We were the 8th grade class at St. Pius X in November 1963. I can't remember too much about that day we heard about the assassination…just a few snippets. Sr. Mary Leonard being called out of the classroom (very unusual) and then returning in a very unfamiliar state. There was a wait time, it must have been after we had some word, when we were alone in the classroom and the banter was about the Russians…..those were the days of atomic bomb fears…..Soon after we were let out (early?) and we walked home to what would be a period of national mourning which put a veil over the Thanksgiving weekend.
All we did was watch the news and the ceremonies of the funeral. I was watching TV alone (was it Thanksgiving Day?…it seems like everyone else were eating a meal in the dining room) when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald live on the screen. How crazy the world had suddenly become. How out of whack!
And all this shaping us. We were just discovering girls and independence….thinking about high school as the next big step. Hanging out after school as long as we possibly could before returning home. Looking for places we could hang out out of the sight of adults. And now we were learning that the world…already known to be dangerous after growing up with talk of bomb shelters, the missile crisis and end of the world scenarios….was less predictable than our exceptionally regular, peaceful life in Chili had shown us.
We have a lot in common, all of us who went through all that together. It characterizes us in a way that is a little different from all others. This commonality cannot be re-generated because all the living we've done in the last 50 years has separated us as we've lived out our divergent lives. But here's a toast to our commonality despite later differences.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
Paper Route: Democrat & Chronicle
In the early 60's, I'd guess 1962-1964, I had a paper route...delivering the morning Gannett Democrat&Chronicle paper in the Chestnut Heights neighborhood. (In those days there was an evening paper, The Times Union, also published by Gannett Monday-Saturday.)
What a different thing a newspaper was in those days. It really delivered the NEWS and it was so full of ads that the weekly delivery rate was 60 cents. Think about that! They got an elementary school kid to get up every morning at 5:30 or 6:00 and deliver roughly 35 weekday/50 Sunday papers in the rain, or snow or freezing cold, by foot, before anyone went to work, and then go around weekly to those 50 houses on Friday afternoon and Saturday to collect the 60 cents...all for maybe $5.00 a week.
But there were some benefits :)
You got to read the headlines before anyone else and get the sports results. There were some absolutely beautiful mornings which would otherwise have been missed. You got to be the first one to walk through new fallen and sometimes crusty snow. You got to know every family in the neighborhood...at least to say hi and to visit houses you might never had had a chance to otherwise (with real, live teenage girls!!).
There were some grumps of course.....a few men who were waiting impatiently at the door if you were 10 minutes later than usual. There were those who never seemed to be home during collection which necessitated several visits back and sometimes paying up front for their paper.
But there were also some great folks who showed real kindness. It's funny. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but kindness to a kid doing a job for you is remembered for a long time and creates in that kid a positive sense about the world. So thanks to all those neighbors who were nice.
What a different thing a newspaper was in those days. It really delivered the NEWS and it was so full of ads that the weekly delivery rate was 60 cents. Think about that! They got an elementary school kid to get up every morning at 5:30 or 6:00 and deliver roughly 35 weekday/50 Sunday papers in the rain, or snow or freezing cold, by foot, before anyone went to work, and then go around weekly to those 50 houses on Friday afternoon and Saturday to collect the 60 cents...all for maybe $5.00 a week.
But there were some benefits :)
You got to read the headlines before anyone else and get the sports results. There were some absolutely beautiful mornings which would otherwise have been missed. You got to be the first one to walk through new fallen and sometimes crusty snow. You got to know every family in the neighborhood...at least to say hi and to visit houses you might never had had a chance to otherwise (with real, live teenage girls!!).
There were some grumps of course.....a few men who were waiting impatiently at the door if you were 10 minutes later than usual. There were those who never seemed to be home during collection which necessitated several visits back and sometimes paying up front for their paper.
But there were also some great folks who showed real kindness. It's funny. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but kindness to a kid doing a job for you is remembered for a long time and creates in that kid a positive sense about the world. So thanks to all those neighbors who were nice.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Oslo
From time to time I'd like to share a few places I've visited besides Chili.
There is a park in Oslo, The Vigeland Sculpture Park, that is filled with statues of people....all sorts, young and old, men and women, happy and sad, strong and week, big and small....hundreds, maybe thousands, of figures that can absorb you for hours.
I have visited this garden several times and have to say that it is as delightful on a clear warm June day as on a dark gray November day.
It is in walking distance from the center of Oslo (a great place to stay is the Frogner House, delightful service, delicious warm breakfast) and a must see for anyone visiting this beautiful city where the summer sun shines about 80% of the calendar day.
The statues are the work of Gustav Vigeland. The number, scale and variety boggles my mind when I think of how much work must have gone into such an exhibition.
Maybe most people won't have a chance to go there in person but with modern tools (google, youtube, etc) you can make a virtual tour of one of the sculptural wonders of the world.
Just one picture to whet your appetite........
There is a park in Oslo, The Vigeland Sculpture Park, that is filled with statues of people....all sorts, young and old, men and women, happy and sad, strong and week, big and small....hundreds, maybe thousands, of figures that can absorb you for hours.
I have visited this garden several times and have to say that it is as delightful on a clear warm June day as on a dark gray November day.
It is in walking distance from the center of Oslo (a great place to stay is the Frogner House, delightful service, delicious warm breakfast) and a must see for anyone visiting this beautiful city where the summer sun shines about 80% of the calendar day.
The statues are the work of Gustav Vigeland. The number, scale and variety boggles my mind when I think of how much work must have gone into such an exhibition.
Maybe most people won't have a chance to go there in person but with modern tools (google, youtube, etc) you can make a virtual tour of one of the sculptural wonders of the world.
Just one picture to whet your appetite........
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Sports Teams and Play
My favorite teams as a kid were the New York Yankees and the New York Giants. There were also the Rochester Red Wings and the Rochester Americans. That may seem like a limited span but things were different in the 50's. Sports were not pervasive like they are today. There was a baseball Game of the Week and a Football Game of the Week on TV and otherwise there was the radio.
I was an avid baseball fan. I knew by heart all the information on the back of the Yankee baseball cards. I was crushed by their game seven defeat in the 1960 World Series but in general I was elated by their winning, seemingly every year during my intense fandom in the late 50's and early 60's. I would listen to games on a little black Japanese portable radio while going to sleep or on a Sunday afternoon. I only ever went to one weekend of games when friends of my parents drove my brother and me to Cleveland for a weekend 3-game series in August of 1961 (Saturday afternoon and a double header on Sunday) where I snapped a black and white photo of "Mantle talking to Reporter" which I treasured for years but went missing in time. That was the year of the "M&M boys" when Maris broke Babe Ruth's home run record of 60 by hitting his 61st in the last game of the season......something I heard on that little black radio.
Football was only an 8-team professional game in those days and the Giants were the "locals". We would watch the games on Sunday afternoon and play football catch during halftime in unfenced backyards. It wasn't nearly the big deal it is in the 21st century but memorable games like the famous blizzard championship between the Giants and the Colts built the foundation.
Hockey was more of a curiosity. We did play hockey (on Steckle's pond) or in the frozen street but we knew, as in baseball, that Rochester was just a minor league town. We played basketball on driveway courts and K of C Catholic elementary teams, played football in backyard stadiums covering several lawns, baseball at the sandlots, badminton in the backyard....but no tennis, or soccer, and no karate. Besides KofC basketball, the only organized sport was baseball which everyone played through Little League, but very few played beyond that and it lost its popularity by High School. [Secretly, I really wanted to keep playing but it was too far from cool.]
One more thing that was great fun was whiffle ball (and kick ball). I remember especially some great evenings in the Muncil's back yard. Mr. Muncil would have the radio on playing the Red Wings game and we would play until we couldn't see any longer for the darkness. Those games drew gangs of people every night after dinner. I suppose that was the way before computer games and cable and worries about kids "roaming the neighborhood" after dinner.
I was an avid baseball fan. I knew by heart all the information on the back of the Yankee baseball cards. I was crushed by their game seven defeat in the 1960 World Series but in general I was elated by their winning, seemingly every year during my intense fandom in the late 50's and early 60's. I would listen to games on a little black Japanese portable radio while going to sleep or on a Sunday afternoon. I only ever went to one weekend of games when friends of my parents drove my brother and me to Cleveland for a weekend 3-game series in August of 1961 (Saturday afternoon and a double header on Sunday) where I snapped a black and white photo of "Mantle talking to Reporter" which I treasured for years but went missing in time. That was the year of the "M&M boys" when Maris broke Babe Ruth's home run record of 60 by hitting his 61st in the last game of the season......something I heard on that little black radio.
Football was only an 8-team professional game in those days and the Giants were the "locals". We would watch the games on Sunday afternoon and play football catch during halftime in unfenced backyards. It wasn't nearly the big deal it is in the 21st century but memorable games like the famous blizzard championship between the Giants and the Colts built the foundation.
Hockey was more of a curiosity. We did play hockey (on Steckle's pond) or in the frozen street but we knew, as in baseball, that Rochester was just a minor league town. We played basketball on driveway courts and K of C Catholic elementary teams, played football in backyard stadiums covering several lawns, baseball at the sandlots, badminton in the backyard....but no tennis, or soccer, and no karate. Besides KofC basketball, the only organized sport was baseball which everyone played through Little League, but very few played beyond that and it lost its popularity by High School. [Secretly, I really wanted to keep playing but it was too far from cool.]
One more thing that was great fun was whiffle ball (and kick ball). I remember especially some great evenings in the Muncil's back yard. Mr. Muncil would have the radio on playing the Red Wings game and we would play until we couldn't see any longer for the darkness. Those games drew gangs of people every night after dinner. I suppose that was the way before computer games and cable and worries about kids "roaming the neighborhood" after dinner.
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