A Young Lad Goes Fishing

It all started in the summer before I went to first grade with a family trip to Hershey Park. Good food, pleasurable rides on the merry-go-round, and a trip to the famous Fun House made the trip memorable. So memorable, that I had to brag about everything to my best friend Bobby, who was having a bad hair day and wasn’t particularly pleased that I went somewhere that he REALLY wanted to go. SO, in the midst of my telling him about the trip, he calmly walked up to me and punched me in the nose. I mean, a haymaker. Blood began gushing like Old Faithful, Bobby split toward the railroad tracks and I went running into the house. Mom and Granny tried all the tricks to stop the bleeding but nothing worked. I ended up going to bed with a nose full of cotton but that needed to be changed throughout the night and morning came, and, no improvement. So, Mom took me to Dr. Austra’s office on the end of North Main. Dr. Austra was a gruff, but very kind individual, who was a GP but also a surgeon (lost my tonsils in that office). He shoved something up my nose that hurt like hell (probably cauterized it), but whatever it was, it did the trick. Needless to say, the whole affair was kind of traumatizing.

To make me feel better, Mom took me to Woolworth’s and told me I could have a toy of my choice. I don’t know why, but I picked a toy fishing rod, a two-piece rig with a wooden handle, a small reel loaded with green string, a float, and some fake rubber hooks. Well, that was my fishing outfit and I played with it every day (and no, I didn’t try it out in the shitty creek!). Soon afterwards, Dad took me, with my Uncle jack and my Cousin Johnny, to the Little Catawissa² at the Rod and Gun Club down the road from Ringtown.

Dad put on a real hook for me and I used small pieces of bread on the hook and fished near the shore for minnows. I’d get loads of hits but never could catch any of the little devils. But as lunch time approached, Dad told me to leave my line in the water and go to the car to eat some meatball sandwiches that Mom had prepared. I found out later, after I’d gotten older, that while I was at the car eating, Uncle Jack took one of the trout he had caught—and which was still alive in the creel he kept in the water—and attached my hook into the fishes mouth. When I was just about finished eating, I heard my uncle and cousin calling me, telling me I had a fish on the line. I ran like a bullet to my little rod and sure enough, when I pulled it up, there was something huge (to me at the time) trying to pull me in the water. I struggled to reel the fish in and it took some time because Uncle jack put on a pretty nice sizes trout—about 14 inches. I finally got the fish in, with my cousin Johnny netting it for me, and there couldn’t have been a prouder kid anywhere than me. I had “caught” my first trout!!!

That was the beginning of my love for trout fishing. As I got a little older, the small rod was replaced with a “telescope” rod given to me by my Uncle Harry. This was a black, metal rod, that had three sections nested inside each other. By pulling the tip of the rod until it stopped and then doing the same with the next (middle) section, the rod extended to about seven feet. Then, Uncle Jack had bought a new reel and gave me his old one, which was a very, very good reel. I was introduced to good fly line, leaders (clear nylon filament that was much thinner than the fly line, but also broke easily), split-shot (lead be-bees that were attached to the leader to weight the leader and submerge the bait), and finally artificial flies. Now I was part of the “fishing” group and went to all of the opening trout season days (April 15) and all of the many trout stockings of the streams around. It was truly grand, but the best was yet to come.

I was about 13 years old when Dad and Uncle Jack took all of us to a place called “Fisherman’s Paradise”. This was a place near Bellefonte, which was near Penn State. On the way there, we would pass Lewisburg State Penitentiary—a formidable complex indeed. Fisherman’s Paradise was owned by the state but later sold it to private developers. It was a very unique place. It cost two dollars to get in and once you were in you had to go to the booth located about halfway through the place and register. Once registered, you got a badge, good for that day only, and a pamphlet providing all of the rules and regulations. You were only to use artificial lures---no live bait allowed; all of the hooks on the lures had to have the barbs removed; and, you were allowed to keep only two fish per day (later reduced to one). You were allowed to catch as many as you could, but only allowed to KEEP one or two. BUT, what fish were there! The smallest fish you could keep was 16 inches, which was a whopper compared to the 9 to 11 inch trout that were stocked in the local streams. If you caught a fish to keep, you had to go to the registration booth and have the fish measured and weighed. Fisherman’s paradise had a number of stocking pools containing various of sizes of trout, so that the types of fish pulled out during the week were replaced with similar fish on the weekends, keeping the stream stocked.

The day I first arrived there, as we were approaching the registration booth, there was a huge commotion. When we got close enough to see what the excitement was all about, we were stunned. A fellow had caught a brown trout which was a record for Fisherman’s Paradise—35 inches long and nine pounds in weight. It was the biggest fish I had ever seen, let alone a trout!! I will never forget how fast my heart beat when I saw it and the great desire I had to get started.
Dad gave me u bunch of flies and we walked down the road, each of us looking for what we perceived to be a good spot. Uncle John and Johnny had been there before, many times, and knew just where they wanted to go. Dad had been there before and pick out his favorite spot. I just kept walking until I got to a pretty quiet, area with not many fishermen, and began fishing there. The stream there had a lot of submerged branches and small trees and presented problems if you didn’t avoid them. But, on this day, the water was kind of murky and it was impossible to tell where the branches were. I found them all. Once I got snagged in the branch, I’d try to pull the hook loose but always ended up pulling and breaking the leader. It didn’t take long before I ran out of all the flies Dad gave me. Now, I did this in less than 2 hours and so was reluctant to ask Dad for more. I remembered that I had on old, really rust, tattered fly in by baseball cap and decided to put that one on my line. Truly, what fish would go for such a rag-tag lure! I was sure I’d kill about an hour or so until I went back for more flies.

After about 15 minutes of fishing, my line stopped and I pulled. Damn! Snagged again, I thought. I was just about to pull the leader and break the line when the line started to move. A fish! The fish pulled very strong and made a dash downstream. I peeled off line to relieve any strain in the line and pulled it back up when he made a turn upsteam. I had no idea what I had hooked into. UNTIL, an the next run downstream, the fish broke the surface. All of the fishermen around me gasped because the fish was a brown trout and looked about the size of the record trout we had seen at the registration booth. The fisherman next to me yelled “Everyone get your lines out of the water, the kid’s got a monster on!”. The fish made another move upstream and then, on the next run downstream he really picked up speed and I couldn’t strip my line fast enough. The line went slack….

Everyone moaned and I just had a kind of glassy stare as I reeled in my line. When I got the line to shore I noticed that the leader hadn’t broke (which was my first thought) but when I looked at the fly, I saw that the hook was completely straightened out! That rusty old hook just wasn’t strong enough for that big fish. Dad never saw the incident and I didn’t tell him because I thought he’d never believe me (although I did, many years later). I got some more flies from Dad and resumed fishing. The day ended brightly for me when I did catch a beautiful 20-inch brown trout. But I’ll never, ever, forget the one that got away

Farmers in Shenandoah³

A description of life in Shen during the 30'2/40's would not be complete without mentioning the farmers, or truck farmers, specifically. These people owned farms in the neighboring valleys (Ringtown, Brandonville, etc.)² and would pack their trucks with all sorts of produce. Depending on the season, they would carry peas, lima beans, beets, green beans, wax beans, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, cabbage, cauliflower, green and red peppers, farmer's cheese, fresh eggs, and even a few cages of live chickens. These farmers would drive by a couple of times a week and if you needed something special-like a bushel of tomatoes for canning or small cucumbers for pickling-you would tell the farmer and he would bring it by the next time around. Talk about door-to-door service!!

A few of us were fortunate to have friends who, in turn, had relatives who were farmers. I remember, each summer, driving out to a farm owned by a friend's uncle, and having a family outing there. what a great place it was! There was a grove of trees with a stream running nearby and a few wooden picnic tables there. That's where we would set up. Nearby, was a pigsty with three of the largest hogs I ever saw, each weighing more than 600 pounds. Amazingly, these hogs were quite friendly. We would get some dried corn from a corn crib and give the hogs the corn to eat. I swear, it appeared that they were smiling when we fed them! We would play baseball in the cow pasture, being careful of where we ran because of the abundance of fresh cow-flops. After playing ball, we would go to the farmer's house and would indulge in slices of fresh home-made bread, slathered with cottage cheese and apple butter. what a treat! Then it was off to the hayloft where we would climb to the top of the loft and jump into the hay below, a distance of about fifteen feet. When we had our fill of the hay dust we would go to the stream and swim. All of this time there was always food available-kielbasi, meatballs, ham, horseradish, pickled beets, corn on the cob, chow-chow, pickles, etc. Naturally there was a keg of cold beer for the adults. Later, as evening drew near, there would be a weenie roast where we would cook hot dogs on a pointed stick, and after that marshmallows. After the weenie roast the adults would sing-any and all kinds of songs. I think that the favorites were those from the second World War era-"Now is the Hour", "Smile a While", etc. what enjoyable times!

Grade School

I was five years old the September I first went to school. I was young for school because I would not turn 6 until the following February. Mom talked the nuns into taking me early because I showed intellectual promise. Intellectually I did fine, but later in life I regretted going to school early because, as we would put it today, I was "physically challenged" compared to the other kids and, I think, I suffered from lack of maturity. At any rate, off to school I went, hand in hand with an eight grader, Tony Z., a friend of the family who lived about 2 blocks away. Tony walked me to school for about two months and showed me various routes I could take to school, just so things wouldn't get boring. Then I was off on my own! Sadly, a few years later Tony died, I think from pneumonia. I cried when I found out because I really liked Tony. A really special guy.

My first grade teacher at St. Casimir's elementary school was Sister Mary Louise. The nuns at St. Casimir's⁴ were of the Bernardine order whose mother house was at Mount Alvernia in Reading. Every nun's name began with "Mary". The first day at school was kind of strange because I knew no one except my two cousins, Mary Ann and Joanne. I did make friends during recess at the playground when one boy, Johhny B. had the same liking for cowboys as I did and so we played cowboys. On that first day at school, one specific thought stands out: There was this little girl, Irene, who had this large scab on her arm from the smallpox vaccination we all had to have. It looked like a huge blackberry!! I still remember how it looked, today.

Soon, when I was on my own, I found some kids that lived near where I did and we would walk home together. And from these friends did my "birds and the bees" lessons come. As well as the street language. And the street synonyms for the male and female body parts. First grade. Imagine!! But, there was a funny thing: The kids, at that time, never used the "F" word. And, here's the quirky part. The sex act wasn't called "screwing" as it is today. It was called "Skinning"! Yes, a man and woman would skin. I really can't tell you how that word came about, but there it is. Go figure. Also, once when we were walking home via the Girard park, my friend pointed out a condom to me and called it a "stripper". Again, I have no idea where these words came from. He told me that if a man put that on his peter when he "skinned" no babies would be made. Understand now, he was saying the right words but neither of us had any idea what the "technique" for making babies was. Looking at that "stripper" though, I was convinced that it was made for a giant and that whoever made it MUST make small and extra-small sizes if I were ever to use them!!

That winter I got into the middle of an eighth grade snowball fight and got plastered in the face with a snowball and ended up with my very first black eye. The kid who threw the snowball was nice enough to come up to me and apologize, telling me that he was aiming it for someone else. I appreciated the apology although it didn't make my face feel any better.

The winter went and Spring came with the budding trees. There were tons of maple trees that grew on East Coal Street and we loved to play with the seed pods, throwing them in the air and seeing them spin around (like today's helicopters although I don't think the helicopter had come into existence at that time). We would also peel open the seed head and remove the seed. The pod that held the seed also had a sticky substance inside it so that if you stuck the pod, and accompanying helicopter wing on your nose, it stayed there. We would walk to school looking like a bunch of Pinocchios.

Pretty soon June came around and my first year was over. I enjoyed the year, but looked forward to the summer and all of its fun. But I wasn't finished with the nuns, just yet. You can imagine my surprise when one summer day I came home for lunch and sitting in the parlor (the first room in the house was called a parlor and the middle room was the living room) was Sister Mary Louise and another nun I didn't know. And there they were, sitting and drinking beer from one of Dad's Pilsner glasses and smoking a cigarette! what a shock! Not that smoking shocked me because everyone in our house smoked, including Granny, but the surprise was that the Sisters were doing it. To us kids this was improbable; after all we didn't think that the Sisters went to the bathroom either!

September came around soon enough and second grade started. My Sister's name was Sister Mary Faustine. (As I said, each Sister's name had to begin with Mary, but I think they could use any name they wanted for the second name, and some of them were strange, like Adelaide, Venerantia, Arnold, and Albengia). Second grade was not memorable except for one incident. In our class was a boy named Raymond H., a tall, strapping boy. He lived on Lehigh Street and his back door was located in a small alley that led to a hill above the railroad tracks. We used this alley as a short cut when we were headed to the Strand to see a movie. One day he caught me coming through the alley and really laid into me, punching me in the arms, hard, a few times and yelling at me to never, ever go through HIS entry way again. I had black and blue marks all over my arms. A couple of days later I heard Raymond talking to Joe B. and remembered the conversation. That morning we got a talk from Sister about telling the Sisters about any "bad" things we saw (there had been an episode of stealing at the school). So, when recess came around I caught up with Sister and told her that I had heard a "bad" conversation between Raymond and Joe. When she asked me what had been said, I told her that Raymond had called her "a rotten son of a bitch of a bastard". Which he had. I don't know what happened but Raymond was not at school for the rest of the term and never returned to St. Casimir's again. Paybacks are hell!!!

Third grade was memorable only because of the size of the room. I had been used to sprawling rooms in first and second grade and this room was more the size of a closet! There was no space to form aisles between the desks; you had to slide on the desk seats to get to your desk. But there was one interesting thing. Our teacher, Sister Mary Adelaide, always used a rubber finger cot when she graded papers. The finger cot reminded me of a miniature "stripper" and it was then that I KNEW that they made them small and extra small. But I didn't have the nerve to ask her what size she wore....

Fourth Grade

Fourth grade will always be remembered by me as the best grade I experienced at St. Casimir's School,⁴ for a number of reasons. First and most important, my teacher, Sister Mary Kateri was one of the best nuns I ever met. She apparently was fresh from the convent, pretty, full of energy, and had a great sense of humor. Second, it was in this grade that we were introduced to History and Geography, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Third, this was the year I went to birthday parties that introduced me to "spin the bottle" games.

Sister Kateri did a great job in making all of the subjects interesting. She was also the first teacher that I had that used memorization as a learning tool. We were introduced to poetry and had to memorize the entire poem we were studying. Granted, the poems were not obnoxiously long, but still required some concentration. Probably the most difficult area of memorization was in geography where each of us was given a paragraph to memorize. Memorizing poetry was one thing; memorizing names of countries, their imports, exports, etc. was another. In retrospect, though, it was a valuable experience.

Each of the grades had milk delivered to it and, for whatever reason, Sister thought it would be best for us if the milk were put on the radiator so that we could enjoy a nice, soothing bottle of warm milk. I had never had warm milk before. And never will again. The first time I took a swig of the warm milk, my gag reflex was triggered and I gagged the milk all over the kid sitting in front of me. But Sister never punished me, instead, calmly asking me what happened. After I told her, she exempted me from drinking the warm milk and immediately 25 other hands went up asking for a similar dispensation. That was the end of the warm milk, thank God!

In January, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia would send all of the Catholic Schools in the Diocese standard final exams for all of the subjects. Apparently all of the schools had a rigid syllabus that the teachers had to follow, or else the students certainly would not pass these final exams. I think that because of the joy I felt in learning from Sister Kateri, I really learned all of the subjects well and aced all of the exams. Not only did this give me a great report card, but I reaped a great unexpected benefit. I had a pretty good hand at art and Sister Kateri knew this because some of the projects we did required some drawing. So, when Ash Wednesday came, she decided that we needed some Easter art on all of the walls and asked me to provide all of the art. So while all of the class were going on with the lesson, there I was drawing chicks, rabbits, eggs, ducks, etc. and cutting them out on colored paper and tacking and pasting them on the wall. I specifically remember one thing I did that was everyone's favorite. I drew and cut out a rabbit wearing a top hat and playing a saxophone, with notes emanating from the bell of the sax. As you can probably tell, I was in my glory!

Fourth grade was the year that I remember being invited to a lot of birthday parties. My cousin Joanne had one and it was at that party that I was introduced to "spin the bottle". You spun the bottle and had to kiss the girl nearest to where the mouth of the bottle was pointing. There was always a great deal of laughter, because even in fourth grade there were the rumors that Eddie liked Barbara or Patsy liked Joe, etc., and when the bottle stopped, providing those people with the opportunity to kiss, you can imagine the explosion. The Post Office games started the following year. One interesting thing about the birthday parties: it was an eye opener to see how other people lived. While we were not poor, Dad being a coal miner and Mom working in the Robert Burns Cigar Factory, we were not well to do either. As I recall some of the words from "Fiddler on the Roof"....."O God, it's no shame to be poor, but it's no great honor either"... Well, I remember going to a party that was given by a dentist for his son and remember going into the beautiful living room they had, with a grand piano, beautiful furniture, real art work, etc. And with real, honest-to-God bathrooms!! We had none, so it was even more impressive to me at that time. As I said, it was a real eye opener.

Well, the end of the year was rolling around and two things come to mind. First, in a spelling bee, I won first place and for the prize, Sister gave me a huge bag of shelled and slated Planter's peanuts with which I thoroughly made a big pig of myself. Second, each year every grade in the school had to come up with some kind of skit for the end of the year eighth-grade graduation ceremony. That year, the second, third, and fourth grade collaborated in presenting a take-off of the Sleeping Beauty. I was told I would be the Prince and a second-grader, Arlene H., would be the Princess. The thing was that this play was in Polish and the Prince had to sing, in Polish, a song to wake up the sleeping Princess. This was not a problem because I was raised by my grandmother who taught me, at an early age, to sing songs in Polish, Lithuanian and Russian. So, this was my stage debut, strutting in a velvet suit, with a three-cornered hat with a large plume singing in as loud a voice as I could: "Roziczka droga przebudz sie, przebudz sie, przebudz sie, Roziczka droga przebudz sie, bo kocham sie" meaning "My dear little Rose, please wake up, please wake up, please wake up, My dear little Rose please wake up because I love you." Ah, memories!!

So ended the best year of my life. The summer was uneventful but enjoyable, never providing a hint of what was to come in fifth grade.............

A young lad goes to 5th grade...

Fourth grade had been the best year of my early schooling, with my liking the subjects and enjoying my teacher, Sister Mary Kateri. But I was looking forward to the summer and all of the good times that summer would bring. And fun the summer did bring. Early in June, Dad took the family to Hershey Park for a picnic and enjoyment of the rides. That year, I would experience for the first time, the Barrel in the Fun House. For those who have never been to Hershey Park and specifically in the Fun House, the Barrel was a large wooden barrel, approximately eight feet in diameter, about 15 feet in length, and open at both ends. It was located, lengthwise, on a mechanism that caused the barrel to rotate along its long axis. People could enter the barrel at either end and try to walk along the length of the barrel while the barrel was moving. And this is where the fun part came in. If you couldn't time the motion of the barrel, you would fall down and it was almost impossible to get back up again. I say, IMPOSSIBLE! One would end up tumbling around the barrel laughing and waiting for the barrel to stop so you could get out. Of course, with all of this fun, you would end up with all kinds of wood burns obtained from rubbing around on the barrel's finish. Great fun!!

Next, during July was the annual visit to Wuja's (Promounced Vooh-ya's) farm. I'm not sure exactly where the farm was located but I know we took a side road near Ringtown² and then many, many small roads, until we reached the farm. This was really a family and friends picnic with as many as 25 or 30 adults and children being there. The farm had a creek running through the property so the kids had a place to wade or swim or even fish because it had some nice native brook trout in it. It had a pig sty, repleat with mud, with four of the largest hogs I ever saw, one weighing almost 1000 pounds, and we would feed the hogs corn cobs which were available from a corn crib nearby. But the most fun was going into the hayloft and jumping from the ceiling into the hay down below. We would do that until we were completely out of breath! Our "rejuvenator" was a black cherry tree that grew right outside the hayloft and in July, the cherries were ripe, sweet and absolutely delicious. Then, to get off the hay dust, into the stream we'd go. Around 6 P.M., we would roast hot dogs in a large fire, and a pot of corn freshly picked from the field would be put on to cook. Of course, the barrel of beer was flowing all day long! After dinner, the adults would sing songs, sometimes singing very good harmony, and at about 8 P.M. we were ready to go home. what a wonderful day!

During that summer, on August 15, World War II came to an end. Even as kids we were aware that the U.S. had dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and couldn't imagine that the war would last much longer. That evening, all of the church bells in town began to ring and people came out on their porches yelling and screaming "The war is over, the war is over. Thank God!" That night there was a fireworks display at Girard Park, with some of the loudest explosions I'd ever encountered. Years after, there would be other commemorative fireworks displays, but none as vivid in my memory as the one on the night the war ended.

The last event of the summer was Polish Day at Lakeside Park.^{2 5} Our entire family went to this event, getting ready early in the morning and leaving for Lakeside at about 8 A.M. You really had to leave early if you wanted a prime picnic spot there. I remember Mom and Granny making a lot of meatballs, kielbasi, and ham. We would bring Granny's pickled beets with pickled eggs, pickled mushrooms, and chow-chow that had been well chilled in the ice box. Aunt Franey would bring her famous pepper cabbage and everyone would chip in for the barrel of beer and the soda for the kids. The picnic was fun, but more so was the trip to the amusement park and the penny arcade. Of course Mom warned us about going on the rides too soon after eating but would we listen? Nooooooo. And so it was kind of a contest to see who would be the first to heave after going on the aerial swings. I never won that honor, thank God, because I had an iron gut! Finally, when everyone had enough to eat and drink and the kids had their fill of the rides, it was time to go. And look forward to next year and the next Polish Day.

I actually had looked forward to going back to school because I was anxious to say hello to Sister Kateri. I met up with my friends in the school playground and looked around for her because often the nuns would mill around the playground getting ready to take their class into the school. But, no Sister Kateri. Years later, I found out that she had been transferred to a parish school in Reading. Then the bell rang, signaling us to get into our class groups to enter the school. As our previous 4th grade class grouped together, we were met by a new Sister who immediately announced that "The 5th grade will gather over here and if I hear one word from you, a surprise will be waiting for you when we get into our classroom." The sound of her voice sent a chill down my back and made the hair on my neck bristle. I knew very well that I did NOT want to find out what that surprise in the room would be and, at that very moment, I had a very hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and wished with all my might that God would transport me back to our old 4th grade classroom.

When we got into the room she told us that the girls would sit in one half of the room, the left half and the boys in the right half. We were told to take any desk in those halves of the room for the time being, until permanent seating was arranged. So we did. I wasn't fast enough to get the desirable seats in the back of the room and, in fact, got one of the front ones. Once seated, we were told to rise and she began the prayers we would say for the rest of the year-- the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we were told to be seated. She then announced "My name is Sister Mary Arnold, and when you talk to me you will address me exactly that way. Not Sister. Not Sister Arnold. SISTER MARY ARNOLD IS THAT MUCH CLEAR?" We mumbled," Yes, s'ster." The voice came back, "what?? I CAN'T HEAR YOU." And we shouted back "YES, SISTER!!!" That was a lot better she said and also told us she expect that kind of response when she asked us a question.

Sister Mary Arnold was a dead ringer for Roseanne Barr. Same size, same facial features, but, sitting in the front row, I noticed that she had a fairly large pimple on her chin, sprouting three long, black whiskers. On that first day of school I found it very difficult to not stare at that pimple and so I did stare at it. And she caught me looking at it and shouted at me" Boy!! Exactly what are you staring at?" I answered, "Nothing, Sister Mary Arnold." (I was a quick study as they say!) She responded, "You're looking at this pimple of mine, aren't you? Well, boy, this had better be the last time I ever see you staring at this pimple. I hate it, but God has given it to me and I will live with it!! Do you understand that?" "Yes, Sister Mary Arnold!" From that moment on I concentrated on staring at her forehead and prayed that God didn't give her another pimple there some night……(To be con't)

In my last post, I reminisced about the movies and theater and being a young kid again. Part of that youth was living during World War II. I was five years old when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and though I was in first grade I didn't fully understand the concept of war, attack, etc. But it didn't take long to get indoctrinated in those concepts through my buddies in school. I soon found out who the good guys and the bad guys were. When the draft started, my Dad went for the physical and failed it because of a leg injury sustained in the mines and was classified 4F. My uncle Leo-one of the greatest guys I ever knew-had recently came back from a stint in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in New Mexico. I remember it vividly because he brought me back a rattle from a rattlesnake he killed doing his work there. So once the war started, he enlisted in the Navy.

There was a boy who lived a few houses away, Bobby his name, who was born on the same day and in the same year as I was (and astrology in regard to personality traits will be the subject of another post later). His dad, Ziggy, joined my uncle in enlisting in the Navy. They soon parted ways, Leo going to the Philadelphia Navy Yard and Ziggy to a school for SeaBees. About a year later, Leo's ship was torpedoed off the North Carolina coast. The blast knocked Leo to the deck but threw his buddy into the ocean. Leo saw this and jumped into the water to rescue his pal but his buddy went down and Leo couldn't find him. This episode haunted Leo until the day he died. Ironically, at about the same time my friend Bobby's mom received the dreaded telegram informing her that Ziggy had been killed on one of the Pacific Islands. I remember going to his wake and funeral although it was a closed casket affair. A couple of years later, my Mom's first cousin lost his life in the Normandy invasion. We learned about death early on.

I remember food and clothing rationing. Everyone in the family received a ration book and tokens made from compressed cardboard. There were quite a few items that were rationed but I especially remember gasoline, coffee, butter, sugar, meat, and shoes. Each of the rationed items cost you some tokens or coupons, provided you could find the items in the store. I remember Mom reading that the Acme Food Market was getting a shipment of sugar and butter (which had not been available for a few weeks) and sent me to the Acme with money and tokens to get a pound of butter and 2 pounds of sugar.

Speaking of going shopping, I especially liked it when she sent me to the A & P for coffee (Eight O'Clock coffee) because you had to open the bag and pour it into the grinding machine and I absolutely loved the smell of freshly ground coffee. Almost as much as smelling gasoline! Speaking of which, gas was rationed and every car owner received a sticker for their windshield restricting them to the amount of gas they could buy. First, ALL pleasure driving was banned. Then, if you really didn't need to drive to work you got a black and white sticker with the letter A on it, making you low man on the totem pole. Those who needed their car for work got a green and white sticker with a B on it. I don't know what the other stickers were because I really don't remember seeing anything other than A or B.

We would see how the war was progressing when we went to the movies and saw the newsreels. But, we also turned on Gabriel Heater and the news at 9 P.M. The Evening Herald and the nuns at school completed our news catch-up. Every now and then the nuns would give us a treat. They would get, from where I couldn't say, a large bucket of butter and would tell us, as we were going home for lunch, to bring a couple slices of bread in the afternoon. In the afternoon they would spread real butter on the bread for our treat. And treat it was-cold, hard butter on New York rye bread!! Because, due to the shortage of butter, oleomargarine (or margarine as we know it today) came into existence. It was white in color, packagee into a plastic-type bag, and had a small blister filled with yellow food color. Our job was to pinch the blister, releasing the dye into the margarine and then knead the bag for about 10 minutes to distribute the food coloring into the fat. I probably could have eaten the stuff if I hadn't seen its original state, sitting there looking like a lump of pure lard!

With the news of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we pretty much knew that the end was coming. When the war finally ended on August 15, 1945, all of the church bells in town began ringing and continued to ring for about an hour. It always amazed me, as a Catholic, that the war ended on the Blessed Mother's Feast Day of the Assumption. At any rate, word spread about town that there would be a fireworks display at Girard Park. And there surely was. I think it was Phil Marasco who set it up and it was really big and loud. But he also set up others in years to come that were truly spectacular, in commemoration of the end of the war.

The war was finally over, but each day as I walked to school I looked at the house windows and saw the little red, white and blue banners with the stars in the center of them indicating that there were people who served their nation in that house. A blue star indicated that a person served and was alive; a silver one that the person had been wounded in action, and a gold star that the person had been killed in action. Thus the name "Gold Star Highway" in Shenandoah in memory of all who had lost their lives.

Families waited for their loved ones to return. Some didn't. Others did, but were a mental disaster. Some turned to alcohol. Others were beyond help. There was a man people called Louie, who lived in Turkey Run. He walked to Shenandoah and appeared to be muttering to himself and waving his arms around as if he were swatting flies away. One day I asked my Uncle Leo what was wrong with Louie and Leo told me "Louie was sent to Corregidor and his unit was pretty much wiped out by the Japanese. He was forced to play dead because of the Japanese troops that were still around. The flies that feasted on the dead bodies attacked him too. But he couldn't move to chase them away because that would alert the Japanese soldiers that he was still alive, so he put up with them until night fell and he escaped. He still thinks the flies are attacking him."

And that's how the war years were when I was a child.

After reading some posts about the Capitol Theater in Shenandoah, I began to reminisce a bit. I think I'm one of the older members who posts here and wondered if some of the younger people knew that the original Capitol Theater burned down in around 1946. In the late 30' and very early 40's there were three movie theaters in Shenandoah: The Lyric, Strand and Capitol. The Lyric closed down sometime during WWII for reasons I don't know. I surmise it was because they couldn't compete with the Strand and Capitol in terms of movie quality.

The Strand ran movies from four major studios: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal Studios, and Republic Studios. The Capitol ran movies from MGM, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, and RKO. In addition, the Capitol had the rights to the Walt Disney movies. Now, it might appear that the Capitol, with all of those big-time studio movies, would be far ahead of the Strand, competition-wise. But that was not the case. The Strand had more than a few Aces in the hole! First, Republic pictures had both Gene Autry and Roy Rogers under contract, arguably the two most popular cowboy actors around at that time. The Capitol carried the very popular Disney cartoons, Donald Duck especially, and also Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, and Mighty Mouse. But the Strand had access to all of the Mel Blanc Merry Melody cartoons, including Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd, Sylvester the Cat and Tweety, Senator Klaghorn, Yosemite Sam, etc., as well as Popeye and Olive Oyl, and Superman (yes, there was a Superman cartoon). The Capitol showed the Three Stooges short flicks as well as a series called "Time Marches On" which was a documentary about some event such as the invention of the safety match. The Strand countered with a short called "Popular Science" which showed what new inventions/products were coming into our lives. The Strand also aired the first series of "Candid Camera" starring Alan Funt. Both theaters showed newsreels, the Capitol showing RKO-Pathe News and the Strand showing Movietone News.

And then there were the Serials. These were so named because for twelve consecutive weeks the theater would show a Chapter of the serial episode (hence we called them Chapters). I remember a few serials: Buck Rogers and his Space machine, The Purple Martian, and the Phantom. These serials were terrific moneymakers! After all, who would dare miss a chapter. The kids KNEW if you missed a chapter and they would absolutely not tell you what happened! (Rotten little #$@*&).

As an aside, this happened to me: I gave up going to the movies for Lent, not realizing that the final Chapter of the Phantom would be shown the first Saturday in Lent. So, I missed it and none of my friends who saw it would tell me what happened until many months later! So going to the movies would begin by buying some candy or pretzels, getting seated and watching the coming attractions, then the newsreel, a cartoon, and maybe a selected short subject such as I described previously. Then the main feature. The serials were run only on Saturdays and ALWAYS after the main feature. They knew that if you had some extra cash, you would wait until the serial to buy some more goodies!

In 1946 the Capitol Theater burned down, literally to the ground. But it was rebuilt and re-opened in early summer of 1947. There was a lot of fanfare with the opening, the Capitol Theater being proclaimed the biggest and best theater around. And it was. I still remember the beautiful carpets and velvet-type seats and huge red velvet curtain. On opening day, they gave away free candy-good stuff like Hershey bars. I remember the movie that opened that day-"Copacabana".

I think Groucho Marx was in it, but I ABSOLUTELY know that Carmen Miranda was in it! Now, I mention this because my hormones did a nice soft shoe dance in my body at the early age of 10-11, but Carmen Miranda made those hormones do a real, honest-to-God Sammy Davis Junior tap dance!! Carmen Miranda was the original Six-Pack Abs lady. Whereas other starlets wore one-piece bathing suits, Carmen did her dance numbers in a type of sarong, with bared midriff. Amazing abs!!! Also, because she always wore some really gaudy headpieces I don't ever recall seeing her hair. Maybe my attention was somewhere else. Anyway, such is my recollection of the moves in Shenandoah during the early 40's. I just thought you might want to hear a little about them.

Shenandoah¹ in the 1940s

Here's what it was like to grow up in Shen in the late 30's, 40's & 50's: Of course it depended on which side of the tracks you were born; like many other places the "privileged" classes had a different lifestyle. The town was basically divided into classes according to the streets. Coming in from Mahanoy City on East Center Street one could see what was known as the "bloody" First Ward, named such because of the problems with mine strikes. The First Ward was literally located on the "other side of the tracks" and consisted chiefly of Polish and Lithuanian ethnic groups. Up from the tracks, beginning with White Street and extending to Jardin Street, was the area where a great deal of the "rich" lived. Parts of North West Street could be included in this category. From West street on down to Glover's Hill, there was a real olio of classes.

There was a lot of churches-any denomination you'd like. I'm not sure if there was a bar on every corner but it damn sure felt like it! Pretty much every block had it's own watering hole. Growing up, kids had no organized sports or play time. Kids made up their own games, such as "chases", "hide 'n seek", "tag", and "catty corner". Later, in the late 40's there was organized baseball called the Midget and Pony Leagues. Kids walked everywhere as did the adults. Perhaps walking may have attributed to the relatively old ages some of the people in Shen attained. Picking huckleberries at any of the many mountain sites around provided for delicious pies as well as some pocket money from the bakeries who were always looking for the berries.

As kids got older, some of the "fun" got a bit more dangerous, e.g., climbing electrical high voltage towers, walking the "slush" dams, swinging over the "shitty" creek on a rope attached to the top of the Pennsy Railroad bridge, etc. When the kids reached high school, there were the Friday night dances to look forward to. Each of the high schools, J.W.Cooper and Shen Catholic had very, very good dance orchestras, some of their members becoming professional musicians. Besides the dances, Saturday night was "cruisin'" night (without a car), where the guys and girls would walk around town (many times) checking things out. Saturday night was also date night to the movies, if one was lucky enough to get a date.

Of course almost no one had their own car (with the exception of one guy whose Dad bought him a 1952 yellow Chrysler Windsor at high school graduation and another who was lucky enough to have won a Mercury in a raffle). After high school graduation, there were the nights at the Lake⁵ where the big bands and well known vocalists would come. This was really great stuff! I'm sure other people could provide other examples of the activities that went on during these memorable years. I would hope that these people would share their experiences with all of us!

The Pools

A big part of the social activity in Shen during the 40's/50's was "going to play the pools." In Shen, there were about 5 or 6 "pools" run by non-profit organizations such as the American Legion, VFW, Damato Post, etc. The "pool" was basically a lottery and it was run this way:

You went to the "pool" to buy "chances" as they were called. When you entered the "pool" you faced a number of people known as "writers" and went to one of the windows and gave your name and address to the writer. The writer wrote this information on a lined sheet of paper that had a series of numbers associated with each line. For a dime a chance, you received a "pill". The "pill" was a disk of compressed material, resembling WWII rationing tokens, about the size and thickness of a quarter, with a number stamped on the disk. The number corresponded to the number stamped on the paper next to your name. When you received your pill or pills, you deposited the pill(s) into a large wood and glass barrel that was located toward the front of the room. At the end of the night, which was 9 P.M. on weekdays and 10 P.M. on Saturdays, the writing would be stopped. The barrel would be closed and locked and rotated on an axle in order to mix all of the pills. When the pills were well mixed a number of "pickers" were waiting to be called to pick the winning pills. The prizes for winning pills ranged from $50 to $100 on weekdays and $50 to $1000 on Saturdays. The "pickers" waited in line to do the picking because, traditionally, the winner of the prize would leave the picker (and sometimes the writer) a tip. I worked at the American Legion Pool and usually there were about 22,000 pills sold on a typical Saturday night with as many as 35,000 sold around the holidays.

So what happened with the pills that were left in the barrel? Well, we had to sort them and this was an amazing operation! First, we had to sort the pills according to thousands. There was a wooden device that had bins ranging from 1 to 40, meaning 1000 to 40,000. We all would take a cigar box and fill it with pills from the barrel. Then we would "chuck" the pills into the various bins. You had to have a quick eye and good aim to do the job well and you would get an earful if you hit the wrong bin! After all the pills were initially sorted, a new set of bins were used to separate the pills into groups of hundreds. When all of the pills were sorted, next came getting them into the right order. To do this we had wooden boards that looked like checker boards, each having 100 squares with numbers painted on them. We would take a cigar box that had the hundred pills (for example pills ranging from 500 to 599) and begin placing them on top of the proper number painted on the checker board.

When we finished, we brought the board to a "stringer" whose job it was to stack the pills in numerical order and then string them on a wire. The pills would then be ready for the next "pool" day. Afterwards we cleaned and oiled the wooden floor of the pool. For all of this we received the grand sum of $3! A lot of work and an experience I will never forget!

The Umbrella Man

Two unique people I remember, growing up in Shen in the 40's, were the "Umbrella Man" and the "Junk Man" or as people called him then, the "Sheeney". Today, this word is politically incorrect-as it should have been then, since it was a slang word for a Jew, as were Kike and Mockie. Nonetheless, the word was used and the Junk Man was called it.

The Junk Man I remember rode around in a small cart or wagon, pulled by a horse. On the cart he had items too numerous to mention. If there were anything there you wanted, he'd sell it to you and if you had some junk to get rid of he'd buy it from you. I never saw him turn down a piece of junk. He'd always buy it, although perhaps the price wouldn't be as high as you would like. Seems as if he would come around once every month or two, perhaps longer.

He was a very pleasant man, always taking time out to talk with us kids, always kidding around with us. "No matter what you do or who you become, always respect your mother and father. Listen to them and obey them. Then your children will respect you too.", he would say to us many, many times. I remember once, around Easter time, he gave us kids some matzo bread, explaining to us that it was a special bread that Jews used during Passover. For those who have never had matzo bread, the best way to describe it is a large well-baked cracker, but devoid of any flavor except that of the matzo flour. I told him that the stuff would taste a lot better if it had some salt on it like a pretzel. He laughed, rubbed my crew-cut head and said "Spoken like a true goy." Never found out what he meant until later in life (that "goy" meant a non-Jewish person.

The Umbrella man was an amazement. He fixed umbrellas, as his name indicated, but he also sharpened knives and scissors. He carried a portable grinding wheel that was operated with a foot pedal and leather belt device. He also carried a small collapsible chair. He would walk along the street shouting "Umbrella Man, Umbrella Man!" If anyone had knives or scissors to be sharpened or umbrellas to be repaired they would bring them out to him. He would plop his chair on the sidewalk, assemble his wheel, look at the item to be sharpened or repaired and then tell the person how long it would take. He would get to his task and really, within seconds he would be accurate about the time to repair it. That constantly amazed me because it seems as if the person would appear at his work area to pick up the item just seconds after he finished his job.

He had umbrella spokes of all sizes as well as needles and thread of all colors for sewing. And if you had an old umbrella that had seen better days, he would buy it from you. I remember that after the umbrella man finished sharpening Granny's favorite knife, the New York rye bread sure did slice easier!! And his prices were hard to beat, most things costing between a dime and a quarter.

I mentioned Jews earlier and just want to say that the Jewish community⁶ in Shen was the nicest, most helpful, most respectful group of people I have ever encountered. A great many of the merchants in town were of Jewish ancestry and shopping at their establishments was, for me, a treat. They were honest to a fault and extremely generous! It didn't matter where Mom shopped for my clothes-mostly at Harry Levitt's-but when Mom bought a suit or sport coat for me, Mr. Levitt or whoever the owner might be, would always "throw in" a free tie or matching socks or sometimes a shirt. And they had memories like an elecphant! They would ask about the health of your family members or relatives by name, or would ask about the vacation you took six months ago. Really wonderful and caring people. I miss them as well as the good old days...

Memories of the coal region, of days gone by, should include a discussion of pool rooms even though women did not visit them in those days. So, it was a guys thing. In Shenandoah, there were three major pool rooms-- the Strand, the Modern, and the Majestic. The Strand was the hangout for high school lads; the Modern was the place for serious pool shooting and poker playing. The Majestic was an unknown. I could never figure out who went there or why. The few times I went in there I found a dimly lit place with poor pool equipment and old men I didn't know. But, I can write about the other two.

The Strand was operated by a man, Charles Werner, known only as Charlie to all of us. The Strand was a popular hangout for the high school guys, both from J. W. Cooper and from SCHS. The pool equipment was OK, but not as good as the Modern's. The Strand was a good place to learn to shoot pool because most of the guys were in the same boat--learning. It was also a good place to shoot pill pool, a gambling form of pool. This game needed three or more people to play. An essential part of the game were the "pills" which were small balls about ½" in diameter and with a part of the sphere removed, so that the ball had a flat, polished surface. On the surface of each ball was engraved a number ranging from 1 to 15. These pills were stored in a bottle-shaped leather container. The pool game played in pill pool was "Rotation".

There were 15 balls, of various colors, on the table and each ball had a specific number ranging from 1 to 15. The balls were located in a triangular formation, also known as a rack, at the foot of the table. The pill pool game began by each player shaking up the leather bottle and allowing one of the pills to fall in his hand. whatever number was on the pill, that number represented the player's ball on the table. If the player sank, or "made" his ball in one of the pockets on the table, the game was over and everyone paid him some money, whatever amount agreed upon but usually a quarter. If, on the other hand, the player's ball was made by someone else, then that player had to pay whoever made his ball a quarter. If no player made his ball, the game would continue, starting anew, but with all bets increased by a quarter.

Prior to picking pills to determine their ball, the players would first pick pills to determine the shooting order. The player picking the highest-numbered pill would shoot first, with the second highest draw shooting next, etc. The first shooter had an advantage because he got to hit the rack of balls with another ball, completely white, called the cue ball. He had an advantage because if he were able to really smash the rack hard, he would probably make one of the colored balls. If that ball were his, because of the pill he picked, he won the game immediately. If it were someone else's ball he would collect money from that person. And even if neither case were true, he could continue shooting until he missed. Shooting started at the "1" ball and when that ball was made, then the "2" ball, etc., until the player missed or made his ball. If he missed, then the next player in turn would shoot, and so the game continued.

The reason that his game was popular because the best shooter did not necessarily win at this game. There was an awful of luck involved. For example, you might pick a pill showing that the "1" ball was yours, but when you smashed the rack, no balls fell and the "1" ball was an easy shot for the next player. Right off the gun, the player makes your ball and not only have you no chance of winning, you also must pay up! Mickey Buscavage was the best young pool-shooter around. He was also the best pinball player around but that's a story for later on.

Another guy, Gunk Mulhall, was the luckiest shooter I ever ran across! The fact was that any time Gunk was in the game when Mickey was playing, Mickey never won money. To help Gunk's luck, he was the strongest rack breaker I ever saw. When he broke the rack, balls whizzed around the table and I really can't remember seeing him break the rack without at least one ball going into a pocket. And about one time in three, it would be his ball that went in! When that happened, Gunk would yell out "Payday at the gap, boys!"

The pool rooms depended on four sources for their income: pool games, gambling, cigarettes/cigars, and snacks. The pool games in the Strand were paid for by the game: Rotation and Eight Ball was a nickel a game while straight pool was 15 cents for 25 points and a quarter for a 50-point game. In the Modern (it was really called the Modern Billiard Academy!) had 9 tables. The back four were Rotation tables and cost a nickel a game to play. The front four tables were for straight pool or gambling games these tables charged by the half-hour, 30 cents per half hour. The lights for the table were hooked up to a coin-operated timer system. When you deposited the money and turned the handle, a clock mechanism began operating, turning off the lights when the half hour was over.

The gambling consisted of three main items: Poker games in the back room where the pool room got a part of every pot; pinball machines that paid a nickel for every point scored on the machine; and the punchboards. The punchboards were probably the biggest income producer for a couple of reasons. First, the damn things were as addictive as slot machines. For those of you who have never had any experiences with punchboards, let me explain. The punchboard is, in fact, a cardboard creation about 9 to 12 inches wide, 12 to 15 inches long and about ½" thick. The lower part of the board contained anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 holes, each hole containing1 small piece of paper with a number printed on it and the paper folded in a fan-like fashion so that it could fit in the hole. the holes were all covered with a paper-like covering.

The top of the punchboard contained printed information telling you what numbers were winners and how much each of the winners would pay. On a nickel board, for example, all numbers ending in 50 and 00 might win $5, and numbers like 111, 222, 333, etc. might win $10. The dime board was the big board holding 10,000 punches. Its winning system was a lot more complicated. Numbers like 1111, 2222, etc. were the big winners, paying $25. The other winners were determined by two squares, one a 9-box square and the other a 16-box square. In both squares, numbers were printed. The small square had 123, 456, 789 printed horizontally in the three sets of squares. To win by the small square, you had to match the numbers in any of the rows, going right to left or vice versa, up or down, or diagonally. Thus 123, 321, 147, 741, 159, 357, etc. would all be winners, paying $5.

The numbers in the 16-square box were more randomly distributed but the method of determining a winner was the same--up-down, left-right, diagonally, etc. As I said, these things were addictive. There was many a man who dropped the major part of his paycheck on the boards, thinking that a winner was "due" to pop up (a wrongful logic that many slots players believe in). what these players, many of them, didn't realize was that the owner kept the winning punches in an empty cigar box. If the board had no big winners and had a good number of punches taken, he would take the board off the counter and put a new board up because he had already made a profit on the board. So, if you saw a board the had a good number of punches taken you KNEW that the board was out there because it had paid out a lot and the owner needed to at least break even. Most of the veteran players knew this and would not play until a new board was put out. Even when told what the odds were of them winning, they refused to believe they could not get the best of the boards!

Pin ball machines were the choice of the young guys and as I indicated earlier, Mickey Buscavage was the Master. Mickey could bump and shake that machine such that he must have been only a whisker from causing a tilt (which means that the game is over because you jarred the machine too hard). Mickey was so good that Charlie, at the Strand, offered Mickey $5 a week to NOT play the machine!! True Story!!

But the funniest thing I remember about the pinball machines was one day, in the Modern, Joe Cinco--also known as Bomba the Jungle Boy because of a striking resemblance to Johnny Sheffield who played Bomba in the Tarzan movies--began surreptitiously rounding up the guys asking them to crowd around the pin ball machine. what had happened was that the mechanic who regularly serviced the machines, accidentally left off the nuts from the bolts that kept the glass top of the machine attached to the body of the machine. I don't know who discovered it but when they did, they decided that if they got a coat hanger, straightened it out, and lifted up the glass cover of the machine, they might be able to snake the hanger over to one of the holes that gave out points if the ball landed in it. In the hole was a metal button that was depressed when the ball landed in it, so touching that button with the hanger would make it appear that a ball had landed in it. So, when we all gathered around the machine, we hid what was happening from view and the player kept on touching various holes with the hanger, racking up bundles of points, worth a nickel a point!

But, there was never a lot of greed there. The player(s) would hit for about $3 to $5 at a time, and also a crowd watching a pin ball game was a very ordinary thing, so this scam went on for about two weeks until one day, whoever was holding up the glass top while the hanger was being manipulated, dropped the top and the glass shattered. When that happened all of the guys around the machine headed out the door to Main St. and scattered like flies. Most of us who were there didn't go back to the Modern for about a month or so. Nothing was ever said by Pete Mack (the owner) or his son Ray. Knowing Pete, I think he got a real kick out of it…..

Pete Mack was one of the nicest gentlemen I ever met. Pete owned and operated the Modern Billiards Academy, with his son Ray, in Shenandoah during the 40's, 50's and 60's. Pete was always, always dressed in a suit, gray or brown, with a matching vest. He wore a plain white shirt and tie, and black or brown cap-toed shoes. The only time I saw Pete without a suit coat was when he had to repair a pool table or put new cloth on the tables. Then, he removed his coat but did the work in his vest, shirt and tie. Pete was about 5'-10" and weighed about 250 pounds--a rather robust man. He had wiry gray hair, parted on the side, thick-lensed glasses, a hawk-like nose and was without a tooth in his mouth. Not a tooth. Now, Pete had a very good business and I'm sure that money was not the reason for not having dentures. I suspect that like many who lived in Shenandoah, getting dentures that fit properly was almost impossible. He may have had dentures that he wore at home for eating his meals, but I never saw him with any dentures while he operated his business. And the funny thing is that his enunciation was great. Nobody had any trouble understanding Pete!

I mentioned that Pete wore thick glasses. Jimmy Carras, a world renowned pool shooter was related to a friend of mine and told my friend that Pete could have been one of the world's best pocket billiard players except that early in his life his vision began to deteriorate and he needed strong lenses to correct the problem. But even if the glasses had compensated his vision 100%, just the fact that he had to wear the glasses would have been enough to handicap him. I was a very good pool shooter, but in my senior year of high school my far vision began to go. All of a sudden I began to miss the long shots because of the lack of very sharp vision. Later in life, I got glasses but soon found out that there would be problems: first, when you bent over to aim the shot, the top of the glass frames interfered with your vision; second, even if you had very large frames, progressive lenses were not available then and so if you saw a distant shot clearly, the near ones would be out of focus. It was a real problem. I don't shoot pool often these days, but when I do I end up taking the glasses off and living with the blurred long distant vision. But, while Pete may not have achieved his goal of being one of the world's best players, Pete was still an excellent player and could beat pretty much anyone at their game.

Pete was friends with all of the top world class pool shooters and regularly brought in shooters like Ralph Greenleaf , Jimmy Caras, Irving Crane, and Joe Balsis (from Minersville), but the time the Modern was filled to capacity was when he brought in the World Champion, Willie Mosconi.

On the night Mosconi was to shoot an exhibition at 8 o'clock, we all got there around 5 to get a good spot to watch the match. The exhibition would be played on an extra large table located in the middle of the pool hall. This was a 5-foot by 10-foot table instead of the regulation 4-1/2-foot by 9-foot tables. what was exciting was that the match would be between Willie Mosconi and one of us! The deal was that Mosconi would open up the exhibition by performing a series of trick shots. After that, all who wanted a chance to shoot against Mosconi would put their names in a hat and Mosconi would draw a name and that person would be Mosconi's opponent. Can you imagine the nerves and excitement that evening? As I mentioned earlier, the exhibition would be played on the extra large table which was a very difficult table to shoot on. But it didn't seem to faze Mosconi one bit as he warmed up and then went through a series of remarkable trick shots.

Mosconi was dressed to the tens. He had on a gray sharkskin suit, tailored perfectly, a crisp, white shirt with French cuffs and large gold cuff links, a navy blue and gold striped tie, and black cap-toed shoes shined to a high gloss. After Mosconi finished his trick-shot repertoire, the big moment arrived. The hat was passed and we all placed a slip of paper with our name on it in a hat, and the hat was given to Mosconi. Mosconi pulled a slip from the hat and announced that his opponent would be "Joe Cinco"!! A roar went up into the air. In a previous post I mentioned that Joe was also known as Bomba the Jungle Boy because of his uncanny resemblance to Johnny Sheffield also known as Bomba in the Tarzan movies. Joe was a decent shooter and we all cheered him on. Mosconi broke the rack with a safety break, not leaving Joe anything. Joe tried a safe shot but left one ball open and Mosconi made that ball and broke the rack wide open, but scratched, thereby letting Joe shoot again. To Joe's credit, Joe ran the table, fourteen balls and then made the next ball, also breaking the rack. This was quite an achievement for Joe, as it would be for anyone feeling the pressure of shooting against the World Champion! Unfortunately, he was stymied after that shot and missed his next shot. The game was for 150 points and Mosconi promptly made the next 150 balls, ending the game! But what a memory for me, and especially for Joe Cinco!!

Getting back to Pete Mack. Whenever we young kids were down to our last few cents, or even completely broke, we would "challenge" Pete to a game of 50 points. Of course we knew that we couldn't beat Pete, but we also knew that Pete would always pay for the game. Pete would not spot us any points but what he would do is go to a rack where they had cue sticks for public use and pick the most crooked, most warped stick he could find! That would be his handicap in playing against us. And with that crooked stick, he would still make 30, 40, or 50 balls in a row. Usually, though, he missed early in the game allowing you to get around 25 to 30 points before he started in earnest. In this kind of game, I saw Pete lose only once. He played Mickey Buscavage, the best young player in town. Pete broke the rack and Mickey ran 50 balls for the game. In fact, Pete told Mickey to keep shooting to see how many balls he could run and Mickey kept on until he missed on the 83rd ball. As nice as Pete was, Pete would never "throw" a game just to let you win. You had to earn any win you got, as Mickey did. But Pete always paid for the game. The nice thing was that all of us inherently knew that we shouldn't take advantage of a good thing. And we didn't. I believe that Pete Mack died some time in the late 60's. God Bless you Pete and I hope you're doing some shooting on the Lord's tables. With a straight stick!!