Word Problem Anxiety

BART!

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42022551

The Simpsons's creators hit the nail on the head when they came up with this gem. Bart Simpson struggles with a word problem on a test. This was me. Bart probably had the "exam dream" for years after formal education was over; I know I did. After about 40 years they didn't occur anymore.

What Were We Thinking??

an old-time paddy wagon

Some folks would disagree with this statement: "America has a much more tolerant, less racist society than we had in earlier generations." True or not, at the very least we have eliminated some of the offensive expressions that were once a thoughtless, accepted part of our lexicon.

As children we said the following without emotion, not even a feeling of putting down a race. Some of the terms are pretty bad.

Jew down meant to try to get something for a lower price, a crude form of bargaining.

Chinese fire drill--at a stop sign or stop light someone yells "Chinese fire drill!" A load of teenagers jump out of the car, run around it one time (either direction), then drive away as if nothing happened.

Mexican overdrive: put your car in neutral to see how far you can go without pushing the gas pedal.

Paddy wagon: A term that was once common usage in Eastern cities. It refers to the days before police cars, when criminals or drunks were picked up and locked in an enclosed wagon with barred windows. I guess the cops were used to picking up drunken Irishmen, thus the use of Paddy (nickname for Patrick).

Indian burn: enclose someone's lower arm with your both fists, then twist in opposite directions. This really hurts.

Nips, wops, krauts, chinks, Japs, greasers, and wetbacks are what some called other ethnic groups back in the day, and thought nothing of it, probably because in "whitebread" San Fernando Valley, we knew no one of those ethnicities. The N-word was a more serious offense. I got my mouth washed out with soap for saying it at about age five. I picked it up on the playground having no idea what it meant. We weren't allowed to talk like that at home.

Polish jokes: Poles became the butt of a certain type of joke in the 60s, but I don't know why. The first one I ever heard was, "How do you tell the Polish guy at a wedding? He's the one wearing the clean white t-shirt." Well hahaha. Nothing amazingly funny about that.

Indian giver: a term for someone who gives something, then takes it back. It was an insulting put-down to be called this.

In a museum in Victoria BC, there's a small yet weighty machine once used in fish processing. It is called an "iron chink." In other words, it does the work of several Chinese men.

iron chink

A Chinese haircut: lock one arm around someone's neck to immobilize them, then using the knuckles of the other hand, rub hard on their scalp. Ouch. The Three Stooges were famous for this.

Jap flaps are a name for a special kind of flip-flops that have straw feet and velour straps.

Thankfully, we don't hear these terms any longer.

Bob and His Helms Truck

We had Adohr Dairy home delivery and lucky us, we also had the Helms bakery truck that cruised our neighborhood streets. We just called it the Helms man, as in, "go get your nickel--here comes the Helms man!"

Our Helms man's name was Bob and this is the truck he drove:

The rear was where the goodies were kept:

The Helms truck sold anything bread-ish. As with Adohr, the service was a boon to the families who owned only one car, the car that was absent most of the time with the husband at work.

Kids loved the Helms truck. A hard-earned nickel bought a glazed doughnut smothered in chocolate (my fave). Our Helms guy, Bob, knew the habits of folks on his route, including the school children. It wasn't a coincidence that he inched down the street by the school when the 3:00 bell rang. Any child with a coin in their pocket hit the jackpot.

Bob was the only Helms man we ever knew. I don't know his last name, or where he was from. Did he have a family? Don't know. And how well would a family get by on a Helms bakery truck income, whose products sold for nickels and dimes? Thinking about Helms reminds me what a nice guy Bob was.

Both Adohr and Helms neighborhood delivery began to disappear in the late 60s. A few miles from our house a drive-through place opened that sold the essentials--milk and milk products (even ice cream), eggs, and everything bread-y. We had two cars by then, so Mom could drive through this place any ol' time and tell the attendant what she wanted, without ever lugging all the kids into a grocery store for the essentials.

Adohr Milk Delivery

A favorite quaint memory of mine is that of the Adohr Man. In the 50s and 60s homes in our San Fernando Valley neighborhood had dairy products delivered to our front porch by Adohr dairy. Adohr Farms was at 18000 Ventura Blvd. in Tarzana, California (founded 1916!). Adohr had the largest Guernsey herd in the world, but we didn't know or care about that as kids. I just now read it on the internet.

Here's how home delivery worked: The night before our regular delivery day Mom put last week's empty milk bottles into the wire crate (see photo below) Adohr provided, and set it out on our front porch. A rolled up note was stuck into the neck of a bottle with our order for that day, as to how many bottles of milk we needed. And that was that. The next morning ice cold bottles of fresh milk magically appeared on our porch.

I remember that later you could get eggs, butter, cheese, and other dairy-related items delivered also. Am not sure if Adohr did that, or if another service delivered those items. Adohr milk was deliciously thick and creamy. Once in a while a bottle got knocked over and shattered all over the floor; that was tragic. Milk was more glamorous when it came in bottles.

Home delivery was a boon to families like ours who owned only one car--that was the norm then. In suburbia there was no nearby walk-to corner store selling the daily essentials. Once Dad drove off to work, Mom was stranded at home. Not only could Mom not run to the store any ol' time, but in fact, Mom didn't even drive until I was 5 or 6 years old.  The Adohr Man kept our young, growing family in milk.

Adohr Farms

Adohr milk bottle

Adohr crate

Adohr in the early days

I'm Lucky To Be Alive

I ate bushels of Cocoa Krispies, yuck

Twenty-first century-ers are gaga over health-food, or, should I say, food that is touted by somebody, somewhere, to be healthy for you. Hardly a week goes by without media fanfare highlighting some miraculous new food that will  a) boost energy,  b) improve sex-life, c) detoxify (whatever that means),  d) make us sleep better, e) make us live to be 100, f) prevent a host of diseases including the big C, or g) all of the above. Celebrities are often proponents of one miracle food or another, and folks follow like sheep.

Trendy foods need not be pleasing to the palate--kale or fermented mushroom yuck come to mind. Proponents emphasize that the worse it tastes, the better it must be for you. These are the foods that become an overnight sensation with a rock-star following. Not that certain foods didn't become a health holy-grail in past generations--some did. But without the far-reaching tentacles of modern media, not to mention social media, food movements were a local flash-in-the-pan. An exception was the practically national about-face from butter to margarine around 1960. Butter==bad. Margarine ==good.  I remember this one because my Dad's high cholesterol forced our switch to margarine. We drank the kool-aid and stayed with margarine until about 20 years ago, when new information showed margarine's healthier hype to be a big fat lie.

Well, the purpose of this post is really to talk about a few super unhealthy foods I consumed in childhood. Most I wouldn't touch now with a ten-foot pole, but I still dream of fried bologna, the original 'heart attack on a plate.' Get a cast-iron skillet, sizzle a stick of butter, throw in the bologna until the center puffs up and the edges are crisp, and you have a meal fit for a king. My sister fried me some a few years ago and I tasted all the good memories of my childhood in every bite.

 fried bologna, one of the most heavenly foods ever

you know you're doing it right when they resemble little sombreros

Butter sandwiches. Mmm, my daily lunch during my pre-school years. Mom placed square slices of cold butter on the nutritionless white Wonder bread--no spreading the butter--it was delish. One small confession--we ate the generic version of Wonder bread, which was cheaper.

Cocoa Krispies. There isn't a food on the planet with less stick-to-your-ribs. Or nutrition. But I ate bushels of it.

Raw bread balls with a side of crusty pinwheel--these kept me alive from elementary through high school. Step 1) take a slice of white bread; 2) carefully peel the crust off into one long-strip; beware, if it breaks, then you can't make a proper crust pinwheel; 3) roll the crust up tight into a pinwheel; 4) squeeze the white part of the bread in a closed fist until the air is gone and all you have is a blob of dough; 5) eat the dough ball first; 6) hold the crusty pinwheel vertical and bite into it--if you see the many striped layers of crust in front of you, you'll know you're doing it right.

Twinkies--do they still make these? Now they sound pretty gross to me but we didn't get a lot of treats back in the day, so. Maybe these aren't actually Twinkies, but were called cupcakes. Anything chocolate tasted good to me. Still love chocolate but my tastes are more refined now. Even though the bar was lower then, I can't believe I ever thought these were tasty:

Another version of Twinkie cupcakes, but with pink coconut all over it. Yikes.

Yum, Them's Good Eatin'!

We kids of the 50s--60s--70s ate tons of disgusting and unhealthy foods, when held up to the fresh high quality choices available today. It's a miracle that any of us who were born in that era are still walking around. Sorry that some of us aren't.

There was one type of "food" I craved around ages three to five, that I'm pretty sure no other human ate. Our beagle--Sunny--loved dog biscuits, and so did I. Yup, I craved them. No idea why. Nothing about this yearning makes sense. Dog biscuits were fibrous and gritty and dry without any alluring flavor that made them appealing (to a human); I might as well have eaten sawdust. They did not go down easy. The grit in them could bring on a choking fit that required lots of water after indulging.

Mom had a fit about my habit. She forbid me to eat them and stuck the biscuit box up beyond my reach. Didn't matter. I discovered that if I silently sneaked into the tiny one-butt pantry, did not turn on the light, climbed the shelves monkey-style to grab the box, I could remain in there undetected long enough to chow down a couple of biscuits. There was always a price to pay when Mom finally found me, but it was so worth it.

The cure came when mischievous, pesty Sunny had to go away to live on a farm. No more dog biscuits for me. Somehow I got over it and moved on to eat other, more people-oriented junk food. More about those foods another day.

my favorites looked about like this

this may not have been the brand that I craved, but what an adorable box!

maybe it was Gro-Pup that I ate?

August 21, 1968

Dad scooped the Los Angeles Times off our driveway every morning at 5:30. He and Mom usually had it read by the time the rest of us rolled out of bed. This day, August 21, 1968, was different though. We were all up by 5 a.m. preparing to attend cousin Charlie's funeral an hour south in Long Beach, California. Dear Charlie died on the 18th of August after several years of tragic decline due to ALS. He was Mom's first cousin. My angelic father had been the catalyst for getting our family down to visit Charlie almost every Sunday after church, despite the long drive to the nursing home in Long Beach, and later Fullerton, California.

We woke up to the above headline that August Wednesday, the 21st. Our eyes were sleepy, and that front page glared at us from the kitchen table as we ate our rolls and juice, putting a weighty damper on an already melancholy morning. The huge, bold type implies that Times readers should be and would be deeply interested in this invasion and its consequences, and maybe a few were. Our arch-enemy, Russia, had gone rogue again. I suspect that not many folks actually cared about Czechoslovakia, which wasn't exactly on the radar of the average American. Except for us, that is.

Dad's parents had immigrated to the US from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now the Czechoslovakia of the bold headline, in the early 1900s. Over the decades what with a depression and two world wars, pinching poverty, Grandpa's long hours in the coal mines, the births of eight children, and then Grandpa's crippling mine accident in 1951, they had never entertained the thought of going back to the old country for a visit.

Sometime after Grandpa's death in late 1966, we had word that Baba was considering a visit home. Though her parents and siblings were deceased, she had nieces and nephews who were living, a few of whom corresponded with her. The 'Prague Spring' was warming. Why she did not just pick up and go is unknown. But on August 21, 1968, the opportunity vanished. I wonder now if she would have been trapped behind the Iron Curtain had she been caught in the invasion.

Then followed several decades of silence from her family in Czechoslovakia. I remember the significance of the first letter she received from her cousin Michael Ihnat-Mikula in the mid 1980s. The political climate was relaxing a bit, and he was able to reestablish contact.

After European communism tumbled, Slovakia became independent. In 1997 I traveled to  meet my Slovak family for the first time. A large group of cousins gathered at a home in Humenne to meet me. We discussed their lives and events of the past. The oldest person there was Irina Porochnava Bubnasova. I brought up the Russian invasion of 1968, and wasn't prepared for a wrenching emotional response.

Irina gravely recounted the grief and dread and terror of that August morning. Every woman who had endured World War Two was hysterical. Russian tanks crowned the hills around town with guns pointing towards homes, at these women, at their children. It was the world war all over again.

The vision of Russian soldiers seizing the town, and the women of Humenne reliving erstwhile terrors in their minds, brought forth tears. I couldn't and wouldn't ask Irina about the terrors, but am pretty sure that the same horrors of war going on today in Syria or Iraq are what went on then. My comfortable American self can feel sympathy but can never fully fathom the abominations of war.

Though the 1968 invasion stifled the wave of freedom behind the Iron Curtain, the Russian army didn't occupy long. Life in Humenne and the country returned to normal, albeit a harsher version of it. Less than 25 years later, the Soviet yoke was thrown off, and my family there now lives in light and prosperity and freedom.

City of Humenne
My grandfather was born in a village located on the upper slopes of Vihorlat, the mountain in the background

Humenne's town center

POO-PITCH, POOP-ITCH, POOOOOP-ICH: My Mom's Brilliant Scheme

 

 Mom--Dad--my sister Nancy in our backyard about 1963

Mom was the architect of small but important ideas that enriched the lives of her children. She taught us how to braid by hanging up a piece of cardboard with three hanks of yarn attached, for us to manipulate. She taught me how to ride the city bus so I could go to my grandparents' house for the weekend--at about age eight. She ran us kids through 'decorum drills' so that we were able to be smooth in the presence of company. And her prescience now and then headed-off potentially harsh or embarrassing moments in our lives.

Dad worked in the field of forms design and management for Lockheed Aircraft Co., located at what is now Hollywood-Burbank Airport. His office, in Building #9, was right next to the air terminal. Offices were formal then. Men wore white shirts, dark suits and conservative ties every day. Women wore suits or dresses, heels and jewelry, and got their hair done every week. Work hours were 8 to 5, and they meant it. Most families had one car as did we, so Dad carpooled to work with other men in dark suits. To sum it up, white collar work was a stiff, regulated, button-up environment.

One fine day when I was about nine, Mom announced that we four children were going to visit Dad's work on our way to an event. What a rare treat! We would wear our Sunday best, and for weeks we brushed up on our manners. We practiced hand-shaking, curtsies (bows for my brother), our "how-do-you-dos" and "pleased to meet yous." We would be meeting Dad's co-workers: Mr. Benedon, Mrs. Knaack, and a staffer named Pauline Pupich.Yeah, that last one was problematic. Mom knew just how we would react to meeting Miss Poop (ich). It wouldn't be pretty. In fact, it would look about like this.

Mom approached the problem this way. If she said the name Pupich hundreds of times before we actually met Miss Pupich, we would get our laughs out of us, and be straight-faced at the critical moment. So for weeks at very unexpected times, Mom uttered the word, Poop-ich, with an emphasis on the 'POOP,' in our presence. She could be in mid-sentence, say the 'magic' word, then continue on with her thought. She delivered it while tucking us in at night, while serving up dinner, and when she breezed through the room while we did our homework.

Presto! It worked. We silly kids were so tired of hearing it, that when we met beautiful blond Pauline Pupich, not a laugh crossed our lips. Mom was so proud of us; I think we got some kind of reward. Really, Mom deserved a reward for her brilliant strategy. We kept our dignity and so did Pauline.


NOTE: After writing this I wondered about Pauline. She was probably in her late 20s at the time of our only meeting. A Google search showed she was born in CA in 1934, in 1955 was a student at Valley College, and was active in student affairs. She married John Richmond  in 1968. I found a 2012 obituary of her brother Milan that said Pauline pre-deceased him. Further search shows she passed away in 2007. And she is buried in the same cemetery as my Mom. Mmmm.  Life can be so strange.

Mrs. Rogers

Everyone knows Mr. Rogers, that paragon of virtue, kindness, gentleness goodness and love, brought into our homes via PBS back in the day.

Let me introduce you to MRS. Rogers, who was Mr. Rogers's equal in virtue, with her own brand of love and service.  She was not in any way related to the well-known and loved Mr. Rogers; she had her own Mr. Rogers, sans a cardigan sweater, who was a close second to PBS's wonderful version.

Mrs. Rogers  was my Brownie and Girl Scout leader for 9 years.  She and Reva Sims formed Troop 2259 in 1960 when her daughter Patty reached first grade.  Through the grapevine my Mom heard about this brand new Brownie troop forming, and I got in on the ground floor, so to speak.  Patty was an only child, adopted in fact, and Mrs. R. was able to put all of her energy into our troop, for Patty's sake yes, but I know she believed in us all.   Mrs. R. was 100% committed, so our troop became the most active in the area.  Weekly meetings, serving in schools, churches and communities, assisting individuals in their needs, camping, crafting, cooking, horse-back riding, personal grooming lessons, galloping dinners at holiday time, father-daughter and mother-daughter fun.  You name it, we did it.

Mrs. R. has been gone for a while but her legacy lives on.  I wholeheartedly know this due to the degree my own life was enriched by her providing activities that developed me into a more competent, better person than would have happened naturally.  A few years ago Patty traced via Facebook, the former members of Troop 2259 and invited us all to the page where she posted photographs of those good ol' days.   And then this summer, Patty was living temporarily in Bend, a town 3 hours away from me.  I spent a long, delightful afternoon with her in Bend discussing her mother and our troop.  We hadn't seen each other in over 42 years.

Patty let me in on a few secrets about Mrs. Rogers that I couldn't have guessed.  Most laughable was her perfectionism.  Our troop always made a crafty gift for our parents at holiday time, and for Mother's and Father's Day.  I thought the crafts were swell, and that our parents would be giddy as all get-out to receive them.  What I didn't know is that Mrs. R. in her private time engaged in do-overs.  If a girl's craft was shoddy or mediocre, she would "fix" it before it was taken home as a gift.  Who knew?

Mr. Rogers was involved in our overnight camp activities.  One time I discovered rattle snakes living near our tents.  Armed with a shovel and the help of a few others, he made short work of that nasty serpent den.  He was a quiet, kind, helpful man.

As I sit here looking at Mrs. Rogers's photo, tears come to my eyes.  I loved her and am grateful she dedicated herself to building up the next generation of girls.  We all turned out pretty good!

Some special memories about Troop 2259: 

My first overnight experience away from home was a Brownie campout at Chatsworth Park.  Our family did not own a sleeping bag until this event required us to buy one.  It was Army green on the outside, with a flannel brown/red/green hounds-tooth on the inside.  We slept under the stars.

Our troop wrote and visited Kim L., one of our troop members, who was confined at Olive View Sanitarium for asthma.

Some of us worked with younger children at the elementary school who had large motor problems (my photo was in the paper for this).

Mrs. Rogers organized a Brownie Mother's Day Tea, which got my photo with Mom in the Valley Green Sheet Newspaper.  Mrs. Rogers must have cultivated reporter Polly Spain as a contact at the newspaper; Polly wrote regular articles about our troop.

Brownie Charm School: Mrs. N., the mother of one of the girls, educated us in personal grooming, manners, and charm.  We learned to walk with books on our heads, do manicures, make proper introductions, etc.

At the end of every meeting we held hands and sang, "Good might Brownies, good night Brownies, good night Brownies, we'll see you again next week!."   We would twist our arms around, break the circle and head for home.  Other songs we sang often were "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold."   And the well known, "Day Is Done."  We sang the lively folk song "Titanic" ("Oh it was sad, oh it was sad . . .") until the Girl Scout Council said we couldn't anymore.  Survivors of the Titanic could be hurt or even traumatized by it.

Girl Scout camp was the best.   Hollywoodland, Camp Lakota, and Camp Aventura are the places I remember.  My own family didn't camp, and I thrilled at the treat of sleeping in a tent, cooking outdoors, and exploring the wilderness.

Badges.  As we completed each theme we were awarded the badge for it.  My sash was quite full.  I loved achieving each one of those.  Wish I had my sash now.



 

How I Know the Capital of Honduras is Tegucigalpa

One of my memorable miseries of elementary school was that in sixth grade I drew Honduras as the country I would have to write about in a 30-page report on a Latin nation.  I'm sure Honduras is a nice place to visit, what with its jungles and wildlife and seacoasts and all, but in the mid-60s there wasn't a dang bit of information available about this obscure non-essential nation--outside of a couple of paragraphs in World Book Encyclopedia, of course.

How in the heck did I get stuck with Honduras, when others drew Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and other strategic, prominent places with tons of information free for the taking?
 
When it came time for oral reports or other such elementary school agonies, teachers always called on the top of the alphabet first, and my last name beginning with B meant that painfully shy and deeply introvert me was often the first person to present.  First person was always graded harder because first person was the example that everyone else would follow and must set a high standard.  First person was the proverbial human sacrifice.  By the time the XYZ students gave their presentations, the teacher was profoundly sick of it all and am pretty sure they always got As.

Occasionally the teacher mixed things around, such as on the day we students strode to the blackboard, covered with the teacher's list of Latin nations, to circle the country each would write about in our 30-page report.  On that day Mr. Ressler decided it wasn't fair to always call on Suzanne first for every activity, so why don't we give her a break by starting at the end of the alphabet this time.  That's how I got to be the last in line to pick a country--the only one left un-circled, in fact.  Unfair doesn't begin to describe this arbitrary switcheroo.

 Tegucigalpa either means "hills of silver" or "place of residence of the noble" or "in the homes of the sharp stones"

My parents rarely got involved in my homework assignments except when Mom dropped me for an afternoon at the library to work on a research project.  It was so demoralizing to have the 60s version of the internet at my fingertips, yet discover only that Honduras's capital was a non-pronounceble Tegucigalpa and  was a prominent exporter of bananas, and also grew coffee and sugar cane.  How to get 30 pages out of that?, I complained to Mom.

She offered to help, and couldn't uncover more than I had.  And bless her heart, she took me to a travel agency hoping against all odds that they might have a brochure or even a photo of Honduras for me to use.  Nada.  Zip.  Americans hardly vacationed out of the country then, let alone put obscure Honduras on their bucket list, if there even were bucket lists then.

My solution was threefold: write REALLY BIG on my 30 pages,  create a detailed index that would up the page count, and draw lots of pictures of bananas.  Huge pictures of bananas on every page.  And maps--I included several of those.  You shoulda seen my writing.  I was able to stretch words across the lined notebook paper like I could stretch strands of silly putty across a room.  I'm sure the teacher wasn't fooled but he gave me a good grade.  Perhaps he secretly sympathized.  Maybe he even planned the whole switcheroo thing, knowing that if anyone could take the challenge of whatever obscure country was left for last, I could.

Wish I had access to stunning photos like these in 1966!

Oh Yeah, Never Walk on the Railroad Tracks

(amended quote by Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in "Groundhog Day")

 

In October of 1970 I and some of my friends nearly became a statistic when we foolishly sat on the railroad tracks of a busy train route that ran along the side of the mountain behind my friend's house.  This friend lived on a large piece of property that could accommodate the construction of our high school class's annual homecoming float.  The float consisted of rolls of chicken wire (usually swiped from a construction site) shaped over a car, and then thousands of Zee paper napkins bunched up and stuck in the holes of the chicken wire in some kind of pattern.  Yeah, it was a real beaut.  Keep in mind that paper napkins only came in white, washed out pale green, washed out pale blue, and washed out pale pink.  Stunning as the float was, we never thought to photograph one of those gems.

Anyway, it was common for the other classes to seek out their rival's float to throw eggs on it.  This one night we heard through the grapevine that the seniors were on their way to wreck our float, and we being as smart as all get out, climbed the hill to the tracks to keep a lookout for the perps on that pitch black night.

Nothing happened where the float was concerned.  But there we were sitting ON the rails when all of a sudden a train rounded the bend, and it was all we could do to leap off down the berm as it passed by.  It seems unbelievable, but we never felt the tracks vibrate, nor did we hear the rumbling of the train as it barreled toward the curve.  Suddenly, there was the powerful beam and the train was upon us.

This memory came back to me because while doing some research recently, I saw this death record of 3 young Irishmen killed in a railroad accident:

A portion of the Chicopee Massachusetts death register dated 25 Sep 1895:

 

I had to know what happened.  The accident likely occurred during the course of rail construction gone wrong, a common method employed by the grim reaper to make his mark.  A search on www.newspapers.com showed this was not the case:

 

 

 The Atlanta Constitution September 27, 1895 Page 3.  A similar article appeared in papers around the country.

Golly, these 3 grown men were walking on the tracks, then carelessly attempted to cross an adjacent set of rails without looking first.  What a sad end.  One wonders if they had a split second to regret their mistake.

 Railroad-related deaths were once common.  Railroad laborers were killed in construction mishaps, while coupling cars, and while switching engines or cars.  Brakemen were killed falling off the caboose or while working the brake and not noticing that low bridge ahead.  Engineers and passengers burned to death in train wrecks when the oil lamps were upset and caught fire.  Derailments caused injury and death when severe weather undermined and destabilized the tracks, causing trains to leap off at top speed. 

My great-great grandfather, Cornelius O'Sullivan, was killed on the tracks in Brattleboro, Vermont in 1877.  The account of the accident made it clear he was the class of railroad employee they now call a lineman.  He was on a handcar, and when it lurched on the track he was knocked off to the rear, and then run over by a following handcar.  It must have tumbled him around underneath, leaving him with severe injuries to the back, lungs, and a broken leg.  He lived 5 days in that condition.  I don't know how the family got by after his death.

 1870-style handcar (http://www.micronart.com)

later handcar

Thoughts of Cornelius O'Sullivan's pain and suffering haunt me every time I drive past the spot of the accident, which I did last week.  The newspaper reporting the accident did not make it clear whether he was brought home to be treated, or taken to the nearest house.  I have a copy of his will created 3 days after the accident and 2 days before his death.  He left everything to his wife Catherine and signed it with his mark, the letter X.  He was laid to rest in the Catholic Cemetery on the hill beside his deceased children.  And resting nearby are a handful of others who also lost their lives due to railroad-related accidents.

Our Friendly Dog Named Sunny

About 1957 my folks brought this puppy into the family. They named him Sunny. Sunny turned out to be a very friendly dog, as evidenced in this film taken probably early 1958. We've had a ton of laughs watching this.  It was filmed in our backyard of our fairly new house in the San Fernando Valley; this was the first house my Mom ever lived in. She grew up in New York City apartments.

Sadly, Sunny misbehaved in so many ways that he eventually had to go live on a "farm," if you're familiar with that euphemism. His greatest sin was shredding my Dad's dress shirts that Mom hung out on the line. Hard to resist for a sprightly puppy dog, those taunting shirts swinging in the breeze.

I have wondered who took this movie. It's possible my grandparents were visiting from New York, and that Grandpa was taking it. But Gram does not appear in it, so I don't know for sure.

That's my brother and me running around.

Kindergarten Through 6th Grade, Individual Photos

Lazy post--just an extension of yesterday's--but it's all I had time to do last night!

 Kindergarten

      1st grade

   2nd grade  

    3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

6th grade

Elementary School Class Photos

I have been meaning to post my elementary school pictures for a while, so that my kids could see them.  It's kind of fun to look back to see if any of my grandchildren look like me.   

Below the caption for each photo I've put where I am in very tiny print.

Kindergarten was spent at Langdon Avenue School, far from our house, far being 3 miles away on 2-lane roads that flooded when it rained.  There was no school bus, only a carpool with other families in the neighborhood.  Sometimes our group had to wait after school for our ride to show up, and we children did our best to get into trouble on those days.  The school was old, and next to it was an even older house that was abandoned.  It wasn't boarded up and we were convinced it was haunted by a witch.  The brave among took the dare to run through it.  One day we found a dead mouse in the bathtub.  We didn't go back after that.

Kindergarten with Mrs. Bell, 1959-1960

[me, 3rd row, far right]

Brand new Balboa Blvd. School opened in the fall of 1960; that's where I attended first through sixth grades.   Our neighborhood road did not go through to the school so we caught a bus down on Havenhurst Ave. that first year.  After that we walked the half mile. 

First grade: I was sick a lot during elementary, sometimes missing multiple weeks of class.  Mrs. Begly was actually the teacher I began first grade with, then got sick, and when I returned the school had moved me to Mrs. Jackson's class.  So I had 2 first days of first grade.

First Grade with Mrs. Jackson, 1960-1961

[me, 3rd row, second from left]

Second grade: Mr. Parmalee was big on spelling.  We had to learn long hard words, like the word responsibility, for example.  In second grade Jeff Harband (bottom row, center) stabbed my hand with a sharpened pencil.  Nothing was done.  Another boy whose name I forget used to punch me on the playground.  When I complained the duty teacher said, "that's how boys show they like you."   

Second Grade with Mr. Parmalee, 1961-1962

[me, second row, second from left]

Third grade: due to illness I missed learning long-division.  When I returned the teacher didn't catch me up and it took me years to become confident in that skill.

Third Grade with Mrs. Wolfe, 1962-1963

[me, 3rd row, 3rd from left]

Fourth grade: by this time I was a mostly excellent student and found out that was not a popular thing to be.  In the fall of fourth grade, President Kennedy was assassinated.  Mrs. Hamill broke the news to us.

Fourth Grade with Mrs. Hamill, 1963-1964

[me, second row, first on left]

Fifth grade: Mrs. Field let me be her messenger around the campus.  I loved the freedom of walking around the school with an important job to do.  Her confidence in me meant the world.

Fifth Grade with Mrs. Davis; the second term my teacher was Mrs. Field, who I loved, 1964-1965

[me, 3rd row, 3rd from right]

Sixth grade: my friend Sunny (second row, second from right) and I were elected class president and vice president; the second semester we switched roles.  We also were chosen for the most coveted job in the entire school: equipment room monitors.  During recess it was our job to dispense play equipment to the students.  And then play hide-and-seek in the room until recess was over.

Sixth Grade with Mr. Ressler, 1965-1966

[me, 4th row, second from left]

Those Were the Days: Paper Drives

Back in the day, this ^ is how we raised money for Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, school clubs, ball teams, etc.  They were called "paper drives."  It was a simple time when the concept of recycling was years in the future.  Yesterday's paper was useful for wrapping fish and lining the bird-cage, but the rest?  I'm pretty sure people threw their old newspapers in the garbage.

When it was fundraising time, we kids went around the neighborhood asking people to save up their papers for the next month, and to please tie them in liftable bundles with string.  Then on a Saturday when a parent with a large vehicle was available, we went around to the houses to collect and take them down to a place where they were weighed, and we received a payout according to the poundage.  Some folks were super diligent about saving their papers and had stacks and stacks many feet high waiting in their garage.  We Scouts thought we had hit the jackpot at those homes.

Apparently what killed paper drives as a fund-raiser, was recycling.  Who knew?  Depots were inundated with newspapers that people were glad to get rid of on a weekly basis, and that drove the price for newspaper into the basement.  The last paper drive I can remember was at least 25 years ago.

By the way, when I googled "paper drives," in addition to the photos above,  this "paper drive" came up!  How times have changed ;-)