World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American; World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
I still believe that we had more snow in those days than we do now.
One time we made a tunnel out from the back door about fifteen feet
before we got into the open and used it that way until it melted.
Another time Jack VanBrooker's car was stuck up on Thad Chapin and the
next day we went up to look for it digging holes in the snow until we
found the roof. My lunch time during my Senior year was an hour long
and I would run all the way from the high school to the west end of
Chapin Street, get a sandwich and run back to school. I ran down Main
Street and cut through Wilcox Lane, near where the Palmers lived,
across the railroad tracks and through the swamp where the Elementary
School was eventually built, then over Pearl Street. It was almost two
miles each way so if I had been on the track team I would have done
well. That swampy area below the tracks had enough water in it in the
winter time to make a hockey rink if you didn't mind a few bushes
growing up here and there. I was on a hockey team and played there a
couple of winters. Sometimes we would also play hockey on the lake by
Kershaw Park.
Chapter 4 After School 1936-1940
After High School 1936-1940
During the summer of 1936 I tried working as a grocery clerk on Main
Street. The people who traded there were mostly Italians and most
spoke very little English, so I couldn't understand them. At that time
you had to get each item for the customer and after two days of trying
to figure out what they wanted I was so nervous that I had to quit.
Then I went to work for my father in the painting business. My first
job was painting a wooden railing down to the lake at a cottage on the
West Lake Road. I started out at fifty cents per hour. My father used
to take all the jobs, arrange the work and do the collection. We had a
very good line of customers and in all the years I worked with him, we
only had one customer who refused to pay all of his bill.
About 1937 Dorothy was working for a state official as a secretary, in
Hornell, New York and she had a 1929 Ford coupe that she wanted to
sell. She and Barney had been married and they didn't need two cars.
They were living in an upstairs apartment and Barney had started
working as a plumber for the man in the lower apartment who ran a
plumbing business. My mother bought the car for me for $50.00 and I
went to Hornell to get the car. I had just got my drivers license and
driving alone for the first time I didn't dare stop the car on the way
home. I just slowed down a little at intersections and I remember
making a right turn in Dansville through a red light as I didn't dare
stop. I soon got used to the car and admired the rumble seat in the
back. Ray Smith and I used this car to go to all our baseball games
and take our dates to all the square dances. I named the car "Little
Eva".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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