Sterling Creek Chronicles

In the beginning God created heaven and earth however he left Sterling Creek to us. But, taking care of the creek at our ages was not in the cards. However, it was man’s job to change things and improve on it. Sterling Creek was first dredged in the early 1930’s. It was dredged to make a better channel for larger fishing boats. The creek did not have the brains to make itself deeper, we had to show nature how to handle it. It sometimes it takes years to find out how the creeks or wetlands withstood that major dredging. The mud was pumped onto several acres of land across from the hospital in Greenport. To hold the mud back, they built an 8 ft dike from the north side of the Catholic Cemetery about 800 ft in a loop back to the road to Gull Pond. The dikes were to hold back the mud from washing back into the creek. Several small spots were later dredged in the following years but they were not any major threat as was the original. However, by1960 the creek began a downward turn that it could not easily repair by its self and by 1965 the creek was slowly strangled by several smaller dredging, increased pollution, over fishing, and over crabbing was quickly over kill. Most creek users had no idea where these clam and shellfish come from it was some of those people who were robbing the creek of its life and didn’t realize it. We were able to see first hand how this worked. In a few more years Ray and I saw the creek get down to a low of 20—25 % of its former self. The creek that had supported 100’s of local people now was being a bulkhead for large cruisers both sides of the creek were being quickly used for boat storage and dock space.

We may have over stepped ourselves by self-proclaiming that we were the guardians of the creek but we never let that stop us. The fact that we were before our time never occurred to us. After all at that time we were 13 &15 years old. These next few quips (or observations) for examples of this.

Ray and I would cruse the creek usually after school or week ends. We would start at the north end of the creek and row our boat past he shipyards and check on boats pulled out of the water. Some of the boats were tied at both ends, it took more time to check these. This day in particular one of these boats was pulled up on the shore. This was probably the worse flagrant violation of the rights of the crabs that we had ever seen. (Crabs have rights) They probably had been fire lighting that night without exaggerating we counted 25 female crabs all with eggs. There was about 25 other crabs all of them had been out in the sun to long and were doomed. Ray and I threw all we could catch into the creek we felt bad about it and could see no excuse for this. This was about 1948-49 when we explored both sides of the crick. Ray and I knew every secret hiding place in the creek. There were deep holes in some parts of the creek and you would have to spend a good time finding them. People that crabbed the crick would leave crabs over night and throw them out the next day if they died, Blue crabs could survive out of the water up to two days if they were in the shade, or kept wet. It always surprised us how many illegal size crabs were left in the boats some times 25 or 30. Our family wasted little when it came to eating Blue crabs, Ray, his sister Meloney, my sister Nancy and I could sit on the dock and finish off a half bushel of crabs in one sitting. I think of all the seafood that came from the creek the Blue Crab was the top one with everybody. We had our share of hard clams and scallops after a few years of catching what ever came into the creek we started a little business of our own. We began having too many for ourselves so we had Rays grandfather build us 3 crab cars (his name for them) they were about 30 inches by 20 inches by 15 inches deep with a heavy screen on the bottom. They held about 15-20 crabs just the top was above the water we used one of the three for eels. We had a many as 20 eels in the box at one time. Pell’s fish market bought most of the eels they paid us $.45 a lb. for them cleaned. Pell’s sold them for $.85 that seemed a high price to us. Mostly Greeks who had summer places nearby enjoyed eels. Weak fish, blue fish and porgies sold for about $.30 a lb then. The blue crabs we kept in the crab cars were the ones we sold to Pell’s usually a dozen at a time. I think we got $1.50 a dozen I’m not sure how much the fish market charged for them probably double that. There were so many crabs on this end of the creek alone you really didn’t have to buy them. We were approached by several tourists asking how to catch them, naturally we never gave up our best tricks of catching crabs.

From the tourists at Capt. Griffin’s we sold 3 crabs for $1.00 each that was good money at that time. In those days late
1940’s, we were sort of an attraction for city dwellers. They thought we were sort of quaint. Ray and I would show off on more than one occasion. One day I was fishing for snappers (2 or 3 year old bluefish). I was fishing off the back of a boat tied off of Pell’s bulkhead. There were several tourists up on the bulkhead milling around. They noticed I was fishing with a 9 ft bamboo bob-pole.
“Someone,” asked, “what I was fishing for?
I said “snappers “
“What’s a snapper, how big are they?”
I told them ”Snappers are small blue fish 10 to 12 inches long. “
I had been keeping the snappers in a floating bait keeper, when I just was going to reach in and grab one, but the snapper grabbed my finger first and held on until they had a picture and someone said he got a photo of a Piranha off a dock in Greenport. At that same spot later there were about 7 or 8 tourists. Enjoying the ambiance of the time, when we herd a woman scream I could just see over the top of the bulkhead. One of the older ladies saw a couple of cute 1/4 grown crabs in the bottom of a pail and tried to pick one up and it grabbed her finger, I know how hard a crab can bite (pinch with claws). No body made any effort to help. In the meantime I had to climb up one of the piles to get to her before I got her she tried to pull it off and the crab grabbed the thumb of her other hand, he really had her. I think the woman’s screams were worse than any crab bite she must have sung in the Opera. I didn’t waste any time I just reached over and broke one of the claws off, I didn’t want to break them both off but as luck would have it the crab let go and ran off the dock.

At Ray Bishop’s house in 1938 and we became best friends. We spent the next 20 years on the creek. I believe we became icons of the creek. We new where the Blue Crabs were. We caught crabs by line or crab nets. Later we used crab traps. Fire lighting was a favorite way of crabbing (using a lantern at night) sometimes that didn’t seem fair. Mainly because they could not see you or the net, but it was a challenge to keep the crab in the lights you had to have complete control of the boat. Keeping the boat under control was sometimes harder then having the crab under control. There were bound to be some mishaps! Ray’s dad usually took us on our fire lighting outings. Ray and I kept the rowboat going in the direction that Dad yelled out …

“Go left Left, no Ray go back left no NO go strait oh S….T he crab went under the boat. Go left no NO three just stopped and buried themselves in the mud.”

He scooped his net into the mud and got only crick mud and seaweed. There’s just no way around it no matter how long your crab net may be. The biggest crabs are going to move just beyond the point you can reach. The crabs on your left in the shallow water head for the reeds. The crabs on your right will feel more secure if the was a little deeper. With crabs crisscrossing in every direction it was frustrating.

Ray’s mom made sure that Ray was taught how dangerous fire lighting can be. The equipment used was usually a 50-year-old kerosene lamp with a reflector on one side. They were mounted on the bow so as to cover the field of view. The older lamps always leaked. Some gas lamps were used. Ray’s father was more interested in explaining that with three people everybody must stay in his spot or the boat would flip. If the catcher reached to far to the left or to the right and you decided to move over to see what was going on that would make the boat lean causing the bow to lean “guess what!”

Of all the times we spent on or in the creek I think the crab lines we had set up along the creek was our most fun times. Our lines started at Ray’s Grandfathers boatyard and docks, across Pell’s bulkheads, Rays yard and then across to Captain Griffing’s property. We had 12 lines tied to the docks. It kept us busy. We usually used fish heads for bait and threw the lines out leaving slack in the lines, when a crab found the bait they would pull the line out to get it to deeper water. You could tell from a distance if a crab got on the line, they rarely would let go you just used your net and scooped them up sometimes 2 or 3 at once. There was never a shortage of fish heads from boats in the shipyard and Pell’s fish market. One of the regulars (City people) was named the DANDY and he always had something for us. Once he gave us a swordfish head they cut off and kept the rest to take back to the city You can’t imagine how the crabs went crazy over that swordfish head it probably weighed 20 lbs. It really was too big to use in your crab net and it was just about gone in 3 days.

The wrecks that were still in Sterling Creek, added to the ambiance of the creek. We were so used to seeing them, they were part of creek and could not be separated. The older ones had been there for 50 to 75 years and were firmly ensconced in permanent positions and were still recognized as barges. I’m not sure what they originally used for but they were built with heavy materials 10 by12 inch beams that it took a long time to rot. Boats of lesser materials would long since have disappear. Only one barge had a little life left in it to entertain us humans. I don’t know who owned it, the barge was hard to see as a barge as it was nearly square and what appeared to be a cabin added to the center. The barge actually was used by anyone that needed a place to clean fish clams, scallops etc. The cabin had door on it and on several occasions a band would practice there. There was a dock off sorts that led from the shore up to the barge. There was about a 6 to 8 ft walkway around the shack, that you could walk around or swim if you had no aversion to muddy water. At low tide the end of barge that stuck out in deep water was only 2 ft deep and at high tide the front of the barge was about 6 ft deep. I remember being over there at high tide and the water was 3 or 4 inches over the deck. This barge was only 4 houses north Bishop’s boatyard off a dead end road. I usually took the rowboat to get there.

There was one other barge we spent time on and that one was nearly across the creek from Pell’s. It stood a good 8 ft high about 40 by 50 ft long. It was like a mud city inside. The fiddlers had about 100 holes, there were rock crabs, lady crabs, periwinkles, and piss clams (clams that squirt a stream of water as much as 3 ft when you got near them) we also called them soft clams (upstate they call them little necks). Within a 250’ of the barge was the best area for soft clams, crabs, eels snappers, small weak fish, king fish, flounders and a plethora of young fingerlings of other fish some unidentified fish caught in our traps and released it always amazed us of how many different fish spawned in the creek and grew up in the safety of the creeks and found food aplenty. They stayed in the creek until they were big enough to fend for them selves in the bays and the sound. If you go claming for soft clams bring a fast shovel or better yet a fast dog that enjoys digging clams. Campbell’s dog Pal and Ray’s grandfathers dog Falco got a kick out of digging calms, actually we did not teach them to do that. I don’t think the people who kept their boats pulled up on shore liked that.

Through out the summer and fall when exploring the creeks in and out. The schools of bunkers some times were twice as long as our boat. For mutual protection they gather in schools sometimes in the 1000’s. They weave in and out the docks. If you are in the right spot you can see they will sometimes flash all at once turning from their dark side to there silver side, and that some what confuses the predators following them. When at times the bluefish come up to the top, the bunkers will jump. One of the best bunker times was down near the Booth House. Ray’s 2hp motor had conked out so we were just sitting there. Just inside the creek, a large school of bunkers maybe 20 ft long 10 or 15 ft wide just cleared the creek entrance, another school nearly as big had just passed us and was heading out of the creek. The school coming in was closer to the surface you could tell because of all the ripples. They looked like they were about to hit head on. They both scared each other, the school going out the entrance jumped first. There was probably 1000’that jumped maybe half the school nearly at the same time.

The wrecks of boats, most of them were rotted down to the low tide line, were not noticed by the casual observer. Trying to land on the opposite side of the creek with a motorboat at random you may hit part of a sunken wreck. There was a boat that had sunk on its side that was out in the middle of the creek about 200 ft from Bishops about 50 ft from the channel.

However, the most amazing wreck of all was a true story that Nancy and I found out about years later. For 3 years we would go across the street and play. We were on a big sailing ship. We spent quite a few days there doing some crabbing, caught minnows’, and white bait. We began to imagine we were world travelers. That this was a real ship didn’t sink in. In one end facing north about 15ft from Ray Bishop’s Land about 20 ft out in the water was a tall heavy sort of curved beam with other beams under the water. It stood a good 6 or 7 ft out of the water for a while there was a dock on part of it. At low tide you could get out to it. The top was a little too high to use a crab net. From here I used my imagination a little because both for and aft there was no way without something blocking the weather tides and waves and keeping a sheltered for plants to get started, I say this because plants would be protected by a ships bow and land on the leeward side. On this side of the creek all the way to the creeks inlet there were no cattails or marsh plants they had to have time to get started. In the middle of these plants was a metal life boat about 16 ft long one side under the mud. Going south the outside wall of the ship seemed easy to find except for the first 60 ft then it appears and for about 60 ft as a double wall hull that was above high tide only a few inches but it had 3 docks using the ship’s hull as a base. As rotten as the wood appeared it was still held it together. There were posts and spiles several. I remember Nancy showing me a round tank of sorts it had holes all around it and rock crabs had their homes in it. I had not put things together about the boat and the size and what was it until it must have been 1951 not sure of the year. However there was an antique house across from Porky’s Restaurant that someone bought. They wanted it moved to Orient but it had to go by boat (barge). I and about ten other kids followed it. The last day we followed them they turned down Manor Place actually my home street. It would take another 3 hours to make it to the pick up by the barge. I thought I would go down and check things. They had not gotten to the dock yet apparently there was to many telephone and electric poles. The guy on the barge put the cable on the first pole it came out easily as did the second did. The third one wanted to stay were it was. It was a big ship's rudder about 8 ft by10-ft was covered with 200 pounds of mud. WOW this was our rudder it had an 8ft shaft.

We new that Capt. Griffing’s land was 140 ft wide and our mystery ship was grounded 125 ft to Bishop’s. The rudder was pulled out of the end of Manor Place. The distance from the bow to the stern (rudder) was 160—165 ft. In the 3-4years we never realized or gave it serious thought that we were on a real ship. No one ever had a clue where it came from. The Bishops had been living within 100 ft from the spot in the 1930s and it looked about the same. It must have ended up there during a bad storm a Hurricane about 1880.

There were many ships lost at sea in the1800s most records mention ships lost in storms or foundering on the rocks. From the 1840s there were 6 shipyards in Greenport. They made a hundred small craft and many schooners also they made barkentine's. One of the Barkentine's was a 165ft built in 1880 it was called the Wandering Jew that was the largest sailing ship made in Greenport and that may have been what our mystery ship was. A three masted Barkentine!

SO IT BE OR NOT TO BE

Bill Reeves 7/10/2010

Do not camp in a 39 Buick

Color it Black and you have the Buick

(A story from 1952)

I had written this story (most of it anyway) about a year and a half ago it got lost in the shuffle somehow. This story has three main characters, Ray, me (Bill), and the 39 Buick Century.

From the time we met in 1938 I was 5 and Ray was about 3 1/2 we became best friends. Ray lived on Atlantic Ave. on Sterling Creek. Our family moved to Manor Place in 1938. Ray and I were sort of loners but we had a good time. We loved the creek and we new it better than any one. We even raised crabs and had floating crab cars that’s what we called them. We always had 100 crabs or so on hand, along with 25 or 30 eels. We also raised clams. We had chicken wire around the bottom of the docks; clams and scallops can swim as well as dig in the mud. There are some neat stories around Sterling Creek some of these stories were written before the Blog.

However, I will have to do them over, enough of that back to The 39 Buick story. This story takes place in 1951 and I was about 17 at the time and Ray was 15. We had to have working papers but Rays father said not for farm workers, we applied or them anyhow. We still had no car; Ray had to be 16 before he could apply for a license so what’s the rush? Ernie Wiggens farm was 4 miles and that was nothing for because we had our trusty bikes. Ernie Wiggens was real old near 70. Anyway Ernie was probably senile like I was at 12.

The first thing Ray noticed was that Ernie had a 1949 Dodge in his garage. When we found out he had it for about 3 years and it had only 5900 miles on it. I had 11,000 miles on my Roadmaster bicycle in less than three years, but Ernie only drove to church on Sunday, and he and his wife went to Florida every other year.

Ernie was fed up with the Puerto Ricans that were sent to pick-to-pick potatoes, corn and other truck farming items. He was only paying them $.75 an hour. We were supposed to get $.85 an hour. We worked 44 hours in 5 1/2 days $50.00 a week seemed pretty good for school kids. For me this was the forth farm I worked on this year. Before this Ray and I worked at Burts dairy and Sills Dairy. Both of these Dairy’s were on their way out and they were history a few years after we worked there. I don’t think we had anything to do with that. Meanwhile back to the cars.

We must have looked at least 10 cars to find a car for less then $700 that was real good condition. We looked at 2 1947-2dr Chevy’s (dullsville). We did find a 1948 two door Pontiac Torpedo it had only 11,000 miles on it. They had backed the car up against a fence wooden fence. The woman that was selling it said her husband had the keys and he was at work. She also said 2 other people were looking at it and they would be back that day. If we were really interested we should leave a $50 deposit on it and we were smart enough to see it was a rip off. A car was in good shape for $700! When she went back in the house, we pushed the bushes back from the fence and we could see the bumper was pushed in about 8 or 10 inches and the left rear fender had a dent. It was called a Pontiac Torpedo but I think it should have been called a Pontiac that was torpedoed.

A year or so ago we had bought a couple of lot cars from the junkyard to experiment with. Sometimes these places would pick up a good car with only minor work and make a good profit. At this time the junkyard on the North Road had a 42 Packard 110. For that car he wanted $900,00 and that as about $300 more than what Ray had. Another Packard we looked at was a 1942 Packard 180 that was a real nice car, it was a 4 door but the owner wanted $1100. The Packard’s were twice the price new than then either a Chevy or Pontiac were. With out a doubt the best car we found, if Ray could have afforded it, probably would have been the worst car he could have bought. A gas station owner that had serviced a 1941 Lincoln Continental knew that the owner of the car had died several months ago. This car was in mint condition and was dark green. It had 292 cu inch V12 with less than 2500 miles. The Lincoln was now owned by a woman in Orient. The car had been in the garage for 7 months and her husband had not driven it for a couple of years. It was another of those legend cars that had been put in the back of a barn and had been forgotten about for years. This car, however, the woman wanted someone in the family to buy it or have someone to take care of it. But, they really did not want to sell it. Ray and I were one of the few that had a chance to try it. The place they kept it was dry and had a cement floor. One or the other family members would start it every couple weeks. We finally had our chance with the Lincoln it started on about the 4th time and the engine had a satisfying rumble to it. We drove of and it seemed a little hard to shift, it ran fairly smooth in second but the shift to third went in with a clunk. We got up to 50 and slowed to 20 for the corner. Then we stopped along side of the road. Lets check the engine.

I said, “ No lets see how fast it will go.”

We were on a side road the road goes past a farm lot for about a mile then goes through a woodsy marshy area for a mile and a half. We had no idea what to expect, we were ignorant of this 12-cylinder monster. I wasn’t driving so I didn’t know what could be worse this 12 cylinder that was completely beyond the unknown.

“Lets go.” I said “just don’t push the gas pedal more than half way in first. “

Just as we took off we both noticed a black cloud right behind us that was about the width of the car and 10 or 12 ft higher than the car. You could not see the road in the back. We had it in first gear.

I said,” floor it. I think it’s coming after us.”

We sort of left it behind at 30 mph. Ray was having trouble shifting out of first and the cloud was catching up. We finally got it in second at 40 mph. We were gradually losing the smoke or rather the smoke was still with us but only a foot from the road. Ray had it in third for the next 2 miles and we never got over 65 mph. On the way back on the main road, we reached about 69 mph. We had to stop twice on the way back as it was over heating. The Lincoln’s brakes had no idea that they might have to stop a car that was doing 65 mph. I guess it didn’t matter that the price was too high $1750. There was no way Ray could afford that car. It’s something I would have bought myself if I had the money. It was one of the classic cars that became more valuable every year $1750 would be giving it away by 1960. This car would be selling for $ 10,000 in 1980, about $20,000 in 1990 and more than $ 45,000 in 2005. In those TV auction shows $ 150,000 was not unusual. Lincolns from 1930 thru 1948 had reach as much as $250, 000 for certain models. It seems crazy but classic cars are one of the best of investments.

Some of the Packard’s from 1930 to 1942 are selling at
Auctions at $400,000 plus there are about 12 American Classics. The one that defies your imagine is the 1930 to1937 Duesenberg, last one sold in 1989 for 3.5 million and the value increases 10 % a year so now it could be
Sold for nearly 4 million. So really even when we were looking for a car that rough running Lincoln we tried was worth two or three times $1750. However, though this Lincoln was mechanically unique it was still dogged by reliably woes.

Anyway we went back to work not too happy with our search.

Ray said, “I had dreams about a black car!”

“What’s wrong with that.” I said

“I just never liked black.”

The first week we worked the farm our boss, when Ernie wasn’t around, was Bob Brown. He always came to work with a stake body Dodge pickup about a 1948. It looked like new because he took good car of it. He was a man of few words. That could be good or a bad thing. The first thing he said to us was do you have any idea of what you are sitting on? What did that mean?
Was the skid of about 40 bags some kind of highly toxic chemicals? We did not know at this time. They were what we were using for a table some times. We had put our sandwiches directly down on the leaking bags. We already had been using it as our lunch area for over a week. When were they going to tell us?

Bob Brown said. “It was Ernie’s job to tell us.”

The bags were pretty beat up besides being packed up side down so you could not read it. We asked Ernie about the bags.
“Hmm bags of poison that’s what that is all right.” He said. “It only at first attacks your butt if you sit on them the rest of you will rot away later. Just don’t plan on having kids they may have two heads. I was just kidding. We have been using it for only two years so we don’t know what it will do. By the way, tomorrow you have to take those big coffee cans and fill them with this deadly white stuff. First you punch about 25 holes in the bottom. Then you will go out in the cauliflower field and shake the poison on each plant.”

There were about 400 cauliflower plants and 150 sprouts to shake the poison on.

“You will notice the plants for a couple days will look limp, but don’t worry. However, you will probably have more of that stuff on you and on the plants. So if you show up I think the plants will be alright.” said Ernie.

Now we find out what happened to all the Puerto Ricans.

Bob apparently overheard us talking about cars. The next morning we were out on the lawn in front of Ernie’s house when a vision appeared before us. It was in the color of black and it was a Buick. We must be dreaming! It turned out to be Bob Brown. We could not imagine him turning up with a Buick. He parked the Buick under a big apple tree behind the garage. We were excited, but at the same time enthralled by seeing the Buick this close. It was defiantly a rush for us.

Bob said, “you were looking for a good car well here it is.”

We asked, “how come you are not driving it?”

“Well for one thing my father has had it for 4 years, but he has real bad eyesight so he has not been able to drive it for most of that time. So I have been taking care of it. I use it on weekends to down town. I have even been in a few Parades with his veterans flag on it. He hated the thoughts of selling it to somebody that wouldn’t appreciate it.”

We were already late for work so what. We had to know the details. The big Buick had a 320 cu. in ohv 8 engine, fold down jump seats behind the front seats. IT was a 4-passenger sport coupe with side mounts for the tires that fit into the fenders on both sides. It weighed 4,165 lbs and there were 3,470 of them produced. When Bob came up with the price of $650.

Ray said, “ I’ll take it.”

“Don’t you even want to try it?”

“No, No,” said Ray “I want it. “

Ray drove the car home and Bob took Ray’s and my bike to his house. Ray must have had his money in a piggy bank because he paid Bob cash right then. Along with the car Bob gave Ray a 3-carburetor manifold, racing carbs and some other Buick parts. As far as he knew the engine had never been apart and the carbs were in the trunk.

I forgot to tell you that we had been planning to go camping on Shelter Island (car camping). If we had a car by September when all the kids were back to school and most of the summer people had left. Shelter Island had in the summer time as many as 20,000 people and by the end of September there was less than 1000. So you can see there would be no place to hide in the summer. We were somewhat familiar with the eastern end of the island as we made 5 hunting forays from Hay beach south. All of our hunting had only taken us 100 yds inland form the beach. We were intrigued by what was behind all that marsh and forest. But let it be known we will find out.

Ray polished that car and checked every part. We planned on taking the 3rd weekend in September 19th and 20th. Ray and I gradually got all our camping stuff ready. By this time we were experts at camping. We had camped by bicycle 5 or 6 times, camped by boat about 5 times, and on foot once. Now we will be camping by car. We were experts all right we even had our own checklists so we would not forget any thing this time. The tent and poles were the last things we put in behind the seats.

Know matter how you plan it when you get to the ferry there is always a line since the ferry only held 10 cars. At this time the ferry slip was on railroad property. The street to the ferry had to be only 1 lane because it was on a residential street and it could not be blocked. When we got there the line was 16 cars long, so we figured 2 more ferries and we should be on the third one. Meanwhile we pondered over what we should do first when we got over there. As we sat there two cars came barreling down the left side of the ferry line and stopped at the front of the line. Wait a minute now there were 2 more ahead of us!

“This is ridiculous.” Said Ray “they can’t start their own line”

“Around here they can!” I said

As Ray got out of the Buick 3 more cars came down the center adding them selves to the head of the line. Ray was getting teed off. The spot were we waiting were the last house and a garden on the right side of the road. The rest of the land used to belong to the railroad now it is just a cleared area all the way to the ferry line with the RR station was on the right side. The ferry had the
Right away across the turn around. We could see the station from where we waited about 200 ft from us. In front of the RR station was a Greenport Police car with two cops were talking throwing the bull. Ray took off down to were the cops were. When he got to them I could see him making motions I couldn’t imagine what he was telling them motioning to our car. He waited a minute then motioned for me to come on. The keys were in the ignition I moved over and started the Buick and for some reason it sounded like a tank

Ray said. “Take it o the head of the line.”

What the h--- did you tell them,” I said

“My Grandmother is waiting on the other side and we were over an hour late already. We told her we would call her if were late I told the cops she might have a heart attack if we hadn’t gotten there by now. We have to call her and tell her what to do if we are not there in the next half hour.”

Our Buick Tank was first on the next ferry. When we pulled out of line to get ahead off everybody else we heard some cat calling like

“Why don’tcha get a real car!”

“Just because you got a Tiger Tank doesn’t mean you can get ahead of us”

Of course they had no choice Tanks Rule.

Our Buick was enjoying itself already and we hadn’t gotten to the Island yet. Its rumbling of its innards were louder than when we first started. Ray new it needed a tail pipe and was not sure about the muffler. When we got off the ferry the main road goes up a hill, on the right aide is a brushy area lurks a Shelter Island Police car. The only thing is Shelter Island had no police car this car was a dummy car made with 2 pieces of 4+8 ft plywood and was a copy of a 1947 Police Ford.
It usually was folded down except for weekends or holidays then it was raised to a car position. How much it really did to deter crime, but it made some out of Towner’s slow down a little. There were two of these imitation Police cars, who knows were. The one nearest to the ferry at sometimes had a flashing light on top. I had taken a bike trip with Ray and 3 other guys in 1950 and it looked like they were new then.

The area we wanted to explore on the inland the area was we did most of our hunting in ‘51 & ‘52. There was a large Golf Club on one end of this area so if we could find that we might be able find the trail. It was about 1 o’clock and we totally forgot what we were doing. Wee were just in a daze both of us, it seemed in a fog. For some reason Ray was going from one side of the road to the other we settled down trying to stay in the middle of the road.

“Were are we?” Ray quipped. “I think we are going around in circles.”

The outside temperature was about 50 degrees so we had the windows up.

I said, ” to pull over until we find out who we are.”

We stopped.

What’s wrong!

When we stopped and opened the doors there was smoke coming from the center of the car. We pulled back the floor mat (which was new) and the floor was rusted out under the mat with the exhaust fumes coming up through the floor. What made it worse was the pipe in front of the muffler had completely rotted through and that pipe was directly under the front seat. We were driving on carbon monoxide fumes. It took us a half hour to figure how to fix it. Ray had a good idea there were a couple of old license plates in the trunk. Lucky Ray carried his tools around with him. We bent the plate around the pipe and wired it to the not too hot looking muffler. We noticed when we got off the ferry that the car seemed louder. Bob did tell us that it would need a muffler soon. Like the next week! It’s a strange feeling like we were waking you up in the middle of a huge forest or being dropped at a cross road with no signs telling you where you were. We hadn’t the remotest idea of what part of the island we were. We just drove and took every turn that seemed to go east. We ran across two dead ends, both were to a private drives. We both felt like idiots and totally stupid. How do we ask for directions from hear to someplace we were not sure we wanted to be? We passed a few people but couldn’t get the nerve ask. After looking at our
14-year-old Buick they sort of backed up. The next person we run across we would ask no matter what. The first lucky person was all in white maybe a gardener.

“Excuse me sir, (he didn’t run away) could you, tell us where we are.”

“Well you are in Pine Lawn Sanctuary”

“Oh you mean this is a place to watch birds?”

“I don’t think some of these people would really like you calling them birds. “Looking at your car it looks like you came to thee right place. Do you have a sponsor or someone who recommended you as our patient.”

“Boy he has got us figured out for sure. Lets get out of hear. “

We would have to look further. So we drove about a mile or so and there were two women standing by a green park bench (the bench said Shelter Island Park).
Ray asked the women do you have any idea where we are, we are really lost.

One of the women answered “boy that’s the worse line I ever heard! If you really want to find the ferry you just go down this street and take the next right turn and then go 2 blocks and turn right at the marina. From there you turn right again at the Baptist Church then you just go strait to East island Park.”

If our brains were working at all we would have realized that we had directions that would take them back where we started. As we passed them one of the girls yelled want to try again. We had the feeling that wasn’t the first time they had pulled that trick. So at least now we could find some directions to the marina.

They gave us directions to the Golf Club, the area we were looking for was right next to the club. We found the area we wanted in about 15 minutes. The time was almost 4 o’clock and we had to find a road that went down in the Hay Beach area that looked like it was not a private road or a road that might have a mansion attached to it. We had hunted on the bay side and there were 3 o 4 dirt roads or should I say unimproved roads. Three of the unimproved roads were across open fields with tall grass and a sprinkle of pines and spruce trees. It looked like it might have been farmed at some time but not in the last10 years. From this road it was about 100yds to the woods. The golf club was the only place of importance on this road and there was only one house near we would go in. We didn’t want anybody to see us drive onto the property. We drove in the dirt road that was used at least then we crossed one bad spot with dead trees could have been a swamp. The road had been filled in and was starting to wash away. Just passed this swamp there was a three sided shed about 16 ft square. The only thing inside was some old farm equipment and misc. junk. The road passed the shed then branched off. We had taken the left branch because it was less traveled on. It was built up in spots and was beginning to look like it might not have been a good trail to pick. Since it was only September so most of the trees and bushes still had their leaves that made it was hard to tell if there was a deep hole in the road. We just let our tank to get us thru. We sure we hit all the deepest holes we could find. We finally got to within about 150 ft of the bay, when we were stopped by a few dump truck loads of scallop shells about 4 feet high and there was no getting around them,

“I hope they didn’t do this to all the roads.” I said.

If you thought it was fun driving a spots car on a winding road try doing that in a “39 Buick with about half the window space of a modern car? Ray had me drive it backwards for 300 feet I only hit two trees, luckily most of the trees along the trail were 3 inches or less. Don’t forget the Buick had no power steering and trying to back up with the potholes and trees was something else. We were dragging some vegetation along with a pretty big branch about 12 ft long. Several other branches were stuck under the floor.

We drove down the right branch this road was better, wider and had been maintained, and went into the woods for 250 ft or so. There was a beautiful view of the bay.
“O brother!” said Ray “I just thought of something and your goanna hate me.”

“Well what’s the problem?”

“I forgot the matches!”

“O great how are we goanna cook the fish?” I said.

“What fish.” Said Ray.

“The fish we talked about catching a couple of months ago when we planned our Shelter Island trip. You said you didn’t even need poles or bait you were going to catch them by hand.” I said

“Did I say that I must have been out of my mind? You seem to like getting things planed and making check lists and all that crap.”

“So what are we eating? I have my hostess cup cakes, a package of hot dogs, a Twinkie, a liverwurst sandwich and 2 6 packs of coke. So Ray what did you bring besides not getting the fish?”

I really hated to ask this question sometimes it makes me sick.

“Well,” said Ray, “ I have my usual 2 cans of Vienna sausages, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 2 bags of chips and bag of popcorn.”

We decided we would camp in this spot. It was about 6:30. We took every thing out of the trunk and got things together. I took the barb-b bowl. This is the original barbeque grill made in England in 1948 you fill it with charcoal and light it after it burn down to white ash then things really cook on these stoves-----but they aint worth a crock if you forget the fuel–charcoal.

“How does this work?” I said-

“Oh its easy,” said Ray. “ Just put---“

“There aint no just put you forgot the fuel.” I said, “We are off to a good start. Wait a minute I think we both are missing half our brains”

“Why do you say that?”

“We have a cigarette lighter on the dash ---“

“So what neither one of us smoke!”

“I’m talking about making a fire in your Barb-b Bowl.”

“That’s right, how come you never thought of that?”

“I just don’t have your brains!”

We tried starting a couple pages of a magazine it would burn all right but we could get only a few feet and the paper would go out. There’s no way we could keep the fire burning at all except right by the car with the door open to block the wind. We dragged any small sticks from, near by.

“What are we cooking?” Said Ray

“Well you’re the one who said they could catch fish with just your hands.”

“Well sure in the day light!”

I said, “what will we have instead fried peanut butter sandwiches? May be we can use the flash lights,”

“A good idea.”
We were really getting into it now. We rolled up our pants and waded go out 4 or 5 feet.

“This is how the Indians did it!’ Ray said

I returned, “Oh sure they just pulled out their trusty Ray-O-Vac flashlights.”

“I think they used the moon in those days.”

I was a surprised when in about 10 minuets we pushed several Blowfish up to the waters edge until they sort of grounded themselves. The Ray flipped two of them on up the beach. We became macho in ten minuets we thought we were great.

“However, how do you clean a Blowfish with a hunting knife that never had cut anything but string?

“Blowfish don’t have scales,,,,

”Good you say what do they have?”

“I’ll tell you they have a cross between #10 graded sandpaper, and bison skin. You have skin them,

I had cleaned my share of Blowfish as had Ray. We had all kinds of branches, pieces of wood, beach grass, and dried seaweed we put our kill in the middle conflagration of fire.
You couldn’t see them after we put hem on the fire. The Barb-b Bowl wasn’t made for a three-alarm fire. We had to get them out of there with a couple sticks. We tried moving them but the sticks burned faster then fish. We finally maneuver our still burning fish out of the fire and sort of stamped on them to put the fire out. We did have paper plates so we doubled them up but the Blowfish still burned through. I watched to see what Ray was going to do. He just scraped the fish down to where all that was left of the fish and that was raw as if it just came out of the water. So move over here come the Twinkies and the Hostess cup cakes.

(Don’t let Bill fool you we never had a camping trip that was not a disaster of some sort.)

Ray took the tent and poles onto the high beach, it was a nice spot from there we could see two lighthouse and if you had a good scope you could see my mother’s future house in East Marion about 4 miles away.

“Golf clubs!” yelled Ray “what the hell do we need them for?!”

“That’s what you had in the cellar tied with string in the tent bag. The tent poles must still be there.”

Ray sat down on the still unpacked tent. He just sat there twiddling one of the clubs---

“Well I suppose the next thing you will tell me to use the Golf T’s for tent pegs!”

“Gee I wouldn’t have thought of that, well maybe we can wire a couple together to make a center pole, they would be to short for the sides.”

We only had 6 clubs. We could wire two together for a center with 4 left it just was not going to work. We tried branches and sticks. When we got finished it looked like nothing either of us could describe. No matter how you got in it would roll over to a different position. The sewed in bottom of the tent wanted to be on top the opening and the way to get in was on the bottom. It was a 3-man tent but it was doubtful that two would ever fit. It seemed to be getting muggy it wasn’t supposed to rain but it sure felt like it.

The temperature was about 75 at 8 pm. It was dark before 8. The spot we camped at was dark. We had flashlights but they seemed to give as much light as a lightning bug does. You actually couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It was, also, cloudy that didn’t help any.

With out anything to do we decided to go back and take that last road we hadn’t got to. It was like the others except it went uphill to the highest point on Shelter Island (about 75 ft). When we went down it seemed more than that! The road was washed out near the bottom, with ruts were over a foot deep. The old Buick didn’t care it just made some deeper ruts of its own. There was a chalet on the right they probably go out another way. There was no maintenance on that road. Down near the bottom most of the rocks actually really boulders (any thing over 100 lbs is a boulder) we couldn’t get through that. We had to back up and with no back up lights.

“Brother are we stupid or what? How the hell do get out of here? I said.

I just Ray drive the Buick. I had a flashlight. If I learned something that day it was that the interior lights in old cars is like a worn out nite light today, only half as bright. Trying to hold a flashlight pointing it at all these rocks at the same time was impossible.
With a clang and crash both tail pipes and the muffler all went at the same time. The rear tail pipe was jammed between 2 good size rocks; we never saw the muffler or the other pipe again. There was some swearing before we got the transfer case and transmission over the biggest rocks. We got back to the camp OK, it was 10 o’clock.

Apparently the mosquito’s had their spies out in force.
We were probably the first meal they had in a month. We had to fight them off before we could get Ray in the
Tent, box, kite) or what ever it was. It was sort of a ball sometimes. It started to roll when Ray laid on one side.
I couldn’t leave him like that he might roll into the bay.
I stuck 2 golf clubs in the sand on the bay side and jammed any loose branches under the------what ever
I was. I was pretty chewed up by the time I got in the
Car. It was hot in the car but there was 5 million mosquito’s outside and only a hundred or so in the car.
About midnight it started raining and I couldn’t open the windows. I was feeling sorry for Ray, but I was having my own problems. If any one ever tried to sleep in this car they must have had the steering wheel and steering column removed. I tried every position. The last one I tried was to rest one foot over the steering wheel. I must have tried to roll over and my foot got jammed under the door handle on the drivers side. I finally got loose. This is nuts was I having a good time NOOO!!!!

I yelled to Ray 3 times I could not imagine he could be asleep he must be getting pretty wet by now.

“ MA! Did I just yell Ma I hope not, but I thought I would go check. The tent was still there but the opening was on the bottom I had to roll the tent around to find the screen. When I found the zipper opening to open the screen it was jammed. I had nothing to cut it with so I ripped it with a scallop shell. I was totally grossed out his back looked like a add for a science fiction movie “The Attack Of the Monster Skeeters!”

We both agreed to leave while we were able. The Buick was having a good time even though it lost some of its parts. Ray and I wouldn’t want to drive through town making that much noise especially on Sunday. The roads were so narrow there was no way we could turn around, on this road anyway. We had already rammed 3 trees going backwards to oblivion. The road didn’t go in a strait line for more than 50 ft. One thing we learned was if you pushed a certain size tree you keep going in that direction and when you back up you drive over the branches the other way and they jamb their branches up into your wheel well and this will you’re your mufflers or tailpipes off, if you haven’t lost them already.

We backed up until we found the 16 by 16 shed then we turned around. We had room because of the road branched off by the shed. We figured we were out of that mess. The road was in better shape then the rest of roads. We drove a couple hundred yards and we ran across an iron gate that was tied open with a chain. We couldn’t recall noticing that when we came in. It looked like the road was wider. There was an old Laurel looking bush on both sides of the road and other bushes under the trees. We followed the path but it seemed to look like someone’s yard. The path seemed to disappear and with out thinking fast enough we hit a couple piles of flowers, and a bunch of discolored ribbons got wrapped around our antenna. Ray turned sharp to avoid hitting a big cement jug. Who would be dumb enough to leave that thing in the road? When Ray turned we drove over a big square rock about 10 or 12 inches high it scraped the differential and we stopped. The whole area was overgrown with tall grass and weeds. When Ray got out to check it out, right away he got back in the car.

“I can’t believe it,” he said

“Yes I know.” I said”

We were in a line of 10 tombstones.

“I hope we can get off this one before somebody sees us.” said Ray.

By looking around at what you could see most of the cemetery had been neglected for a long time.

“Can we get it off,” I said

“We have to tray! I hope we didn’t wake anybody.” Ray quivered.

Well if this Buick Tank doesn’t wake anybody hear or down town an Atom Bomb wouldn’t either. We tried moving the car forward and it didn’t move. Before we tried reverse. We could almost see the headlines now.

OLD BUICK SERCHES SHELTER ISLAND CEMETARY FOR ORIGINAL OWNER

Or

WORSE OLD BUICK TANK TERRORIZES SHELTER ISLAND SEARCHES OLD CEMETARY FOR IT’S FAMILY

However, luckily Ray backed off the stone after maneuvering around some difficult ones. We huffed and puffed back toward town, almost expecting to look back and see a bunch of zombies following us. Back on town we must have gotten half of the people in town up early. Every grade or hill Ray let up on the gas and the big Buick strait 8 belched flames that reflected off any house or building. The sound and the multi-colored flames would wake both the living as well as the deaf and even the blind shall see /feel the rumble of the TIGER TANK coming down the trail fearlessly even on Sunday. We managed to get on the first ferry back; we really did not wish to subject our Buick to ridicule. The BUICK enjoyed itself even if never went on a joy ride like this again. I am sure the
Buick had a good time; it only lost its muffler, tail pipes, a head light, windshield wiper and a slightly damaged differential. There were 5 or 6 dents in the bumpers when it was attacked by smart aleck young oaks. The Buick had a better time than we did.

We were hoping to get home with out being noticed. But, when we got off the ferry the attendant ask “did someone die on Shelter Island recently?”

You thought you were poor

When we were young we didn’t really have any idea what poor meant. It took us a few years living on Manor place in Greenport to find out. It never dawned on us that when we would hear people talking about these poor people down the block that “those people” were us”.

My first years of poordom were really wasted on Third Street in Greenport. I really thought that just because I was lucky enough to have more rats then any one else on the block didn’t mean we better off then they were. I think I learned to count from the rats when they would come out into the kitchen from a hole under the sink, crossed the living room and went out the front bedroom. They jumped up on the windowsill and went out one of the broken windowpanes. The window in the bedroom had 8 panes but usually three or four were broken and the broken ones had a mish mash of cardboard over the holes, of course this was no deterrent to the rats. It was a short cut from the swampy area they liked, and they would not have to face 3 or 4 semi rabid dogs that hung out on the front porch. My playpen (jail the rats thought it was) was usually in whatever room Mom was doing her laundry or mending something. When she left the room Mom would ask how many rats cut thru the room usually there were 6 and I learned to count to 10 that last day. My brother said there are hundreds of them at the edge of the town. There was one streetlight if you went out after midnight you can see hundreds of them crossing to Silver Lake. That was Moms final score!

“I have had It.” she exclaimed, “we are getting out of here!”

Mom, Alton, Doris and I spent all day plugging up holes with anything we could find. We even tore an old dresser apart and used the bottom boards to board up some windows. We didn’t have any real tools to work with we had a couple beat up axes. One of the axes was an old ax with a three-foot handle. Doris and Mom pretty well destroyed a kitchen wall trying to nail square nails; they missed the nails most of the time. When they started there was a hole in the wall about 2 foot high and 3 feet long. It was a good thing they ran out of nails, because now instead of a 3 ft by 2 ft hole there was now a hole about 8 ft long and 3 ft high. It was no longer a rat hole now it was buffalo hole. But not to worry, Dad will fix that. All the walls were old plaster and the mess that they made from tracking old plaster all thru the house looked as if “Super Rats from outer Space” had landed. Dad was more up set by how the house appeared; he had no interest in the rats.

Dad said, “How many rats do you think it would take to destroy a kitchen wall and how would they hold the axe up that high? You three were worse than the rats!”

Dad’s sense of humor was really strange he would say something like that and get real mad and upset then he would go out to the barn and laugh his head off.

As a matter of fact a couple weeks later Mom and Alton had got about 7 rats trapped in the kitchen and dining room. Mom and Doris had the other doorway to the rest of the house blocked. Dad was outside holding the kitchen door shut the rats had ran around the kitchen 5 or 6 times already. Dad just stood there as if he was watching a rat carousel.

“For crying out loud! When are you doing open the door and get them out?” Dad said, “Why open the door there’s already too many rats out here! You have only got 7 I have about 700 out here! I don’t need anymore.”

We had been looking for a house to buy for over a year. The house we were renting on 3rd street for $ 20 a month was pretty much a dump. It was probably older then the place we moved into on Manor Place.
With the exception of Pell’s fish market no one was very well to do. There were about 12 kids on our block in 1942 at that time; I guess we all were in the same boat. The war didn’t do us kids much good there were not going to be any new cars for who knows when.

Each town had its own little grocery store, no super markets. Rouse’s store was the largest of the stores nearest to us about 4 blocks. It was about 26x45 2 stories with a large cement dock in the front, but the back was level. It seemed a strange way to build a building, the land was all level.

Going to the store was as exciting as it got. Rouse’s was about 4 blocks north of where we lived or about 2 miles. An adult could easily make it there and back in less then hour. Nancy could make it there and back in less than 40 minuets that was her normal run, skip, and hop to the store trip, on the other hand if she felt that someone was chasing her she could do it in less than a half an hour. If she had any candy with her I might stand out in the road and be urging her on (I don’t know for sure I did that) maybe once or twice. Poor or not nearly everybody went to Rouse’s. Mom would give Nancy a dollar (usually in quarters). We usually got 4 eggs in a paper bag for $.28, a quart of milk for $.19, a loaf of bread for $.18 cents and quarters worth of luncheon meat (enough for a sandwich for the next day) The prices went up and down, but a nickel would be the most we had left over for candy. For $.05 for candy was like striking oil. Rouse’s had the candy in a divided glass case. There would be up to 20 kinds of candy in that case, not counting several types of lollypops on the counter. After school or Saturday there were always several kids drooling on the glass. I think $.03 of candy was all any of the kids needed at one time. It wasn’t easy watching to see if any of our kids would sneak any thing out the door but Mr. Rouse would stand by the door and watch them. We always had enough to eat it seemed. Peanut butter and jelly was the favorite for lunch maybe a hot dog and beans. There were potatoes galore. We never had to go night farming (night farming was usually done after dark). If we were tired of having potatoes every way possible Mom would doctor up the mashed potatoes with turnips. I hated that in the worse way I’m not sure but somebody ate them. We had potatoes pancakes, cod fish cakes, fried, boiled, baked, home fries or some times plain potatoes skins with some thing sprinkled on them like cinnamon for example. I really think Mom could make a steak out of a stick.

Dad would sometimes work at 2 jobs 50 hours a week, then work nights to 10 o’clock on radios. It seems like we didn’t see him more than a couple hours a day. He was always hungry; Mom used every thing she could find to feed him. Mom and Nancy would come up with a pie at least 4 days a week. I think when Doris was home she helped with the pies and deserts. My brother Alton and I mostly did nothing but eat anything that came along. We didn’t have as much fish as you might think until we got old enough to catch fish and crabs on our own. From 1940 to near the end of the war was slim pickin’s. Dad was working on mine sweepers and other jobs. He had little time for fishing, I only remember him fishing once in Southold that was about 1945. He had the Desoto then so I remember the time. He hated fishing at any rate. However, my 3 uncles knew we were having a hard time, so they stopped over at least once a week with fish. Meat of any kind was hard to come by for 4 or 5 years. We began to understand what it must be like to be poor. Occasionally we would get a live chicken from our neighbors or our Uncles. We had to kill them, I think my brother did that for us it didn’t bother him too much. Except for a chicken now and then we were becoming vegetarians. I think we got a pound of hamburger once a week for 6 people that didn’t go far.

I was friends with Eddie Rouse back in the 1940’s. I would help him bring the milk from Burt’s Dairy and help with other things usually on Saturday mornings before his parents came over. A few times he slipped me a brown package tied with string with at least a pound of hamburger. I don’t recall how I explained that to Mom but she put it to good use. I think I was about 12 when we first became friends. I remember when he got his horse Ed’s favorite trail was to gull pond and quite a few times I took my bike and we hit the trail with his pinto and my bike. I could keep up with him. Eddie would not really race around with his horse he took good care of it. He said his horse was not supposed to run fast. However how fast is too fast for a horse that can’t go fast. Well we found out. If you know the road to gull pond and you know where the Catholic Cemetery is, (at that time there was a row of 150 year elms across the road they are probably gone now).
There is a road that turns to the right past the cemetery. We started our do not go fast horse race at that road, going north Eddie took the right side (the tree side) and I was on the roadside it was probably 300 yards or less. The horse would gallop about half the distance and it seemed that I could beat him easily. I was ahead of the horse about 3 lengths but Eddy put the horse in second and he caught up with me, then he had to put on his horse brakes. He won by a length. I really didn’t believe it at the time. I sure thought I could beat him. I had never seen his horse do any thing but walk or a slow trot.

Anyway we were getting used to the idea that we just might be the poor ones on the block. I realize now that out of the 9 families that had kids in 1942 on our block. We had the biggest family (4 kids). The Syrett’s next door had 3 boys. All the rest of the families had 2 kids each.

I don’t think it sunk in to Nancy and I that holidays were a chore and presents for Christmas for us kids was a major undertaking, I think we got more than we deserved most Christmas. Mom seemed to come up with something we liked. I guess the early Christmas times we remember were the ones when Mom and Dad (mostly Mom) had been able to come up some presents for us. It was probably in the mid 1940 s when Nancy and I could smell presents. It was about 1947 when we got that feeling, probably around Thanksgiving, when we saw a red box on the china cabinet in the dining room. When I was looking for a ball I lost in the living room sometime time ago I ran across another a blue box with red flowers on it. Both of them were gone the next day. We figured they must have taken the boxes up stairs. That to us seemed unfair, we spent some time that year looking for presents. About a week before Christmas Nancy usually came up to me with her hands behind her back and she would jump up and down in a curious way. I called it her Johnny Jump Up. She would only do this if she did something funny or she found out something. I didn’t know she would not stop her jumping around until I said what do you know.

“I know where they hide the Christmas stuff and you don’t.”

“ I don’t care where they.” are I said.

“Yes you do, yes you do!” she was till jumping up and down.

I said. “I don’t care!”

“ Yes you do yes you do…”she quipped.

I finally gave up, “did you see anything for me?”

“Yes I did but I couldn’t reach far enough. I could only get a small piece off one end of the box and it said bomb or some such thing “

In due time she told me where the presents were hiding.

Nancy said, “Do you remember that towel cabinet that was out in the hall?”
“Yeah” I said

“Well you must have seen it under the stairs by the bathroom,”

“Yes I did that was a better place for that arky thing anyway.”

That old cabinet must have weighed 50 or 60 pounds with nothing in it.

Nancy said “It was high enough off the floor about 8 inches I could squeeze my head and shoulders under the cabinet, but it was difficult to turn the boxes around so I could only reached about half of the presents.”

“How do you know they are for us? It was too dark to read the tags. “

“Mom wouldn’t hide Doris’s or a present for Dad or even Alton. They are to old to fool by hiding presents. So they should be our presents.”

We all hated that under the stairs area. To get to the bathroom you had to go out the living room door then squeeze down the hall, the stairs took up half of the hall, and most of the rest of the hall was taken up by a old 75 year old sewing machine and a vacuum cleaner so you had a 18 inch path to the bathroom door. Oh yes the bathroom door had to be short because of the stairs on top only allowed about the 3 piece board door to be a little more than 5 ft 6 inches. The door had one of the latest model hook and eye lock not to secure and hard to find in the dark. When you did get in that door the towel cabinet was on the right side. The toilet fixture was the center of attraction, as we still didn’t realize that the rest of the civilized world probably had a sink, a stream, or some other way of washing up. Eventually we got a sink and shower about 1950 I think it was.
I never could understand why we had a door in the kitchen directly into the bathroom. For some reason Dad nailed it shut when we first moved there. There was never any heat in the bathroom either. Sometime in the 1950s Dad cut a hole up near the ceiling and put in a metal vent. That didn’t help the heat any in the bathroom but every thing that went on in the bathroom was piped direct into the dining room. If there was ever a contest our house would win first place easy as being the worse house that Jack built but didn’t admit to.

You might think Christmas would be a depressing time for us kids knowing that Mom and Dad had a hard time. The first 10 years we lived on Manor Place I remember Mom making mittens out of old socks sewing up any holes and stitching the socks around the tops that made them fit tighter and some of them looked store bought. Mom and her Mom “My Grandmother” would get together down at my Grandmothers and would make all kind s of winter apparel. Now that I think about it I don’t think either of my grandparents ever visited our house at any time of the year. Christmas was not a jolly time for my parents. Sometimes we do not understand why people act the way they do and if we could only look back in, the past we might have understood. For example, no one except me did Dad ever confide in when I was about 25. Dad always hated the thought of Christmas. He said the only thing he remembered was if either of his brothers were around the house they will get two beatings instead of there usual beatings. (I’ll let you off easy this line)

Can you imagine, one Christmas Dad came home with our presents he was very dejected when he dropped a quarter $ .25) cents into Nancy’s hand and said your Grandfather said split it up evenly. Though we did not understand we new they were not poor by any standard. The Christmas’ we had at home were fun for us anyhow we had a regular tour set up. The first was next door the Syrett’s. They had 3 boys and were expecting a forth but they got some girls stuff (they were praying for a girl.) The Syrett’s had a 7 ft tree (they had high ceilings). The toys that the got that year were cars trucks, planes, games and things I didn’t recognize. Two houses up the block were the Thorn hill’s. They always got the neatest toys. This year along with a bunch of army stuff two military pistols. Besides the toys he got something I never have seen before (or even today). It was an army colored machine gun on a tripod, when you turned the handle bullets would come out one side. Jimmy Thornhill’s house was, for a few years, where we had our war games. I have written a story on our battles using the hospital as enemy territory. That’s a story in a story. Anyway I always made sure Ray Bishops, my best friend, was on the trail. Ray had a regular playroom off his bedroom it was filled with games and toys. He had gotten a big metal airliner with 4 engines that sparked as it went along, and a derrick that was big something like today’s Tonka.

Christmas of ‘48 I got that box with a bomb written on it. I thought it was the neatest game and to this day I still would buy one. It was square about the size of a monopoly game, that had a city with factories, army bases and other military bases, railroads and other places you could hit, however you couldn’t hit places like schools, hospitals, parks zoos etc.. Anyway you held this box at eye level there were several mirrors inside the box held the bombsite and 6 bombs inside, you flipped a lever to release the bombs. Of course most people liked to hit the schools first then the churches. So much for history, on to more relevant stuff.

This story is true as I remember it. I am not a teacher but the question was brought up as to in our area as to who was the poorest person or group. There were several neat stories but it came down to my poor story. I always liked telling the story most things that are true are funny. The story goes that Ray and I lived across from each other. Rays house was right on the crick we did just about every thing together. This spring Ray’s Dad decided to have the creek dredged where several boats were moored, it was becoming shallower, so bigger boats could dock there. This will be fun to see (it sure was) it took a couple of days to get it pumped. So it wasn’t long before we got into the gray slush about 60 ft by 60 ft covering the back yard up to 2 feet deep. We had fun but I think my sister Nancy had the most fun with it, after a few weeks the top of it was dry. Ray and I generally avoided it for a couple of months until you could walk on it. This was about mid 1946 we really didn’t have any cars or trucks. Ray had one good one rubber truck that was kind of shot. So what do you do when you don’t have any road building equipment? You invent something. We needed something that looked like a bulldozer maybe a point in the middle that would push both sides like a snowplow. We did not have money to buy a new toy plow. I imagined a pork chop bone that seemed like it would make a plow. A person interviews me for the story might ask if you can afford pork chops you could not be that poor! I’d have to say we got our pork chops from Pell’s burn barrel. We would rummage around for some bones and found a few that would work. Two women saw us and one of them exclaimed oh those poor kids rummaging through the garbage they must be hungry. We got out of there with what we needed; we had no idea that any one saw us. After we cleaned the bones with sand we hid them by burying them with a few rocks marking the spot. The next day after school we went out back to check on our bone plows and they were gone who the heck would want our bones we dug around and while we were digging Rays dog Tippy came over to us he was a grubby mess but he had apparently ate our snow plows. Rays dog Tippy usually hung around us he was dumb as a fire plug. Pal the Campbell’s dog went were ever Tippy decided to go. Tippy was a 100 % outdoor dog not that he wanted to be but he was a longhaired dog and he was matted up hair from head to tail. We tried to keep away from him but he had to be in the middle of every thing. He ain’t my dog!

I hate to tell you back in the late 40’s I became a storyteller for our block. I have no idea how it got started. We had our war games that were based in the Thornhill’s yard. I would make up the war plans for what we were going to do that day. The war games would take to much time to start after schools. So I would go over to the Syrett’s front steps and wait to see who would show up. I just used my imagination to make up some unbelievable stories. I was about 12 at that time my stories were not really true. They were too ridiculous even to me. For example, I told them how I would become Superman when I become 21 but I don’t have any powers yet. I did get in trouble twice. This time we were over Pell’s lot across from Bishops boat yard. There must have been 8 of us there at the time we were all lying in the tall grass.

“Tell us a story Bill….”

“Yeah tell the one about the chickens.”

I really was not to fond of that story, however I told it again. I explained that my uncle has a chicken ranch in East Marion were he raised and sold chickens. I get the group of them involved. My Uncles’ place by the way is across from Sterling Cemetery. Most of you have herd roosters crow at night or early in the morning. They motioned that they did. Well I have been up at my Uncles’ at night and guess what…..

“What someone “answered

The roosters have to flop around trying to find their bodies, they spend all night crowing in hopes their bodies might come back. How horrible is that story it’s pretty horrible. I thought I had to agree not to tell that story again. I guess the story of the Campbell’s dog is a little milder…..I have no idea what made me make up a story on poor old pal. In the middle of telling other stories this story was bad enough I told our group about how that the last Thanksgiving Pal came in the kitchen while we were in the dinning room. Out of the dining room window we saw Pal go past with our turkey in his mouth. No such thing happened but Bob and Dicky told their mother that it did happen. So the Campbell’s parents were totally embarrassed. They had not spoken to us since the last Thanksgiving. My mom thought she must have done something. So the next
Thanksgiving Mrs. Campbell bought us a turkey with all the trimmings even 2 pies. They were totally confused Mrs. Campbell tried to apologize for the dog.

“What did the dog do….”?

“Didn’t Pal steal the turkey,” she said, “but Pal hates turkey. “
Well they had a better Thanksgiving both families had a good Thanksgiving it was my fault and no one got beat

The last little ditty about being really being poor is just a state of mind. Ray, Melloney and I along with Jacky and Bill Pell sometimes would go over to the Pell’s house when we would have a get together. They always saw that we got something to eat. Jacky Pell would take me upstairs see her projects (paintings). We always went out the back they had a little room that they put all the left over food also stuff to be thrown out. This time in particular they had 4 or 5 huge lobsters the claws that were as big as Nancy’s arm. Nancy grabbed two of the biggest claws they were too big to crack in the house she shoved a big claw under my arm,

“What are you doing?”

“Getting some lobster,” she said

She opened the outside door more like shoved it into 3 adults and a couple kids of probably a normal family. Nancy dropped one of her backhoe sized claws and one of the boys by the door said let me help you……is there any thing you missed. Somebody standing there said You’re like my pick up truck!

It was hell to be poor. We’ll try harder maybe the next time around