An Apology and Dancing Lessons

I know it has been awhile since posting...life is happily busy. I've been meaning to write about some of my travels (Chili guy sees the world), but that will have to come later....stay tuned!!!!

I usually think of things while I take my early morning/evening walks. The topic above is a little strange and very subjective but here goes.

In the 7th and 8th grades we attended Mrs. Black's Dance Class at Florence Brasser Elementary at the corner of Coldwater Road and Chestnut Drive. It was our first coed activity and everything was new to us. We learned the box step (which has come in very handy at subsequent weddings attended through life) and the rudiments of ballroom dancing (I guess). There was a piano man, and the thing I remember the most is when Mrs. Black would have the boys line up on one side, the girls on the other, and then indicate it was time for the boys to pick their partners. What a scene....boys like birds in multiple V-formations heading for particular girls. When I think about it now, it might have been awful for anyone not chosen quickly (although maybe it was a relief not to have some cloddy boy ask you to have your feet crushed).

Most of the kids seemed to have been from SPX because everyone was pretty familiar. But there were some "outsiders". Most of all, I remember a girl named Connie Westlake who was the mysterious one (braces and all) we all made the bee-line towards. And this is what leads to the name of this entry.

I think that when you sit in the same classroom with 14 or 15 girls for eight years, long hours, every day, those girls become like sisters compared to all the other girls in the world. So, whether it's the mystery girl at the dance class, or the girls in the grade behind, the girls from a neighboring parish, or the cheerleaders from any of the schools we played against in basketball, they always got our attention in the non-sisterly way while we ignored (in a sisterly-way) those cute girls sitting right next to us day in and day out. Maybe it's a universal fact-of-life for schools which keep the same kids together for years and years in the classroom...I would bet that it is so...but in any case, here's my chance to say to you SPX'64 female classmates...sorry for the glances thrown in other directions and for not recognizing more your specialness.

Maybe we need a reunion where we guys can give all our attention to you all for one evening. Or, maybe an evening where you can all ignore us old men while we wish you'd notice us. Oh well, years pass, perspectives change, and all we can do is hope we didn't hurt anybody's feelings in those days when we thought we knew so much and really knew so little.

Supermarkets

This topic came to mind when I went shopping recently in the new Wegmans supermarket in Prince Georges county in Maryland. When it opened last year it was heralded as a big "win" for the county - proof that "high-end stores" if they chose to locate there, could make it in this predominantly African-American population. Amazing how far we have come from the good old days.

In the 50's and early 60's we did all our family grocery shopping at the Acme in Westgate Plaza (R.I.P.). Since Westgate opened in 1958, and we moved to Chili in 1954, I'm guessing we still shopped somewhere in the West side of Rochester before the plaza was built. There was also an A&P at Westgate.

In the 60's a new grocery store came to Chili Center (Star Supermarket?). I really don't remember any Wegmans stores except for the ones at Midtown and Pittsford plaza although I am sure there were many more.

Acme gave out stamps that you could save up and redeem for all kinds of things. As they were probably worth about 1%, it took a lot of shopping dollars to get anything "free". One of the cruelest stories of my childhood was when the happiness of getting a new bicycle (my one and only) was mocked by one of the neighborhood boys who said "you can't ride on stamps!". Where do such thoughts and cruelties come from?

I can remember my Mom taking me with her to Acme and me keeping tabs of the total bill as she filled the cart to overflowing. I would usually be accurate to within the tax on the few non-food items. Yep - the human calculator.

Anyway, grocery shopping in those days was not glamorous and the stores were just grocery stores. Most are still that way but I have to hand it to Wegmans. They have become a phenomena in the mid-Atlantic area with communities pleading for stores and jubilant when they land one. We travel 15 miles to the nearest one to get my two favorite things that only they sell.....pop-open hot dogs and sugar/cinnamon/plain fried cakes. For me, they are the closest fried cake competitors to the all-time best which were sold at Sibley's.

Maps of Chili and Rochester

I found some interesting maps and thought I'd share them with all you fine readers :) Anyway, the first is a really old map of Chili from the early 19th century : It has the names of early residents (click on the link to see a bigger image and find the interesting source).

The next is a road map from 1908 which to me was fascinating. It's a highway map (there were so few in 1908) of Riga, Chili and Wheatland showing the importance of the NY Central railroad and the stations in Chili, Churchville, etc.

Then there is a highway map from 1954 which is apropos to this blog so I will include the picture here for flavor. It doesn't include all the new neighborhood streets like in Ranchmar or Chestnut Heights, but it gives a lay of the land in those days. It's kind of interesting to see what streets were considered most important and relatively important (Fenton Road, Marshall Drive, etc) enough to make the map. Of course, the new post-war neighborhoods were just being built when this map was drawn.

I  recommend browsing about the site these links point to for other maps of the Monroe County area, especially the highway maps of Rochester itself in 1904 which is in two parts. 

How little we knew of the history of our town and city when we were growing up there. Thank heavens for the breakthrough of cheap computer memory so now we can search through all these old documents.

New School Year

A new school year begins and when I see all the kids standing on the street corner waiting for the bus I recall those Chili days.

For our family, each school year began with a late summer visit to the National department store at Southtown plaza. Each of us got a new pair of shoes (how did Catholic parents possibly afford new shoes for all their children?) and that leather was one of the two key smells of the new school year. The second, of course, was the smell of the classroom on those early September days. Maybe it was the cleanliness after summer cleanings (or lack of sweaty kids for a few months) but those classrooms had a smell that I'll never forget. Our shoes and socks were are only personality items in elementary school wardrobe, the rest of our clothes were dictated by uniform....the boys wearing off-white dress shirts with green ties with the yellow letters SPX woven on them and the girls wore a green jumper (also with SPX I think) and a white blouse. I don't remember any changes to that uniform through the eight years of elementary school.

We in Chestnut Heights all took the bus to school. Others (like the Ranchmar kids) were able to walk. We had no parents at the bus stop. Today the bus stop area is crowded with cars and parents gabbing with each others besides the usual chaos of the kids....in our day it was just the kids.

It was always so interesting to find out who the teacher would be...... it was so important really because you would be with that person for several hours a day for the next 9 months. For the most part, all the teachers were very nice, but they did have reputations. I had two favorites as I mentioned before. I think it is just a matter of personality...different kids get along with the temperaments of different teachers and vice versa....as it would be with all people throughout life. But interestingly, my favorites were the oldest (Sr Britta 4th) and the youngest (Sr Felicia 5th & 7th). Both were very kind to me....they made my days.

Jobs

In the last post I talked about summer school as something to do before we were old enough to work. But as soon as possible many of us found some way to make some extra cash. My work history was sort of typical..... always looking for something. Before I was 16 I had three jobs. First as a Democrat & Chronicle newspaper-boy. I delivered about 50 Sundays and 35-40 weekday papers which meant some pretty cold early morning outings during my last two years of elementary school. The paper then was 60 cents per week and I felt grateful when I got a 10 cent tip. All the work netted about $5-$10 a week. Next came caddying at Brooklea CC. We'd get over there very early to get in line (first come first out) but often we'd wait for hours and never get a job. When we did, we would lug a bag around for 3-4 hours and get $3-$5.
My final under-16 job was during the spring semester of 10th grade. I'd just turned 15 so I was able to work on a limited schedule so I got a job as a shoe salesboy at Endicott & Johnson at Westgate Plaza. All I can say about that was that I feel sorry for the new Mom's who trusted their infants to my care. Of course the best part was when we waited on pretty girls who wanted go-go boots, except that only happened in our backroom fantasies.

During 11th grade I turned 16 and got a job during the 2nd semester at a notions store on Clinton Ave S right near Main St.. I forgot the name of the store but it was run by two brothers who had this incredibly stuffed box of a place which was packed with notions (sewing supplies mostly) which I delivered to the main department stores (Sibley's , McCurdy's, Edwards) after school. It was not fun wheeling my handcart full of notions around Main and Clinton when all my classmates were walking around having fun before catching the #8 Chili Center bus back home.

That summer of 1967 I got a job working for Sky Chef at the airport. I was on the breakfast and lunch food prep crew which started at 6:00 am in order to get the breakfast ready for the first flights out around 8:00. Two interesting things about that job were:first, we prepared a full hot or cold meal for every passenger (breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast, fruit, coffee, dessert) (lunch: sandwich, dessert, fruit, drink) and then added to every tray a 4-pack of Winston cigarettes so everybody could light up after they enjoyed their meal. Of course everyone at SkyChef was hooked on free Winstons and smoked a pack at each break. I resisted for a long time but must admit that by the end of that summer not only was I joining in on the cigarette breaks at work, but I had, on the console of my Buick Invicta, an old cigar box full of free cigs for all my friends to enjoy while riding in the car. Yeah, free samples can get you hooked.

After graduating from high school in 1968, I went back to SkyChef for a little while but then got a job working as a gopher for a construction crew working on building the new Kodak plant on Elmgrove road. The pay was a lot better (thank-you unions) and all I did was make morning coffee and donut and afternoon soft drink runs for the crew and any other odd job the foreman came up with on a given day. I enjoyed the dough, saving for college, but boy oh boy was I out of my element around those guys. On the final day of work that summer they all bet on a race between me and some guy who was about 35...most betting on the "kid" to win. Well, I lost the race, most lost their money, and I was very happy to exit that job.

Each summer during college I would come home and have to look for a job. The first summer was the worst. I worked for a week at a construction site where 490 was being built downtown. I had applied and they had promised a job where I could use my skills (how idealistic we were) - only to find out that the only skill they needed was pushing wheelbarrows. I quit in protest of their broken promise. The only problem I had for standing up for myself was that I had to look for another job. I ended up washing dishes at Brooklea for most of the summer, making hardly any money for the upcoming year at school. (Luckily, I had won a scholarship which paid most of my tuition for that year.) The 2nd summer I got a job working for Kodak at the new Elmgrove plant. I worked on an assembly line putting a camera, flash cube, strap and instructions in a box for the Kodak instamatic camera. The weird thing about that job was that it was so easy to meet the quota for the day we could do it in way less than 8 hours and that made the permanent workers furious....so we slowed our pace. I got a job at Kodak again the next summer working in the stock room. (I'll have to include a story about my Kodak experience in a later chapter). One thing interesting about those two summers at Kodak was that most days I rode a bike to work. It was pretty far and the shifts started pretty early so thinking back on it it seems kind of hard. But I still remember some beautiful rides down Westside Dr to Trabold Rd(?? was that the one with the swim club?) and on to Elmgrove. It must have been about 5 miles at least.

Working was just part of life. If you weren't in school, or even if you were, if you wanted $5 bucks for nonessentials (pool, the Grange, cigarettes, gas, records, etc) you better have a job.

Summer School

Now that the 4th of July weekend is over, I am reminded of Gates-Chili summer school which was a mini-industry of the summers during high school. Kids went there for driver's education, to make up classes they didn't pass the previous year or to take new classes. The latter were in the minority but in the days before you could get a work permit (at age 16) this gave you something to do and it included a social aspect.

Summer school at G-C was another world for the Catholic School crowd. A chance to see what it was like to go to school in "regular" clothes and not have the ever present reminders of the church around school - kind of refreshing if you ask me. Oh, and the most exciting thing....to go to school with girls!!! On the other hand, I do remember how boring it was studying old regents exams in preparation for the Geometry exam at the end of the summer. My coolest class was a French II class which, after the first-half make-up portion, had a second class in which there were only two students and the teacher. Seems like a pretty amazing educational opportunity in retrospect....and that class vastly improved my French grades for the rest of high school.

The strangest thing about summer school was the library/librarian. I had a study hall between my two french classes and I spent it in the library, usually trying to do crossword puzzles. The librarian seemed just plain weird. He would tell me about parties he went to in NYC where people did "daisy chains" (whatever they were) and he would persistently ask me to come to his house for a massage. Now I was only 15 and very naive, but it all seemed strange at the time.  What is interesting to me now is that in those days when you met "strange characters" they were just that and it was up to you to watch out for them. The same thing supposedly happened in the men's room at the Rundell Library downtown.....you just learned how to take care of yourself. In any case, such characters do leave impressions.

Another thing about G-C summer school is that we often walked home. The walk was about 3 miles and on some hot summer days this could seem long. I remember one such walk where we all (we were a group of maybe 5 or 6) tried to make ourselves faint while walking down the Pixley Road. Someone had shared the technique of taking several deep breaths and then squeezing oneself to go faint...yeah, it works.

I suppose summer school was less fun for those with the pressure of making up a failed course, but as I remember it, it was sort of a fun social diversion during those carefree days of early teenhood.

SPX II -- Where have all those classmates gone?

Like I said before, a class at St Pius X was a unit. For eight years we spent some 180-200 days/year at 6-7 hours/day together (for those counting that's around 10000 hours) in the same place doing the same thing. That's a LOT of shared time..... maybe more than is shared with anyone else in a lifetime. That being said, the day that graduation picture (previous post "Introduction to St Pius X") was taken was the last time I ever saw most of those classmates. It didn't seem strange at the time, we all went on our separate ways to new schools, new classmates and besides, even having shared all those hours in a common experience, many of us were like social strangers anyway. But still, looking back, it is a little sad to think we never hear or know about each other as life goes on and the years go by. I bet there would be a lot of interesting stories if we could somehow organize them.

Many, if not most, of the class went on to one of the several Catholic High Schools in Rochester. St. Agnes and Nazareth for girls and Aquinas for boys were the mainstays. I don't think anyone from our year went to Mercy and a few went to McQuaid, which was then about 10 years old. Some went to the newly opened Cardinal Mooney and maybe some to the also newly opened Bishop Kearney. And many went to Gates-Chili HS. The trek to the Catholic schools was long. It involved getting on early buses at our local stops, transferring at a place in Gates to a bus headed to one or more of the high schools and finally arriving about an hour after leaving home. Then a reverse repeat in the afternoon. Actually, it was a pretty amazing system that was dependable and free (well, we didn't know about school taxes at that age). The only downside was that if you missed the bus, either in the morning or in the afternoon, you had to find a way to get to where you were going - and that wasn't always convenient.

But back to SPX for a minute. I want to mention the connection between the school and the church. Since, in the "new" school, they were attached, we could easily move from one to the other. We did this for occasional confession days - like a class soul cleaning, and occasional masses and lenten services. We altar boys might be called out of class to go serve a funeral. Also, the convent was attached to the other end of the school. It was a mysterious place to us -- a place where all the nuns lived, our teachers. For all the time we spent around the nuns, I for one, knew very little about them. They wore those full black robes with white dressing around the head. All I do know is that some were very, very kind to me during those years - something that I have remembered with gratitude all my life.  I don't know how they managed to keep such order in such large classes but they did (in my memory).

Streetcorners

In some ways, 7th and 8th grades were awkward years. Too young to play the games that always kept us busy before and too young to really have any sort of independence or self-reliance, we just had to find the best ways to deal with our changing social awareness, hormones, relationships with adults, etc. Before online social networks, regular organized activities, even cable TV, that often meant just hanging out.

There weren't many places to go every day after school, weekends, or during those glorious and endless summers before having to work or even do a lot of homework.

What we often ended up doing was just walking around in small gangs which meant oftentimes "hanging out on street corners" as our parents often complained.

But, besides street corners, we were lucky to have had a house which was under construction, seemingly forever, where we could hang out in the afternoons after school. It was on Chestnut Drive, right across from the Volunteer Fire House #3. We were oblivious to any concern anyone might have had regarding these young kids milling around the house under construction and certainly we neither meant nor did any harm. It was just a place to go, a place to be. But I can just imagine all the eyebrows our presence must have raised.

We would also play basketball or pool at someone's house, but things were different when girls entered the equation. Somehow we got through it all. We knew so little, we talked so much, we dreamed, we fantasized...and eventually we got our driver's licenses.

Roadside Ice Cream Stores

On Chili Avenue, across the street from Washington Irving elementary school (in Gates), was the nearest ice cream store for we Chili folk in the mid twentieth century. Carvels had soft ice cream, usually only chocolate or vanilla. When we were kids, at seemingly random times,  our parents would load us into the station wagon to go to Carvels to get ice cream cones. Some were slow eaters, they could make an ice cream cone last forever taking one little lick at a time, and some were gobblers, like me,  who found the treat so tempting it would be devoured before we got back home .... 10 minutes, at most, away. As  teenagers we would often get sundaes -- my favorite was the Mexican Sundae which was hot fudge over vanilla ice cream with Spanish nuts sprinkled over the top. I remember the cones being 25 or 50 cents at the most, the sundaes maybe a dollar....but then, gas was 35 cents so I guess inflation makes it all comparable.

Carvels had competition. Abbotts, first at Charlotte Beach of Lake Ontario, and later across from the airport offered delicious custard, something I still seek out each trip back to Rochester (and swear, if I were more of a business entrepreneur, I could make a fortune on bringing to other parts of the country, just like Rochester hot dogs - reds & whites). And there was Meizensahl's Dairy (a dairy outlet we passed on the way to Conesus Lake) which had absolutely delicious ice cream in a great variety of flavors. Stopping at M's was a great treat after a day of swimming at the lake.

Nearly across the street from Carvels was the Idylbrook Farms (estab 1946) ice cream parlor. It was a little fancier than Carvels. You could go inside and sit down to enjoy your treats - unlike Carvels which was strictly drive by - and they served more than ice cream. I've been told that Idylbrook was a dating spot for Rochester west-enders in the days before the post-war suburbian mushroom.

One thing I always took for granted growing up in Rochester was the simple pleasure of pulling your car into an ice cream stand and getting a cone or a sundae or a milk shake. Sometimes we don't appreciate what we have until we don't have it anymore.

Out in the Boondocks

Growing up in New York State we took the town structure for granted. It was not until I moved away that I realized its peculiarities. Monroe County, a typical NY county is divided into towns (and villages and a city). The City of Rochester ("the hub of Monroe County") is surrounded by towns and villages. Each town is a small political entity unto itself with elected officials, school system, police and fire departments, etc. Some towns had central areas - commercial centers or town centers. Once you get away from this town structure you realize just how expensive it is to duplicate all these services so many times for such small populations. Chili, like other second ring towns, was a little different. On the west side of Rochester, once removed from the city limits (by the town of Gates), it was the boondocks in the 50's. Not populated enough to support its own town services, it shared a high school with Gates (Gates-Chili High School), and another with Churchville (Churchville-Chili HS), and it did not have its own police force.

On entering Chili heading west on Chili Avenue, there is a sign that says "Welcome to Chili -- Home of Little Guy Soccer".  I have no idea what Little guy soccer was/is. I know I never heard of soccer until I was in high school and even then it was a sport that had a "foreign" aura... coached by guys with European accents.

Besides the Grange, Chili had little to offer in terms of teenage activities in the 60's. Chili Center had a library, baseball fields, and ice-skating rink. There were no stores except for a supermarket and drugstore. Westgate plaza was a mecca for us westsider tweens and teens but it was a couple of miles away so we couldn't just hang around there. Maybe the best hangout was Olympic Park on Scottsville Road. There was an old amusement park, bowling alley and most importantly, a pool hall -- and that is where we spent a lot of guy-time from about 8th to 12th grade. I think it used to cost $1.50/hour and the tables were bigger than anyone (we knew) had in their homes.

The Grange

During the 60's there were a lot of dances. They were mostly at schools, but sometimes at other venues most of which have faded from memory. But one place we went to a LOT was the Chili Grange. There were dances there with live bands on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. The building was somewhere out in the country and even before we could drive, we somehow got a ride or hitched a ride.  The only thing I knew about the Grange was that it was some kind of meeting place for farmers. The building had steps in front leading up to the front doors and inside the doors a big open room, maybe the size of a basketball court. In front was a stage and I think there were some side doors towards the front of the hall. Below, with access from the parking lot was another floor where I seem to recall refreshments were served during the breaks.

The great thing about the Grange dances is that, unlike school dances, they were not chaperoned - there were no adults in sight - a place for teens. Nothing very weird happened but there were no adults to tell you how you should be dancing or not to smoke. Drinking wasn't allowed in the building.

The bands were sometimes the biggest draw of all. The only one I thought I remembered was The Invictas - although the names of other bands which were probably comparable just slipped from memory. I found this little note  which mentions a few more bands (Showstoppers, Herd, etc) which I certainly remembered when I read their names.

In the summer, the place was packed and sweltering and often on Sundays it was all but empty. When popular bands played, there would be a stampede to get in through the narrow front doors. All kinds of kids from all over the city would attend the Grange dances. That's part of what made them so different and exciting. It was the kind of place girls, in order to attend, might have to invent stories for their parents. But in looking back..... it was pretty tame - just an atmosphere of freedom from any watchful eyes and a chance to listen to loud rock and roll music.

One thing we never took notice of as teenagers was the Grange cemetery out back. (This cemetery link includes the location of the building as well.)

What do they mean "Don't want for anything" ?

Bear with me while I digress now and then from life in Chili - I might use the blog to write a few things about how growing up in Chili shaped my thinking.

Sometimes when people hear the Zen goal of ridding themselves of "wants" people react (especially the more goal-oriented ones) by saying that it doesn't make sense not to have any ambition in life and other such things.  I think the message is often lost in the loose way the words like "wants", "goals", "desires", "ambitions" are interchanged in thinking about this concept. For me the message has mostly to do with "needs". It is one thing to want to achieve a goal in life.... it is quite another to need any one thing to make ourselves at peace in the world. Goals are fine, but what stresses us and makes us suffer is when those goals turn into obsessions or needs without which we feel lost or sad or non-contributing.

By releasing ourselves from needs we can more easily accept and appreciate what it is we already have.

What is advertising? Creating wants - that's okay, just don't let them become needs. I don't need a Corvette even though I'd like to have one. Wanting can be fun, but needing isn't.

The commandments used an interesting term...do not covet....don't make it a need. Sure, your neighbor has a cool TV and it would be nice to have such a thing.....but don't covet it, don't turn it into a need because then life is out of balance.

The Beatles sing "I Want You...I want you so bad it's driving me mad". That's okay, just don't let it become a need because then someone is liable to get hurt.

Wanting is part of life, needing is part of suffering, also part of life, but something some strive to lessen.

As the saying goes: It's not about having what you want but wanting what you have.

Hasta luego.

Doctor Borschlein

Dr Borschlein was a "family doctor" who lived on Chili Avenue, in Gates, just East of Hinchey Rd.
He was our obstretician, pediatrician, and internal medicine doctor for all the years we were growing up. Starting with our deliveries, I guess our last visits were for high school physicals.

I remember a couple of visits in particular. Once, on a Saturday morning when I was about 10, I was playing basketball at the Florence Brassar gym and I went crashing, face first, into the open bleacher bench. I remember being rushed to Dr B's and getting stitches very close to my eye. Another time, while playing kickball in the neighborhood, I "hurt" my finger. When it still hurt the next day, I was taken to Dr B and he wrapped the finger together with the adjoining one and said to come back in 2 weeks. When I did, I still couldn't move the finger so then he suggested x-rays. The x-ray showed a broken finger which meant that after two weeks of settling, the orthopedic surgeon had to "straighten it out again" and then set it properly. Other than those visits, I only remember a bunch of routine visits for routine shots and checkups.

Dr B also made house calls and I can remember him "stopping by" to make sure sick kids were getting better - how great was that for big family Moms in one car households??

Getting Around

Getting around the neighborhood, visiting friends in other neighborhoods, getting to and from school (in 7th and 8th grade) all involved walking and/or riding bikes. The ride to school, which we were not allowed to do until 7th grade (and then only sparingly because the school bus was the only way in the rain and snow which made up the majority of the school year), was about 5 minutes on a bike and a 15 minute walk. The appeal of course was the utter freedom one felt. Each such trip home included a stop at the Bungalow market to get something for a nickel or a dime (Butterfinger bar, ice cream sandwich, gum, etc). The ride for us went down Chestnut Ridge Road (past the pop stand) to Chili Avenue (Bright Oaks was just being built) to Chestnut Drive where, at the fire house we would glide down a little hill to the parking lot and then on home. A few times, in the 8th grade, I actually road home for lunch - a totally impractical thing to do but then again, something to do.

Somewhere around 7-8th grade I was allowed to take the city bus downtown to the library, by myself. This was a really big deal - made me feel I was in the world independently. A little strange now to think I used to go alone.

At some point, riding bikes was no longer cool, so we walked, everywhere. After school we'd hang out at the house where the girl's mother worked (an unusual situation in those days), in a house that was under construction, or just on the street corners, anywhere away from parental control..... our first interactions with girls. When time was a factor we'd try to hitchhike but almost never got a ride when we were so young. In our high school days, hitchhiking became a daily routine. We'd hitchhike home from school if the busses had already gone. On weekends we'd hitchhike to the Olympic pool hall, to friends houses, to the Grange and other band/dance venues...anywhere we wanted to go...before we could drive. (In retrospect, riding bikes would have been a lot easier - if only it were cool). I wonder now how we managed to get around hitchhiking...today it would be unthinkable, but it was like a free taxi service to us in those days. Later, in college days, we'd hitchhike from city to city and some around the country. It all suddenly stopped sometime in the 70's.

Hitchhiking was deemed dangerous and lost its appeal to kids after we had grown past it, but only a couple of times in the hundreds of hitched rides I got did I encounter a driver who was up to anything but a favor. The couple of times were memorable and scary - but that was just part of life... nothing reportable.

Introduction to St. Pius X

There were two kinds of people we were aware of growing up in Chili: Catholics and Protestants. We Catholics didn't know much about the others but we knew it was a sin to step into one of their churches and we knew there were schools, paid for by tax dollars (!), that they attended. Other than that, we didn't know or think much about them. (So much for dreams of world peace!) For us, the world revolved around St. Pius X (SPX) Church and School which this entry will be about. Note: St Pius X was the successor of St Feehan's Church.

For those who went through the SPX adventure with me, Sr. Joseph Michelle, Sr. Rose Irene, Mrs. DeRycke, Sr. Britta*, Sr. Felicia*, Sr. Emerita, Sr. Felicia, Sr. Mary Leonard were our teachers 1st to 8th grade. The asterisks mark my favorites - stories for a later blog.  A class was a unit at SPX. You sat together all day every day from September to June. And like the House of Representatives, the next year the class was 98% intact...maybe one person moving in or out, but rarely more. I only came up with  42 names. I need help from my fellow classmates to fill in the rest. Here are the ones I think I remember, hoping someday someone else will find this, make corrections, and fill in the rest in a comment. (Update: Since original post, I got 3 more names from a classmate, and a picture from my sister's family archives to realize 3 names I had were no longer in class at graduation - indicated by ** in list below).

Here goes (no guarantees on spelling) by row 1 (front) to 6 (back) left to right; so (3,4) is row 3, 4th from left:

The Girls: Carol Bates(3,4), Karen Bailey(5,1), Debbie Bevano(3,5), Marcie Beechly(1,6), Teresa Brennan(1,4), Diane Cullather(1,1), Debby Fullerton(1,3), Joan Geary(1,2), Teresa Goodberlet(1,5), Doreen Gould(5,7), Ann Guinan(5,2), Karen Jensen(5,4), Nadine Levick(5,6), Kathy Love(5,5), Jean Michelson(5,3), Kathy Ward(3,6): (16)

The Boys: Bill Atwell(4,7), David Brandon**, Gary Braun(6,5), Tom Brugger(2,3), Dave Clair(6,2), Ray Cromey(4,6), Tom Cruciollo(2,2), David Cruckshank(6,4), Jim Doane(6,1), Dan Falls**, Bob Farone(4,1), John Firpo(3,2), Dan Goldstein(2,6), Paul Gottschalk(6,6), John Guinan(4,8), Paul Hoffmaster(4,2), Henry McCarrick(4,3), Robert McNut(3,1), Wade Muncil(2,1), David O'Neil**, Bill Powell(4,4), Jim Powell(2,5), Pete Schickler(3,7), John Schmidt(3,9), Chris Shields(2,4), Marty Spence(4,5), Dave Stebbins(3,8), Jerry Summers(6,3), Ed Wurtz(3,3): (26/3?)   ---- Thanks KB for the names I was missing.

Altar Boys, Little League, SPX Basketball, 7th and 8th grade ballroom dance classes at Florence Brassar Elementary, daily playground activities, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, this was the SPX class of '64.

More to come

Hello World

Chili is a town outside of Rochester, New York. I grew up there in the 1950-60's and I'm writing this blog to jog my memories loose and share a little part of history with those who like such things. My intention is to remember out loud and leave whatever gaps (memory lapses) in hopes that others might fill them in one day. Welcome to what was my world and thanks for stopping by.