50 Years in America

By Arnold Von der Porten

Arnold, the third son of Dora and
Paul von der Porten MD, was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1917. There came
Hitlers rise to power. Arnolds father was an analytical thinker. On October
14, 1933 Paul sent Arnold, only 15, to Jamaica, British West Indies, with new
clothes and M100, the maximum allowed to emigrants. Thus he escaped. Several
relatives were murdered.

Arnold describes his adventures,
including those in World War II, in his book: The Nine Lives of Arnold. In
1953 Arnold and his wife, Amy, migrated to America, to his aging parents. Many
who have read The Nine Lives of Arnold have begged Arnold to write his
life after Kingston, Jamaica. This book tells. No-one shall be bored!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 18, 2004
• ISBN: 9781410771728

Arnold Von der Porten

Arnold, the son of the highly respected doctor, Dr. Paul M. and Martha Dora von der Porten, was born in Hamburg, Germany. He saw the rise of Hitler. On October 14, 1933 his father sent him to Jamaica, British West Indies, with a trunk full of clothes and M100, the maximum amount of money the Nazis allowed people to take out of the country. The boy was only 15 at the time. At least that way he did not share the fate of several of his relatives who were murdered by the Nazis. Arnold describes his many adventures including his internment during the Second World War in his first book: The Nine Lives of Arnold. On the 16th of January 1953 he and his wife, Amy, decided to migrate to the United States. There was a lot of unemployment in this country at that time. Fortunately Arnold had a trade, neon glassblowing, which was very much in demand. Still, it was very difficult for a foreigner to get established. Not until he graduated from the Rutgers University in 1965 did life gradually become easier. By that time Amy and Arnold had four lovely children. Now, after very eventfu150 years he shares his story with anyone who is interested in the happenings in the U.S.A. during the second half of the 2Oth century. Many people who have read The Nine Lives of Arnold have begged Arnold to write how he fared after he left Kingston, Jamaica. At last his readers have a chance to find out, and they shall not be bored. That is a promise.

Book preview

© 2003 by Arnold Von der Porten. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4107-7172-5 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4107-7173-3 (Paperback)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003095170

This book is dedicated to Amy, my wonderful wife.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While writing this book I was greatly encouraged by my wife, Amy, and my far flung family. Many who read my first book, The Nine Lives of Arnold, demanded to let them know what came next. They wanted to know how Amy and I fared in America. I was also cheered on by Professor Hilda Ross Ph.D. who taught classes on Writing Your Family History. I want to thank Gay Greninger who edited the first part of this book before she went to Okinawa to teach English at a missionary school and above all Eleanor Giachero who edited most the book. Eleanor was an English teacher at the Rutgers Preparatory School when my ever helpful wife, Amy, was the librarian at that school. I hereby want to thank them all.

PREFACE

During the fateful year of 1917 Russia experienced two revolutions. The second, the Communist revolution, spread to Germany. America declared war on Germany and to culminate it all, I was born. The tumultuous years that followed did not spare me. My parents protected me from the storms of revolution, hunger and run-away-inflation as much and as long as they could. I made it quite clear that I was terribly upset to see my cultured and intelligent people, the Germans, vote for a maniac like Hitler.

Hitler came to power in 1933. Consequently I had to leave Germany. I migrated to Jamaica, British West Indies, that same year. German currency laws made help by my parents quite impossible. My life in Jamaica could not escape the consequences of poverty, imprisonment in an internment camp in World War II and many other hardships. Despite all the upheavals I remember some wonderful times as a swimmer and especially after I got married. I set all that down in my first volume, The Nine Lives of Arnold.

Several of those who have read that book urged me to write a continuation. Seldom do immigrants have an easy start in a foreign country. Amy and I certainly had our share of handicaps to overcome here in America. In the first fourteen years in the land of the free I had sixteen different jobs. Fortunately each new job was a little better than the one before. Shortly after each payday we were always broke. I managed to study for a Bachelor of Science degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Life became much easier after that. We raised four wonderful children and have ten grand-children and a great-grand-daughter. They make our golden years in Florida very happy.

Each chapter in this book is a short story. Together they may be an eye-opener for many a reader who does not know how an immigrant gradually fights his way into the mainstream.

THE IMMIGRANT

The unhappy man steps on foreign soil,

His assets: His wife and his brain.

Politics have robbed the fruit of his toil.

He starts all over again.

He left loving friends and family behind.

He’s not wanted in the Land of the Free.

Homesickness seizes the saddened mind

Of the unwanted, the unloved, the refugee.

The spot where he stands is begrudged him:

Why did you come here anyway?

His future looms all dark and grim,

But he’ll make it, it’s sure, and he’ll stay!

By: Arnold P. Von der Porten

Image298.JPG

OUR ARRIVAL IN BROOKLYN

Brooklyn, your hurtful thorns still abound.

But we must endure, while we’ll look around.

Among the thorns there’s a rose called Mama’s love.

She cares till we find our own roof above.

Our flight from Kingston, Jamaica, to Brooklyn, NY, was interrupted in Norfolk, VA. It was a bad time of the year to fly so far north. All three New York airports were socked in by dense fog. Americans were allowed to leave the plane, but we foreigners had to wait till an immigration officer arrived.

It was a little after midnight when the sleepy officer came on board our modern four propeller Avianca Colombian air liner. He had to adjust the date on his stamp. A kind soul told him that it was January 17, 1953. He stamped our papers and we were bussed to a nearby hotel for the rest of the night. I phoned our probable arrival time to Papa. He told me that Toni would meet us at the airport.

My sister was waiting for us at the airport. It was a very happy reunion. We had not seen each other since she had visited us in Jamaica some five years earlier.

Mama had gotten Irma’s former room ready for us. There was only a single bed in it. I slept on the couch in the waiting room as I had done in 1937/38. We slept most of the first day. The flight had been exhausting. Amy found the bed most uncomfortable. She was seven months pregnant. A thin mattress, stuffed with horse hair, was lying on wooden slats. On top of it was a mattress stuffed with Eiderdown. (Feathers from the Eider-duck. The Eider is a river in Schleswig-Holstein where those birds migrate and feed in the winter.) It was more like a comforter and not nearly thick enough.

As a child, in Hamburg, this bed had been my bed. I had not known anything else, so I never remembered how hard that bed really was. However, it had a very nice, thick Eiderdown comforter to keep Amy cozy and warm in that cold January and the apartment was well heated. Papa certainly had not gone to any expense to put us up, and Mama had no say in money matters. We did not really expect anything else. We were just happy that all had gone so smoothly thus far.

Mama was overjoyed to have me home. She did everything she could to please us, but Papa asked me right away how I was going to provide for my wife, my child, and myself. I had to take the humiliation and felt most unwelcome. I had only $ 900.

In Jamaica that was a lot of money. In 1938, after I had studied how to make neon signs in New York and returned to Jamaica, that was a lot of money in the U.S., too, but this was not 1938! Now, in 1953 it would not have lasted too long if we had tried to look for our own apartment. It would have gone quickly, especially here in New York.

Early in the morning after we arrived, Papa told me that he had made arrangements at the Doctors Hospital for Amy’s delivery. It was one of the hospitals he normally sent his patients to. That was very consoling. I took a subway to my former supplier, the Tube Light Co.

Mr. Samuels was happy to see me. He had once visited Amy and me in Kingston. He was the Chief Executive Officer now. The firm had certainly expanded into a very large sign supply company. When the late Mr. Muller had been in charge it was strictly a neon supply store.

Mr. Samuels told me that in New York neon was still tied up by Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (I.B.E.W.), and that I would not have a chance to work in any of the five boroughs as a neon man. He was very helpful by giving me a list of all of his customers outside of New York City. He regretted, of course, that I was no longer his customer, but he hoped that I would soon be back in business and buy from him. We chatted in his large, tidy, paneled office for almost an hour. He had a way of making me feel good and much more optimistic.

As soon as I got back to Brooklyn, I wrote my resume and sent it to all of the shops on the Tube Light list. I hoped to get an answer in a week or so from at least one of them. In the meantime I was going to take it easy and enjoy a little vacation with Amy. The last couple of years had been hectic, especially because of the birth, long suffering, and eventual death of our first-born, Michael. I looked forward to feeling at home with the family for a few days.

It was a vain hope. Papa was annoyed that Amy did not play bridge. I was recruited to play skat, a German card game, with him and Mama. For skat you only need three players. I enjoyed that game very much. When Toni came over I was either bumped or we played bridge.

There was one very bright spot, however. It was Mama’s 70th birthday on the 11th of March, 1953. We celebrated it by most of the family coming to the house. Herbert had come from Europe. He did not miss the opportunity to scold me for coming to the U.S. and to become a burden on my poor old parents. Dorrie and Gerhard and their three lovely children had flown in from Jamaica. Irma and her daughters, Lynn and Anne, had come from Ohio.

Mama had made a sumptuous meal and we had bought some very delicious pastry. Mama had a glass of wine. She always got the giggles with the slightest consumption of wine. She laughed and looked the happiest person in the world with all of her five children present for the first time in nineteen years. It was a really wonderful day. None of us could have known then that it was also the last time when the five of us siblings would all be together.

At that time I did not know that Herbert advised Papa what stocks to buy. Herbert had worked in banks ever since he was 18 in 1923. He was a genius in that field. On the other hand he knew that our stay with the parents cost so little in comparison to Papa’s income that there was no reason for him to make me feel guilty about being a burden to my parents.

HERBERT’S BIG MOVE

After World War II, President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of State George C. Marshall decided to rebuild devastated Europe. They chose Paul Hoffman to assemble a group of experts to study the situation in the various European countries. Paul Hoffman came to New York to ask David Rockefeller for a financial adviser. He chose Herbert’s boss, a vice president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, Thomas H. McKittrick. Herbert was the natural choice for Mr. McKittrick’s assistant, because he read, spoke and wrote six living European languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. In addition he had years of experience in European and American banking.

Herbert had a wonderful time in Europe as a member of the blue ribbon panel to whom all the important European statesmen paid homage. Paris had been liberated from the German Army only a few months earlier. Anti-German feelings still ran very high there. The entire American group had a gourmet dinner at the most famous restaurant of Paris, the Moulin Rouge. The proprietor personally came out to ask in good English, if they all enjoyed their dinner. Herbert could not pass up the opportunity to show off his perfect French to the assembled dignitaries and spoke to the proprietor in his very best French. The proprietor answered him in perfect German! Oh, those give away humiliating accents!

The famous Marshall Plan was based on the reports by this committee. Herbert had a right to be proud of his part in the important work that helped to rebuild Europe.

He told me that shortly after his return to New York he had asked how he could become an officer of the bank. He was told that, if he had been born a Rockefeller, were a graduate from Harvard, Yale or Princeton, he might have a chance. However, as an immigrant, he might as well forget the idea of ever becoming an officer of the Chase Manhattan Bank. It naturally irked him and preyed on his mind for the rest of the time he worked at that bank.

One day Paul Hoffman came to New York and Herbert was asked to attend a conference on the executive floor. Herbert told me that he had never seen such luxury in an office. Deep, expensive carpets covered every room. There were paintings of enormous value on every wall and all the electric fittings, such as switches and outlet boxes were gold plated. The furniture was made of the very best woods and was highly polished.

He told me that misfortune, or was it good fortune, would have it that he had an upset stomach that day. He had to excuse himself to go to the bathroom. That, too, incidentally, was very luxurious with genuine gold plated fittings. The next morning he found an anonymous note on his desk, stating that employees who were not officers of the bank, were not allowed to use the bathrooms on the executive floor.

That did it! His blood boiled! He looked in the bankers’ magazine. Every occupation has a trade magazine, and he found an ad for a foreign loan advisor who spoke several European languages. He applied. The Bank of America sent him a return ticket. That weekend he flew for an interview to San Francisco. The Bank of America hired him at double the pay he was getting from the Chase. He spoke to Mr. McKittrick. His boss told him that he would never get a better offer in all of his life and that he should take it. He did.

After an inspection tour of Europe, his superior in San Francisco asked him where he thought it best to open a branch office in charge of Northern Europe.

Herbert told him, Dusseldorf.

You are it!

Herbert and Maria moved to Dusseldorf where he opened a branch for the Bank of America. He became and remained the Bank’s representative for Northern Europe until he retired.

SELMIX

Papa advised me to look in the papers to see if there were a job open for a handyman or a butler on a large private estate. He said that it was all I was good for since I did not have a certificate proving that I had a formal education.

I went to an employment agency. I had no idea how much money to ask for. They sent me to a factory in Long Island City. It took me an hour by subway ride from the agency to the factory in the middle of winter. The foreman interviewed me at Selmix. He asked me how much I wanted. I did not know how to answer that. He asked me if I ever ran a lathe.

I told him: No, Sir.

He said: No experience, $1.25 per hour. That seemed like a lot of money to me, as I compared it with what I had paid my workers in Jamaica. £1.=.= was $4.oo then, so a $1.25 was 6s 3d (six shillings and three pence). That was more than I had paid my men in Jamaica in a day! Naturally, I was glad to accept.

The foreman handed me a broom and told me to sweep out the men’s room. In Jamaica I had been the owner of the only neon shop in the British West Indies, a Director of the Jamaica Manufacturers Association, a Director of the Jamaica Electrical Contractors Association, and a Member of the Chamber of Commerce. Here in America they handed me a broom to sweep out the men’s room. It was most depressing! It was still better than hearing Papa’s criticism. Offers for a glassblower’s job were sure to arrive soon. That was my consolation.

As I was about to get up with the broom in my hand, an engineer came to us, gave the foreman a valve handle and a blue print and told the foreman: This handle has to be built up and must be drilled according to this print.

I have no-one who can do that, protested the foreman.

Give it to me, Sir, I said.

I had lots of soldering experience and I could certainly drill a few holes according to a print. The foreman looked at me in disbelief.

Here. He gave me the handle, the drawing and showed me where I could get the muriatic acid, the solder, a torch, and a soldering iron. I did the job and then rearmed myself with that miserable broom. I could smell the men’s room, but I was in no hurry to go near it.

I walked all around the factory with my broom in my hand. The company was making soft drink dispensers. The crucial part was the valve that would mix the water, syrup, and carbon dioxide always in the exact same proportion.

I came to a fenced in area, where three toolmakers were making dies. I went inside. Two of the men looked as if they had retired from a previous company. They seemed older than 65. The third seemed to be in his early 40’s, not so much older than I was. I had turned 35 not even two months earlier on November 30, 1952.

I looked over the shoulder of this man. I looked at his blueprint. He was making a drill jig. He had started it all wrong.

After a minute or so, I told him, If you start here and then fit that edge, before you do what you are doing now, you would have a better result.

He answered me with a German accent. So, I asked him if he were German.

No, I am from Vienna, I am not really a toolmaker. These other two fellows are carrying me. I had a taxi business when the Nazis took it away and kicked me out of Vienna in 1938. This is the best job I have had since I left Austria. He spoke to me in the polished German of an educated man.

The old diminutive tool maker came over to us and looked up at me: You Tsherman?

Yes, Sir.

You a mechanic?

Yes, Sir.

You can make sis?

Yes, Sir.

Vat you doing mit dat silly broom? Trow dat broom in de corner! Then he, too, switched to German and he told me, Make a bending jig for the ends of this stainless steel coil.

He handed me a blueprint of a completed stainless steel coil of 3/8" diameter tubing and three coils with unfinished ends.

Use my tools for now, but bring your own after the weekend. Oh, and make sure you buy a padlock for your toolbox.

Now I felt much better already. It was the first time in my life, where being a German had really helped me. This was wonderful!

My musing did not last too long. The general foreman and his brother-in-law, the shop steward, both two huge Irishmen, marched into the little tool room. The foreman yelled at me with an exceptionally loud voice, I told you to sweep out the men’s room! It stinks to high heaven! What are you doing in here?! (There were a few more words in those sentences, which I do not care to repeat.) Before I could grab my broom, the tiny toolmaker stepped between us and told the furious man, that I was now working for him. A prolonged yelling match ensued among the three of them. It seemed to me that the little German, with his soft voice and clean language, despite his bravery, was no match for the other two. But then, he had an ace up his sleeve.

He played it now: "You vont sis die, or you not vont sis die?"

OK, OK, keep this man! The two Irishmen had worked up a rage, so that their faces were a deep red. They turned and stomped out of the tool room.

When I came home, everybody was delighted that I had found a job so quickly. Papa, with a big smile, offered to pay for my tools. It would not be very much money for Papa but for me it would be two weeks’ pay, a considerable expense.

Saturday morning I went out to Sears and bought myself about $100 worth of tools. (Now, more than 50 years later I still have almost all of those tools and even the toolbox.) I gave Papa the bill. He refused to pay even a penny towards my expense. That really amazed me. Never before did my father sink so low in my opinion. To me, a man is as good as his word. I never expected any one in my family to disgrace himself by going back on his word. For him it was such a small amount! I never said a word, but I never forgot. He always had and always will have my respect as a very good doctor, but as a man, he was finished as far as I was concerned. He had broken his word of honor! However, since he was my father, I always treated him with respect to the end of his days and never let on how low he had sunk in my esteem.

On the advice of the chief toolmaker, I screwed my toolbox firmly to a shelf and locked it every evening. That seemed strange to me. In Jamaica, in the macaroni factory and in my neon shop nothing was ever locked up and nothing ever disappeared though the employees there were much poorer than the lowest paid worker at Selmix.

Once, back in Jamaica, I had misplaced my watch. I had looked for it everywhere and could not find it. It was worth more than two weeks’ pay of any of my employees. Then Teresa, the young girl whom I had trained as a glassblower, told me, Mr. Arnold, you nah want your watch? You left it here on the bench for days now, Sah. I had not remembered. I was glad to have it back.

My brother, Gerhard, and his industrious wife, Dorrie, had started the Jamaica Macaroni Factory. Shortly after that I had started the Glasslite Company to make neon signs in the same building. The three of us trusted our employees 100% and they in turn trusted us.

I worked at Selmix about a month. I found out that the toolmaker from Vienna was getting $2.75 per hour. I became fairly proficient setting up and working at a lathe. The chief engineer, his top designer, and the foreman were delighted with the jig I built for the coil. I demonstrated it to them.

I took the opportunity to ask for more money. I was told, that they could not give me a raise. I would have to see the personnel manager. I did. He told me that because of the union contract, his hands were tied. He might be able to get me a nickel an hour raise. I was terribly disappointed.

My old dislike for New York of 1938 came back to me now in 1953. It took two hours walking plus a subway ride from my parents’ home to Selmix and the same back in bitter cold January and February. I realized that the wages they paid me would not free me from 135 Prospect Park SW. If I had only known how much to ask for in the first place when I had my job interview, things might have turned out quite differently, but I had no one to advise me. My parents had turned out to be completely ignorant in such matters as though they were still in Germany in their minds.

That Friday I packed up my tools and took them home with me. I was contemplating quitting. But then one does not throw out dirty water until one has new. I did not say anything to anyone. I had the whole weekend to think it over.

PINE SIGN CO.

When I came home I found two letters. They were the only answers I received from the about 20 or so resumes I had sent out to neon shops. One shop in Milwaukee offered me $ 2.75 / hr. and one in Niagara Falls offered me $ 2.50.

I did not want to travel as far away from Amy as Milwaukee. Amy was in her eighth month now. I had an appointment to take a New York drivers’ license test the coming Wednesday, but the job offer made it quite clear, that I either come at once or forget it. I took a bus to Niagara Falls. Even though there was no more snow in Brooklyn, there was deep snow in Niagara Falls in the end of February.

I went to the Pine Sign Co. on Pine Ave. The owner, Bob Gugliamo, a second generation Italian-American, was polite but never even smiled when he saw me. He showed me his neon shop. There were a few repairs to be done. The air supply for the burners was very inadequate. I did not tell him, as I did not think it wise to start with complaints before the first day was over.

He told me that his mother had a room to rent. He took me there. His mother did not speak any English and I had forgotten my Italian. The house was within easy walking distance to the shop. It was nice and clean. Unfortunately she insisted on putting a disinfectant with a disgusting smell into my clothes closet. All my clothes absorbed it, so that the smell was with me all day. I kept removing the cake of disinfectant and she kept putting it back. After a while I thought that I could live with it, but I did not like it.

Before the week was out he ran out of glass work. He asked me if I could do service work. I told him that I could do any work which might be needed in a neon shop but that I did not have a driver’s license. He had a great big one ton service truck with ladders and plenty of space for signs. I had never yet driven a big rig like that in a city. He sent me out on calls. He complained after each call that I took too long. He was a miserable creature to work for.

He told me that he had a sheet metal man and an electrician coming in part time. They were good friends of the glassblower, an old Swede, who regularly went on binges lasting days and laughed at the owner when the latter threatened to fire him. He knew that Bob was at his mercy. He dared Bob to replace him. Now Bob showed him that he could replace him, and I was the experimental object.

On the first payday, he told me that he had offered me $ 2.50 / hr. but that he could not really afford that. If I insisted on $ 2.50, he would pay me, but he would let me go. Would I take $ 1.60. I felt cheated, but I accepted. The shop seemed to do very poorly. Besides I did not have enough for a return trip after paying the rent.

His part time workers came in and built a fairly large sign. They invited me to go to a bar with them on payday. When I declined they seemed pretty upset. They told me that the old Swede always took them out and they drank up most of his pay. When I told them that I did not drink at all, they resented my very existence.

The two busiest streets in town were Main Street and Falls Street. One afternoon Bob sent me to service a sign just north of Main St. on Falls St. right at rush hour. I approached the restaurant from the south of the intersection. Parking spaces were hard to find. I was very lucky to see one directly in front of the sign I was to service. I would have no trouble erecting my ladder right there. Wonderful!

I drove right through the intersection with the great big truck. There were no traffic lights in Jamaica when I lived there, so I was not used to them. I drove right through the red light across the town’s busiest intersection at rush hour! Brakes were squealing, horns were blowing, fists were shaking, and a lot of words were shouted. Unfortunately, they were not fit to be repeated but, fortunately, I got my parking space.

Any one thinking of duplicating this feat, had better, too, sit high up on a pretty strongly built truck. Lucky me, no-one rammed my side. It would have been bad. I had neither a license nor insurance. I managed to get the sign working. Incidentally, I have been aware of traffic lights ever since.

One day an icy wind was blowing across the Great Lakes. Bob sent me and a helper to fix a sign. It was very high up. I stood at the very top of a three section extension ladder, a good 50 ft above the still frozen ground. To reach the glass tubing, I had to sling my leg over the top rung and lean back as far as I could. Suddenly I felt a fierce stabbing pain inside of me. I knew right away that it was a kidney stone attack. I had one like this when I had assumed a very similar position on a sign in Kingston, Jamaica. The pain was so severe, that things started to turn purple before my eyes. I managed to get my leg back from over the top rung. I opened my belt and buckled it over the nearest rung and I clamped my arms around the ladder. I was afraid I was going to pass out. I did do just that for a short time. My knees felt weak and the ladder was shaky. Slowly under much pain I descended to the ground. It felt good to touch it. My helper asked why I did not finish the job. Then he took one look at me and did not ask any more questions, but packed up the ladder and tools and drove me home.

The next day as I went to work, Bob scolded me for not finishing the job. I felt too rotten to argue. I had worked for him longer than a month. That was more than enough. I asked him for my pay. That night I took the bus back to Brooklyn.

RICHARD ARNOLD VON DER PORTEN

The bus arrived in Manhattan early in the morning the 27th of March, 1953. I took a subway to Brooklyn. The apartment was empty. In Amy’s room stood a baby carriage besides the usual furniture. I took the trolley to the Doctors Hospital where Amy lay sound asleep. She woke up and smiled all over her face. It’s a boy! Arnold, how wonderful that you are here! She looked radiant! I forgot all about my own pain and gave her a big kiss and then went to view the baby behind a window. I was not allowed to touch him.

Papa confirmed that my pain was caused by a kidney stone. He suggested to wait and see if nature would take care of my problem as it had done with my first kidney stone. I agreed to wait.

Amy came home a day after.

I asked her, Where did you get that beautiful pram?

She smiled, Toni dropped me off at a babies’ store on Flatbush Avenue. It was about a week before Richard was born. I asked the salesman for a pram. He stared at me, ‘Lady if you wanna go fishin’ you wanna go to Canarsee! They sell all kinds of boats there from a flat bottomed pram to… ‘

" ‘No, I don’t want to go fishing. I want a perambulator.’

" ‘You wanna wha’?’

" ‘A perambulator to take my baby for a walk.’

‘You want a carriage! Mary, this woman wants a carriage!’

Amy obviously had mixed feelings about this experience.

"Arnold I was mortified! No-one ever referred to me as: ‘This woman’ before, and I certainly did not want a carriage! I visualized some huge thing drawn by six horses. All I wanted was a pram!

"I told the man, ‘No. no! I don’t want a carriage! I want something to push my baby in.’

"He said, ‘Trust me, lady. You wanna carriage.’

Mary brought a pram and I took it. On the bill they called it a carriage.

Winston Churchill said, as he was addressing the U.S. Congress during the War, We British and you Americans have a lot in common, except the language, of course.

THE CLUMSY INTERN

Oma, that is how people call their grandmothers in German, was delighted with the baby. She was very good to Amy and me. She was just a good soul. All of her children and grandchildren loved her, and even non relatives called her affectionately: Oma. Opa, that is how grandfathers are called in Germany, was very annoyed because of the inconvenience it had caused him to take Amy to the hospital. He kept repeating that for several days on end. And now on top of it all, to his dismay, I could not even work with my constant back pain. He was most indignant.

Toni had a medical lab. She urged me to see one of the doctors who was a client of hers. Arnold, you don’t know if this is not cancerous. Do yourself a favor and see Dr. Levits. He is one of the most renowned urologists in the country. He won’t charge you anything if I send you. She kept at me until I went. What could I lose? I could not work and the pain was sometimes fierce. Papa had no objection, though he was quite sure of his diagnosis. Dr. Levits gave me opium as that widens the canals in the body. Papa was angry because opium is habit forming. Dr. Levits sent me to Kings County Hospital to have my kidneys checked with a cystoscope.

I had to go into the hospital the evening before the cystoscopy. Early the next morning I was wheeled into a little operating room. Two very beautiful young ladies, dressed in green gowns and cap, waited for me there. One was to give me the anesthesia, the other the cystoscopy. I was a little embarrassed to be exposed in front of two such young, good looking women. Why did they choose women to operate on me, especially that part of me?! I warned them that I did not smoke nor drink, and that I reacted strongly to drugs. The anesthesiologist told me that she was glad that I had warned her, so that she would give me a very light dose.

When I woke up I had such tremendous back pain that I screamed! Never in my life did I have such pain. I started to tear up my bed sheets and called for help. A nurse rushed over and gave me a morphine injection. This happened many times a day for over a week. Eventually, on the tenth day the pain became bearable and I went home. Toni told me that she had visited me a few times. I was too sedated and could not possibly remember. She told me that she did not know in advance that Dr. Levits let an intern do the cystoscopy. That woman was inexperienced and damaged my urethra. That is why I had suffered such terrible pain. I was a bit angry, but my kidney stone was gone. At least that was good. I could look for work again.

LOOKING FOR WORK

Amy and I felt tolerated but not really welcomed by Papa. We lived in the smallest room in the apartment. When I came back from the hospital I told my parents that I was going to accept the job in Milwaukee. Papa was pleased but my dear mother begged me, Don’t go so far away. We will never see you any more. It will be just as if you were going back to Jamaica. Please promise me that you will try to find a job nearer home.

I had become aware how much my father dominated Mama. I suspected that she had been secretly suffering from being taken for granted, almost as a second class subservient. Amy’s and my trying to be helpful to her, must have struck a harmonious chord.

Without delay I picked up the Yellow Pages and made a list of every neon shop in Manhattan. There were dozens of neon shops in Manhattan. I rewrote the list so that it started at the Battery in the South and went up-town to Harlem in the North. I laid out a route on the map to save extra steps. I made a sandwich and put it into the refrigerator. I hoped that one of the shops might have a need for me, employ me, and get me into that very arrogant Local 3 of the I.B.E.W. It was a chance, a slim one, I knew.

Early the next morning I had breakfast long before sunrise. I took the subway to Battery Park and reached the first shop at 8:00 a.m. sharp, just as it opened. I was asked: Do you have a Local 3 card? Upon my No, Sir. They showed me the door. This kept on happening. By about 10:00 a.m. I was near the Local 3 headquarters. It was a glittering marble skyscraper. The foyer was grand. I took an elevator to the floor where applications were taken. There was a very dirty room. Chewing gum, black with dirt, stuck to the floor everywhere. Close to the far wall there was a shabby window, a sloppy copy of a movie ticket office. A gum-chewing girl told me that they were taking no new applications except from sons of members in good standing.

Besides, she informed me, at present no members work more than 35 hours per week and we even have a lot of unemployed members.

What is the pay of those who work? I wanted to get an idea as to how much I was to ask for.

$ 3.25 / hr. Good bye.

A fabulous pay in those days. It was all very discouraging. But at least, now I knew the rate.

As I was leaving, a man in a suit and tie came out of the office. He stopped me.

I can give you a union card.

What must I do to get it?

Pay me $ 700 and I’ll give you a card.

Does that guarantee me a job? I figured at 35 hour weeks that would amount to close to two months’ pay after the mandatory deductions.

No, he said, we are slow now, but you’ll be on the waiting list.

I’ll think it over.

$ 700 seemed an enormous amount of money. It was about all we had left after the baby’s birth and my hospitalization, which, incidentally, was not completely free as Toni had originally told me. Besides, could I trust that man? He had given me his business card. That was all I knew about him.

I continued my walk uptown. I had brought my sandwich. I ate it at noon. By the time I passed the Empire State Building, I had blisters on both feet. I wished that I had put on two pairs of socks. I continued up-town. It became harder and harder to muster a confident smile every time I introduced myself. Every time it was wiped right off my lips with the same question: Do you carry a Local 3 card?

It was getting dark already. It was near closing time, when I entered a neon shop at the end of a twisted alley at around 54th Street. It was a tiny place. An electrician and a glassblower were in the shop. It was so crowded with signs and glass lettering hanging from the ceiling that the men had hardly any space to move around.

The boss is out, the electrician informed me gruffly. Are you from Local 3 ?

No.

You are wasting your time.

I found the only chair that I could see and sat down. I’ll have to sit down for a while, my feet hurt.

The glassblower put down his tubing and came over with a smile. You a glassblower?

Yes.

Looking for work?

Yes.

"Forget New York. We have men out of work and those of us, who work may only work 35 hours or we’ll lose our cards.

They are hiring across the river in New Jersey. I know Colonial Neon is looking for men. They are in North Bergen.

He gave me the address.

They only pay $ 2.75, but you can work 40 hours. Local 730 does not have enough glassblowers to supply them.

The blisters on my soles had burst. I felt too hopeful to feel the pain. I thanked the stranger, a brother glassblower, who never even knew my name nor did I know his. I felt great.

I stopped at a gas station and got myself a map of New Jersey. Maps were given out free in those days. I walked to the nearest subway back to Brooklyn. A good thing that I had insisted on resting in that minute little shop instead of just dragging myself to a subway station!

Mama had a good dinner waiting for me. Papa looked at my open blisters on each foot. They were the size of half dollars. He put on some salve and a very good bandage. He told me to stay put till the feet had healed. He shook his head.

I did not know that you had it in you to try this hard.

Well, he never really knew me.

COLONIAL NEON

Long before sunrise the next morning, with Papa’s bandages of yesterday well in place under my foot soles, I was determined to get the job before anybody else had a chance to fill the opening at Colonial Neon. I longed for financial freedom and for a job in my chosen field! Besides, I had to prove to Papa that I was not a leech, as Herbert had once called me, expecting to be fed and housed by my parents.

I took the long subway ride to the bus terminal at 8th Ave. and 39th St. in Manhattan and a bus from there to North Bergen in New Jersey. After some difficulty I found Colonial Neon at Tonnelle Avenue. I had gone to the wrong shop first. The company had two shops, so it was a very big neon company. By the time I finally got to the right address, it was midday.

The foreman’s name was Rochi (Pronounced: Rocky) Nocera, an Italian. He asked me what I could do in a neon shop.

I told him, I am a neon man. I can do any work in a neon shop.

Yeah, yeah, but what are you, an electrician, a designer, a sheet metal man, a glassblower?

What pays the most?

Glassblower.

Then I want to work as a glassblower.

He looked at me as if he had never heard of a man who was such an all around neon man. He told me that he would like to hire me but that he had to get approval from the shop steward first. Just as in Local 3 in New York, all electricians and glassblowers in the industrial North East of New Jersey belonged to Local 730 in Newark.

The shop steward came into the office. Before he was even introduced, he told Rochi, You can’t hire a man off the street.

Then send me a man from the union hall.

"You know that we don’t have any more glassblowers in North

Jersey."

"Then, under the contract, I can hire whom I want.

This man’s name is Arnold. Arnold meet Herman. I resented the reference to me as: Off the street, but I managed a big smile as I shook hands with Herman, a second generation American of German extraction. Turning to the foreman, he said, OK. He can work on a permit, but if a union member becomes available, he is out.

Nocera told me to take off my jacket and start right away. I told him that I had on a suit and would prefer to start in my work clothes the next morning.

Actually, I had walked too much on my sore feet. They hurt terribly. I needed to get home and have the bandages changed.

He said, OK. Come in the morning at a little before 8:00 a.m., as I want you to have your burners lit at the time when the buzzer goes.

It was a two and a half hour ride home. I was very happy!

It meant putting a sandwich into the refrigerator before going to bed to take for my lunch the next day, getting up at 5:00 a.m. five days a week, getting breakfast, putting coffee into the thermos bottle, and leaving the house by 5:30.

The glassblowing room was a large hall of about 30 ft. x 24 ft. with a high ceiling. There were eleven glassblowers and one pumper. He pumped at three sets of equipment at the same time, thus he pumped three tubes at once on an 8 ft. x 4 ft. table. To prevent a draft which could disturb the flames, one had to enter through two doors, closing one before opening the other.

There were three long 4 ft. wide tables. The first one was almost the entire length of the shop. It had five stations. Each station consisted of a cross fire, a hand torch, and a 24 inch ribbon burner. There were two more tables with three stations each, parallel to the first table. These tables started almost at the wall and ended almost at the pumping stations. I marveled at the size of the operation. Everything was painted black from the ceiling to the floor. That made it easy to see by the color when the glass had the right heat.

I was given a station next to a very friendly man in his middle sixties. His name was John Goerke. Rochi brought me the asbestos paper pattern of the word: ALE. It was to be made from 8mm green fluorescent tubing. The letters were only 2 high. Make 15 of these for the day." He gave me 8mm glass tubes and a box of electrodes. I was horrified! In Jamaica, where time did not cost so much, I would have been happy if Teresa had made me two for the day. I did not think that it was possible to make 15, and then so small! I promptly spoiled the first one. There was a special skill required to make such small lettering speedily. I certainly did not have it.

By lunch time I had made two. I thought I was going to be fired! The total sign read: BALLENTINE, ALE, BEER and it had three intertwining circles in the middle. Goerke pushed two ALE over to my side of the table. They were of better quality than mine. He had made nine units in the time I had made two. He kept seven and pointed out, This beer sign business is very competitive, I’ve been at it for a long time. You’ll get the hang of it.

I made four signs in the afternoon. With John Goerke’s help, I had eight units. Rochi was a very stern looking man.

Before he could open his mouth Goerke said to him, Give the kid a break. He never done beer work before.

Rochi then told me, I can’t pay you the full union pay. I’ll have to talk to the business agent. We’ll see on Friday.

To John I was just a kid. He was about 65, but I was already 35, hardly a kid.

On Friday Jimmy Caposi came to the shop. I was making twelve ALE by then.

He and Rochi came over to me. I’m the Business Agent of Local 730. I agreed to let Colonial pay you $ 2.30 / hr. You will have to pass a test, given by the union, before I can get you the full union rate of $ 2.75. Here

He handed me an insignificant looking little white card, which he signed. It was the all important work permit by the Local 730 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (I.B.E.W.). I was glad that I was not fired! $ 2.30 / hr. was a lot of money in those days. I could afford to rent an apartment for that. On my way home I found a discarded New Jersey newspaper on the bus through the Lincoln Tunnel. I studied the Apartment for Rent column.

WE MOVE TO NEW JERSEY

On the weekend I found a furnished apartment on 13th Street in Union City, next door to the State Motor Vehicle Inspection Station. All cars had to be tested once a year in New Jersey. The apartment was within walking distance to work and near a bus to Manhattan. The owners lived downstairs. They were a very friendly Italian couple. They told me that their daughter and her husband had lived upstairs. Because of the Korean War the husband was drafted into the Army, and their daughter had moved downstairs with them. She could not stand being up there all by herself. They were happy to rent the apartment to us.

We borrowed Toni’s car to transport the carriage to Union City. Mama was unhappy to see us go. I believe she was the only one. We were very happy to have our own little apartment, where we would not have anybody to criticize us, and we did not have to weigh every word we uttered. Herbert had migrated to the States in 1929. He was a citizen and had worked steadily for the Chase National Bank when our parents wanted to enter the United States in 1936. He was in the fortunate position to be able to give our parents and Irma his affidavit so that they could enter America. Thus my parents were indebted to him. They had good reason to love him. He was not a bad fellow. He just lacked sensitivity. I was glad that he worked in Europe.

Amy and I had visited Toni’s lab and her apartment and had met her daughter Helen. Harald, Toni’s son, had joined the Army. I drove Toni in her car to visit him at Fort Dix. Amy and tiny Richard came with us. We did not realize then that we were to visit Richard there many years later when he became a soldier and had finished basic training.

Harald was shipped out to Japan. He got stuck there on an army base. It was a good place to get stationed during the Korean War. We were pretty sure that none of my family would visit us in Union City, an assumption which became fact.

In the mornings, when I started my 45 minute walk to work, cars were lined up around the block our apartment was on. They were waiting for the mandatory test. It was that way all day five days per week, but after 5:oo p.m.,