Some Days are Diamonds. Some Days are Stone.

Before I begin about my 7^th grade year and what took place then I have a few loose ends to tie up. I’ll start with some stories that I didn’t use earlier to keep the posts to a reasonable length, or because they just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the text.

When I was ten mom and dad bought a used 26” bike for my birthday. They paid ten bucks for it—a lot at the time—but it quickly became my prized possession. I rode it everywhere. Even to Mt. Lookout, perhaps two miles away.

Mt Lookout had the nearest bowling alley and became the site of my first job; setting pins. I would perch on a roost in the side of the pit, and after each ball would jump into the pit, put the ball on the ball return, pick up all pins not standing and load them in the setter. Then I would jump back on the roost. I got paid fifteen cents/game. I didn’t last too long on the job.

Occasionally someone would be talking and roll their ball while I was still in the pit—a hazard for all pin setters—and I’d get blasted with the pins. They hurt, and so it made you very fast.

One Saturday afternoon I was setting pins for a group of four women. They simply didn’t look before taking their shots; they just yammered away with the other players and to hell with the pin boy. I was getting pummeled pretty hard, and I even yelled at them to please be careful. It made no difference; I was dodging pins or getting nailed by them constantly. 

This is how I lost my job:  After the umpty-ninth pin clobbered me instead of putting the ball into the ball return I just heaved it back down the alley as hard as I could. Unfortunately, although it scared the heck out of them and they scattered in every direction, I didn’t hit any of the women. I did get fired and so ended my career as a pin setter.

But before the end of my career in bowling as I was riding my bike past St. Stephens Catholic Church on the way home, two older boys—known trouble makers and bullies—Mike and Don were sitting on the steps. When I went by they jumped up, knocked me off the bike, and before I could get up they had taken the bike and ridden off; Don driving and Mike on the handlebars. Oh, yeah, they were laughing like crazy.

St. Stephen's as it looked then and today.

Crying, I ran the four or five blocks home, raced in the house slamming the door behind me and grabbed a baseball bat. Dad heard the commotion, saw me and the bat and made me stop and tell him what happened. I did, and then he and I went for a walk. Dad knew where both families lived.

When we arrived at Don’s house dad had me stay on the sidewalk while he went onto the porch and knocked. A man’s voice said, “What do you want?” in an unpleasant sort of way. Dad said “My son’s bike.” “It ain’t here,” was the reply. Dad, without missing a beat said, “Bring the bike out or I’m coming in.” There was a short silence and then a much chagrined Don appeared wheeling the bike with him. I went home grateful to have my bike once again, but so proud of my dad I got teary-eyed writing this.

There were so many other great moments. Often dad worked until three or four AM closing a show. Whenever that happened (on non-school nights) he would stop at Willie’s bakery downstairs and get a dozen glazed donuts still warm from the oven. Then he would wake up mom and we kids and we’d have a early morning feast.

On the rare occasions that he was home on a Friday night he would usually let one of us kids stay up and have some one-on-one time as he had his pre-bed beer. We picked the subjects and he was interested in all of them. That was where I had my first taste of sardines, limburger cheese, and a host of other “adult” treats.

There were teaching moments, too. Nineteen-sixty was a presidential election year; Kennedy vs Nixon. Our class had a mock election and Nixon won. I told dad that he probably should vote for Nixon because everyone thought he would win. He responded by first telling me that because someone else said I should do something didn't mean I should do it. I should do my own research. Then he asked me why I thought he should vote for Nixon. I had no reason other than what I had said earlier. Then he told me something I have never forgotten:

He said that politicians main goal was to get elected and so most would say or do whatever was necessary to make that happen. He also said that often politicians on both sides were dishonest. I believe his actual words were, "All politicians steal." Then he added, "But the Democrats steal from the rich and the Republicans from the poor--and son you ain't rich." That advice is still good today. And I still adhere to it. 

In the picture below of dad you can see the Kennedy/Johnson sticker on our door.

So this was where we were at—a pretty good place—by the end of 1959. I had an opportunity to see Dad’s 1960 tax forms (for his 1959 income) and he had made $6900. I was much older when I saw this and making more than that so I wasn’t very impressed. Then I looked up what the average wage earner made in 1959: it was $3,855.80. After years of struggling to get by, with dad now a full journeyman stage hand we were coming into the money. (I’ve mentioned before the car, the TV, new radio, mom’s hearing aid and many other recent additions) That journeyman’s card made all the difference.

Of course it didn’t last. Dad was pretty sick.

He had emphysema, today not a quick death, but this was the 1960’s. No portable oxygen and not even a lot of knowledge of what the disease was. It was serious with dad. He had been caught in that forest fire, smoked Lucky Strikes for years, and spent time operating carbon arc spot lights. A deadly combination.

I later found out from mom that dad’s union brothers had been carrying him up the stairs to the spots until the beginning of 1960 when even being carried was too hard on him. That, my friends, is what a union is supposed to be and why I will always support them. They did all they could to protect a brother in need—and that is why I was—and am proud to have been both a union worker and representative for the United Auto Workers. 

Through his union connections they found him a job at River Downs Racetrack as a ticket seller. He could take a bus right from our apartment building to the track and home again. (Our car had broken down and we couldn't afford to fix it. The towing company kept it.) It did take him ten minutes to climb the two flights of stairs to our apartment. Then he was done for the day.

During our time in the apartment he had always taken care of the coal furnace in the winter. That job, which including shoveling coal into the furnace and removing the unburnt coal—known as “clinkers,” now fell to mom. She had already begun cleaning the lobby, stairwells and laundry room after dad lost his stage hand work.

Dad had two surgeries. In the first they removed a couple of glands—I don’t remember which—and in the second they removed a lung. That would be unthinkable today, but then they were just doing the best they could. The scar was huge and frightened me badly.

Below is one of the last photos of dad before he became housebound. He had lost an enormous amount of weight. When he died he weighed just eighty six pounds. 

He was now for the most part housebound, sleeping on a chaise lounge so he could keep his head elevated. He could no longer work at the track so another unlikely set of angels stepped in—his old acquaintances in the gambling world. They gave him book to run from the house—all via telephone. It paid him a small, but living wage. It also ended we kids being allowed to answer the phone!

Just after I began my 7^th grade year in the college prep program I made mom tell me what was happening. I knew it was bad. She told me dad was going to die, and soon. I was not to tell anyone else—especially my sisters.

As I have mentioned before I was an avid Christian and church goer. After mom told me I went into my room and cried and prayed that God would let dad live and take me instead. I meant it. I prayed that dad would be there to take care of mom and my sisters and that they needed him more than me. I prayed that prayer every night before bed until it was obvious it wasn’t working.

Finally dad was too weak to even run the book. Mom began working in the bakery in addition to being the building janitor and taking care of us. She made $24 per week and Willie would let her go up and check on dad regularly. Until that time there had never been a morning when we kids were at home that mom hadn’t been there when we awoke. It was quite a change. Mom left clothes out for the girl’s next day, dad would inspect us from the chaise lounge and we would grab a roll at the bakery and head off to school.

Before I close this post I have to mention one more very important thing that happened. At Christmas 1960 we received not one, but three, baskets of food: One from the church; one from the union, and one from the mob. Mom cried and cried as they came. We didn’t have much. They were a God send, a job  send, and a mob send.

I’ll leave things here until the next post.