My Life, Our Lives

By Roger Molina

This autobiography is about a young man growing up during the great depression, who fought in WW2, came home and started a family, retired from the military, and pursued a second civilian career. You hear his frustration and joy in his own words as if he was speaking to us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450296496

Roger Molina

No au bio

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

Final Chapter

Epilog

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Introduction

The contents of this book are the histories and memories of our father. I gave dad his first computer in 1995. He first was fascinated with its inner workings as he was always curious about everything around him and anything new. He was an avid reader of National Geographic and Popular Mechanics as a small example. He quickly grew tired of the basic equipment I gave him and expanded his horizons with many iterations and models. While always energetic and loved his projects outdoors, as he aged his stamina forced him indoors at times. He spent his indoor time researching his and mom’s family tree. He then decided to write a book about himself and his family. It took many years for him to research family photos and put his memories together in chronological order. As you can tell from his writing, he was very clear and accurate about his early life as he first drafted his biography with great zeal. As time passed he lost patience with the machinery, did not feel well, or just plain forgot a lot of his near term memories. Never the less it’s an amazing story about an amazing man that lived an amazing life’s experience and happened to be a great husband and father.

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Preface

To our sons, Van, Bruce and Bryan

Maybe one of you may decide to add your generation or your Mom and Dad’s secrets to this story and continue it right along. Remember, you have but one life to live, live it well and have your children be proud of you so that they can pass on the legacy. In our time we had a saying that rings very true, Live today for you and yours and tomorrow brings those you lived for. Maxine and I strongly believe in that and we tried living it, maybe not as successful as we would have like it to be but none-the-less, we lived it, preached it and seeing our 3 boys grow to manhood and taking on the responsibilities today against very devilish and peer pressure world. Your mother and I did not have those forces that you have now a days but were there just the same. Our teen years was short as adulthood came right about when we entered High School.

We’re proud to have reared you three great guys.

Your Mom & Dad

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Chapter 1

IN THE BEGINNING

(1920’s and 30’s)

You are probably wondering, the 1920s and the 1930s and further wondering are there people still living today from that ancient period. I can imagine, those of you thinking about this and knowing what today is all about and when you go back to that era, by means of movies, TV or photographs, you can’t hardly believe that people lived that way. By that I mean, and from today’s standards, that we had nothing to do! Well, in the absence of those things available today to preoccupy the mind, the body and soul, we had the home, our friends, theaters both the film and the stage, radio and most important, the family. In the old days, divorce was practically unheard of except in Hollywood. It was not easy to get a divorce and those that did were not well accepted in the family circle or friends for that matter. By associating with a divorced person, most felt that it could rub off on them and they would end up castaways in the sea of loneliness. Yes, I say the family and the most important thing in our lives and our parents in those days. With all the paraphernalia that today’s children grow up with; there is no time for family. Oh, you may see them come together when one is injured, or someone is hospitalized and perhaps an occasional family gets together at one of the homes or elsewhere. But that’s once in a while. You see, in those days, gadgetry did not exist to break up families. The fun went all the time, everyone was happy all of the time and all of the family was together all of the time. Of course, it is understood that because today is today, very different than yesterday, and because of technology, travel and communication being what it is, breaks up the families, geographically, physically and mentally. One has to go where work is but that’s not always the case. So many families are broken up because of pure pleasure, in that search for another place because it’s there and is desirable. Those choices are made purely on desires and not necessity and they often find themselves out of the mainstream and having to struggle to maintain a decent status of living. This process eats away at one’s ego, financially and often finds him or herself as a failure. This may last for years and the net result is the placing of more distance from family to where family no longer has a place in one’s life. This is the one thought I want to leave with our children and their children. Those wherever destiny takes you, remember your family, your parents, brothers and sisters because when all the gadgets are no longer any fun, the family continues to be fun, entertaining and life itself. Try it, it may work for you.

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My mother, Herminia Julia Sotolongo y Valdez at age 17. She married my Dad at age 18 in Havana, Cuba

Both of my parents, your grandparents and perhaps your great grandparents (depending which generation is reading this, were born in Havana, Cuba. My mother was named Herminia Julia Sotolongo y Valdez and my father, Pedro Rogelio Molina. My dad was born in 1888 and my Mom in 1891. They were married in Havana, November 10, 1909. Their lineage goes back to Spain with some nobility on my father’s side. That’s not to say there wasn’t some on my mom’s side too, but she never thought to ask her family about that and we don’t know at this writing. My father could only relate what he remembered from his grandfather, Juan Nicolas Molina, and his great grandfather, when he was a young boy in Havana. My Dad told me that both his grandfather and great grandfather proudly displayed the Molina Coat of Arms in their homes and several articles in the home with the crest embedded in some personal articles.

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My dad (far right) his brother Juan Jose and sister Emelia.

Photo taken about 1936.

Unfortunately, the names and much information he related to me which I wrote down to include all he told me, I wrote the information on a legal yellow pad many years ago on one of his many visits to see us and his grandchildren, but it was misplaced or inadvertently thrown away in the many moves we have made since he first communicated it to me. My mother did tell me that she believes from conversations she heard when she was a child that there was some French on her side of the family. My Mom has definite French features and my older brother Fred. Fred took after Mom and you can see it in his hair and temper. My Mom was a housewife and mother while in Cuba and my Dad worked in a locomotive factory as a machinist on a lathe. He lost two fingers on the right hand, between the index and small fingers, working on a lathe. He learned to be a cigar maker after that accident. Those two missing fingers on his right hand became his trademark throughout his life. My Dad never used Pedro as his name, always going by Rogelio. Upon entry into the U.S., immigrants have the option to change their names when their first papers are prepared which becomes part of their naturalization later when applying for full U.S. Citizenship. My Mom always used Herminia only. Upon learning from my Dad about the family Coat of Arms, I researched it in the Library of the City of New York Heraldic Department and located it among other MOLINA Coat of Arms, based on memory from discussions with Dad. There was no question that the Coat of Arms he saw in the home of his Grandfather and Great Grandfather describing the half millstone superimposed by a castle tower and Fleur de Li surrounding the tower. The Coat of Arms I saw, some similar but none matching exactly except the one as my dad had described to me. I made a copy of it from the books along with some text. I eventually made a Coat of Arms to display in our home which we did over the mantel when we lived in South Carolina and now displayed on the wall of the computer room.

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As a child, about eight years old, my dad experienced the worst that could be seen and experienced of the Spanish American War in Cuba. He didn’t hear this from his Dad, or any other means, he saw this with his own eyes. He told me stories about seeing Spanish soldiers dying by the roadside out in the country side and no one to help them. They begged for water, those that were conscious and able to speak or scream. However, he told me that not many had the energy left to do any screaming. It was such a pitiful site, every where you went. The Americans outclassed the Spanish soldiers, especially those on horseback, Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. The Spanish were ill equipped, with very little medical services if any. As a result, their wounded were left behind in retreat, to die unless some brave campansino (country folks) was willing or able to offer any help out of pity. The Cubans had no love for the Spaniards that had ravished their country for years, taking out the riches and giving the Cubans very little for their slave labor and natural resources. The main Cuban resource was Sugar Cane which was converted to sugar and shipped to Spain for distribution in Europe. My dad said that out of pity, he had given Spanish wounded soldiers water but only when there was no one else around to see him do it. He said you never knew who might be lurking that had much hatred against the Spanish and could easily kill you or hurt you thinking you may be a sympathizer. On the other hand, American soldiers always looked good on their mounts with shiny saddles and well-groomed horses.

Their uniforms always looked clean and pressed with the black buttons smartly showing the American eagle. He said you very rarely saw an American wounded because they were immediately picked up in a horse and wagon and taken to the nearest medical unit. The Spaniards were not well organized. He saw some of the American Artillery forces with horses pulling the Cannons and Caissons. They always were well organized when traveling the country roads. The worst fears the Americans had in the areas that my dad dared exploit was scattered Spaniards that had been separated from their units and lurked in the cane fields, sniping at American columns and then disappearing as fast as their bullets traveled. Most American units seem to send scouts ahead as they were aware that Spanish troops had some diehards that would turn to sniping rather than be captured. However, the majority that separated from their units, and there were many, were happy to surrender as they knew the Americans would feed them and treat them humanely. The Spaniards forced many Cubans to fight for them but quickly found out that they had no control over them and had to use too many men watching the Cubans that could best be used in the fighting areas.

My mother was about five years old when all this was happening but frankly, I never asked what role she and her family played during those days. She did tell me that some cousins and uncles were involved in the government of Cuba during the Spanish regime and others were involved in the government after the Spanish left and in the City of Havana. An uncle being a Police Chief or in high place in the Police force of Havana, up to the time that President Machado was ousted by Batista. I wish I had asked more questions of both my Dad and Mom and this is why I am writing this so that you and your children will have the answers.

There were three brothers born in Havana, Joe, Rogelio (known as Chi Chi) and Fred. Rogelio (Chi Chi) passed away from Pneumonia as a child in Tampa. He was the second child born. There was a girl born in Tampa, named Gloria who died at birth. She was the fourth child. I came along as the fifth and Antonio (who later changed his name to Anthony, and goes by Tony) was the sixth and youngest.

My father and mother both came to the U.S. in 1914 but returned to Cuba shortly after arriving. I have never ascertained the reason for the return to Cuba. It is commonly known that immigrants in those days were generally conscripted into the U.S. Army, during that period of World War I and sent directly to the front in Europe. Lacking the knowledge of the English language they were favorites to be placed in the worse jobs and often sent to the front and those were the ones that would get killed first. However, both of them returned to the U.S. in 1918 after the War ended, with my father coming over on June 25, 1918 on the Steamship Mascote to get established and my mother following a few months later with the three boys. Their first home was in Ybor City, on East 17th Ave and 20th St. (approx). This was near where my mother would eventually start working in a Cigar factory, located at the corner of Michigan Ave and 15th St. Tony and I were born on the 17th Ave. house.

AS A CHILD IN YBOR CITY

(1920 era)

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Taken in 1929 at The Ybor St address in Tampa. (LtoR) Tony, Fred, Joe, Roger. Note Radio in background made from scratch by my dad. We were the only ones with a radio for many blocks around. Living room furniture solid mahogany leather upholstery the fashion of the days.

It seems like only yesterday that I was a toddler in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, at about three years old, playing in dirt, crawling under our house that stood on brick columns off the dirt. I was born in 1924. An item of interest to the readers of today, which was the year the first Olympic winter games were held and it was in France. Commissar Lenin, the father of communism was dead in Russia at the age of 54. King Tut’s coffin was opened after 3,300 years being sealed. Calvin Coolidge wins the Presidential elections. Former President Woodrow Wilson died in his sleep. J. Edgar Hoover is made Director of the reorganized FBI. Knute Rockne and the four horsemen give Notre Dame an undefeated season. Ford Motor Co. manufactures’ its ten millionth car. Some favorite music from that era, Hard Hearted Hannah, I’ll See You in My Dreams, Indian Love Call and Sweet Georgia Brown. In sports, Joe Boyer won the Indianapolis 500 averaging 98.23 mph, considering the technology of automobiles; we haven’t gotten too far ahead with our current speeds on the track. Clarence DeMar won the Boston Marathon in 2 hrs 29 minutes, 40 seconds. In boxing, Gene Tunney scores a TKO over George Carpentier. Atwater Kent Radio was the most popular home radio, if you could afford one at $35. Dad didn’t have to buy one, he made one. A Chandler Luxury Automobile, 5 passenger 4 door sold for $1895, a 7 passenger for $2095. Average income was $2196 per year, a new car $265, new house $7,720, a loaf of bread 9 cents, gallon of milk 54 cents and a gallon of gasoline 11 cents. Gold was $20.67 per troy ounce and silver $1.09. The Dow Jones average was 100. Calvin Coolidge was President and Charles Dawes was VP. There were some innovative inventions that year, Kleenex, Electromagnet, Incandescent Lamp (The Light Bulb, you dummies), and the Loudspeaker. Miss America was Ruth Malcolmson of Philadelphia. She was from the Philadelphia elite. A commoner didn’t stand a chance. Oh yes, Life expectancy was 54.1 years. I guess those pills we take helped after all as we are now in the 75 year range.

I was born in 1924, during the worse depression this country will ever go through. But I was not alone; here is some of the distinguished company I had that year. For starters, Dennis Weaver, Chet Atkins (but his guitar was born sooner), Telly Savalas, Margaret Truman (the President’s daughter), Marlon Brando, Henry Mancini, George H. Bush (George W’s father and ex President), Don Knotts, Buddy Hackett, Lauren Bacall, President Jimmy Carter, William Rehnquist, Supreme Court Justice, Lee Iococca former CEO Chrysler Motors, Alexander Haig, Secretary of State during President Nixon’s era, and Edward Koch, former Mayor of NYC. So now you see the distinguish company I had that year. Frankly, I would forgo the distinguish company and hoped that my Mom and dad did not have to go through what they did to feed and clothe us young’uns.

This will give you an idea of what we could buy in those days, if we had the money; A Victor manual adding machine sold for $100 new, and the company said it was so good that General Electric used them in the accounting departments. A can of Campbell Soup was 12 cents. You could attend a neighborhood theater for 5 cents for a matinee and 8 cents the evening movie plus some seeing a live show by stage performers. And, Willys-Overland didn’t just make Jeeps but in the 20’s sold a 4 cylinder Standard Sedan for $595 and a 6 cylinder for $895. Al Capone’s Headquarters in Chicago was Machine Gunned. Henry Ford introduced the 8-hour work day and the 5-day work week. Miller was the largest tire manufacturer around. Dodge Brothers Motor cars and Hudson’s Super Six where making the scene. There was Chevrolet and General Motors. And so it went, get the drift? It was cheaper in those days but who could afford it. I think we still hear those words today.

I can’t say that my younger brother Tony was there with me since he was too young to be let loose. But then, my two older brothers, Fred and Joe had no time for me either because of the difference in our ages and their interests being more of the older juveniles. I do remember my cousin Nicolas (Charley), coming over quite often and he, Fred and Joe would take off elsewhere. Fred being the closest in age, was six years older than I. Charley was about Fred’s age. I remember that place so well (the house on Ybor St. and 21st Avenue) because it was the home I remembered moving to from the house I was born in. I have very little memory about the house I was born in except for a couple of facts. The first President I do remember, hearing his name often listening to campaigners on street corners in Tampa, was Herbert C. Hoover, a Republican. In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, ran for President and won by a landslide. The country was ready for him, being in a deep depression, his campaign and solutions were music to the country’s ears with half of the nation being unemployed. I remember his promise of the New Deal and the NRA (National Recovery Act) program he passed through the congress to get the nation in the direction of recovering. And, he did just that, with several programs, a national Welfare program to get food on people’s tables, a free food program that helped the farmers market their goods, the WPA, Work Progress Administration, getting the nation’s infrastructure rebuilt, putting people to work and gradually getting them off the welfare rolls.

The CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, a program to get kids off the streets, one less mouth to feed at home and sending them to camps all over the U.S. building roads, Golf Courses, forestry that included schooling in the camps to get their high school diplomas, training in the operation of machinery and soil conservation. At this writing, we have lived during 14 Presidents, 11 since FDR and if the good Lord see fit, maybe another and another. I was born on a house (address unknown) on 17th Ave near 16th St. I distinctly remember the many fruit trees in the back yard, Bananas, Platano, Oranges and Avocados. I also remember one episode in that house, the Hurricane of 1926 coming right through Tampa. We had a back door that led from the kitchen to the back yard. I remember the hurricane blowing the door down and my father, mother and older brothers struggling to close the door from the Dining Room to the kitchen, moving the side board against the door to prevent it from blowing off also. Now, my father and brothers have said that I was too young to remember that, since I probably wasn’t older than 20 months old. But, I do remember the back yard and regardless of what they say, I do remember that door blowing down. They say that some babies remember being in their mother’s womb, I should be able to remember some things, being that I was older than being in the womb.

Anyhow, it wasn’t long after that my father was able to purchase the corner house on the southwest corner of Ybor St. and 21st Ave and also buying two adjacent houses. I also remember moving to the new house with my Dad moving some items with a wheel barrow and then on a weekend, paying some a guy that had an ice delivery truck to move the rest of the furniture. My father was a cigar maker in a Ybor City Cigar factory Rehenboy (sp) located near the Port Tampa area about where 17th Ave and 2nd St. is today. My mother worked at another plant Paraiso (sp) located at the corner of 7th Ave and 16th St., across from the world famous Cuban Columbian Restaurant. During the 1920s, things were fairly good for our family, with dad and mom working and dad making extra income regularly sharpening and repairing tobacco workers tools which consisted of hard wood molds, special knives, cigar blunt end cutters (guillotine design). At the time my dad was also gifted in the knowledge of electricity and radio. He also picked up a lot of work from butcher shops, bakeries, grocers and others repairing electric motors and other electrical machinery. Can you believe that my father and mother never smoked and for that matter, never drank any alcoholic beverages during the entire life that we lived at home? My mother still never imbibed or smoked. My dad started some cigarette smoking in his late years in NYC at about the age of 70. He even drank a beer now and then just to be sociable but never to excess.

The combined income which I’m sure could not have been much more than $40 or $50 a week if that much was good money in those days of three cents a pound of sugar or 10 cents for a pound of coffee, one cent first class mail and three cents air mail. The annual average income then was about $2000 to $3000 per year. It was good enough for him to get a loan to buy the house on the corner of Ybor St. and 21st Ave in Ybor City. Banks didn’t lend much money in those days unless you were in business and they could tie up your company in knots to guarantee the loan. He then arranged to buy the two adjoining houses on Ybor St., which were identically built and rent them out to the folks already living in them.

My father still had time to pursue hobbies such as making model boats, model airplanes, model trains and kites. To my knowledge, there were no kits to make models such as is on store shelves today. He made everything from scratch. He would draw his own diagrams, to scale. That is, he found wood, metal, wires and what was needed to carve out, cut, assemble whatever he chose to make. I’ll start with Radio

As far as I can remember, there was always a radio in our house. Mind you, those were days when such a novelty was very expensive and few could afford them. But, my dad got books, talked to knowledgeable people, read anything technical he could get his hands on and two years after Marconi put out the first wireless radio, my father was making one. I believe his first radio was a crystal type, (I won’t try to explain what it looks like but it was quite common in the 1920s and 30s) merely five x 6 inches on a Bakelite sheet, the crystal about as big around as your thumb nail and about 3/8 inch high. Next to it would be a vertical post about four or five inches high to which was attached a pointed needle like a rod with a spring around it and the point down against the top of the crystal. A wire coming out of the base of the crystal and another at the end of the needle would be attached to earphones. Manipulating the needle at different spots of the crystal would bring in radio stations if there were any in the area. Crude, but effective and one that could be manufactured at home from basic designs then in Popular Science Magazine of the day and other periodicals. So there, I told you how it looked and how it was made after all.

However, my dad did not stop there. He went on to manufacture regular vacuum tube radios. One which can be seen in an early photo of me when I was about three or four years old in the Ybor Street house in Tampa. In the photo (with my cute bangs and sailor suit) you can see the workmanship way beyond the comprehension of most people of those days. The general public had no idea what radio waves were, how they were formed and received, much less knowing what part a vacuum tube played in bringing voice and music to a big horn speaker. Magnetic speakers of those days were not very strong and the amplification was by means of a large horn such as in a megaphone to be able to be heard any distance. That is why you saw large horn speakers on radios and Victrola in the old days such as RCA’s, His Masters Voice which became the trademark of Radio Corporation of America. Radios of those days did not use house voltage which was then 110 V DC (not AC) and radios used six volts DC. Automobile batteries were six volts in those days (those that used batteries because many autos used magnetos to power the spark plugs) and that is what my dad used to power the radio.

I remember our house on Ybor St. where he had the battery mounted on metal brackets attached to the under flooring under the living room with the wires coming through the floor of the house inside white porcelain insulators. I remember my dad telling me that I should never touch those wires because they could heat up from the battery and burn my hands. That was the other reason for the insulators, in the event they heated up, they would not be touching the raw wood in the flooring where they could cause a house fire. I might add that in those days, there were no such things as Terminix or Orkin Man to take care of termite problems. Yes those pesky things were around then and you may now ask, how people kept their house from being eaten up by those pesky critters. Then again, some cars were equipped with carbide or candle headlights, and some of those headlights were bigger around than a basketball. Boy, have we come a long way from then.

But, getting back to radio … there was no one in our neighborhood, for blocks around that had a large radio like my dad had. He also had the best of an outside antenna’ that could be had in those days’, strung out the length of our property which would pick any station within 50 miles and eventually, a short wave where he could pick up other states and countries. The one program I can really remember these years was a Jack Dempsey fight. Apparently my dad had informed the neighborhood (or maybe it was requested of him, I’m not sure) that he would broadcast the fight from the front porch of our house. I remember about 100 people sitting on the sidewalk, the street and anywhere available. My dad had placed the radio with its huge cone speaker on the front porch facing the street and the fight went into the night.

While we lived at the Ybor St. house, another hurricane brushed the Tampa area and dumped a lot of rain at the corner of Ybor St. and 21st Ave. All of it was inundated with water going in all four directions a couple of blocks. We were fortunate, our house set very high, first there was about a 3-foot concrete retaining wall around the street side of the property with the ground rising toward the house and the house was on brick columns about 24 to 30 inches high. That put the house well above the water and we had no worries but unfortunately, other houses down the street did not fare out as well. My brother Fred and cousin Charley had gotten a piece of corrugated tin roofing and had bent, hammered, twisted trying to make a canoe out of it. It had a lot of nail holes but they launched it with my brother Tony in it for testing. It quickly filled with water and sunk. I can’t remember how Tony got out of that one, he was too young to swim so I guess Fred or Charley got him out in time.

Other things I remember of that area of Ybor City was an area just north of our house that was a pasture. Folks in the area had cows and used the fields to graze. Occasionally, planes would land on the pasture and would take people up for a ride for three or four bucks. I never saw more than three or four people go up because every time they would come, I generally hung around the field until they left for good. These were barnstormer pilots, ex WWI pilots that came back after the war and wanted to stay with aviation but could not find the sponsors such as US Mail or others and resorted to barnstorming or circus flying and stunt flying to maintain the aircraft and stay in the profession. I have often wondered how they got those airplanes and how much they paid for them as I’m sure the government sold a bunch of them that were used in training prior to sending pilots overseas. The Spad was a popular model seen everywhere. Those guys spawned my early interest in aviation. I swore that I would be flying one of them someday.

I remember the Gasparilla events in February. The Gasperilla Pirates come into Tampa Bay in their sail ship. Mock battles fought and then the big parade on 7th Ave in Ybor City. The crowds lined both sides of the streets and the old Spanish Verandas over the streets along 7th Ave that was a fun time of the year for us. The event is still celebrated today as every year it seems to get larger than the year before.

Then, there was schooling. My oldest brothers were going to Catholic School and finally I started in Kindergarten, I believe. Our teachers were all Nuns then, some were Priests. The Principal was a Priest. The school was in a Convent in downtown Ybor City, a huge area all surrounded by a high rock wall. The Convent is still there today. One day, after coming home from school, there was a lot of commotion in the house and I finally figured that Fred had not come home yet. It seems that my brother Joe was telling my mother that a Nun had hit Fred on the back with a stick that had a nail or tack at the end of it and drew a little blood. Fred apparently hit the teacher and was taken to the principal’s office. There he was threatened by either the Principal or another teacher and Fred slung a chair at the Principle and ran out of school. We later learned that a fire truck was just turning the corner at the Convent and Fred managed to jump on the rear as there was no fireman at the rear of that fire truck.

Fred was afraid to come home and didn’t until dark. After my dad came home, there came a police car soon afterwards. I heard bits and pieces but it didn’t make sense to me at the time. I do remember my dad raising his voice and telling the police, who spoke Spanish that no one was going to hurt any of his children in that manner and get away with it. When Fred came home, my dad took him to the police station and showed them where he had been struck on the back and where it had been bleeding. The next day, my dad took us out of the Catholic school and enrolled us in Public School (we called it Free School then). But, on a recent trip to Tampa, I stopped at the Visitors Information Office in Ybor City and the volunteer lady I talked to said that they still call it Free School nowadays. Funny thing, we started talking and I told her about the teacher that taught me English and she told me she remembers her very well. You see, the lady I was talking to was now in the school district office and I believe she said she was assistant district supervisor and was fixing to retire. She remembers the teacher very well (she told me her name and I remembered it but I have forgotten again), as she followed behind her throughout all the years and knew of her reputation to skillfully transition children from Spanish speaking homes to learn English very fast. I remember the school well, located on 15th St. and 15th Ave. I was enrolled in either Kindergarten or 1st grade, but I can’t remember which. I know that I could not speak a word of English then. The teacher was Cuban and she transitions me from Spanish to English in a short time. That was the first time I had learned to speak some English. My brothers went to school riding bicycles and I either went with them riding the handle bars or some else took me. This is a gray area to me. I believe my dad brought me home sometimes from the Catholic school after he finished work. I imagine the Catholic school took care of me until my dad came by. I do remember riding on the handle bar of the bicycle at night many times.

My dad would occasionally take us to the beach in St. Petersburg and Clearwater. To us, that was a million miles from home then. We had no car so we would take the trolley on 7th Ave, transfer somewhere in the downtown Tampa area and continue on another trolley to St. Pete. It was a long ride through heavy woods and swamps as St. Pete was not connected to the Tampa area as it is today. There was a long pier there and we would enjoy picnics and going in the water. I remember my dad taking us some nights to see the fluorescence in the water. For those of you that have never witnessed this phenomenon, these are actually insects in the water that when disturbed light up the water like fireflies do at night, only denser. You have to create a disturbance in the water for them to light up. Walking on the surf or running your hands on the surf would activate them. To us, that was really something and a lot of fun. My dad would also bring line and pieces of meat to catch crabs. The crabs would latch onto the piece of meat and he would pull the line in slowly and put the crab in a sack. Each time we went there, we brought back enough crabs to make several meals at home. My mom made great crab croquettes. Beach excursions included a basket full of sandwiches (Cuban style) on good Cuban loaf bread. My Dad took Tony and me to our aunt’s house, Maria, my Dad’s sister and we enjoyed those visits with her and our cousins’ Charley and Eva. They lived at 926, 7th Ave, in Tampa which is the extreme west area of Ybor City. However, we always looked forward to weekends and holidays in summer when we would go to the beach at St. Pete.

In those days, it was a tradition for folks to always buy their bread daily. We used the traditional Cuban loaf bread and we purchased it at The Palm (La Palma) bakery almost down to 7th Ave from where we lived. The bread was good and warm, just coming out of their ovens. One of us, and I remember getting the chore several times, had to walk all the way from 21st Ave to about 8th or 9th Ave where the bakery was located, every morning early to get a loaf of fresh baked bread that morning for use at breakfast and to make sandwiches for school. I do remember one time when I started eating the core of the bread on the way back home only to get my fanny tanned by my oldest brother Joe. I must have eaten about half of the loaf.

As I mentioned earlier, my Dad was very talented. I don’t believe there was anything he couldn’t tackle and complete it. He helped a friend or distant cousin build a 52-foot yacht in his backyard. I remember going with him when he was working on it even at night using lights outside to see. This leads me into the next item. He made a replica of that yacht, 52 inches long, all to scale, 1 inch equaling 1 foot. He powered it with a wall clock motor, hand wind. Later, he changed the engine to an electric one, powered by two large doorbell batteries. The cabin top was removable where all the inside accommodations could be seen, again all to scale. He handmade doll figures, the Captain, the wife, the children and other passengers, in different positions throughout the inside of the ship including one using one of the bathrooms. The commode and other bathroom fixtures perfectly duplicated. The kitchen was perfectly done, windows and portholes. Teak wood decks, steps, the ship’s wheel and other internal trimmings in mahogany and walnut. The bathroom floors and showers with miniaturized tiles, all decorated and with curtains at every window or porthole. The bedrooms, two, were nothing but luxury to include pillows and all the bedding, with mattresses. The rear deck, of teakwood, was covered with total canvas to afford shade to the passengers. There were tables, chairs and upholstered bench seat through in and out. But it didn’t stop there; the luxurious cabin was also removable to access the engine room and compartment, transmission and propeller shaft. Every hull rib and hull planking was exactly as the original yacht. He made the anchor and the anchor chain too!

He built a whole train set, locomotive, tender, passenger cars, mail car and club car including tracks, all from scratch. I don’t know what gauge it would be equal too but the cars were approximately 18 inches long and about 5 inches wide. The locomotive had 12 driving wheels. When I say from scratch, I mean exactly that. He even made all the train wheels, out of molten lead-tin mix (for hardening), made the molds in sand (as they do in foundries) and loaded the train with people, all of them made by him and my mother made much of the clothing. Windows in the cars rose and lowered.

A Pullman car with sleepers that actually worked. Complete bathrooms at the end of the car and compartment car with staterooms, some with their own facilities, with sliding doors. The cars had actual working couplers and air hoses connecting each car. All the car roofs were removable so that the interiors could be fully seen. The locomotive was made of scrap tin with an actual useable boiler. He used real coal (broken down to scale) in the tender car. He put in miniature valves’ gauges in the locomotive and all the handles used by the engineer. The bell was workable and it had a headlight and cattle guard like the real ones. As with the yacht, he did not leave anything out. Everything again to scale, even the rivets on the locomotive, cars, etc., were to scale and I might add that they were never painted in, they were always made of straight pin heads and ground down to size where necessary for realism. Besides what he remembers as a machinist in a Railroad Factory, he actually visited the rail yards, talked to locomotive engineers, went to the library and museum to make sure he was getting all the original specifications and the scale it down to the model he built. But now, get this. He made all the tracks himself, the rails mounted on wooden beds with small cracked gravel placed in glue. The rails were made of coat hanger wires. Don’t confuse today’s wire hangers with yesterdays. They were very much thicker and some were square. Since he placed an electric motor in the locomotive (it came from a barber’s electric shears) he had to use a third rail. He also made a locomotive barn with a workable turn table. For those who are not familiar with a locomotive barn, they were built side by side and a half moon alignment. The turntable, located in front of the barns, would rotate to align the track with any chosen barn for the locomotive to go into for servicing. He made the transformer to run the train at all speeds and he even made several switch tracks to switch the train from track to track.

Another activity I well remember is my Dad taking us all to the circus. Barnum and Bailey and Ringling Brothers Circus headquarted in Tampa and were there every winter to train and start new acts for the next season on the road. I especially remember it because for two years in a row, my Dad got the Blue Ribbon prize for best item in the exhibits. One year, he got it for the yacht and the next year for the train set. We got to see the animals and shows at the circus quite often during their winter training period and before the gates opened. My Dad had no trouble entering.

All these activities would be considered boring by today’s standards, and I don’t know what standards will be for those of you who are great grand children, but it was our life then and that was our entertainment activity of those days. I don’t recall ever playing much with neighborhood kids and I assume most of my playing was around the house and by me. Those were our good old days. Our family was well off, but I don’t mean to imply that we were rich, not by any means, but we didn’t go for want of anything. Both my father and mother were good providers and what came next, those most shattering events in the lives of millions in the U.S. was not anything that they could have foreseen or prevented in any way. The Wall Street market crash that caused many to commit suicide because they lost everything they had was bad enough. Those were very unfortunate individuals; they never looked around them to see the real fortune in their families. We had it rough, one minute you are doing real well, putting food on the table for your family and the next day you are out of a job and nothing in the foreseeable horizon. They probably could have done something to salvage our lives but the lack of speaking English was the real blocker.

Talking about spankings. I do not remember any time that either my father or mother ever laid a hand on us. Most of the spanking we ever got was done by my older brothers and particularly Joe. Fred had a very bad temper as a kid and I think he still does today. I remember my mother getting very upset when Joe would hit us and generally cause an argument in the household. My dad would just warn Joe not to spank so hard or not to spank at all. I don’t know to this date why Joe took up the position of doing the spanking in the house but he continued it even when we moved to New York City. He finally stopped hitting me when it would upset my mom so that she would actually get sick. In addition, as I grew older, at about 14 or 15 years old, I started threatening him and in as many ways that I think he started realizing that I was serious and I was reaching an age where I could defend myself. Fred had several paper routes at the age of 10. He would get up at 4 am to deliver The Morning Tribune and then delivered the Tampa Daily Times between 5 and 6 am finishing about 7:30 am then get home to get ready for school. After school, he also delivered a Spanish paper. Fred would do anything for dime and work was no obstacle. He had to deliver the papers early in the morning before going to school. Fred and Joe both went to Washington High School in Tampa. Fred pursued his boxing (Golden Gloves) for a short while in NYC but dropped it when he started working full time.

To be more exact, I believe my Dad told me he made up to 60 cents an hour in has best days. That equates to about $2,240 a year. That was about $42 a week and that bought all the groceries, medical bills, clothing for all of us and the general bill of electricity, gas (no phone) and other incidentals. But in our family’s case, we had my mother’s income also. However. She didn’t make what my Dad did. She worked at a different factory and she was what they called a leaf cleaner, involving the whole leaf of cured tobacco. She set with a half cut wooden barrel in front of her which edges were padded with burlap. She would bring a leaf at a time and in a very meticulous movement, remove the center stem from the leaf and then segregating the halves by grade. These graded half leafs would be made available to the cigar makers (such as my Dad was) who would then select the finest leaves for the finer cigars and such on down to the cheaper cigars. It was a process which when you saw the whole operation, you wondered how a cigar could be made that cheap. First of course, consider we are talking about the 1920-1930 era.

My mother made a guaranteed 35 cents an hour, however, they generally made better than that on piece work basis. They were expected to make a clean separation of the two leaf halves without damaging them in the process of removing the stem. The guaranteed was 35 cents per hour, $25 per week and $1700 to $1800 per year. A nickel would buy you a great cigar. Fifteen cents would buy you a pack of Camels or Lucky Strike Cigarettes, and as I mentioned earlier, 10 Cents would buy a pound of Coffee which would be ground on the spot. Incidentally, since we are that subject, my Dad repaired electric motors at home for a couple of bakeries, about 3 or 4 grocer’s Electric motors for the Coffee Grinders, meat grinders and any other electric motors they had. He also maintained the leaf cutting knives of many of the cigar makers in his factory and some from other factories as well. Those knives were odd in shape as we know knives but had to have perfect cutting edges for the tobacco workers to be fast in their operation of cutting the leaf to wrap the cigar. Then there were other tools a cigar maker used such as the special cutting guillotine cutter to chop the end of the cigar and we know them as the blunt end of the cigar. The guillotine cutting edge had to be razor sharp and harden. This mounted on one end of a Walnut wood block (some of them made of Boca wood which is extremely hardwood and comes from Africa), and the block having a channel in the center lengthwise where the cigar is place and one end chopped with the Guillotine cutter. This was spring loaded so that the cutting blade always returned to the up position ready to cut another cigar. So, the combination of all this income put us in pretty decent income level to consider buying the home we lived in.

Being just a kid at 6 years of age, I didn’t realize the impact of the Wall Street crash of 1929. I guess it was sometime in 1930 when all the factories started closing up. I look back now at some conversations I heard back then and all the crying by my mother, and I suppose was caused about the bad news my Dad had about the houses. He told me in later years when I brought up the subject that he probably had a chance of working out something with the firm he bought the houses from but the layoffs, en-mass, by the cigar factories, with no indications of restarting and the number of people they put out on the streets made any thought of selling a house to an ex-tobacco worker a bad risk. The clause in the contract was clear, miss three payments, and he repossesses the houses. You can imagine that immediately it cut off the extra money he was making with the maintenance of the cigar makers tools, it just dried up.

The bakeries and grocers could get by with bad operating machinery or do some of their own repairs. After all, they would feel the economic pinch also as many of their customers, in the thousands, no longer had jobs. You’ve heard Tennessee Ernie Ford sing, I owe my soul to the company store. Well, in those days, most people carried an open book account with their grocers, druggist, bakery etc. This was nothing but a composition book kept on the counter (some used large ledger books) and any groceries you bought daily was added to your account in the book. Then on Saturday, when you got paid for the week, you would go around to all these places and they would tally your purchases for the week and you would pay them. They simply scratched across the tally and started a new page. There was a lot of trust in those days. However, so many of those places got stung so bad that things changed drastically around the country. But, when you no longer had the money to pay these people, they also withheld any more purchases on credit. The next question was, where would they get the food to feed the family. Some grocers continued selling groceries to their customers on the tab but never got paid. They did it knowing those customers no longer had incomes but I suppose that they did it out of their heart as they knew those folks had children and they had to be fed. In other cases, they thought those customers would get jobs elsewhere, would eventually pay up their tally and continue being good customers. But when it didn’t happen the grocer went under too.

Unfortunately, President Roosevelt’s NRA program was late getting started in Florida or at least in the Tampa area because we never were able to get anything from that program until we finally moved to NYC in 1932-33. My father said he went 6 months without paying as the firm that owned the houses had no prospects and took my Dad at his word that he would keep up maintenance on the three houses. The other people in the two adjoining houses lost their jobs too. But at the end of 6 months they gave an eviction order as the firm that owned them had pressure put on either by insurance people or banks, that he had to move us out. From that day on, we lived in about 5 or 6 different places before we finally went to New York City. From the time they both lost their jobs we were fortunate to have 6 months in the house on Ybor Street. But every day, you would see people being moved out of their houses, furniture dumped on the street and those more fortunate, using horse and wagons or even wheel barrels to move their furniture and household goods, one or two pieces at a time to another house or even tents as I remember seeing some in the city and county owned lots. My Dad used a borrowed wheel barrel and I know it took him and with the help of my older two brothers over 3 days to move everything we had. That first move was about 12 blocks away. I have to say that without the church and the Reverend LaPaz who my Dad got to know very well was very helpful and finding a place for us considering we couldn’t pay. However, my Dad traded some work for these favors. It was after the first house we had to move to when my Dad found out from other people, including his sister Maria about New York City. So the decision was made that he would go up there, staying at his sister’s apartment and then arrange for us to follow. However, it didn’t come as quick as we thought. My mother got very impatient with him as we still had to move again and again, no income with not finding work in NYC. My mother had some income now and then, getting jobs to clean up other people’s homes, some stores etc. Little by little she was forced to sell some of our remaining furniture to make ends meet.

Dad still had found time to pursue hobbies such as making model boats, model airplanes, model trains and kites. To my knowledge, there were no kits to make models such as is on store shelves today. He made everything from scratch. He would draw his own diagrams, to scale. That is, he found wood, metal, wires and what was needed to carve, cut, assemble whatever he chose to make. I’ll start with Radio. With his early knowledge of radio, he could have easily cashed in if he had learned English early on and also learned the ropes about business in the U.S. But, he treated it like a hobby, as he did with many other talented ventures. Probably his outlook about small and big business that they were out to fill their pockets and the hell with the world and everybody in it clouded his judgment all his life. My two older brothers constantly criticized him, but he was one to shake it off his shoulder and continue as he had been doing all along. While living in New York City later, I personally recall when I was about 12 or 13 years old and I went with him to a store where the owner offered him space in the store for him to put his hobby practices to work and earn a pretty good living from it if he wanted.. The man was opening some kind of store, I forgot what he was going to start selling, and he felt that the traffic my Dad would generate would add to his business.

My Dad was always known for his honesty and was much respected, regardless of which neighborhood we lived in, whether Spanish, Jewish, Italian, Irish, Polish or German. Later in this story, you’ll read where a local Italian Mob leader, turned against his own race to force another Italian mobster to pay for the damage that was inflicted on my brother Fred one night when returning late from work. He probably would not have done anything if our family wasn’t so highly respected in the neighborhood we lived in and had it not been for my Dad and the type of likable person he was.

Cars of that era did not use electric lights but used huge lights housings that carried a candle or carbide. The housing had to be huge, as large as a basketball, to include a mirror reflector so that it would shine at least 50 feet in front. Many still carried a red lantern in the back to warn followers that this was a vehicle. Then again, there were many vehicles that had no lights and were only used in daylight hours when lights were not needed.

Tony reminded me that when we lived at another house (after we lost the three houses to the bank when my Dad and Mom both lost their jobs during the depression) next to a Grocery Store, I made a parachute out of sheets and made him jump off the roof of the house to see if it would work. It didn’t work of course but Tony was not hurt.

When we moved to New York City, and I was enrolled in Grammar School there, I was speaking and reading English like if I had been doing it from a toddler. (About 1994, Maxine and I drove down to Spring Hill, FL to visit my younger brother Tony. We took a ride to Tampa and to Ybor City, to the house I have been talking about. All three houses were still there, sitting high off the street level and frankly, we couldn’t see any changes in 62 years since we moved from that house. The crawl space is still wide