A Boys Story - Chapter 1 - The Adventures Of Charles Kent: School, Ice Cream, Movies, and Mice
All the neighborhood would gather daily at our fort, which was behind a huge billboard sign between the Vitucci's Tavern on the corner and the funeral home, on a vacant lot on North Avenue. The sign was made of wood and tin, sitting at a little angle facing the street. The sign was shorter than the two-story tavern and had a criss-cosss lattice along the bottom where we could see out and not be seen. Behind the lattice, our fort was made of wood and cardboard and snow during the winter. Myron, Eddie, Pat, Jimmy, Richie and I would generally sit on wooden boxes from the A&P and talk about everything. This is where we hatched a plan to stop a big steam engine train.
All the boys were interested in trains and wanted and electric train as a toy for Christmas. We would try to watch them whenever we could. They were big, loud and interesting. Every day one or more would come pounding and puffing up the railroad trench under the North Avenue bridge pulling a string of box cars in tow.
Richie said the white smoke coming out of the trains smokestack was how the trains were powered. If we could stop the smoke, the engine would stop. Jimmy and Eddie said winter was coming and we could make a really big snowball, like the ones we made for snowmen, and drop it down the smokestack from the bridge… What a great idea!
All we needed was snow and a plan. We walked to the bridge which was made of sheet steel riveted together with two sides about 4 feet high with a flat top. We boosted each other up to get our chests on the bridge top, our legs counterbalancing us as we gripped the far edge and looked down at the single set of tracks 30 feet below.
Back at the fort, we made a train timetable on some cardboard with a crayon. We would get the correct time from the Krenz-Miller Packard dealership’s neon clock across the street. Hear a train? Write it down.
Our fort was a real fort, with a stockpile of weapons like stones, sharp sticks, clubs and a stretcher. We were ready if we saw any Japs or Nazis. We decided the stretcher would be helpful to lift a big snowball onto the flat top of the bridge..
We waited and watched and made our train schedule. It snowed all day on Friday, with good packing snow. Saturday morning it was still snowing. We were ready. We rolled up a big snowball and with our stretcher, lifted it into position above the tracks. With minutes to go Pat ran across the bridge to watch for the train. Shortly he was waving his arms to signal to us that he saw the train engine light. He ran back to the rest of us. Eddie and I were laying on the bridge top, holding on with one hand to the bridge and the other hand on the snowball between us. Myron, Jimmy and Richie had their arms on the back of the snowball. “NOW” Pat shouted, as the bridge trembled and smoke exploded into my face. I couldn’t see, everybody was screaming and shouting, my face was real hot as was Eddy’s… He couldn’t see either. I could hear the train continue under the North Avenue bridge.
Eddie and I packed snow on our reddened faces as the gang gathered around us and guided us East, headed for Columbia Hospital to get our eyes looked at. We soon saw Nurse Rita who greeted me by saying “Charles, what are you doing here AGAIN?!”
Eddie and I had our eyes flushed out, no damage. The gang concocted a little story about looking at a train too close that passed, by accident. I don’t know if anyone believed it but no one got an electric train for Christmas that year.
Towering elm trees converged over Cramer Street. Diffusing the sunlight into moving shadows that played across us as we played marbles in a patch of dirt by the Vitucci’s Tavern.
Richie was the best shot, he always wanted to play for “keeps”. His younger brother Pat wasn’t as good and he would make a face when he lost. Jimmy Vitucci, Eddie Hamilton, Myron Katz and I all loved to play games and have adventures.
I lived at 2339 Cramer upstairs in a big three bedroom duplex with my mother, dad, and big sister Colleen. I was taught to memorize this information along with my phone number which was, Lakeside 4-741M in case I got lost … which I did. There was a small vacant house behind our house and next to it a small victory garden with a short picket fence. A maple tree grew in the backyard too, which was the best size for climbing.
Our neighborhood had everything in walking distance and everyone walked because the war was on. We used motor buses to go west on North Ave, or could catch the street car at the terminal on Murray Ave if we wanted to go North or downtown.
School was to start in September, but because there was a polio epidemic and quarantine, all the kids had to stay indoors. Kids were told that we should not meet together or talk with each other, we should stay at home and not go anywhere. Myron, who lived across Cramer street from me, got some big pieces of cardboard and crayons and we wrote signs to each other across Cramer Street, which we thought was safe… until my dad put a stop to that.
Polio was something else to worry about. If you got it you were put in a big metal tube with windows…no more walking or running, just living in a hospital.
School finally started, but not everyone went at first. Some parents kept kids at home not knowing what to do. This summer, some of the big cities like Detroit, Pittsburg, and Milwaukee would order a house quarantine.
School for me was Maryland Avenue School. I was excited to attend again. One of my favorite teachers was Mrs. Rogers who had curly hair, a smiling face, and not too many wrinkles. Her soft voice commanded attention and she was a great story teller. She would sometimes lower her voice to just above a whisper which would make us listen very closely, for what she said was always interesting and important.
Our classroom was on the east side of the building and looked out over a small part of the playground. Across the street to the east was the orphanage… a very scary place where some kids lived. The kid that came to Maryland Avenue from the orphanage didn’t have any nice clothes, just stuff that didn’t fit well and had patches. All the boys had odd haircuts with a little short hair on top and the rest shaved off around their ears and the back of their heads. The orphanage kids never needed brushes or combs, because their hair was so short and choppy.
Our classroom had wooden chairs and tables that Mrs. Rogers clustered into two groups. She sat in a chair when she read stories to us as we sat on a big oval braided rug in one corner. We had a big sandbox on wheels where we would stand. No one threw sand because sandbox time was fun! Midway through the morning it was time for recess, we would troop to the cloak room, put on hats and coats, and line up. Boys in one line, girls in another to go outside. As soon as we got out of the building we ran North, some to the monkey bars, some to the swings, and some to the long metal poles and began to climb. We told secrets, kicked a soccer ball in the grass north of the school, or just sat under a giant tree and just talked. Too soon the bell would ring and we would line up again and go back inside, boys in one line, girls in another. Myron, Eddie, and I would always try to be first in line to go inside. As we entered the building, we marched to the boys lavatory in the school basement. The first boy got to run down the wall of urinals shouting, “Superman, Hitler, Superman, Hitler”, while pointing at adjoining urinals. The boys would line up at every other urinal to pee on Hitler. Then we had to wash hands and return to Mrs. Rogers room to do something interesting for an hour or so before we lined up again to go home for lunch.
My ma worked at the A & P on Murray as a checker and part time bookkeeper. Most times I would meet her at home for lunch. She would turn the Philco radio on to WTMJ in our kitchen. We would listen to Bob Heise while Ma fixed a quick lunch. Bob Heise had a live band and would talk to people in the audience about many topics. One lunch we listened as he talked to a bunch of kids who visiting the WTMJ studios … Mr Heise asked one boy in he had any talents to share with the audience. The boy said he knew a poem called “Mr. Hartman”… Just at that point we heard a woman shout, “No”. Mr. Heise said to the boy's mother, “that’s ok mom, we have to encourage young talent”. The boy began, “Mr Nickels made some pickles on a rainy day. Mr Hartman came a fartin’ and blew them all away”. I have an uncle named Ray Hartman, so Ma and I thought it was a funny poem, but the radio went dead … off the air. A few minutes later when the radio came back on, the audience was still twittering and laughing and then the band played.
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My mother and I loved the Bob Heise show, it was always interesting, while I had chicken soup and crackers. Mom liked the “Breakfast Club” too, with Don McNeill. It was sponsored by a company called Swift that made meat and sausages. The show came from WMAQ in Chicago. They had some comedy stuff and singers, or they would just sit and talk around a breakfast table. I liked “Aunt Fanny”, we listened once in a while on Saturday. Radio was part of our lives every day.
fter school was the best time. If there were just two or three of us we liked to play soldiers with little tin soldiers we could buy from a Woolworths Five and Dime store on Prospect. We could set the soldiers up in the grass of our front yards and have battles. Or just line them up inside the house on the window sill if it was a rainy day. They were a constant reminder that we were at war. Woolworths had a lunch counter, but we never had money for that. They also had penny candy for sale if you could find a penny, and we did find pennies on the sidewalk. We liked to window shop on North Ave. On one corner of Murry and North was the Lakeside Pharmacy. The Oriental Pharmacy was across the street next to the beautiful Oriental Theatre. We liked the Lakeside Pharmacy best because the pharmacist was nice to us and would let us look at the comic books for a little while. His name was Mr. Stein. As we approached the comic book racks at the rear of the store he would say … “You boys lookin or buyin?” we always said, “buyin.” Then he would leave us alone as I would decide which one to purchase. Myron always went with me if I had a dime to buy one. His mom didn’t let him have any, so he would grab one and duck into the shelving that was like a big letter “A” where he would quickly read the whole comic… Myron could read faster than anyone. His mom always said they were, “trash”.
I liked Superman comic books, Captain Marvel, and Donald Duck. Myron loved everything. West of the Lakeside Pharmacy was a whole block of stores. There was a restaurant, a hardware store that my dad liked because they had every kind of tool. I would borrow my dads tools, mostly hammers. I would use them to make things with my friends. I think dad bought a dozen hammers … it was sort of a joke every time we went in to the Coast-to-Coast hardware the owner would ask, “Hey Charlie, you need a hammer?” and he would look at me and I would bend over and re-tie my shoes until the owner and my dad stopped looking at me and I could feel my face cool from red.
My dad worked for the North Ave Polly Prim Family Laundry as a route salesman. He would pick up and deliver laundry on the Eastside. The laundry was about three blocks west of our house on North Ave. You had to cross over railroad tracks on the steel girder bridge. The railroad track was in a trench about thirty feet below ground level. Once in a while on Saturdays when Ma had to work at the A & P and Dad had to work at the Laundry, one or more of my friends and I would be invited to ride in the back of the Ford sedan delivery truck while my dad made pick ups. The large white canvas bags had tags that were tied on the drawstrings tops. We were careful not to knock them off. Sometimes during pick ups we noticed that some bags smelled great just like pretty perfumed ladies and I found that I smelled better too if I sat on them for a while. Dad was a careful driver, but he would take some corners faster than necessary, causing my friends and I to crash and roll in the back of the truck, which was swell, like a carnival ride.
The Milwaukee Journal was delivered every afternoon except Sundays when it came in the early mornings. My mom and dad would read the headlines, obituaries, and classifieds ads while my sister Colleen and I would look at the Green Sheet Funny papers… mostly Colleen had homework to do and at the kitchen table and listened to music on the Philco radio as she worked on school assignments or helped Ma make supper. There were always stories about the war and local boys who had been killed. My dad had several large maps of the world that he would spread out on the dining room table so we could follow the stories of our troops. I took a lot of pride in bragging about my uncle Billy Arn, who was in the Army. I had a picture of him with a Thompson submachine gun.
We actually didn’t know where he was stationed, but with a neat gun like that I told my friends he was on a secret mission and they believed me. Another uncle was Micky McMahon, he was with the Fourth Marines in the South Pacific and rode around in a real Sherman tank.
My oldest cousin was Bob Heberlein. He has a signal man on the USS Sands in the South Pacific. None of my friends had family in the Army, Navy or Marines. It was almost too much for a small boy's pride, but it got me a lot of slaps on the shoulder and sometimes some free penny candy at the Woolworth.
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In the evenings after supper there were many radio programs. My dad liked the newsman Walter Winchell who started each program with the beep…beep…beep of morse code and then said, “Mr. and Mrs. American and all the ships at sea.” He always made everything sound important.
Ma liked “Fibber McGee and Molly”… “brought to you by Johnson Wax” Fibber was sort of a dope who did a lot of dumb things and never cleaned out his closet. Colleen liked big band swing and mushy singers like Frankie Sinatra… She thought he was “dreamy”. She would have girlfriends over once in a while and they would dance in their stocking feet in the living room where the big zenith radio sat against one wall… That was always time for me to go read my comic books.
When it was my turn to listen to the radio I liked “Captain Midnight”, “Sky King” and funny “Baby Snooks” who was really Fanny Brice and the great Gildersleeve but the best one is “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound… Superman” or… “hi ho Silver away… It’s the Lone Ranger” I could close my eyes and I was there… in the adventure, and us good guys would always win.
I got a lot of ideas from books that my dad would bring home from the library. Long after supper, radio programs and outdoor play and after my bath, it would be time for books. My dad would lay on top of my bed with me laying beside him with my head on his bicep. Robinson Crusoe took me to places I have never been. I’ve seen some pirates in the movies but some stories you could hardly read fast enough. Dad would find an interesting author Lake James Fenimore Cooper and he would read to me all of his books. We went from The Deerslayer to The Last of the Mohicans… and The Leatherstocking Tales and everything in between. I had never heard of anyone named Zane, I thought it might be a girl's name like Jane… But Zane Grey wrote stories about the old west. I was always interested in the west because of cowboy movies and I had a grandfather, whom I had never met, who lived in Winnett Montana on his ranch. When Dad read Wildhorse Mesa, I pictured myself and my grandfather. The descriptions were vivid and more colorful than black-and-white movies. I wanted to ride a horse faster, rather than slow, and be old enough to shoot a real gun… Book adventures were like real adventures in my mind.
Weekends were looked forward to, particularly Saturdays were never long enough for kids looking for adventures. The Luick Dairy was across the North Avenue bridge north of the laundry. They had two barns and some smaller buildings. The boss was a man called Smitty. He would wear a cowboy hat and took care of the horses that pulled the milk wagons for the daily milk deliveries. Smitty let us help push the empty milk wagons into rows inside of the big barn. Our first task was to sweep out the wagons and then hose down the insides to get rid of spilled milk, glass, and cigarette butts. They had some milk delivery trucks up on concrete blocks way in the back of the barn. Because of gas rationing for the war, they could not be used and were covered with dust and cobwebs. Generally there were six or seven of us and he kept us all busy. While we worked in the wagons Smitty took the harness stuff off the horses. They had a lot of leather belts and things hanging on their backs and around their necks. Smitty would brush down the horse and then it was time for our reward. Smitty would help us get up on the horses back, one behind the other, holding the kid ahead of you and slowly he would walk the horse to the horse barn where they were fed and watered. We would bounce up and down on the big horse shooting with our fingers and saying, “giddyup” … the horse usually just ignored us but we were real city cowboys and cowgirls and by mid morning we smelled like it too. Smitty was very handy with tools. He fixed some of the horses harnesses with the leather he got from the Galum tannery. He had tools to pound holes and strips of leather he could cut into things.
One Saturday as an extra reward he had made each of us a leather holster and he had made us each a six gun out of a block of pine. We helped to make the gun look real by rubbing on some black Shinola shoe polish on his creation. We could hardly wait for the next cowboy movie at the Oriental …. All we needed was a bandanna!
Saturday at noon we almost always went to Vetucci’s Tavern at the corner of North and Cramer and waited outside the side door on Cramer Street.
The tavern was called “My Office” and every Saturday a man we all called Old John would stagger out of the door … pretty much drunk. He was a nice old guy … he generally wore a long coat with a suit and a hat sort of on the back of his head. We would ask if he needed some help to walk home and he would nod and say, “yes, yes” … so off we would go. Four or five of us would gather around him on each side, front and back of Old John. We held out our arms to keep him steady and upright as we all walked slowly north toward his home. He would lean on our head and shoulders as we shuffled along. He only lived about three blocks away and after we got him up the stairs to his porch we would line up to get paid. Old John always had a pocket full of coins and he thought they were all dimes … he would say, “here is a dime for you and a dime for you and.” … well we kept lighting up going around him sometimes getting pennies, dimes, or quarters until we had a handful. Then we got Old John into his house in ran South to catch the Saturday afternoon matinee at the Oriental Theatre.
There were three movie theaters the Oakland on Oakland, the East on Murray, and the Oriental on Prospect next to the Oriental pharmacy. Colleen and Mara went to see some movies together. On Wednesday they gave away free dishes at the Oriental cuisine put in her “hope chest” along with towels and other girls stuff.
Using the money from old John soda bottle returns and a small weekly allowance anyone could afford a matinee ticket at the Oriental… It was just a quarter for hours of adventure. The Oriental ticket booth lead into a wide hallway and two sets of doors where the ticket takers would stand in their uniforms with shiny gold buttons. The two-story lobby was full of wonders from another world. There were black and gold decorations and burgundy drapery. At the far end of the lobby was a staircase with lions leading to a balcony in a burgundy rope and let us know the balcony and stairs were closed for matinees.
The matinee generally started with the “March of Time” or “The Eyes and Ears of The World” news reels about the war and other important events like baseball horse races and Hollywood stars. Next was a cartoon… Sometimes to which would always get a chair from us. Donald duck would get so angry that he could hardly talk… sometimes porky pig would fight slant eyed Japs with big buck teeth. We would shout and bounce on the seats until the ushers would come with their flashlights to quiet us down.
The sidewalls of the Oriental had a huge Buddhas looking down on the audience to so we were generally a little quieter at the Oriental.
The movie stars that made the best movies were Tom Mix, Johnny Mack Brown, Bob Steele, and Gene Autry, although we all thought Autry sang more often than necessary. Gene Autry had a sidekick named Smiley Barnett who was always getting into a jam. There was lots of shooting and fistfights in writing of courses. The last part of the matinee was “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe” starring Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon. He wore shiny boots helmet keep and had a ray gun that zapped bad guys without using bullets. Flashs’ enemy was Ming the Merciless who looked a lot like a Jap.
Ming had a big cloak with a high collar and scary looking evil eyes… it would end just as something bad was going to happen. The lights would turn up and the ushers would heard us out into the lobby. I generally went to the boys lavatory because that was a long time to sit. Unlike School, boys would stand right next to you at the urinal. We all stayed pretty far into the urinals because he didn’t want anyone gazing at your wiener. Then it was time to roll your pants around your legs and pull up your socks to cover the pants cuff. Next you tied your jacket sleeves around your neck to make a cape and you were now Flash Gordon or Superman as you flew from the Oriental on your way into the bright sunlight of a Saturday afternoon on your way home with your friends who are all just like you and ready to race.
Sometimes on the way home we would stop at the Tompkins ice cream store on the corner of North and Oakland for an ice cream cone. My sister Colleen had a girlfriend named Margie who worked there on Saturdays. We always waited for her to serve us because she would put a little ice cream into the cone and then top it off with a huge scoop of ice cream on top. Fudge Ripple was my favorite. Myron liked everything and Pat Pendergast liked Margie and strawberry.
Then it was time to go home we would walk toward the lake past the funeral home next to the Vitucci’s Tavern. This was generally pretty scary because there were probably some dead bodies in there. The funeral home had a large side porch that covered over the driveway which led back to the garages and the fence where they had garbage cans.
There was a row of short bushes next to the driveway just tall enough that we could bend over and walk past the side of the funeral home and not be seen. We were always looking out for the undertaker because he was big and scary. Sometimes when the garage was open we would dare each other to sneak through the bushes and across the driveway and look in the open garage door. I did it once and saw some caskets in the garage… I didn’t stick around to see if they were empty or full… although Eddie Hamilton offered me $.50 to go back and touch a casket. Myron said someone could be inside the casket and would reach and grab me as I tried to touch it that’s what would have happened and it made me shudder … it was best to stay away from dead bodies in those who kept dead bodies in their house and garage. We generally looked into the funeral homes garage cans because they often had some really nice flowers that we took home to our mothers. My mom only would ask “did you steal these?” I would say “no ma” … she didn’t allow any stealing. No stealing was also taught at Sunday school. “Thou shall not steal” and other “thou shall nots”. It was also not good to mess around with God … as Balko said “you never know who is watching”.
Some of my mother’s rules were harder to obey like “NO CLIMBING TALL TREES”. She didn’t care much about short trees, but they were not much fun to climb in less they had bird nests … that made them interesting! Sometimes Ma would scold me if I ripped up my clothes and shoes when I climbed a tree … so it was also a rule to change into “old clothes and shoes” when I came home from school each day. Summers I wore old clothes all day every day all summer long. Ma washed a lot of clothes in my Maytag ringer washer. There were many total Elm trees on our block but they were old and impossible to climb. In our small backyard was a medium size tree.
This one didn’t have any low branches that I could reach and it was too big to get arms and legs around the trunk. One day I found a long piece of strong rope. I tied and nailed a board one end and made a bunch of fat knots along the length of the rope. After several tries I was able to wedge the board on the lowest branch of the tree in my backyard. I pulled on the rope, it was stuck fast. It was a windy day and looked like it might rain soon so I thought I better climb up the rope to see if I could get into the branches of the tree before it got too windy and wet. It was easy! I bet no other boy ever claimed this particular tree. Up and up I went until I was near the top. The tree branches were swaying with the wind and I could look right into the rear attic window of my two-story home. There was ma, in the attic hanging up wet laundry … our eyes locked and her mouth opened shouting something through the closed window I couldn’t hear what she said but I knew what that lock meant. I was in trouble again. Just then there was a loud clap of thunder which was scarier than my ma. Down I went as fast as I could as the rain started. I was out of that tree like a shot. At the same moment ma exploded through the back door running toward me. I thought, “SPANKING”, but she rushed up to me crying and dropping wooden clothespins. She grabbed me and hugged me and kissed my cheek and carried me into the house as the rain fell harder. I didn’t remember much of what she said once we got inside, but it started with, “DON’T YOU EVER”.
Most of the boys on my Block had older sisters. Angelo and Jimmy Vitucci had a much older sister, I think she was married. Richie and Pat Pendergast had a sister named Maureen, she had dark hair and was nice to us boys and she liked Kittens.
Myron had a little sister Annette and she was a pest and would follow us all around. My sister, Colleen was O.K. … Pat thought she was nice but he also liked Margie who lived on my corner. We all agreed that the best looking older sister on the block was Eddie Hamilton’s sister, Barbara. She was what was called a “knock out”. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and smiled a lot. All of our big sisters had boyfriends and we discovered that boyfriends are a good way to get some extra money. They will pay you to go away! My sister had several boyfriends who will give her gifts. Sometimes I would privately tell the boyfriends that she liked baby Ruth candy bars, Hershey bars and Tootsie Roll’s a lot more than flowers. Colleen would always say thank you, but she really didn’t have a sweet tooth that much because I told her that Barbara Hamilton said that, “chocolate candy causes pimples.” Colleen would put the candy in her underwear drawer in her dresser. She thought I wouldn’t touch bras and panties and nylons and she was right … I will get a pencil and move her stuff. She hid some Nazi binoculars in that same drawer because she didn’t want me to use them. One of her boyfriends had an older brother who sent them home along with some Nazi metals he got off a dead German. All my friends thought they were great … we would spend hours on the upstairs porch watching for army airplanes, looking in windows and eating candy. We would also see my sister walking home in time to put everything back except, of course, the candy.
Barbara Hamilton was a little older than my sister and she had a, “steady boyfriend” who was training to be a Navy pilot at the Great Lakes Naval training station in Illinois.
Great Lakes Naval Training Station
He came to visit Barbara and all the guys wanted to touch his uniform and shiny black shoes. Eddie had postcards of navy airplanes and the pilot told us about how he practiced landing on some boats that were like small aircraft carriers out in Lake Michigan. It was very interesting. We all wanted the pilot to come again and talk to us. Several weeks later and he was very upset. He told us that Barbara’s boyfriend had crashed while training and had been killed … we all cried.After the pilots death everyone was sad … we just sat around without much purpose. Richie’s dad told us to “quit moping around and find something to do.” Mr. Pendergast was really handy with tools. Every fall he would come around to everyone’s house with tall ladders and help all the neighbors hang up there’s a storm windows. He suggested we could make some scooters out of old roller skates, two by fours and wooden apple crates. He explained what a scooter would look like … what a great idea!
A couple of us guys went to the A&P to get some wooden crates from the produce department. Melon and apple crates were best. Richie had some old two by fours in everybody had both skates. I borrowed my dad’s new hammer as his old one was missing. We went over to Richie and Pats backyard to work. Mr. Pendergast had a hand saw and kept a folding ruler in his big overall pants pocket. He showed us how to measure and mark and saw. We all knew how to pound nails in hardly anyone hit their finger more than once. The roller skates were taken apart. The 2 x 4 was the base with two roller skate wheels in front and two wheels towards the rear after the part of the skate that held your shoe was pounded flat. Next was the Apple box and a handlebar made from part of a melon crate because it has rounded edges. I finished my scooter off by adding a tuna can for a make-believe headlight.
Cerner we had races up and down Cramer Street until everyone was tired. Richie thought his scooter was best because he usually won, but he was pretty strong. He told us he was going to play football when he got to Riverside high school. When we showed our scooters to Smitty one Saturday at the dairy he said if we could get some more melon crate he would show us how to make machine guns like the ones the soldiers used. All we needed was some nails in a wood rasp and something call a coping saw. We took turns using his big vice in the horse barn to hold the wood and a few hours later we left the barn armed with wooden Thompson sub machine guns … the Japs and Nazis better watch out now.
We were always on the lookout for Nazis and Japs in our neighborhood. At the movies there we’re often reminders to be watching out for the enemy. Then it showed pictures of grinning Japs and tough looking Nazis sneaking up on us with guns and knives. We didn’t see any Japs call Nazis until one day when Eddie said he saw a Jap behind Dan’s Chicken Pie on North Ave. The stores on Murray had an alley behind their stores which met up in a gravel driveway behind the rear of the North Avenue stores. The Raiders of the stores back up into a big open lot that was overgrown with grass and weeds. Trucks could make deliveries to all the backs of the stores. At the back of Dan’s Chicken Pie restaurant was the kitchen and what time would work outside yes it was hot in the kitchen.
Four of us crawled through the tall grass until we got to the gravel drive. We looked at the back of a Chicken Pie and the screen door opened and out came a JAP. He had real sweaty eyes and was carrying a box. He wore a little round black hat with his hair and a short pigtail. He had a white undershirt and apron and he had a big knife!
We quickly crawled back and ran to Eddie’s house to decide what to do. Pat thought we should find Officer Murphy and tell him we saw a Jap with a knife. Eddie and I thought we should capture him first. Pat said we were “NUTS” if he was going to find the police. Eddie and I decided to attack. Myron decided to go home. As our machine guns were still wet with paint we decided we could use corn stalk spears with dirt clumps on the roots. They were from the victory garden near the Carnation laboratories. We had to use them before and if you stripped off the leaves you can throw them like a spear for a long way they would be perfect for a surprise attack. Eddie and I crawled back through the grass towards the rear of the restaurant. There he was working on some vegetables at a big table. We both had two corn stalk spears each. We got within throwing distance, in unison with Sharon, “BANZAI” and hurled one spear and then the other. The spears struck with a cloud of dirt … and then another, and another. The Jap shouted something in Japanese and then started cussing and then we heard a police whistle. Officer Murphy had arrived.
Eddie and I were jumping and shouting out pointing at the Jap and he was brushing himself off. Officer Murphy was trying to commerce down. It turned out that the Jap was not a Jap. His name was Mr. Wu and he was Chinese. We had to apologize and help wash the dirt off all the vegetables and promise to TELL Officer Murphy first if we spotted anymore Japs or Nazi’s. For a change Pat got to laugh at us. He will pull up the corners of his eyelids and ask us if we “ seen any more Japs lately” … then he would laugh and run away.
Evenings held their own activities as we played after supper from dusk until the Saint Peter and Paul Church bell sounded 7 PM on school nights. Sometimes we played Monopoly on the front hall landing in Myron’s house if it was too dark or cold to play outside. All the neighborhood kids would play hide and seek or kick the can. Cramer Street didn’t have hardly any traffic at night and some parents would sit on chairs or porch stairs watching us play up and down the street. Occasionally you would see a cigarette butt launched and arching flight into the street. It was a good time to tell stories, play with a flashlight and catch nightcrawlers in hopes that someone would take you fishing. All the boys like to catch bugs. At night fire flies were popular. During the day beers were harder to catch without getting stung. The best way to catch up he wants to go in Myron’s backyard because he had Hollyhocks … bees loved em. We would take a clean glass jar with a lid … wait for the bee to land on a flower and then put the jar over the flower head. When the bee went to fly away it was trapped in a jar when you clamped on the lid.
Hollyhocks
At some point, after reviewing our stock pile of dead bugs, bees, grasshoppers and butterflies, Myron thought we could make some interesting dioramas using cigar boxes and smaller wooden crates that we could lay on their sides. We could use some of the flowers from the funeral home and bright colored ribbons that were printed with words like, “FATHER” or “AUNT”. We just turned the ribbon over and use the back side. Blue was the best color ribbon … Green and yellow were also popular. We were surprised that the funeral home threw out so much good usable stuff.In the box we would put real branches, grass and rocks. Dead bees would be hung on pieces of thread from a thumbtack stuck in the box. Dead bugs would be glued to a rock or branch. We showed the finished boxes to some of our older sisters who thought they were disgusting or creepy which made us like them all the more. I had several displayed on the dresser in my bedroom until Ma saw a bee flying in the house with the thread hanging from it. The boxes had to go back outside and in a few weeks the flowers were shot and wilted.
My parents had an old black car that was kept in a small garage around the corner from our home over on Thomas Street. It was a 1936 Pontiac silver streak. The silver streak part was some chrome that ran down the center of the hood. My dad said people would point at the chrome strip when the car was new, but our car was not new. My dad kept it running, but the front fenders were a little loose and there were rust holes and dents in the body. My dad had a small can of black enamel paint he used to make it look a little no sir from time to time.
You couldn’t buy any new cars during the war because of all the production of water stuff, tanks and planes and things. There was a packer dealership show room across from the Thompkins Ice Cream store on North Avenue, but it was empty with just a neon clock on the wall.
With the rationing of gas we didn’t use the car much. New tires and inner tubes were not reusable so my dad always had to see if we had a flat tire before he moved the car out of the garage. I helped fix lots of flats in that little garage with the three wooden folding doors. I always like the smells of the car in the garage, but I could never get us in there because Dad kept it pad locked.
On Sundays my dad and I will go to Summerfield Methodist Church. Ma didn’t come to church. She has been kicked out of the Catholic Church for getting a divorce from a guy named Glenn, who I never met. She would stay home and listen to classical music on the radio and make a special Sunday dinner that was always the best meal of the week.
Summerfield Church was a friendly place and my cousin Drue and I went to sunday school classes in little rooms on the second floor that would overlook the large open foyer below us. We often had a part in the service like standing up and speaking something we had memorized from our lessons.
We had a children’s choir that would sing sometimes. We would stand one behind the other at the front of the church, Little kid in front and bigger kids and back. There was one older guy named George that would usually stand behind me, sometimes he would poke me in the back or do something to make me laugh. I like singing Rock of Ages and the Doxology who is saying as the collection plates were passed. The congregation seem to like to see and hear kids perform. If we made mistakes when speaking we would get a lot of snickers and smiles. When church was over all the kids tripped back up to the classroom balcony to get our Sunday school folders and coats. Sometimes George would bring a few b.b.’s and pass them out to some of the boys. We drop them one at a time on the older people as they left the foyer below us … our turn to snicker and smile.
Some Sunday afternoons we would go to a picnic in Lake Park or if it was real hot, to the Bradford beach because the lake was always cool … generally I could only wade out to my knees before I was shivering. Ma would make potato salad with green onions, radishes and topped off with slices of boiled eggs. Meat was rationed so we sometimes might have cold fried chicken. Grampa Graf Crème Soda what is my personal favorite, but we didn’t have it very often.
My Ma and Dad had many friends from work and my dad had two married sisters with children who will join us for picnics. After eating it was time for softball, soccer or just throwing around a baseball or football. Sometimes the man would pitch horseshoes. I wasn’t allowed to although I tried, but my pitching arm would just as likely throw the horseshoe straight up which would send everyone shouting and running for cover under the trees.
My friends and cousins and I also enjoyed making up songs like …
WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK, HITLER IS A JERK, MUSSOLINI KISSED HIS WEENIE, NOW HIS BRAINS DON’T WORK
And poems like …
FUZZY WUZZY WAS A BEAR, FUZZY WUZZYHAD NO HAIR, FUZZY WUZZY WASN’T VERY FUZZY WAS HE?
ICKY GOOIE WAS A WORM, ICKY GOOIE LIKED TO SQUIRM, ICKY GOOIE MET A TRAIN, ICKY GOOIE!
Pewaukee Lake for fishing was another Sunday destination for my family. My dad had some jointed bamboo poles that he would tie onto the old Pontiac. Colleen would bring a boyfriend, but they never seemed to do much fishing. They would sit at a picnic table holding hands looking into each others eyes and say a bunch of mush … it was enough to make a fellow sick. I would fish from the pier or sometimes a robot that we would rent. Ma had a big hat she would wear went fishing. If it was sunny in too “mosquitoee’’ we will go swimming in the warm waters. Later supper at home would be fried bluegills and crappies and some fresh potato pancakes … ma was a great cook!
During the war most folks had a Victory Garden to grow fresh vegetables for their family. That way all the farm production could be sent for our troops in our allies overseas. We had a small garden in our little backyard between a tree and the back fence, but it didn’t do so well because of the shade. We also had a large garden as part of a Community Victory Garden next to the Carnation Laboratory building on the corner of Thomas and Oakland.
There was a large open lot that was divided into neighborhood family plus. My friends and I had chores in our gardens. We would carry over buckets of water to give our plants a drink. Generally it would take two of us to carry one bucket of water. We managed to splash enough water to keep our legs clean too. I was also on dandelion duty … I dug out all the dandelions with an old screwdriver to get the root. I would also help weed a garden with my parents help to identify what’s what as I once wiped out a whole roll of radishes mistaking them for the enemy. I think the whole garden space belong to the Carnation lab and they let neighbors use the vacant land as part of the War effort. There were wooden stakes and twine to mark off the plots and paths. Sometimes the Carnation laboratory workers would be outside their building for a break or a smoke and my friends and I got to know some of the young men and young women in the white coats.
At one point we were given a small tour of the facilities. The elevated loading dock had metal trash cans inside a wire mesh cage near the rear door. We all went through the loading dock doors there were floor to ceiling metal cages that were the numbered and had little glass tube water bottles for the hundreds of little white mice. I’ve never smelled so many mice! Each cage had sawdust in the tray on the cage for an contained one mouse. The workers explained that they were testing and experimenting on different kinds of foods by feeding the mice. Later the mouse would be grabbed by its tail and weighed on the scale. Notes were entered on clipboards. We were all fascinated and soon volunteered to help. It was a lot more fun to water my instead of plants. Pretty sure we were all regular helpers … helping clean the cages and sweeping up sawdust which was constantly kicked on the lab floor by the business. We also got to know the mice in soon pick favorites mine was of course MICKEY .. I think my mom picked Mighty Mouse after a comic book he had read. Eddies mouse was HARPO cause like the real HARPO in the movies hey Sarah was sort of curly. Once after helping out at the laboratory Myron, Eddie and I were leaving the building when one of the guys in a white coat ask Eddie if he would empty a trashcan on our way out. We had never taken out trash before and needed a key to get into the wire mesh area where the big metal cans were kept. I open the padlock and Eddie pulled off the small cans cover … he let out a holler and said … “look at this’’ … the can was half full of dead mice … some of them we thought looks familiar.
Those nice guys in white coats were killing mice … we had to find a way to stop them from killing Mickey, Mighty Mouse and Harpo. We begin to watch more closely the work of the white coats. We noticed that mice that were new started over by the windows, after about a week they were all moved 40 at a time to the cages more to the middle of the room. The cages near the opposite wall Myron said was “death row”. So Mickey, Mighty Mouse and Harpo were moved to the center cages we swap them back out with another mouse. We did this over and over about while tried to find a way to rescue our mice. I asked Ma if I could keep a mouse as a pet at home and she said, “definitely no” which meant no for sure. Which was pretty much what Eddie’s dad said too. I think Myron’s mom said no and then gave him a long lecture about “filthy mice”.
We kept him isolated for weeks and weeks, they were the biggest mice in the laboratory. I think somebody figured out what we were doing so we lost our jobs.
School finally ended although I liked school it was great to get out for the summer. We had a song that you could hear her in the hallways as we ran for doors singing and cheering over and over again, “Schools out…schools out…teachers let the monkeys out…one jump in and one jump out … and one jumped in the sauerkraut.”