Half-remembered Reminiscences of a 70 year-old Old Fart
Introduction
Having failed to die earlier, I have passed my 70th birthday anniversary. In my youth I had a friend who never tired of telling me that people were very fortunate to have been born at a very young age. At the time I thought he was profoundly stupid. Ever since I have taken great interest in wondering how a species whose world-wide behavior, spread out over millions of years, and so demonstrably and profoundly dumb, could survive. Unable to assess the entire world’s contribution to this predicament, I turned inward to see if I could trace a little of my own contributions. I have found some.
My First Day of School
My first day in the First Grade at Republican Elementary School, located at the corner of Wood Street and Pennsylvania Ave, in California, PA, in 1942 was memorable. My mom had taken great care to see that I was clean, relatively so, and dressed in woolen knickers with my hair slicked back with a straight part on the left side. The knickers were itchy but I was so scared and excited that I hardly noticed-- yet. The school was but a block away from our unpainted bungalow on Wood Street, but I rarely ventured that far. Ralph, my older and more worldly brother, entering the 2d grade, walked me to school that day.
Ralph led me, shaking, to the first grade room. I took a seat, a seat bolted to the floor. The desk had a flip-top lid serving as a work area covering the storage space for our books, pencils, ink bottles, and later, anything that would fit. The desk was also bolted to the floor. Very sturdy environment. I was feeling a little less scared. But not by much. Not having a clue as what to do I sat still, very still. And quiet, very quiet. My mom and dad said, “Joey, just sit still, be quiet and listen to the teacher.”
Actually my dad never said anything. I think he was at Vesta Five coal mine at the time. His name was Joe, too. That’s why I got “Joey.” Not because I slightly resembled a kangaroo of the same name. My mom insisted that I did not resemble a kangaroo. When my mom wasn’t around Ralph resorted to the time tested and honored response of an older sibling. “You look like a kangaroo—Mom just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
So that is what I did—sat still and quiet for ten or eleven minutes. Then peeking to my left I saw a vision of mind-numbing beauty. I had never in my five years seen a girl as beautiful as Mary Ann. I didn’t move my head but my eyeballs were locked left. Blonde curly hair, dazzling eyes, perfect posture, a smile that tried to turn my head along with my eyes.
By 9:00am I had fallen in love with Mary Ann. At 9:45am I had decided that I wanted to marry her. By 10:00am I had to pee. My marriage plans had to be put on hold while I tried to solve my more pressing problem. I now suspect that while I was absorbed in planning the rest of my life Miss Decker was explaining such earthly routines as putting one’s hand up to get her attention and politely asking permission to do whatever it was a first grader had to do.
At precisely 10:15am, according to a big clock above the large letters of the alphabet posted across the front wall of our room, my five year old bladder could no longer be contained. Quietly and without moving I created a pee pond the size of Lake Erie under my desk. I did my best to ignore what had happened to me and I remained still and quiet—except for the thunderous dripping of the last drops of pee making its way through my very itchy woolen and extremely wet knickers.
I sat there. And I sat there. And I sat there—very quiet and still—pretending that all was well with the world. It was at that moment that, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mary Ann vigorously waving both arms to get the attention of Teacher. Between waves Mary Ann kept pointing at the pee pond under my desk, which by now resembled Lake Superior. Miss Decker slowly walked over to see what Mary Ann wanted. To my everlasting gratitude Miss Decker said nothing. Humanely, she let me stew in my itchy, wet, wooly knickers above the slowly warming and smelly pee until we were dismissed for lunch. I ran home changed my cloths and tried unsuccessfully to forget my personal disaster.
Only recently have I realized the cause of my life long love-fear attitude toward female people with beautiful, curly blond hair. Mary Ann, the love of my first grade life, would forever more be associated with the very first day of my formal education. To this day I shudder when I see a female with blond curly hair, and being seventy years old my bladder is not what it used to be.
Brought into the World in a Bungalow with an Outhouse—and Ralph and the Gravedigger
My entry into this world was not the most propitious. I was the third son. Katie, my mother, wanted a girl. Upon being told by Dr. Downey that her third child was yet another boy my mother requested that my father throw me out through the bedroom window. My dad, being in a rare mood of benevolence, denied this request. Even had my Dad honored my mom’s request, it is unlikely I would have been harmed. The drop from the window was only about three feet. Ralph, two years my senior, was born in the same bed and delivered by the same Dr. Downey. He was not, however, threatened with a hasty expulsion from our home.
Our house and yard area were architectural nightmares common to the area. The house was a four-room unpainted wooden bungalow: kitchen/eating area, a living room rarely used, two overused bedrooms and a small porch with swing. The bedroom Ralph and I shared had one bed. Best of all though was a trapdoor in our bedrooom that led to the cellar. In the cellar were a coal bin and a coal furnace—a roaring beast that was a featured component of my youthful nightmares. A lion and huge spiders also lived in that cellar.
Our yard consisted mainly of Pap’s garden. At the far end of the yard was our very own outhouse. It was a one-seater. More affluent people had up to five or six seats of varying sizes for children and adults. For the unacquainted, an outhouse is simply a small house out away from the main house sitting over a hole in the ground. (Actually, if I had raised my hand that first day of school, Teacher would have excused me and I would have used the school outhouse which was located in the middle of the area around which we boys played marbles.) Our outhouse was well attached to a concrete floor. Those not so attached were often the target of marauding fun-loving teenagers on Halloween.
Outhouses, being an essential part of our pre-teen world, provided many opportunities for emotional and physical development. If we had to use it in the middle of the night, that meant walking the length of the yard past garden tomato poles that could easily turn into a battalion of monsters right out of the Inner Sanctum radio program. Of course, if we only had to pee, Ralph and I would just stand at the edge of our porch. Once reaching the outhouse which had no light, you had to fumble about with outreached arms and hands to find the hole upon which you would place your butt. You seated yourself in such a way as to be prepared to move quickly. The inhabitants of the nether world below you could at any moment decide to attack. Once seated no time was wasted. The speed with which the trip back to the house was made would have been a miracle to behold.
Now that was in the summer time. In the winter time the garden monsters were gone and inhabitants of the toilet hole were sluggish. The seat, however, was extremely cold. Sometimes Ralph would nudge me in the middle of the night and whisper in my ear, “Joe, do you have to go to the toilet?”
“No, Ralph, I don’t.” I would go back to sleep.
“Joe, are you sure you don’t have to go to the toilet?”
“Yes, Ralph, I’m sure.”
Ralph would slowly whisper in my ear,”Joe, you have to poop. You have to poop. You have to poop. You have to poop.” Actually, Ralph's vocabulary had evolved beyond poop.
I would then awaken. “Ralph,” I would say, “I have to poop. Will you walk to the toilet with me? I’m scared.”
“Are you crazy? It’s freezing out there. Go yourself.”
I would put on my winter coat, gloves and clod hoppers. Unafraid of winter monsters I would plod on to the outhouse, take my seat, and talk to my bowels. “Hurry up! Please hurry.” I didn’t even whisper. I didn’t care if the whole world heard me. My butt was freezing to the toilet seat. Would I tear it off when I got up?
As soon as I got back to the house Ralph, already bundled up, would race to the outhouse. When he got back inside I said, “Boy, you must have really had to go bad.”
“Nah,” he said. “I just wanted a warm seat.”
Older brothers are not always remembered as being kind and nurturing. Oh, they are sometimes, but they more often nurture by creating situations that younger brothers learn to avoid for a lifetime. Of course, by the time we start collecting Social Security the older brother remembers only the times he saved his younger brother’s life. Not so the younger one. We never forget.
“I dare you."
“Yea, well, I double dare you.” This universal “game” is nearly always instigated by an older brother. He usually already has a plan hatched in his nefarious mind. Ralph dared me to climb a giant sunflower in Pap’s garden. No sweat. I did that easily. It was Ralph’s turn. He made the logical argument that he was bigger than me and it would break. That in turn would lead to an angry Pap who would then make us weed the garden—even if it was already free of weeds. Ralph, being wiser than me, knew that the sunflower stalk would not break under my weight. When I asked Ralph how he knew he just told me he was older and smarter than I was. That’s how I learned he was smarter than me.
It was my turn. I dared Ralph to pee on one of Pap’s tomato plants. He then issued a double-dare. I asked him what a double-dare was. He said his double-dare had to be done before he did my single dare, and, if I didn’t do the double-dare, I had to stay alone in the cellar with the lion and spider for 20 minutes. I really wanted to see him pee on Pap’s tomato plant so I asked for his double-dare.
He told me I had to go into the outhouse, put my legs and body down through the seat hole and dangle there until he said it was time to get out. Now I may have been younger than Ralph but I wasn’t completely stupid. I refused to dangle until he told me to get out. We compromised. I agreed to dangle until he counted to 100. Ralph didn’t always win our mind games! I prepared for my entry, but I didn’t want my shoes to go into whatever was down there. Ralph again pointed out the obvious. You are short. Your feet will never touch that aromatic stuff.
So I dangled. Ralph counted: one, two, threeeee, four, fiiiive, sixxxxxx, seveeeeeeen. My arms were starting to shake. I urged Ralph to count faster. Eight, nine, ten, eleveeeen, twelve, thiirrrrteeeeeeen. I could right away see where this was going. I wasn’t falling for this trick. I climbed out of the toilet hole and. To be honest, I was pretty proud of myself. I was the only kid I knew of in our neighborhood who had ever taken this dare. My self-esteem had in those long minutes grown immeasurably. Now it was Ralph’s turn to pee on Pap’s tomato plant. Of course, he wouldn’t. He only counted to thiirrrrteeeen, not a hundred as we had agreed to. But since I did get to thiirrrrteeeeen, I only had to stay with the lion and spider in the cellar for 10 minutes. All heart my brother was.
Looking back after all these years I wonder what would have happened had I fallen into that abyss. We didn’t have a telephone. We didn’t have EMS. We didn’t have a ladder. Just how deep was that stuff? Actually, that part I learned. After the “honey dipper,” a large tanker truck with a vacuum hose, sucked all that “stuff” out of all the outhouses in our neighborhood, and the stirred up stink had dwindled to a bearable degree, I looked into the dark and deep void of our outhouse. Sure enough, had I fallen I would have gone in over my head. The Heimlich Maneuver, CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation had not yet been invented. The images past and present are too horrible to contemplate. Fortunately, for all present emergency personnel, outdoor toilets and pre-teens are rarely found together these days.
Don’t get me wrong about my brother Ralph. He was not completely rotten. In the evening we could often be found lying on our stomachs next to each other, elbows on the floor, with our heads resting in our cupped hands, staring at the radio. When we decided to listen to the radio we would have long discussions about the merits of The Green Hornet, Jack Benny, The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, Inner Sanctum, etc. Then we would peacelessly tune into whatever Ralph chose. One of our favorites was The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show. For younger readers, Charlie McCarthy was a dummy. No, not as in slow-witted. He was a dummy and Edgar Bergen was a ventriloquist. What a fantastic radio show!
Nevertheless, the show was the cause of deep sorrow and disillusionment for Ralph and me. The first time we actually saw Edgar and Charlie at a matinee movie at the Hollywood Theatre in town Ralph and I could not believe what we saw. Charlie was on Edgar’s lap as expected, but—but when Charlie talked, Edgar’s lips moved. How could that be? Our mutual fantasy destroyed, Ralph and I never listened to The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show again. Now in later life every time I watch Boston Legal on TV, starring Edgar’s daughter, I am reminded of an emotional trauma of my youth. It’s so difficult.
Ralph and I got haircuts together, too. My dad was not into spending above the very bare minimum for haircuts for his two budding geniuses. Our home, the bungalow, was on a flat area half way up the hill from the Monongahela River. At the top of the hill was a graveyard. Most towns saved the high ground for its wealthier residents. California, Pa., did the opposite. People living downtown near the college had bigger and nicer homes with indoor toilets. People at the top lived next to the cemetery. We lived in between.
The graveyard was managed by a caretaker who dug the graves and took care of the lawn. In return I believe he lived rent-free in the caretaker’s house. This was a large, two story, very old, unpainted and semi-dilapidated dwelling. The caretaker lived alone. My dad seemed to know everybody who lived within the area including the caretaker, and he would occasionally sign on to help dig a grave. On at least one occasion Ralph and I both were asked if we wanted to help dig a grave. What healthy pre-adolescent kids could turn down an opportunity to dig a real grave?
The tools for this task were limited to picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. After what seemed like hours, but in actuality more like fifteen minutes, Ralph and I were sent home because we were getting in the way of my dad and the caretaker. At least that’s what Ralph and I assumed when my dad uttered some unintelligible Italian words made harsh by his tight lips, sweaty red face and flailing arms after we dumped a wheelbarrow full of dirt on his back. I tried my best to convince my dad that Ralph’s did it, but Ralph was at the other end of the cemetary reading gravestones.
The caretaker never had a name. Ralph and I took on the task of giving him one. We were great fans of The Life of Riley, a radio show starring William Bendix as Riley. One of Riley’s friends was his friendly neighborhood undertaker appropriately named Digger O’Dell. It seemed a good name for our own cemetery caretaker. As fate would have it my dad discovered that our Digger, in addition to digging graves, could also cut hair. Digger’s hair-cutting tools were no more advanced than his grave digging equipment.
Walking up the rickety steps of Digger’s porch led us to a screen door that would screen very little from getting into Digger’s house. We always flipped a coin to see who actually walked up to the door and informed Digger that our dad had sent us up to get a haircut. Digger didn’t say much and no one we knew had ever been inside his house. Bruno, another of Digger’s customers, said he had been inside, but we knew he was making that up. Digger would tell us to wait a few minutes and he would be with us. He was true to his word. We liked that about him.
Digger would exit his house carrying his manual hair-cutting clippers, scissors, and a comb. Following him to his barber shop, which matched his dilapidated, unpainted house perfectly, one immediately noted that the barber shop was a four-seater outhouse. No light of course. After putting some boards over the outhouse seats for our comfort, and using the same skills he had honed digging graves, Digger would cut our hair. Our finished hair-cuts always had a hint of a rectangular box about them.
Mary Ann—later
In fifth grade at Republican Elementary I was still in love with Mary Ann, but I no longer harbored the vision of us being husband and wife. In spite of my heroics at the outhouse and the experience gained digging a grave, the self-confidence gained did not transfer to my relationships with girls.
Mary Ann had a birthday party at her house and invited all of us in her class. She lived in a painted house across from the school on Pennsylvania Avenue. Pennsylvania Avenue was still a cobble stone road which dead ended at the Italian Club about a half mile away. In the opposite direction it died about a mile away as it reached the wooded area above the Monongahela River. To keep the Avenue from getting too muddy along its sides California Borough scattered “red dog” (neither red nor dog-like) along its sides. The “red dog” at that time was sharp-edged stones about the size of golf balls. Cars were usually parked on the “red dog” near the car owners’ houses.
Bruno, a friend and classmate who lived nearby, and I went to the party together. Bruno was almost as sophisticated and worldly wise as me. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think we took birthday gifts with us. The party was going along smoothly—the boys all hunkered together in one corner with the girls giggling and planning in another. Soon we were sitting in a circle on the floor with a pop bottle in the center. Bruno and I looked at each other quizzically, our natural state, and wondered what was going on.
As we watched, always eager to learn, the bottle was spun and when it stopped, the kid toward whom the neck pointed had to get up and go into another room with a girl. Bruno and I still possessed quizzical demeanors—until John returned giggling and flushed with a brilliant, red smile decorating his face. “She kissed me,” he whispered. Bruno and I looked at each other and without saying a word the horror-struck looks on our faces suggested that we knew we were headed into an unknown world that would strike even more terror into our thumping hearts.
If the spinning bottle stopped at a previous “winner,” that person was skipped. The inevitable happened when the bottle eventually turned to me. It was my turn. I saw Mary Ann, with her glorious blond hair and beautiful everything, go into the “other” room. I was going to kiss Mary Ann—my youthful fatal attraction. I finally got my second chance to impress the love of my life. And I think I did. Gracefully, I got up from my sitting position, for some reason looked at a grinning Bruno, then I ran from the room, through the screen door in the front room, across the porch, down the steps and then I crawled under Mary Ann’s mom’s car parked on the red dog. I stayed there until Bruno called for me when the party was over. As we were walking home Bruno said, “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Yea, I did run pretty fast didn’t I?”
“No, not that. I mean laying on that red dog all that time. And you’re just bleeding a little on your elbows….and your nose.
Day Time Thieves
From time to time Ralph and I would steal some forbidden items from our house. Actually, Ralph was the thief. I just aided and abetted. In 1945 many items were rationed due to World War II needs. People had to have ration stamps for sugar, gasoline, meat, and many other things.
My oldest brother Alex had joined the Army in 1944 along with thousands of other high school seniors across the nation. My dad was a career cigarette smoker and he could not get enough cigarette smoke and coal dust in his lungs without help. Being in the service Alex had access to cigarettes and, probably trying to get to get in our dad’s good graces, which was no easy task for Alex, he would send my dad boxes filled with cartons of cigarettes.
My dad stored the cigarettes in one of the few closets in our house—it was impossible to really hide anything. When Ralph discovered this he called me over, and decided he, at twelve, and I, at ten, were old enough to do a little experimenting. We, Ralph actually, went deep into the box, took a carton of cigarettes, roughed up the rest, and went for one of our frequent forays into the wood about one half mile from home. With shaking hands we opened a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes and took two cigarettes out. This may have been the most daring adventure we shared equally—even though it was actually Ralph’s idea. And then Ralph said, “Give me the matches.”
I said, “What matches? What do we need matches for?” Sometimes it really hurt when he punched me in the arm. After I ran home, got the matches, and ran back to the woods, we lit up the cigarettes, choked half to death, got sick and went home. We kept trying that summer though. If nothing else we were determined to learn how to smoke. And we did. By the time school started that fall we were both pretty accomplished and well on our way to developing a habit.
In addition to learning to handle unfiltered Camels during our trips to the woods that summer we learned much about nature. We learned how to identify trees. If there were walnuts under a tree, it was a walnut tree. If there were pears under a tree, it was a pear tree. If there were peaches under a tree, it was a peach tree If there were pine cones under a tree, it was a cone tree. By its fruit we learned to identify a lot of everything. And if a tree was just the proper size, we would climb it to the top, hold on tight, throw our bodies out into the air and ride it down. Unlike Robert Frost’s birches in New England, when we rode a tree down it stayed down.
Not far from our “smoking woods” was an old abandoned stone quarry. No fences, no “No Trespassing” signs, no adults to ruin our adventures. I imagine it’s still there. Now, sadly, I doubt if any neighboring kids even know it is there. A hundred yards further on and down a steep water-rutted path was the crick that ran through Baby Hollow, which became a “holler” only many years later. I didn’t know it was a creek until years later. I still have to make a conscious effort to say creek instead of crick.
We, Ralph, Bruno, his brother Carl, Red Wilson and whoever else wanted to would set out for the crick to make an almost always unsuccessful effort to find the perfect spot to build a dam to create our own swimming pool. Our good luck was without doubt in our unsuccessful efforts inasmuch as none of us could swim. We did, however, do a lot of jumping, splashing, and mud-crawling. Cutting the big toe of my right foot on a broken pop bottle was just one of the mishaps that I sharply remember.
It was actually a bad cut with blood everywhere and screaming, mine, echoing up and down Baby Hollow. Someone wrapped a shirt around my foot and Ralph, Carl and Red took turns carrying me up the steep path past the stone quarry and on to home. Then Alex drove me to Dr. Downey’s office located downtown between the Hollywood Theater and the dentist’s office. Alex admonished me not to bleed on the floor of his 1942 Chevy Coupe. Black and beautiful it was.
This is the same Dr. Downey who assisted my entry into this world. He was a tall man with ample girth. Always wore a conservative three-piece suit with chain watch and he smoked a gentleman's pipe. Very distinguished looking. He cleaned up my toe, foot and leg, looked at the cut, left the room and returned with a tool that looked like a pair of pliers in one hand and three very large staples in the other. He put his tools down, asked Alex to hold my leg tightly. He then put his tools down and put a hunk of cotton in each of his ears. The cotton sticking out of his ears did not go well with his professional demeanor. Dr Downey then grasped my big toe and stappled three clamps into it—no novacaine. Only later did I understand that the cotton in his ears was the only barrier between my screams and Dr Downey’s inner ear. Having received the full blast of my screams with the cotton for protection, Alex's hearing started taking a turn for the worse as of that day and to this day has never recovered. Since then I have not been able to bend my big toe and I have been afraid to walk outside in my bare feet.
There is always a bright side to an injury such as mine. I had to use a crutch--that's right, a single crutch. Got a lot of attention in the neighborhood. I also suspect that the pathetic look I learned to wear when anyone approached me led to my winning the role of Tiny Tim during our reading of the Christmas Carol in school that fall.
(To be continued….)
