Hi readers! I was going to write a funny blog in the format of letters to the editor, but events of the last week (earthquake, Hurricane, heat in Texas) seem to make a funny blog inappropriate somehow. Maybe I'm just not in a humorous mood. So I thought I would tackle some items in the news. Letters to the editor will show up one day.
#1:President Obama travels in style! Seems the U.S. Government ordered (2) specially equipped, state of the art busses for Pres. Obama's 3 day "trip through the midwest". The cost of EACH bus was 1.1 million dollars. That's 2.2 million tax dollars for two,huge, totally black (windows as well)busses for a 3 day swing through the midwest where Obama did some speeches about the perils of the economy and our need for vigilence as we near the 10 year anniversary of 9/11.
COMMENT: Are you kidding me! 2.2 million dollars for 3 days of being the mystery man superstar emerging from a big black bus? The busses don't say "power" they say "stupid"!!
There are several bad ideas at work here: the first one is the waste of money. Wouldn't it have been MORE EFFECTIVE if the President announced that he would do the tour on a regular Greyhound bus BECAUSE that would be cost effective at a time when America needs to be cost effective? That is what leaders are supposed to do.... lead the way. Also, his message was lost because all the attention was on the BUS. That's not even a smart political move. It's like delivering your State of the Union Address while wearing a Mickey Mouse tie. Finally, the message itself wasn't really worth the time and money.
We are in economic peril? Really? I guess no one realized that before his 3 day trip. President Obama thinks the Republicans are to blame for the economic mess!? Nope, didn't see that one coming. We need to be vigilent as we approach 9/11 anniversary?! I told my classes that 3 years ago. We need to be vigilent all the time.
#2: I had a panic moment yesterday while watching the new "cliche riddled" movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes. In the movie, John Lithgow, a terrific actor, plays the father of James Franco's character. (Franco is the star of the movie) John's character is first on screen saying, "Where are my car keys"? "I can't find my car keys"! Then we discover he has Alheizeimer's. Realizing I couldn't find my car keys just 35 minutes before I came over to the theater, I thought, "Oh no"! "oh shit"! But I soon calmed down when I remembered I couldn't find my car keys when I was 35 years old and every year since. That is normal for me. Whew!
#3 The San Diego Padres baseball team is the perfect example of goof-ball thinking. They trade the best 8th inning relief man in the game for "pitching prospects". Sports teams do this all the time, trade an all pro wide receiver for a draft choice and then need to use the draft choice to draft a wide receiver. I've never yet seen a prospect win a game.
However, there is one area where this thinking could be of use and that is politics. I would love to trade one obnoxious former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi(Lugosi) for (2) untried rookies. We could give Grover Norquist an unconditional release. How about put Eric Cantor, and Harry Reid on waivers and bring up two uncorrupted rookies from the minors? We might get lucky, one of them could be Mr. Smith going to Washington.
#4: Finally G.E. announces thousands of american workers to be laid off as they takethose jobs overseas. This company is famous for it's 30-40 billion dollar profit in 2010 and for paying NO taxes. They reward the largesse of American tax loophole law by shit-canning american workers. They were apparently tired of paying those pesky 15 dollar an hour wages and having to pay benefits when they could go overseas and pay 5 dollars an hour and the benefits would be an id card and use of the company computer. With a 30+ billion dollar profit in one fiscal year shouldn't they be raising their american workers salaries and/or making their benefits better? Greed and capitalism made this country great, I hope it doesn't now ruin it.
Your comments are appreciated at rhobbs9@yahoo.com
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
His Account: Mike at Pearl Harbor
This is the 3rd and final installment of Mike Molden's accounts of his life years ago. These 3 installments are from someone that was there, in history. I can only imagine what Pearl Harbor must have been like. You and I have newsreel, photo's and eyewitness testimony. Mike has something much better, his memory of Pearl Harbor. Enjoy his first person account, and thanks Mike!
December 7, 1941
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, I was working in the Parachute Shop back at Patterson Air Field in Ohio.. I had been working most of the night because I was on the night shift. The attack on Pearl Harbor Sunday morning was being reported on the radio (Saturday night because of the time zone differences). The reports came in in the form of continuous news flashes. Awhile after the work shift began, our supervisor instructed all parachute riggers to go immediately to the aircraft maintenance main hangar. Several hundred men from aircraft and aircraft systems repair shops, and other shops on the air base, were already there. They were milling about. I joined them and wondered why we (in Ohio) had been called together.
A military officer climbed to the platform at the top of an aircraft maintenance stand. Drawing attention by tapping on the stand's railing with a metal object, he told us that the U.S. Army Air Corps needed skilled workers and supervisors immediately at Hickam Field in Hawaii. Whoever wanted to go, he said, should raise his arm and his name would be listed. That meant an immediate deployment to Pearl Harbor.
Since I was single, footloose and fancy-free at the time, my arm got caught in the updraft and I was soon on the list to leave for Pearl. We were told to wait, and the others instructed to return to their shops. Those that stayed, lined up, and our names, badge numbers, and job titles were entered on a list. We were each given an instruction sheet and told to make sure we complied with our directions.
The next morning I reported to the dispensary for immunization shots (both arms), and then on to the Personnel Office to sign papers that came at me from all directions. I had a week to get my affairs in order; after that, I would be on stand-by for departure. A week later, along with several hundred other volunteer workers, I boarded a train on a siding next to a warehouse, and was on my way west.
The train, with all its windows covered by blackout curtains, left Patterson Field in the dead of night, and arrived three days later at Moffett Field near Mountain View, California. We lined up for bedrolls, and were pointed toward rows of tents in a muddy field adjacent to a dirigible hangar. An instruction sheet, tacked to the tent's center pole, told us where the mess halls were located, and that the meals were scheduled by tent number.
More trains arrived the next day and the days following. Hundreds of civilian workers joined us in the tents waiting for the next leg of our journey. We quickly got to know each other; we had come from all across the country: New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia, Alabama and Texas, Utah and California. The Air Corps bases at which we had signed up were Griffiths and Olmstead, Patterson and Robbins, Brookley and Kelly, and Hill and McClellan. We were the new vanguard, ready to move out very soon after Pearl. How fast things were changing.
Days passed uneventfully. One night at 2 AM we were awakened to voices shouting along side our tents. 'This is it, you guys. Movin' out. One hour.'
In the early morning hours and in a torrential downpour, we slogged through ankle-deep mud and climbed into the backs of canvas-covered trucks. The flaps were down, and we had an escort: armed military guards in Jeeps. All trucks were blacked out except for dim lights gleaming through slits in their headlights. We formed up as a miles-long convoy rolling north along U.S. 101 from Moffett Field, and arrived, shortly before dawn, at Fort Mason, adjacent to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The trucks filled the pier from end to end; a gangway led up to the deck of a ship alongside. We learned later that she was the U.S. Grant, a World War I troop transport.
Herded below deck, we jammed into compartments where the narrow bunks were five high along aisles barely wide enough for passing. A 'Now, here this....' over the loudspeaker told us we were restricted to our compartments, and to passageways only when necessary, until we were out of the harbor. We were to have our life preservers with us at all times.
Hours later, the ship's vibration, a back-and-forth shifting in my center of gravity, and creaking along the bulkheads, told me we were under way. Scuttlebutt was that we were in a convoy, escorted by destroyers. Being in a restricted area, at first we couldn’t go up on top to check things out. Enemy submarines were suspected to be in the area.
However, soon we took turns, by compartment number, going on deck. On our way to Honolulu, the convoy zigzagged frequently to minimize the success of an enemy air or submarine attack. Finally, on the fifth day, land appeared on the horizon and, shortly afterward, we saw Diamond Head. Our ship left the convoy and entered Honolulu harbor.
We docked and disembarked, under heavy military guard, at the Aloha Tower pier and boarded the Toonerville Trolley, as we got to know the train on Oahu's narrow gage railway. An hour or so later we were at Hickam Field. The same Hickam Field all shot up just a few days ago.
The devastation was appalling. Burned-out hulks of bombed aircraft were scattered about on the parking aprons, and huge accumulations of debris lay next to aircraft hangars and along the roadways. The roofs of military barracks hung down along the outsides of the structures; they had exploded up and outward over the walls.
It’s hard to put into words the destruction plus we knew how many fellow military and civilian personnel had died there.
~~~
As a senior technician, I was assigned to the recovery and repair of damaged parachutes, life rafts, inflatable life preservers, oxygen masks, and the escape-and-evasion kits that air crews relied on when they bailed out over enemy territory. All of the equipment that came to our shop was closely inspected, repaired, if possible, and, when called for, tested. As soon as the damaged survival gear was fixed and ready for service, they were returned to the airplane from which they came. The work we were doing was for real, flying boys depended on us and we knew how important it was for all of us to do our very best.
Many of us joined Hickam Field's armed civilians, officially titled the Hawaiian Air Depot Volunteer Corps. We were volunteer employees who, during non-duty hours, also trained to handle and shoot a rifle ('03 Enfield), a pistol and 30 cal. machine gun. Our off work duty was to patrol and guard designated locations at night where high security was needed. We patrolled aircraft maintenance hangers, warehouses, instrument repair shops, and an engine repair lines underground at Wheeler Field, near Wahiawa in the Oahu highlands.
As armed civilians, we were each given a card to carry on our person. The card stated, in fine print, that if captured by the enemy while carrying a weapon, we were entitled to claim rights as a 'prisoner of war.' The Army Air Corps military officer who commanded our unit said that, since we did not wear military uniforms, nor carry military identification tags, the card would certify us as 'combatants'. The statement on the card was supposed to keep us from being shot as spies in the event the enemy invaded the Hawaiian Islands. The Volunteer Corps was dissolved a few months after the Battle of Midway.
During the war years, I fixed and packed thousands of man-carrying and cargo parachutes, and serviced many other types of life-saving, survival, flotation, and escape-and evasion gear. My work at Pearl Harbor right after the attack made me proud to be an American.
Mike
December 7, 1941
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, I was working in the Parachute Shop back at Patterson Air Field in Ohio.. I had been working most of the night because I was on the night shift. The attack on Pearl Harbor Sunday morning was being reported on the radio (Saturday night because of the time zone differences). The reports came in in the form of continuous news flashes. Awhile after the work shift began, our supervisor instructed all parachute riggers to go immediately to the aircraft maintenance main hangar. Several hundred men from aircraft and aircraft systems repair shops, and other shops on the air base, were already there. They were milling about. I joined them and wondered why we (in Ohio) had been called together.
A military officer climbed to the platform at the top of an aircraft maintenance stand. Drawing attention by tapping on the stand's railing with a metal object, he told us that the U.S. Army Air Corps needed skilled workers and supervisors immediately at Hickam Field in Hawaii. Whoever wanted to go, he said, should raise his arm and his name would be listed. That meant an immediate deployment to Pearl Harbor.
Since I was single, footloose and fancy-free at the time, my arm got caught in the updraft and I was soon on the list to leave for Pearl. We were told to wait, and the others instructed to return to their shops. Those that stayed, lined up, and our names, badge numbers, and job titles were entered on a list. We were each given an instruction sheet and told to make sure we complied with our directions.
The next morning I reported to the dispensary for immunization shots (both arms), and then on to the Personnel Office to sign papers that came at me from all directions. I had a week to get my affairs in order; after that, I would be on stand-by for departure. A week later, along with several hundred other volunteer workers, I boarded a train on a siding next to a warehouse, and was on my way west.
The train, with all its windows covered by blackout curtains, left Patterson Field in the dead of night, and arrived three days later at Moffett Field near Mountain View, California. We lined up for bedrolls, and were pointed toward rows of tents in a muddy field adjacent to a dirigible hangar. An instruction sheet, tacked to the tent's center pole, told us where the mess halls were located, and that the meals were scheduled by tent number.
More trains arrived the next day and the days following. Hundreds of civilian workers joined us in the tents waiting for the next leg of our journey. We quickly got to know each other; we had come from all across the country: New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia, Alabama and Texas, Utah and California. The Air Corps bases at which we had signed up were Griffiths and Olmstead, Patterson and Robbins, Brookley and Kelly, and Hill and McClellan. We were the new vanguard, ready to move out very soon after Pearl. How fast things were changing.
Days passed uneventfully. One night at 2 AM we were awakened to voices shouting along side our tents. 'This is it, you guys. Movin' out. One hour.'
In the early morning hours and in a torrential downpour, we slogged through ankle-deep mud and climbed into the backs of canvas-covered trucks. The flaps were down, and we had an escort: armed military guards in Jeeps. All trucks were blacked out except for dim lights gleaming through slits in their headlights. We formed up as a miles-long convoy rolling north along U.S. 101 from Moffett Field, and arrived, shortly before dawn, at Fort Mason, adjacent to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The trucks filled the pier from end to end; a gangway led up to the deck of a ship alongside. We learned later that she was the U.S. Grant, a World War I troop transport.
Herded below deck, we jammed into compartments where the narrow bunks were five high along aisles barely wide enough for passing. A 'Now, here this....' over the loudspeaker told us we were restricted to our compartments, and to passageways only when necessary, until we were out of the harbor. We were to have our life preservers with us at all times.
Hours later, the ship's vibration, a back-and-forth shifting in my center of gravity, and creaking along the bulkheads, told me we were under way. Scuttlebutt was that we were in a convoy, escorted by destroyers. Being in a restricted area, at first we couldn’t go up on top to check things out. Enemy submarines were suspected to be in the area.
However, soon we took turns, by compartment number, going on deck. On our way to Honolulu, the convoy zigzagged frequently to minimize the success of an enemy air or submarine attack. Finally, on the fifth day, land appeared on the horizon and, shortly afterward, we saw Diamond Head. Our ship left the convoy and entered Honolulu harbor.
We docked and disembarked, under heavy military guard, at the Aloha Tower pier and boarded the Toonerville Trolley, as we got to know the train on Oahu's narrow gage railway. An hour or so later we were at Hickam Field. The same Hickam Field all shot up just a few days ago.
The devastation was appalling. Burned-out hulks of bombed aircraft were scattered about on the parking aprons, and huge accumulations of debris lay next to aircraft hangars and along the roadways. The roofs of military barracks hung down along the outsides of the structures; they had exploded up and outward over the walls.
It’s hard to put into words the destruction plus we knew how many fellow military and civilian personnel had died there.
~~~
As a senior technician, I was assigned to the recovery and repair of damaged parachutes, life rafts, inflatable life preservers, oxygen masks, and the escape-and-evasion kits that air crews relied on when they bailed out over enemy territory. All of the equipment that came to our shop was closely inspected, repaired, if possible, and, when called for, tested. As soon as the damaged survival gear was fixed and ready for service, they were returned to the airplane from which they came. The work we were doing was for real, flying boys depended on us and we knew how important it was for all of us to do our very best.
Many of us joined Hickam Field's armed civilians, officially titled the Hawaiian Air Depot Volunteer Corps. We were volunteer employees who, during non-duty hours, also trained to handle and shoot a rifle ('03 Enfield), a pistol and 30 cal. machine gun. Our off work duty was to patrol and guard designated locations at night where high security was needed. We patrolled aircraft maintenance hangers, warehouses, instrument repair shops, and an engine repair lines underground at Wheeler Field, near Wahiawa in the Oahu highlands.
As armed civilians, we were each given a card to carry on our person. The card stated, in fine print, that if captured by the enemy while carrying a weapon, we were entitled to claim rights as a 'prisoner of war.' The Army Air Corps military officer who commanded our unit said that, since we did not wear military uniforms, nor carry military identification tags, the card would certify us as 'combatants'. The statement on the card was supposed to keep us from being shot as spies in the event the enemy invaded the Hawaiian Islands. The Volunteer Corps was dissolved a few months after the Battle of Midway.
During the war years, I fixed and packed thousands of man-carrying and cargo parachutes, and serviced many other types of life-saving, survival, flotation, and escape-and evasion gear. My work at Pearl Harbor right after the attack made me proud to be an American.
Mike
Friday, August 12, 2011
Part II: "Mike's Recollections" (1940-41)
Mike Moldeven finished his last installment talking about his depression era (1930's) experiences and his gratitude for finally landing (in 1939) a legit job as a civilian working for the Army Air Service Command as a parachute rigger and repair man. In the year and a half leading up to Pearl Harbor he told me there was a lot of talk about how soon America would be in the war. All were on high alert, although no one could say for sure war would come our way. As a young man (24) Mike was more locally focused on becoming good at his job, living a life of decent meals and a roof over his head. Here is his account of his new job. He picks it up in September 1941 (barely 2 1/2 months before Pearl).
~~~~
In September 1941 I was a civilian parachute rigger for the U. S. Army Air Service Command at Patterson Field, near Dayton, Ohio. My job was to repair trooper and cargo parachutes that had been used by the U S Army training personnel at Fort Benning, Georgia,also at other Army installations and for the Army Air Corps.
September through November of 1941 was busy times for our shop. Conflict was already raging across Europe and on battlefronts in Asia and Africa. The United States Armed Forces were accelerating their training programs, and Americans soldiers and airman were active in the war zones of other nations. My parachute shop, as was the case with most of the other industrial shops at Patterson Field, and other bases throughout the United States, was on a round-the-clock seven-day workweek.
Many damaged man-carrying and cargo parachutes were brought to our shop from United States training bases and overseas theaters of operations. Often, the parachute harnesses (that wrap around the jumpers to lower them safely) were in shreds. Also, canopies were ripped, and canopy containers and emergency survival attachments were scorched and gory. I don’t have to tell you why they were gory but it was disturbing to see. I was in a crew that fixed these chutes and then did a drop-test with a dozen or so serviced chutes chosen at random. The shop foreman picked them from each set of two or three hundred that we had repaired and then re- packed for service. Following a successful drop test the chutes were closely inspected by a supervisor one last time before sent back into action.
~~~
The 'Drop Test' consisted of attaching a service-packed parachute to a 120-pound weight or canvas-covered dummy. Then they were loaded into a C-47 airplane, and connected to a metal hook at one end of a 30-foot long lanyard. This lanyard was connected to the parachute rip cord and the other end to a cable stretched taut above the airplane's main doorway. The door was lashed securely open. The two men on the test crew (and in the plane) wore parachutes and were secured inside the airplane by a short heavy belt so that they would not accidentally fall from the aircraft.
The pilot took off and circled the field at about a thousand feet. Approaching the drop zone, the co-pilot flashed a warning light above the door where the handlers were stationed. At the next signal, the handlers, one on each side of the dummy, heaved it out. The lanyard, fully extended, pulled the ripcord, and the canopy extended full length, in turn, opened, inflated, and descended. The ground crew visually tracked the drifting parachute, guessing at about where it would most likely touch ground.
Drop-test ground crew work was not dull. I remember how those of us on the ground would spread out and watch the dummy/weight as it descended and drifted. Sometimes it would come straight at us and we had to move fast to get out of the way. As soon as we knew where the parachute would land, we'd run toward it and, as soon as we reached it, haul in one of the webbing straps (risers) to spill air from the canopy, and get it all (canopy, suspension lines, dummy or concrete block) together with the least possible damage to the parachute -- and ourselves.
There were times, even on a relatively calm day, when a gust would pass across the field and inflate the canopy before we got to it. A partially inflated canopy in a gentle breeze can drag a 120-pound dummy and its parachute along faster than the ground handlers could run after it.
I'll always remember one time chasing a parachute and the attached dummy that a sudden gust dragged, rolled, twisted, and bounced along in a field we were using for the drop zone. Finally, with a lunge, I landed on the dummy, wrapped both legs around it, and grasped and hauled back one of the straps. I finally managed to spill enough air to deflate the canopy. Controlling a dummy that is being tossed around by a sudden gust of wind can be like riding a bronco in the rodeo.
These were good times for me, and in Ohio I didn't see Pearl Harbor coming 2,500 miles away in the Pacific. Then one day everything changed.
~~~~
In September 1941 I was a civilian parachute rigger for the U. S. Army Air Service Command at Patterson Field, near Dayton, Ohio. My job was to repair trooper and cargo parachutes that had been used by the U S Army training personnel at Fort Benning, Georgia,also at other Army installations and for the Army Air Corps.
September through November of 1941 was busy times for our shop. Conflict was already raging across Europe and on battlefronts in Asia and Africa. The United States Armed Forces were accelerating their training programs, and Americans soldiers and airman were active in the war zones of other nations. My parachute shop, as was the case with most of the other industrial shops at Patterson Field, and other bases throughout the United States, was on a round-the-clock seven-day workweek.
Many damaged man-carrying and cargo parachutes were brought to our shop from United States training bases and overseas theaters of operations. Often, the parachute harnesses (that wrap around the jumpers to lower them safely) were in shreds. Also, canopies were ripped, and canopy containers and emergency survival attachments were scorched and gory. I don’t have to tell you why they were gory but it was disturbing to see. I was in a crew that fixed these chutes and then did a drop-test with a dozen or so serviced chutes chosen at random. The shop foreman picked them from each set of two or three hundred that we had repaired and then re- packed for service. Following a successful drop test the chutes were closely inspected by a supervisor one last time before sent back into action.
~~~
The 'Drop Test' consisted of attaching a service-packed parachute to a 120-pound weight or canvas-covered dummy. Then they were loaded into a C-47 airplane, and connected to a metal hook at one end of a 30-foot long lanyard. This lanyard was connected to the parachute rip cord and the other end to a cable stretched taut above the airplane's main doorway. The door was lashed securely open. The two men on the test crew (and in the plane) wore parachutes and were secured inside the airplane by a short heavy belt so that they would not accidentally fall from the aircraft.
The pilot took off and circled the field at about a thousand feet. Approaching the drop zone, the co-pilot flashed a warning light above the door where the handlers were stationed. At the next signal, the handlers, one on each side of the dummy, heaved it out. The lanyard, fully extended, pulled the ripcord, and the canopy extended full length, in turn, opened, inflated, and descended. The ground crew visually tracked the drifting parachute, guessing at about where it would most likely touch ground.
Drop-test ground crew work was not dull. I remember how those of us on the ground would spread out and watch the dummy/weight as it descended and drifted. Sometimes it would come straight at us and we had to move fast to get out of the way. As soon as we knew where the parachute would land, we'd run toward it and, as soon as we reached it, haul in one of the webbing straps (risers) to spill air from the canopy, and get it all (canopy, suspension lines, dummy or concrete block) together with the least possible damage to the parachute -- and ourselves.
There were times, even on a relatively calm day, when a gust would pass across the field and inflate the canopy before we got to it. A partially inflated canopy in a gentle breeze can drag a 120-pound dummy and its parachute along faster than the ground handlers could run after it.
I'll always remember one time chasing a parachute and the attached dummy that a sudden gust dragged, rolled, twisted, and bounced along in a field we were using for the drop zone. Finally, with a lunge, I landed on the dummy, wrapped both legs around it, and grasped and hauled back one of the straps. I finally managed to spill enough air to deflate the canopy. Controlling a dummy that is being tossed around by a sudden gust of wind can be like riding a bronco in the rodeo.
These were good times for me, and in Ohio I didn't see Pearl Harbor coming 2,500 miles away in the Pacific. Then one day everything changed.
Friday, August 5, 2011
"He Was There"
You know I have a friend named Mike Moldeven. Mike has contributed several articles to The Bailey Post. Mike and I went to breakfast shortly after he recently (July) `celebrated his 95th birthday. He was born in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York. I asked Mike to write down some of his recollections from the 1930's, then his experiences leading up to and his connection to Pearl Harbor, 1941. All of us have had to rely on grainy black and white footage or textbooks to get the facts of that era. None of us can ever know first hand what it was like in the Great Depression or WWII. Mike was there and old enough at the time to remember what he experienced. Here then is Mike's own words done in three installments. First his recollection of the 1930's. Installment two will be his training leading up to WWII. The third installment will be his recollections of Pearl Harbor and the war.
Much of my time during the 1930’s was spent looking for a job, the same as most of my peers. I tried to sell newspapers, a nickel, or neckties for a dime on the subway or el stations but with no luck. Then I got a job in a shoe factory working a machine that punched tiny holes in shoes and simultaneously installed the eyelets that held the shoe laces. Those were the days of FDR's NRA (National Reconstruction Administration). My salary was an NRA-directed $10 per week. Suddenly, the US Supreme Court ruled that the NRA was unconstitutional. That ruling abolished all 'directed' salaries and my 10 bucks per week dropped to 8. Then I got laid off. I got a job in Jersey working on a hydraulic (metal bending) brake. That didn't last long either.
My friend, Manny, and I hiked a lot in the Adirondacks somewhere near the 'Finger Lakes' and I remember those days well. Those were the days when the 'unemployed' (like me) put in a few hours every couple of weeks with the NYA (National Youth Administration). I got a check in the mail for what I did: sanding down blocks of wood by hand (don't as me why; it was just 'busy work' for all of us.).
Manny and I were good friends. We met in one of the 'pencil block'
sanding gangs run by the 'home relief.' After the class, he and I
would head for the Automat for coffee and cake, and just talk. We'd
also join others like us and take the subway to the end of the line
and walk north from there, just talking. He was drafted into the Army
and I didn't hear from him other than when one of the guys in our
Lower East Side group told me that his family got the word that he had
been killed in the War. Not much said among us after that.
Where I lived public lineups did exist for homeless individuals and
families. I also remember the Salvation Army helped many people.
There was what we called 'home relief' operated by a 'community'
agency that was part of the 'city.' They distributed food and 'second hand' clothing and 'tickets' that could be traded in at groceries for specified categories of foods.
Today there are similar relief programs in play.
'Moods' about what was going on in the thirties varied according to where you lived. I recall my brotherfrequently taking me along with him to mix in with the 'Union Square'crowd. The 'soap box' was a reality. Speakers attracted listeners andI was one of the listeners, especially when my brother was one of the
speakers. When the cops hassled the crowd to move on, I carried my
brother's soap or orange box. We'd find another location in the
'Square', sometimes Columbus Circle at the foot of Central Park. My
brother's favorite pitch almost always got a chuckle from the
listeners. He'd say, "Comes the Revolution, you'll have 'peaches and
cream." and I'd holler along with the crowd, "I don't want peaches and
cream.' and my brother and I would holler back, "YOU'LL TAKE PEACHES
AND CREAM, Y'HEAR? LIKE IT ON NOT! And that invariably got more
chuckles, even laughs.
It was in(1939, I think) that I hitch-hiked down to D.C. to see my friend Manny. We wandered around Washington and eventually stopped in and sat down at the Post Office and I noticed posters on a wall. One of the posters invited applicants for Govt. jobs. So, what the hell; I took a couple of application forms, filled in a few blanks, mailed it in, and a few months later was offered a job at Wright Field. This was a military position. Hoo Hah! The next thing I recollect is that I was at Patterson Field, WITH A REAL JOB. That took me to the end of the 1930’s. I was trained in parachute maintenance and parachute rigging. I was 24 years old and glad to have a job and a place to be.
The next episode will cover my experiences as a parachute rigger, leading up to December 7, 1941 PEARL HARBOR.
Much of my time during the 1930’s was spent looking for a job, the same as most of my peers. I tried to sell newspapers, a nickel, or neckties for a dime on the subway or el stations but with no luck. Then I got a job in a shoe factory working a machine that punched tiny holes in shoes and simultaneously installed the eyelets that held the shoe laces. Those were the days of FDR's NRA (National Reconstruction Administration). My salary was an NRA-directed $10 per week. Suddenly, the US Supreme Court ruled that the NRA was unconstitutional. That ruling abolished all 'directed' salaries and my 10 bucks per week dropped to 8. Then I got laid off. I got a job in Jersey working on a hydraulic (metal bending) brake. That didn't last long either.
My friend, Manny, and I hiked a lot in the Adirondacks somewhere near the 'Finger Lakes' and I remember those days well. Those were the days when the 'unemployed' (like me) put in a few hours every couple of weeks with the NYA (National Youth Administration). I got a check in the mail for what I did: sanding down blocks of wood by hand (don't as me why; it was just 'busy work' for all of us.).
Manny and I were good friends. We met in one of the 'pencil block'
sanding gangs run by the 'home relief.' After the class, he and I
would head for the Automat for coffee and cake, and just talk. We'd
also join others like us and take the subway to the end of the line
and walk north from there, just talking. He was drafted into the Army
and I didn't hear from him other than when one of the guys in our
Lower East Side group told me that his family got the word that he had
been killed in the War. Not much said among us after that.
Where I lived public lineups did exist for homeless individuals and
families. I also remember the Salvation Army helped many people.
There was what we called 'home relief' operated by a 'community'
agency that was part of the 'city.' They distributed food and 'second hand' clothing and 'tickets' that could be traded in at groceries for specified categories of foods.
Today there are similar relief programs in play.
'Moods' about what was going on in the thirties varied according to where you lived. I recall my brotherfrequently taking me along with him to mix in with the 'Union Square'crowd. The 'soap box' was a reality. Speakers attracted listeners andI was one of the listeners, especially when my brother was one of the
speakers. When the cops hassled the crowd to move on, I carried my
brother's soap or orange box. We'd find another location in the
'Square', sometimes Columbus Circle at the foot of Central Park. My
brother's favorite pitch almost always got a chuckle from the
listeners. He'd say, "Comes the Revolution, you'll have 'peaches and
cream." and I'd holler along with the crowd, "I don't want peaches and
cream.' and my brother and I would holler back, "YOU'LL TAKE PEACHES
AND CREAM, Y'HEAR? LIKE IT ON NOT! And that invariably got more
chuckles, even laughs.
It was in(1939, I think) that I hitch-hiked down to D.C. to see my friend Manny. We wandered around Washington and eventually stopped in and sat down at the Post Office and I noticed posters on a wall. One of the posters invited applicants for Govt. jobs. So, what the hell; I took a couple of application forms, filled in a few blanks, mailed it in, and a few months later was offered a job at Wright Field. This was a military position. Hoo Hah! The next thing I recollect is that I was at Patterson Field, WITH A REAL JOB. That took me to the end of the 1930’s. I was trained in parachute maintenance and parachute rigging. I was 24 years old and glad to have a job and a place to be.
The next episode will cover my experiences as a parachute rigger, leading up to December 7, 1941 PEARL HARBOR.
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