stop being clueless and realize what is going on and how they are affecting our society. I know and have known some really great people in these generations. They are very nice people who have and in some cases, are still working hard to make this society a better place to live and their frustration of their generation mates is also obvious.
ONE
As I grow older I realize that the world I grew up in and inhabited for over seventy years no longer exists.
It was in a medium sized town south of the city of Boston where I was born. I was given the first name of an uncle, (by marriage), who I learned to know and understand, but for many years I resented being given the name of somebody whom I didn't particularly like or respect. The first of many people who I considered the nonentities in my life. A vain look at people? Probably.
I was the only kid in the first grade at Jefferson Elementary School in Weymouth, Mass. who had only a first and last name. No middle name because my mother thought that two long names were enough for me to deal with and why burden me with a longer name. Right away I was on uneven ground with my peers, though they had only middle names with a here or there Junior and an occasional II or III. No hyphens, slashes, or four part names. Plain old names like Joseph, Joe for short, William, Bill for short, and Charles, Chuck for a nickname. The girls were Mary, Ann or even Annie and an occasional Mary Beth. There were no Ridges, Orions, Birches, Paris or Plums. And definitely no weird spellings such as Kraig and Edouard. You see where I’m going, obviously.
Early in life I was a wanderer. On my first day of school I made my first school friend. He lived twice as far from Jefferson Elementary as I did, and his family owned a really neat house on a bay of Whitman's Pond. The big pond at the end of Charles Street where we lived. It should be called a lake since it is a relatively large body of water. He invited me to come to his house and go fishing. So off we went directly from school. It was amazing. His back yard was close cropped grass of the brightest shade of green which went right to a low bank above the lake and a huge weeping willow which grew draping out over the water next to a small dock. My new friend said we weren't allowed on the dock unless an adult was with us. So with kid sized fishing poles we stood on the grassy bank and tossed our worm baited hooks into the shallow water of the lake. I don't recall if we actually caught any fish and to this day I can't remember who my friend was or if we ever went fishing together again. I do recall that as we stood quietly fishing I heard my father's voice when he walked across the green lawn and asked me what I thought I was doing. He and my half brother had been searching the neighborhood for me since I didn't come home from school with my older sister.
I was late for supper.
There was huge area of woodland behind our house. It probably covered several blocks with an old road or two through it as well as some ill defined footpaths. I remember that one of the better roads led to an old granite quarry which was half full of the most greenish-blue water I had ever seen. It was probably where the granite for the foundations of most of the houses on Charles Street as well as the shoe factory across the street from our house came from. It was one of my favorite places to go and I spent countless hours sitting on a big granite shelf overhanging the water contemplating my young life, tossing pebbles into the water and as I grew older, reaching for a mature 9 years old, and my thinking turned towards the girls in my class.
Across the road leading to the quarry was our neighbor’s big old farmhouse. They owned most of the land, and had their household dump right off of this old road. On my meanderings I would stop at the dump to chuck rocks at the numerous glass jars and bottles littering the area. One day after I had chucked my first rock a black creature wiggled through the grass and small bushes where I had thrown the rock. My heart sped up before skipping a beat or two. Remember, I was only about 6 or 7 years old. The critter's white stripes answered any question remaining in my mind as to its identity. I knew a skunk when I saw one and the faint odorous scent sent me back stepping away from the formable critter which was about the size of a medium sized house cat. I was startled further when I looked at the skunk's oversized, grotesque head with bulging eyes. It also had a sparkling glass collar around its neck. A second look revealed that the poor critter had stuck its head onto a mayonnaise jar in its quest for a gourmet snack and was going to meet a cruel and untimely death unless something was done for it.
I ran to the landowner's house and as luck would have it, their son was home on leave having just graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy. I remember him shooting bottles in the trash dump with his .22 rifle through out his high school years. Anyway, after figuring out what I was saying with my excited utterances, he got his .22 rifle and the whole family proceeded to follow me back to the disaster site. With the cool efficiency of a Merchant Marine Officer, he shot the jar, including the tightly fitting neck, off the poor skunk's head which was no longer distorted by the jar and revealed a normal skunk's nose and eyes.
Again, I cannot recall the officer's name nor his family name, but do know that within several months the young officer came home and a gold star replaced the blue star in the front window of their home.
Did I mention that this was during the middle of WWII?
I have only a vague recollection of who this GI was. He was a neighbor and his mother used to babysit me before I turned 5. Then we moved but visited these people after our move. I consider him as a survivor every time I look at this image.
I could keep on telling about incidents in my young life as I seem to have been saddled with the ability to recall even very vague moments in my life since I was about 5 years old. I realize the danger in this of boring you, the reader, to death with trivial facts. So I will only mention another tale or two that are outstanding and persistent in my thoughts of this time in my life.
I was pleased to discover the prints that I am able to include here. I do wish I had more. In my mind’s eye I can see several more images that would fit right into the theme, but they are not available to me. They are lost some where in the greedy hands of other members of my dysfunctional family who seemed to think that they must have the photos that relate to me, my life and are no way connected to their lives.
Though I hesitate and am very reluctant to reveal this trait of mine, I have tried to be helpful and please people since early in my life and it sometimes brought me what I consider an unfair amount of grief.
The first such incident that I can recall is overhearing a discussion between my parents in regards to enlarging the family victory garden in our ample backyard. Dad had already built a henhouse where we gathered enough eggs so we could even supply my grandparents with a few every week. We also ate an occasional rooster who had to be boiled for a long, long time in order to be edible. Our pair of goats had produced twin kids as well as supplying us with a steady supply of goat's milk which I detest to this day. Besides, the billy, (male goat,) took great delight in chasing my young ass out of the range of his chain if I ventured too close. On at least one occasion, maybe more, I wasn't fast enough and felt his horns nail me in the butt and send me head over heels through the grass and brambles which covered the extreme back side of our yard. Back to my story. Dad was on the city fire department and was considering burning the briar patch but for some reason that I didn't understand was either hesitant to do it or was waiting for the weather to change. Undeterred in my way of thinking there was no time like the present and surely all I had to do was toss a match or two in to the briar patch and the problem would be taken care of.
When I strolled proudly across the backyard and into the kitchen where my parents where still talking, I heard my dad say, "I'll put the goats in the briar patch on my next days off."
Oh, so that was what he was waiting for.
That was said before the proverbial shit hit the fan.
"I burned the briar patch, Dad!" I stated proudly and stood patiently waiting for words of praise.
Enough said about that incident. After all I was only being helpful and my mother and father got the fire out without having to call on Dad's co-workers to help them. I guess that would have been embarrassing.
I guess I'm not recalling every little detail, because I have no recollection of the results of my helpful deed. Was I punished? Damned if I know. I guess that I do posses a selective memory of sorts.
Jefferson Elementary only had the first through fourth grades. So after five years in Jefferson, I got promoted and started to climb Humphrey Hill every morning to attend grade five in Humphrey Elementary. I had attended less than half my second school year. I caught every childhood disease that year and then some that nobody else had like an infected appendix. So when all my peers went on to the third grade, I trudged back to the second grade. A good part of this though was that Miss Chase, my second grade teacher was my favorite of all teachers. She had taught my father, my ten year older half brother and my 3 year older sister. Miss Chase was kind and made sure the other kids didn't think that I was a dummy for repeating the second grade. But again, disaster. After a month or so, Miss Chase, who was quite old by then, became sick and had to retire. Her replacement was probably nice enough, but I was counting on Miss Chase and felt let down when she left me.
I guess the fourth grade was the toughest and most embarrassing year for me at Jefferson. The school principal was also our fourth grade teacher and she was a no nonsense, rule-by-the-stick teacher. The terrible embarrassment of the year was when she had the whole class read to themselves from a special book which had the number of words in each sentence numbered. After a given length of time she told us to stop reading and tell her the number of words we had read. Quite innocently I read off 382 words, give or take a few words. The highest number in the class. Instead of a "Good Job" or "Very good," I was told to reread what I had just finished, only out loud this time. The number came out a bit lower this time, which stands to reason. But again, as I waited patiently, there was no "good job." Instead it was as I took it a sarcastic, "I guess you can read that fast."
I can't move onto the fifth grade without admitting to having the first of the 'many-loves-of-my life'. This mental affair lasted from part way through my second year in the second grade until I left Jefferson Elementary for the fifth grade. I do remember exactly what she looked like. Her complexion was olive, true to her Italian heritage. She had black or very dark brown,and very curly hair. Shoulder length. She was smaller than I, though I was one of the smallest kids in the class. Her smile was glorious. Warm and sincere and her very pretty dark brown eyes sparkled with every smile. Oh yes, I do remember those eyes. She really loved life, and she was a year younger than I was. From afar I admired her and dared myself to rush up to talk to her but never, in two and a half years, found the courage to do it. Finally, by a terrible act of fate in the fourth grade, I spoke to her and helped her as she bled and cried her way towards the school to seek help from a teacher.
Two sides and the back of the schoolyard was surrounded by a chain link fence barely four feet tall. It wasn't finished as the fences of today are. The cut-off ends of the wire it was made of stuck up in sharp pointed barbs just waiting for the unfortunate kid who slipped while going over the fence. Though it was a major 'No-No' and definitely ‘off limits’, I climbed over the fence almost daily to reach a short cut trail home. Other kids also climbed over it for unknown reasons. Why Claudette, the love of my life, was climbing the fence during morning recess that unfortunate day I never found out. She was with two or three other girls playing in a back corner of the school yard. I don't remember what I was doing except I was with my friend Jimmie Peterson part way across the yard from Claudette. I looked her way in time to watch her climbing on the fence. She was part way up reaching over the sharp pointed barbs when her foot slipped and her left arm came down onto one of those barbs. She had not finished screaming when I was on my way to her. I could see her blood flowing down her arm onto her hand. When I reached her I saw the jagged rip the barb had gouged about a third of the length of the inside of her forearm. Now she was looking at her arm and crying softly. Her girl friends, as well as any kid within 50' of her, were frozen into statues of shock and inaction.
I remembering placing my arm around her waist and saying "Come on. We have to find a teacher." We got to the side stairs to the school when the second grade teacher hurriedly, almost running, came down the stairs towards us. She had heard Claudette's scream and concerned, ran outside to see what had happened. She took one look, scooped a now very white faced Claudette up in her arms and took her inside, dripping blood as she went.
Several days later I went to the new grocery store around the corner from the school with my father. Pupillo's new store was the biggest and newest in the area owned by Claudette's father and grandfather. When I started into the store I saw her standing with her mother near the store's office. Her left arm was in a sling and she was moving gingerly protecting it from any bumps or even touching her mother's side.
I started to turn away. Pretending that I hadn't seen her, but she had seen me and quickly made eye contact. She smiled that beautiful smile which lit up her face as she started walking to me.
That was the last time in my life that I saw her, Claudette my first infatuation. She lived in a different, more affluent part of town so while I went up the hill to Humphrey School, she went down the hill to a school closer to her neighborhood.
As luck would have it, my new teacher at Humphrey Elementary had family connections to us. WWII was over and my half brother had been discharged from the Coast Guard. He came back to live with us and had a new girl friend. Who I learned later had an apartment near us. I had looked at her photo on his dresser and wondered where he was on the two or three nights a week that he didn't come home from work. Being the idiot and braggart that he was, he couldn't tell a fib but had to brag when I asked him with all the innocences of a nine year old where he stayed those many nights. He went into more detail about their relationship than I needed to know.
So consider my reaction when I walked into the fifth grade classroom on my first day and came face to face with the pretty woman on my half brother's dresser.
Christmas vacation came. That is what we called it. Not Christmas or winter break, but Christmas vacation. I was about to turn ten shortly and we were moving to New Hampshire where my dad had found work on a dairy farm outside of a small town in the southern part of the state.
A new school, new friends, and one particular friend who I was to renew a friendship with again and again. First in the late 50s and again in the mid 60s on Okinawa and again in Vietnam. Russ Colby was about two years older than I was but a very caring person who took the new kid under his wing. At recess we would meet at the swings and he would push me higher than I had ever been on a swing. For fifteen minutes twice a day, every school day, and often at lunchtime. I had a friend who was kinder and closer to me than anyone, even members of my own family were.
It was the first of many cold winters I was to experience in my life. I remember storms and deep snows before we moved to New Hampshire but never the biting cold of that year. A house had come with Dad’s new job. It was not insulated, had no storm windows and was heated with kerosene space heaters. My bed was so weighted down with blankets that I had trouble rolling over during the night. I soon learned to get on my side and stay there almost all night, a thing I still do, since it was too hard to roll over under all the blankets and if I exposed my face to the room air my nose would get so cold that I swore the snot would freeze in it. You would think that winter would have cured me of ever wanting to endure such extremes of temperatures. No, it took many years for that to happened and even now I sometimes go back for more. Just a slow learner I guess.
After school got out in June, Russ would ride his bike the two miles out to where we lived and we would mess around. He wanted to take me swimming in one of the old granite quarries that had been made into a park with a fence to keep the non-swimmers separated and safe from the deep dark waters of the main quarry. It never happened. I would not see Russ again until 1959.
Before I knew what was going on we moved again. This time to an even smaller town where my parents had bought a roadside lunch counter with a single Mobile gas pump in front. To me it became heaven. I was surrounded by many square miles of trees and mountains. Fresh, clean running streams and lakes only a few steps away from the front door.
Thinking back on the summers that I spent in the shadow of Winn Mountain I find that I cannot always differentiate one summer from another. I did many similar things, went to similar places, and talked to the same people.
That first summer I chummed with two brothers who were our nearest neighbors. I didn't know anybody else my age until I started school in September. I do know that I learned to swim that summer. Our neighbors had a farm pond which was great for swimming but had no real beach, just a muddy shore line at the shallow end and a rock and dirt dam on the deep end which was 5 or 6 feet at the least. A concrete overflow and spillway was the best place to swim and was about 8 feet deep. Too deep for a 4'4'' ten year old to wade in. The boys' father said he would help me learn to swim and since I was not afraid of the water and could swim like a fish underwater for several yards, but was so skinny that I sank like a rock when I tried to even dog paddle, I was all for it. Joe wrapped a partially inflated bicycle inner tube around my waist and tossed me off the spillway. I found myself popping to the surface several feet from shore. I started to breast stroke the best I could with the inner tube about my chest and after four or five strokes I climbed up on the rocks and onto the dam. I dropped the tube and dove back into the water with background shouts of. "What took you so long?" "That was a lousy dive." No "good job, atta boy!"
Even so, I felt proud and great and I never used the tube again.
We also had our favorite skinny dipping hole. Though this one was right on what we called Stoney Brook Road, it was great. The remains of an old millpond. (You can see the remains of the stone dam upstream from the pond.) Stained so dark from the tannic acid coming from the hardwood tree’s leaves that fall into the stream every year. It was impossible to see down into the dark water more than two feet so after a lot of touch and feel exploration, we decided that it was deep enough to dive from the rocks on the shore and we even hung an old rope that we had pilfered from my neighbor’s equipment garage to use as a swing.
Upstream, above the dam, the millpond itself was full of over a 100 years collection of silt so was useless as a swimming hole even though it was unseen from the road.
I also caught some nice brook trout out of this hole over the years.
TWO
The yellow school bus took us southeast about 4 miles to the center of town. That was where the church, post office and general store all were. The driver turned left at the church and across the street from the store. Went about a quarter of a mile further before stopping in front of a small white house. Right away I detected something different about this house. I was an observant kid. It had only two small front windows, and the front door centered between them. When I followed the other kids from the bus through the door I spotted the rows of school desks and chairs. On a shelf in one corner of the back wall was a tall insulated metal water jug and next to it a tin wash basin about 12 inches around. Under the counter which held the water jug and basin was a plain old galvanized bucket full of clean water. I would soon find out that it was the sixth grade boys' job to take the bucket down the road to Mr. Schmidt's spring. Fill it and bring it back to fill the water jug. In the other corner was a big black iron wood stove and on the floor next to it a galvanized washtub with several pieces of split firewood in it.
Over the years I have tried to recall where, if any, the blackboards were. The conclusion that I finally reached was that it had two small ones . One on each side of the small front windows. I believe the school was built before wall sized blackboards were common. Small handheld slates were the norm so later the blackboards were hung where ever there was space for them.
My nose twitched at a strange odor that was drifting almost undetectable, through the room. It seemed to be coming from the plain unpainted door centered in the back wall between the water cooler and stove. I knew that I had smelled it before and knew that I didn't like it, but couldn’t recall what it was.
Her voice sounded old and had a squeaky, unsure-of-herself quality about it. Standing at the back left corner of the room, behind the last row of desks, was Mrs. Smith. Matronly the adults would call her. We kids called her fat and old. Her hair was all gray, but I don't have a clue to how she wore it. I guess a best forgotten detail. She wore thick, frame less glasses which were coming into fashion. A flowered cotton dress which hung to just above her ankles and hang it did, like an old grain sack. On her feet she wore a pair of medium heel, plain black lace shoes. Practical my mother would say.
The squeaks started again as she repeated herself. "These two rows," She pointed to the two rows of desks closest to her ample stomach, "are for the first and second graders. This row will stay empty" She pointed at the third row of desks. "The next row," She moved behind the rows of desks to the fourth row, " will be for the third graders and the fourth graders will share the next row with them." She moved to her left and stood behind the last row. "This last row will be for the sixth grade with the fifth grade sharing this row as well as having the row before it . We will leave two empty rows between the fifth grade and the fourth grade."
A one room school house? With nine rows of desks? I had never heard of such a thing. As we scrambled for our seats, each tagged with a neat name tag with our name arranged in alphabetical order, I counted the sixth graders. My grade. There were five of us.
"If anybody needs to use the toilet, the girls will go first, then the boys. You won't have another chance until recess which will be at 10 o'clock.
And be sure to wash your hands when you finish. There is a bar of soap and towel next to the wash basin."
One of the girls, maybe a third grader, shyly raised her hand and with small unsure steps she went to the unpainted door at the back of the room.
An outhouse in the school? I could now put a name and source on the not so nice smell. For the first time I also saw the cake of soap next to the water jug and hanging neatly from a nail under the jug was a clean white hand towel. More of a rag than a towel, but clean and dry. Along the back wall, taking every available inch on each side of the toilet door, were many coat hooks. Empty now, but would be heavily used when the mild weather of early September departed to be replaced by the frosty mornings of fall followed by snowy winter days.
I had to hand it to Mrs. Smith. She had the system down pat. In each of our desks were the books we would need to start the year and she immediately assigned reading to grades three through six so she could turn her attention to the first and second graders.
For the next hour and some minutes until recess, I listened to her reading to and helping the youngest of her students get used to the regimen of school. She was kind and patient with them.
Ten o'clock on the original Regulator school clock came, and as promised the instant the clock's sweep second hand met the minute hand on the twelve her squeaky voice, which no longer sounded quite so squeaky, said one word, "Recess."
The veteran students who had been in Mrs. Smith school during prior years broke for the door but were brought to an abrupt halt when she spoke up with command in her voice. "You will not go so far from school that you can not hear the bell at 10:15. Stay away from Mr. Schmidt's spring and out of his barnyard." Having said that she said "Go now!"
The school did have electric lights. All installed as an addition with open wiring running up in the corners of the walls and across the ceiling. I don’t remember any plug type receptacles though. I guess the school didn’t need them since there was nothing to plug in.
The only kids I knew were my neighbors and they were in the fifth and fourth grades and this would be their third year with Mrs. Smith. It didn't matter though since everybody, including the girls, played together or in my case explored the fields and woodland surrounding the school. I remember there were four or five kids, boys and girls, tagging along behind me as I wandered about.
The fifteen minutes seemed to have galloped by. The faint tinkle of a bell reached us and one of the girls in a flurry of guilt hollered, "The bell, Mrs. Smith is ringing the bell."
Everyone turned and in an instant were on the run back to the school leaving me standing in a patch of red berried sumac bushes wondering where they were all going. I heard the tinkling of the bell again as the last girl in line stopped and turned. She was really cute. She wore a red and green plaid dress. A matching ribbon made a bow to hold her slightly curly hair away from her face. With a shy smile she motioned for me to follow her then asked, "Are you coming? That's the bell. I know that it isn't very loud. It's a small bell."
She stood still. Waiting for me to catch up to her and together we ran for the front door. To my surprise she never got more than a step behind me and when we did reach the door, Mrs. Smith was still standing on the granite front step ringing the bell vigorously and seemed a bit upset. Though I yet didn't know her, I immediately assumed that I was in deep trouble. The girl didn't seem to be bothered by Mrs. Smith's expression and posture and together we successfully slipped under the bell and into the school with hardly a glance from the bell ringer. The cute little girl went to the row of fifth graders while I sat in the second seat of the last row next to the windows.
I had seen the Salvation Army bell ringers in Boston using bells that were not too much smaller than Mrs. Smith's brass bell. It explained why it was so hard to hear. I'm sure it was an intentional ploy to keep us within hearing, therefore close to the school.
Deanna and I weren't late or the subject of Mrs. Smith's wrath. A new kid from a west suburb of Boston had decided to go to the general store for a candy bar and as yet was nowhere to be seen. In fact two more sixth graders ducked through the door right after us.
There was much to explore around town and in close proximity of the school. A small group of boys, myself included, regularly set off on safari during lunch time to see what we could find.
At lunchtime on one drizzly October day, a group of us boys were exploring around town when we spotted a cloud of heavy gray smoke that appeared to be coming from a barn on the other side of town. Thinking the barn was on fire we became excited school boys and ran down the street. Past Ed Schmidt's house. We were approaching the church when one of the group, I swear I don’t recall who it was said, “if there’s a fire in town, you’re supposed to ring the church bell and the volunteer fireman will get the firetruck, (note the singular.) and go to the fire.”
Of course we changed direction, climbed the stairs and ran through the church’s front door. We all skidded to a halt when we reached the heavy manila rope hanging from a hole in the ceiling. I do admit breaking from the crowd. I grabbed the rope and swung on it with all my small weight and strength. Low and behold the church bell started to peal out its call for attention and help. After several pulls we all ran back out the door and looking about for the courageous fire fighters to come screaming down the road the quarter mile from the barn where the fire truck was kept. With no help in sight we ran for the source of the smoke. Still no roar of engine or screaming siren. Topping the small hill we gazed upon a stately white barn with a cloud of dense dark gray smoke arising from the apple orchard next to it. A few yellowish flames were starting to work their way up from the bottom of the huge pile of tree branches and cut brush. Standing next to it and using a steel rake every so often to poke or pull a branch or a bit of brush into the path of the slowly heating up fire was the owner of the barn and orchard.
I don’t remember his name, but he was old, like 50 years old, fat, must have weighed half a ton, and had a ferocious frown on his clean shaven face when he turned towards the group of loud mouth boys running up the hill towards him. Fear took over the group of heros. It ran through the would be heros like a dose of mineral oil. As one, we spun on our heels and ran for the safety of the school and Mrs. Smith.
Ne’er a word was ever mentioned to any of us about the ringing of the church bell which at the time seemed strange and I felt guilty and stupid for weeks after. I believe that I actually blushed in embarrassment every time that I passed the church for months after. Thinking about it as an older, (read senior), adult, I believe that I have come up with the answer. The town was full of watchers and knowers. The man with the fire had told everybody who needed to know that he was going to burn his piles of brush that day. But most importantly, Pop Jones, the owner and keeper of the store had a clear view of the church and figured that we were just a bunch of boys rabble rousing as we were known to do on occasion and passed the word that it wouldn’t be necessary for the fire truck to respond. Also, the Postmistress was ditto. A nice lady who wouldn’t get any of the kids in trouble.
Pop Jones was also know to be kind and gentle under his gruff, growling façade. Rather than turn us in to our parents, or other authority at Halloween, he would coat the store windows with kerosene so that any wax we tried to apply to them would not stick. As we tried desperately to wax the windows with paraffin wax we had liberated from our mothers’ pantries. We would see him standing back in the store watching us. Now I believe that he was smiling and at times actually laughing at our feeble window waxing attempts.
At lunchtime on halloween day we had a visitor. A very nice looking older woman entered as we were finishing up our sandwiches. She was dressed country. Like all mothers wore in those days, blue woman dungarees with a zipper on the side. . A blue and green plaid cotton blouse and over it a heavy cotton work jacket like many of the local farmer's wives wore. Her shoes were heavy duty, ankle high leather with rawhide laces. The only jewelry she wore was an expensive gold wrist watch. Not a tiny stylish one, but one big enough to read. She wore glasses which were full framed and silver colored.
To me she was too old to be the mother of any of my school mates. Very shortly my mind was changed and although I didn't know it at the time, I was about to meet the woman whom I was to call my second Mom, “Ma”, for many years to come.
A strange quiet slid across the single room schoolhouse. All eyes were turned to the woman as she moved across the room to the small counter next to the water jug. The only sounds were her soft steps, even in her heavy duty shoes her steps were almost soundless, then the soft whisper of the cotton bag she set on the counter.
"Who is she?" I whispered over my shoulder in the general direction of Miles, my new buddy who sat behind me.
"She's Deanna's mother. Mrs. Center."
"Why is everybody afraid of her? She seems nice to me."
"My mom says that she's a real terror. She’s been coming to the school for years. Deanna has two brothers who are really old, and they went to school here. For the last three years she has been giving speeches at Town Meeting about needing a new school. My mom and dad said that we didn't need to spend the money. They went to school here and said that if it was good enough them it was good enough for her daughter.
Mrs. Center was smiling as she took a huge tin of halloween decorated cupcakes from the bag. "There are enough so everybody can have one. But . . . , but you have to finish your lunch first and show me an empty lunch box."
I sought Deanna's eyes which was not hard to do in a single room school with only 18 kids in the room. We made eye contact. I smiled and nodded with my best, most appreciative look. I was rewarded by a shy smile and tiny wave of the fingers on her right hand.
We all straggled up to Mrs. Center, in order, youngest first, to get our halloween treat. When my turn came I tried to be as worldly as I could. This was before Fonzie and 'cool'. The city boy moved to the country cool. That was me. But she looked me right in the eye.
"I met your mother yesterday when I was helping Mr. Center with his mail route." She spoke softly. I am sure nobody else but I could hear her. Or maybe Deanna who was directly behind me could also hear her. "She said that you don't have many friends since you moved here. When your folks come to our house to visit on Friday night you're welcome to come with them. I hope you do."
At a lose for words from her direct invitation I murmured a "Thank you," when I took the cupcake from her hand and found that I couldn't break eye contact with her. The feel of her work hardened, but warm hand lingered as I turned and came face to face with Deanna who was going to claim the last cupcake from her mom. I felt the heat of my embarrassment flash up my neck and across my face. I was so close to Deanna that I could feel her body heat and the warmth of her breath on the hand that I had raised to fend off colliding with her.
I hurried out of the school and headed down the road to Mr. Schmidt's barnyard and spring. I had already claimed this spot on his stonewall as my place of refuge. I often came here to eat my lunch, to enjoy the quiet and solitude. I climbed up on the stonewall and slowly nibbled on Mrs. Center's cupcake trying to make it last as long as I could. I knew that it was the best thing I had eaten in my life. When I finished my fingers were sticky so I went over the hogshead ( a wooden barrel cut in half.) which was overflowing with cold spring water. I plunged my hands into the freezing cold water then with pure impulse, stuck my face into the sparkling clear water. I opened my eyes and watched the three horned pout,(brown bullhead catfish) that Mr. Schmidt kept in the hogshead until he was ready to eat them. The cold water shocked my body and sent a chill through me like sticking my finger into a light socket. With water streaming off my face, I sat down on the granite wall again and thought about the kind woman who had made me feel so good. It wasn't for many years, maybe ten or twelve years later, when I recalled that on the day of my introduction to Winona Center what I had seen in her eyes as I accepted her cupcake, was compassion and maternal love. I had never been given looks like that before.
Shortly after Christmas vacation of that year in the sixth grade we moved from our little one room, wooden school house to the new brick consolidated school. The kids from the two, 1-room schoolhouses were moved into the new building. Mrs. Smith kept grades one through three and we, the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, got the coolest teacher, Miss Herrick, from the other one room school on the far side of town. She was what was called and ‘old maid lady’, but was far from it. First she lived with and took care of her mother who was very old. Miss Herrick didn’t spend every night in her mother’s house. It seemed to be common knowledge even amongst us kids that she spent four or five nights a week with a gentleman friend who lived just down the road to where she supposedly resided with her mother.
Very early on a Saturday morning while hunting when I was still in junior high, I ended up walking down the road in front of this guy’s little house when the front door opened and still in her nighty, Miss Herrick stepped out on the tiny front porch. With one of her very pleasant smiles that lit up her whole face and a slow gentle handed wave the middle aged teacher made eye contact with me. Then asked,”any luck this morning, Herb.” before stepping back into the house.
The new building had running water, with real flushing toilets and sinks with hot water. Fluorescent lights and an electric recess bell. And much to the dismay of many of us boys, a fenced in playground. No more running all over town at lunch time, or sneaking into the bushes behind the school with your current girl friend to play kissy face. At one time before leaving the new school and Deanna behind for junior high in the next bigger town, I was disappointed that I had never been brave enough to take Deanna into the bushes for some kissy face. By the time we were in the new school, with the addition of several new kids, Deanna had a new boy friend whom she went with for a couple years and we kind of reverted back to two tongue-tied teenagers. The easy banter that we had developed slowly over that fall season in the one room school slipped away from us.
I remember the next summer very well. I started working part time at the poultry farm up the road. Don & Jon Egg Farm. We didn't have any chicken ranches, but we did have range chickens. Never heard the 'free range' describer though. Each spring the young chickens, just a few weeks old and barely feathered out, were put out to range in an enclosure that any bird would think he had died and gone to chicken heaven. They would stay there until the hens started to lay full size eggs. It was several acres of woodland and meadow fenced in with feeders scattered about and ‘A’-frame shaped roosting shelters that were rat, skunk and weasel proof. We closed up the chickens in these shelters every night at dusk and let them out just after first light. I gathered eggs from the range shelters, helped give the young chickens their vaccinations and I learned to tell their sex. The roosters would be put in pens with the hens that were to produce fertile eggs or into separate pens where they would sold off as fryers. I also began helping out on a friend's dairy farm. I learned to drive his tractor to plow and harrow fields, rake hay and to ride a horse. He had a huge old chestnut mare which I would ride from field to field when we used her to pull the hay rake or the hay wagon.
Since I started to make a little bit of money, I began saving up for my first .22 rifle. It cost something about $10.95 in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, plus shipping. I became a member of the hunting society. Though I don't think that I actually killed any game for at least another year. I did learn to shoot and started reading every outdoor and hunting and fishing magazine that I could get my hands on.
I vividly remember during my first deer season, Charlie, my friend who I worked for, put me on a deer stand while he made a circle through an area we knew deer would lay up during the day. Charlie and I traded guns. I took his full length 30-30 Winchester lever action and he took the 16 gage shotgun that I usually carried. I heard the deer coming before it was in view. When it trotted into the clearing, I was ready for it with the rifle on my shoulder and lined the sights up on the deer’s front shoulder as I had been taught. Carefully I kept the sights on its shoulder and just as carefully worked the rifle’s lever to eject five rounds from the chamber. The deer never flinched and all the time I was conscious of hearing the birds still singing. I looked around me on the ground and located five shiny, brand new 30-30 rounds off to my right. I had forgot to pull the trigger before I had carefully worked the lever to put a fresh shell into the rifle.
When September rolled around and we went back to school, I was now in junior high so it was off to the next mill town down the road. (It is now called Forest Road. I guess because it has a few residences on it and wanders through the trees. Then we just called it the Lyndeboro-Greenfield Road.) This was a major change for me. No longer a "top dog" sixth grader, I again resided on the bottom of the food chain as a lowlife seventh grader.
It was a three story brick school house built in 1895. It housed grades one through twelve with the junior high and high school classes sharing the same teacher’s, rooms and study halls mostly on the second story. The toilets were in the sub-basement with the boiler room and janitorial supplies. (It stills stands to this day though the name has changed and no longer has any kids below the seventh or eighth grade in it.) What a big deal. Now we had a home room and went from one room to another for each class. There was also a huge,unattached brick gymnasium, circa WPA. It had a newly refinished hardwood basketball floor which we couldn't walk on with our shoes, but we held our weekly assemblies sitting on double wooden chairs every Friday afternoon and everyone walked on the floor with their street shoes on. Let's not forget all of the school dances which were held in the gym. The Sadie Hawkins, the Junior Prom, the Senior Prom, Senior Commencement dance, the sock hops. Oops! I guess they don't count since nobody wore their shoes at a sock hop. For the dances corn meal was spread liberally over the basketball floor providing a very slippery surface and somewhat protecting the finish on the hardwood floor.
The boys would gather around the Coke machine that was brought in specifically for each dance. Somebody always had a small tin of Bayer aspirin which we would surreptitiously slip into our bottles of Coke. Some older kids told us that we could get drunk on aspirin and Coke. Guess what? It just nauseated you.
If a chaperon were to watch the exit door near the Coke machine, he or she would see two or three boys slip out into the parking lot to sneak hasty puffs on a shared, stolen cigarette that one of the boys had liberated from their mom's purse or dad's unguarded pack in the bedroom.
I hated the required phys ed classes. For both junior high years by state law we were required to attend X hours every week of physical education. I don't have a clue to how many times in the afternoon, every week, we tromped across to the gym, rain, snow or shine. (Selective memory at work again. Who really cares how often or when? I sure don’t.) We goofed around playing silly games or running around in our stocking feet. It all depended on who was teaching phys ed that period. The phys ed teachers were also the coaches of our basketball and baseball teams as well as teaching history, civics, manual arts, or math. Even the principal filled in if he had to. The girls were lucky, their only coach and phys ed teacher was Ruth Lang the business teacher. You know, typing, shorthand,and bookkeeping. She was great. I still remember her fondly.
And this was all before Jack Kennedy.
THREE
As I write this, I realize that almost all of my life flashes before my eyes at one time or another, but I don’t think that I’m dying. In fact, it happens so often that I am absolutely certain that I’m not even near death. There is very little rhyme or reason to these flashes of life, but chaotic as they are, these flashes do verify my premise that I have almost total recall of my life since I was five years old or so. At least memories of what I want to remember. A great thing about my life flashing before my eyes in this manner is that I can pick and choose what I want to commit to on paper. We all have our secrets, embarrassing events, and just weird thoughts that we never want to admit existed or happened, much less put on paper.
A perfect example of these intermittent and chaotic recalls was as I was writing about sneaking out of the dance to catch a drag or so off somebody else's cigarette, the image of the first time I swiped a whole pack of Wing cigarettes from my parents’ store flashed into view. This happened about three years before the dances, yet it jumped foremost into my mind and brought with it all the embarrassing details of a week full of misadventures which I have no intention of revealing. Except the fact that I did indeed get punished. Embarrassingly so. The worst kind of punishment., I had to stay home and in the yard. Pure torture for me.
The first, real important date with a girl that I can vividly recall was with a very nice girl in my sister's class which made her almost three years older than I. She invited me to a school sponsored hay ride. This was a real hay ride. A team of draft horses, their breath visible in the crisp cold air, a hay wagon stacked high with soft, sweet smelling hay and a brisk cold fall night with an almost full moon. We had hot apple cider and fresh out of the pan doughnuts at a stop halfway through the night. It was the kind of night that you can also see every breath that you and your date exhale. Elizabeth, (not Betty or Liz), was a small, well shaped girl who had ambitions of being a nurse and would graduate from high school in the coming June. Elizabeth and I snuggled against the cold November air under the two pairs of watchful eyes of our chaperons as the horses picked their way along the gravel back roads of the rural area that encircled all the towns in this part of the country. The chaperons were really cool. A barely thirty something couple who were friendly and fun for us teenagers to be around. The male half was our Civics teacher and the other half, his wife.
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