Vignettes: Musings and Reminiscences of a Modern Renaissance Man

By Paul Lee

Vignettes: Musings and Reminiscences of a Modern Renaissance Man is a remarkable series of recollections from a man whose experiences cover an extraordinary range of places, people, and interests. Eschewing the formulaic conventions of autobiography, Vignettes moves back and forth across time and space to describe in vivid detail events and observations from a fascinating life. Its subject matter reflects the acute perceptions of a man for whom every day is a new adventure and a fresh opportunity to learn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475956559

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Copyright © 2012 by Paul Lee.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-5653-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5654-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5655-9 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/17/2012

Contents

Foreword By Jeff Lee

Life In The 1930’S

Boy Scouts Of America

Farm Mechanics Merit Badge

West Junior High School Science Club

Old Time Radio

Indian Lore Merit Badge

Excursion To Maine

Early College Years

Early Days In The U.S. Army

And Later College Years

This Is The Army Mr. Lee

The Homefront During Ww Ii

Hitching Rides

An Officer And A Gentleman

Tourist Facilities In Ware, Ma

Bu Rally

Raid On Yale

The Fireside Club

The Totem Pole Ballroom

The Calla Lilies Are In Bloom

England With Jeff

The Weekend Commute

Velcome To Sveden!!!

The Blizzard Of 1978

Troop 71 And Lewis Corbitt

California, Here We Go!

Manhattan Rubber Division

The Dry Tortugas

Raybestos Field Trips

Trinidad And Tobago

Imperial Leather

Kenya

Tsavorite

Ballooning

Cley-Next-The-Sea

Henry The Eighth’s Wine Cellar

British Clubs And The Players’ Theater

Egyptian Goose

Highlights Of Egypt

The Hubbell Trading Post

Harvard Club Of

Southern Connecticut (Hcsc)

Encounter In Yellowstone

Arenal Volcano

Neighbors

The House On Blakeman Place

Canyonlands Caper

Heli-Hiking

Campbell Resources Inc.

Snakes

Baby Coot

Sled Dogs

Alcohol

Brooks Lodge

A Day On The Seward Peninsula

Denali National Park

Belize

The Great Manure Caper

Assiniboine Headdress

Nanxiong, China

Miss Saigon

Guten Morgen Frau Schmidt

Pirahnas

Birding In The Andes

Saunas

Spectators In Hanover

Geology 101

Archeology And Myron Stachiw

Elliott Shapira

Coin Collecting

Comestibles

Calling Dr. Killdare

Jesse (Buddy) Hebbard

Elderhostels

An Alpine Adventure

Switzerland

Tailgating At Yale

A July 3Rd To Remember

Eyesight

Birding

The Military

Thomas Paul Anderson

Invasive Animal Species

The Song Of The Dodo

Dining In Style

Our Town

The B & B Project

Jim And Ella Mccullough

Tropical Medicine

A Blot On My Reputation

Harvard Stadium

Interesting Raybestos Contacts

Woodstock Neighbors

Boys Will Be Boys

Hobby Lobby

Behind The Scenes

Snapshots Sometimes Short-Term Events Have Lasting Memories

Dedicated to my wife Louise, who for more than 60 years has been my fellow traveler, my anchor, and my inspiration.

FOREWORD

By Jeff Lee

It’s no exaggeration to say that my father has left an indelible impression on everyone who’s had the good fortune to know him. Like the archetypal man of the Renaissance, his range of interests is extraordinarily broad. Just as importantly, Dad has a unique ability to excel at just about anything he puts his mind to. Whether it’s birding, Nantucket baskets, beekeeping, painting, scrimshaw, gardening, or genealogy, he embodies a lesson he frequently reiterated to me when I was growing up: either you do something right, or you don’t do it at all. His personal standards for excellence are unrivalled.

And yet Dad’s accomplishments are secondary to the way in which he has lived his life. His most endearing quality is the way in which he looks forward to every day as a great new adventure. He retains the gleeful excitement of a child going to the circus for the first time. For him, everything is fresh, everything is an opportunity for new learning, and everything has the potential for fascination. That attitude is not unusual for a young person, but it is rare for someone who’s going to turn 90 in only a few years. As one reads this remarkable set of reminiscences one gets the sense that his retirement from work more than 20 years ago was a liberation that allowed him to pursue the multiple interests he had but which he simply didn’t have the time to pursue when he had other obligations. The freedom to travel around the world was an obvious benefit, but there was much more.

My father is a born raconteur, as anyone who has been in his company can attest. I view this book as a putting to paper of those many stories that begged for preservation, and it’s a mark of the breadth of Dad’s experiences that I know it could be much longer still. The book’s eclectic format—jumping around the years from childhood to 2012 and back again—is representative of the way his mind works. He never stays in the same place for long, but while he’s there he is intensely rooted in that moment. He is seldom the focus of his stories, but is rather the keenest of observers. He would have been justified in writing this book as a chronological autobiography, but his interests lie far from taking that perspective. Instead, he describes an amazing range of characters (and a lot of them really are characters!), places, events, and topics in a way that reflects—perhaps unknowingly—his unique gifts of perception and story telling.

As Dad acknowledges in his dedication, my mother has had a critical influence on his growth as a participant in, and observer of, life. I think she has always recognized his need to expand his horizons and to delve deeply into his many areas of interest. As such, she has been an enabler, not a brake on his aspirations. At the same time, she has provided a needed grounding for him. If I think of my father as an eagle, my mother has provided a nest without which he might have flown off to places from where we might never have brought him back.

I can’t imagine that any curious and thinking person would not be intrigued by many of these musings. For those of us who know Dad well, this book is a living testament to his absolutely unique personality and high standards. It’s worth pointing out that nothing in Vignettes talks directly about his exemplary moral code, but it shines throughout nonetheless. Dad’s sense of right and wrong, and his loyalty to his family and friends—including Harvard—is a profound lesson of how to live one’s life.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have this guy as your father?

LIFE IN THE 1930’S

Prior to World War II when I was growing up in Watertown, MA, my family led a very provincial life. We lived at 22 Bailey Ave., and several years after my maternal grandfather died, my maternal grandmother came to live with us. Actually she stayed with us during the winter and early spring, and toward the end of May she went to Uncle Ben’s dairy farm in Amherst, NH where she spent the summer, and only returned when the weather became too cold to stay in an unheated house.

My father worked in the Cashiers Office of the Boston Post Office, and I recall that his duties included paying all of the rural letter carriers in Massachusetts and counting large sums of money which were headed for the Federal Reserve Bank. Friday night was traditional fish night at our house, and Dad would buy the fish from a fellow who set up a shop in the lobby of the Boston Post Office. While this is difficult to believe, and would certainly not occur these days, the fellow had permission to sell fish from a prominent place on the main floor. He was a letter carrier whose route covered the fish piers, and on Fridays he made arrangements to purchase whatever fresh fish he could buy off of the boats that Friday morning. He set up his tables after lunch and peddled his fish on site until he sold out or he had no more customers.

Then he would thoroughly clean up the area, only to open up again the following week. My grandmother and mother planned on Dad’s arrival with the fish, and when he whistled, as he normally did at the top of the hill on Bailey Avenue, the gas heat was turned up under the frying pan.

Money was always tight in our house, and there were interesting ways my folks saved on expenditures. In the 1930’s during the depression, it was possible to register a car for less than a year. Our winters were very severe, and snow removal was not an exact science. For instance, our sidewalk was plowed by a single draft horse pulling a V-shaped wooden plow, and this was very inefficient. At any rate, there wasn’t any good reason to operate a car during the early months of the year. Stores were close by and it was a short walk to the trolley lines which would take us into Boston. As a result, many families put their car up on blocks on December 31st and would put the car back on the road when the weather improved. In our case that was April 1st. That meant that the car registration and insurance were only needed for nine months. Putting the car up on blocks meant raising all four wheels and placing large wooden blocks in appropriate locations under the axles. This kept the tires off of the ground thereby lessening the possibility of developing flat spots. Not having the car during the winter was not a hardship, and putting the car up on blocks each December was standard operating procedure. Of course, the weekly Sunday visits to the relatives in Dover came to a sudden halt at the end of December and resumed only when we had wheels in early April.

We did not have a telephone until World War II. Telephone calls were seldom made by my family, and, interestingly enough, I was the one who made most of those calls. In order to set up appointments with merit badge counselors, contact was usually made by phone. Contact with friends and relatives was maintained by letter. It was only after my dad went on active duty in the army that my mother applied to have a phone installed. My phone calls were made at the drug store which was just a block away.

That drug store was also the place where I purchased cigarettes for my father. If he happened to run out, he would write a note directing the fellow in the drug store to sell me a package of Lucky Strikes, Camels or Chesterfields.

Dad often bought other things in Boston, many on an irregular basis. Baldeau’s frankfurters were considered to be at the top of the line and he was able to buy 5 pound boxes at a real good price. They were seconds and sometimes were misshapen, but who cared when they could be used in a hot dog and stuffing casserole? Usually when the misshapen frankfurters were trimmed out at the factory, there were perfectly good ones at either end.

Then there were the 5 pound boxes of Schraft chocolates which were also seconds. They were delicious, and the appearance had nothing to do with the taste.

Occasionally we went to the Faneuil Hall market and bought all kinds of vegetables and fruit from pushcart vendors. I was always particularly attracted to the olives. The vendors normally sold the same items each week, and the selling would commence Friday night and go on all day Saturday. The later that you shopped on Saturday, the lower were the prices on all the perishables. With all of the changes in the area around Faneuil Hall, the huge outdoor market declined, but even today, on Saturdays, there is an outdoor area with people selling all sorts of vegetables and fruit. I recall that in the 1970’s I had Troop 71 of the First Congregational Church of Stratford, CT on a trip which included an afternoon Red Sox baseball game. After it was over we drove to Fanueil Hall and for a couple of dollars we got enough makings for a salad to feed the entire group of 25! Our visit that day was late and the vendors just wanted to get rid of things.

Generally though, my mother shopped at the local First National store. The fellow who waited on you would get everything you ordered as you called them out and gather them on the counter. He had a hook at the end of a long pole, and he would topple things off of high shelves and catch them in mid air. Items like cereals, toilet paper, etc. would be stocked on the very top shelves. Cookies were in bulk and kept in large boxes with glass doors and were purchased by the pound. I particularly liked hermits. When the clerk had assembled the complete order he would write down the individual prices of each item on a paper bag with a pencil and would total up the cost. There weren’t any supermarkets nor were there hand calculators.

Our home heating system was steam, and before we had an oil burner installed, we used coke in a furnace. Coke is a processed bituminous coal product which burns more cleanly and without odor. Part of the cellar was walled in to form a coal bin which was periodically filled by coal men who carried the fuel from the truck in canvas bags and dumped it down a steel chute which was positioned through a cellar window into the coal bin. When the furnace was fired up, coke was shoveled through a door, and periodically the grates were shaken by a handle so that the ashes would drop through to the bottom. Occasionally a clinker would develop above the grates and foul up the system. It consisted of noncombustible material that welded together and had to be removed. The ashes often contained fuel that had not been fully consumed, and as my parents shoveled the ashes from the bottom of the furnace, they would pick through the ashes for pieces of coke which could be salvaged. In the summer hot water was obtained through a gas heater. We didn’t use the pilot flame, but used a wooden match to light the gas to get hot water as needed.

I had a variety of chores to do, and there was one that I absolutely detested, and that was polishing brass. In our kitchen we had brass faucets and copper pipes which required polishing every Saturday. So, Noxon was put to use on a regular basis, and my efforts were inspected by my mother or grandmother. If my efforts didn’t pass muster, more Noxon and more elbow grease were in order. I also burned paper trash regularly, and the problem item was the wrappings of the fish that we had for dinner Friday night. My grandmother cleaned the fish on the paper and then twisted it together for disposal.

In the late fall Dad would go to a Scandinavian delicatessen in the area of Scollay Square in Boston to purchase Norwegian herring for my grandmother to make into sil (pickled herring). The herring were shipped whole in huge wooden barrels. The fish were in brine and my grandmother would cut off the heads, gut them, remove the backbone and soak them in cold water for several days to get rid of the salt. Then they were cut into bite size pieces and placed in quart jars with vinegar, sugar, sliced onions, bay leaves, whole allspice and mustard seed. In time the vinegar dissolved the bones and after a few days in the refrigerator, the sil was ready to eat. My dad could hardly wait! He ate the bulk of the sil while others in the family would eat a piece or two on occasion. As World War II approached, the shipping lanes became a target for German U-boats, and the fish from Norway trickled to a complete stop. Dad made a number of inquiries at the delicatessen, and finally they received a few barrels of herring from Iceland. He was happy to bring some of the herring home to be made into sil. This was done in due time, but my grandmother insisted that the herring from Iceland were not as good as the herring from Norway in spite of the fact that they may have come from the same waters! Once the sil was prepared with herring from Iceland, I did not hear any complaints from Dad about a difference in quality.

A lot of time was spent in the yard outside the house at 22 Bailey Avenue. My mother had her perennials and my father was particularly proud of his privet hedge and the way that he had trimmed it into precise geometric shapes. The ongoing battle with weeds in the driveway was fought until after World War II when the original gravel surface was replaced by asphalt. When spring came and the lawn and the gardens began to grow, so did the weeds in the driveway. Hand removal of the weeds commenced at that point and continued until frost in the fall ended the growing season. It was slow work and there were always more weeds to pull. When I think of the current effectiveness of spray-on weed killers, I shake my head on one phase of the good old days.

In the 1930’s, most activities were family oriented. Everyone ate a hearty breakfast, generally together. We were all very provincial, and I recall that we didn’t go to the New York World’s Fair in 1939 because of the great distance. (On the other hand, when I worked for Raybestos I thought nothing of flying to Peoria, Illinois for the day!) There weren’t organized athletics the way there are today. If you played sandlot football or baseball, you made your own arrangements to play other teams. Although we may have not had all the protective equipment we ought to have had, we enjoyed what we did without adult supervision and may have gotten a few more bruises. If a teacher at school indicated that a note was about to be sent to our parents if we didn’t improve in some area, we straightened up in a hurry. PTA meetings were very well attended and parents got a full report from the teacher. As a matter of fact, our neighbors would be in touch with my parents if they saw me involved with something amiss. I think that various organizations functioned very well in those times because there weren’t a lot of them and they required a commitment. We certainly had time as there wasn’t any TV, shopping malls, computer games or even computers. We survived very well, and I know that the discipline of the times really contributed to our success in WWII.

BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

When I was growing up, each year in early February, there was a week set apart known as Boy Scout Week. During that week all the scouts wore their uniforms to school each day. When it occurred in 1937, I was rather fascinated by the uniforms and the badges and talked to a friend who belonged to a local troop. As a result I bought a handbook which had the requirements for the various ranks you could attain and, in addition, had interesting information on all sorts of things.

I studied for the Tenderfoot requirements and on the following Friday, February 19th I arrived at the weekly meeting of Troop 51 at the James Russell Lowell School in Watertown, MA. That night I joined the troop and passed all of the requirements for Tenderfoot Scout.

It was then time to prepare for the next higher rank, Second Class. The next Friday night the troop did not meet because it was school vacation, but we did meet a week later when I passed seven of the twelve requirements for Second Class.

There were still several outdoor requirements such as cooking and fire building and a time requirement, but I became a Second Class Scout on March 31st. Meanwhile I was working on the requirements for First Class Scout and had most of them passed by the end of March. However, there was one requirement which tended to be a problem, the 50 yard swim. On two separate occasions I hiked the two miles to the Newton YMCA just west of Newton Corner. Both times I failed although I did better on the second try. My return hikes to 22 Bailey Ave. were not pleasant, and I was very discouraged. I reported all this to my dad who apparently talked to the commanding officer of the 101st Quartermaster Regiment of the Yankee Division of the Massachusetts National Guard, Colonel Ryan. It so happened that Colonel Ryan had a son who was studying to be a veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania and as an undergraduate had been on the swimming team at Penn. For some reason Bob Ryan was at home at this time and on two occasions he picked me up in his car and drove me to the Boston Athletic Club where his father was a member. With concentrated effort on my part he was able to get me to feel comfortable in the water and my swimming ability improved to the point that I felt that I could swim the fifty yards without a problem. Then it was back to the Newton YMCA for another try, and this time I made it. On the 18th of June I became a First Class Scout.

The rank beyond First Class was Star Scout which meant passing five merit badges and then came Life Scout which meant passing ten merit badges, five of which were required. Finally there was Eagle Scout which meant passing twenty one merit badges, thirteen of which were required.

At the time that I was a scout there were about one hundred merit badges covering a wide range of subject matter. There was First Aid, Weather, Botany, Reading, Farm Mechanics, Fingerprinting, Bookbinding, Mechanical Drawing, etc. When I was a scout, other merit badges were added from time to time, but perhaps only a half a dozen. For each merit badge the Boy Scouts of America put out a merit badge pamphlet which I think cost $.20. Once in a while a requirement would change and that would be picked up the next time a pamphlet was updated. Each pamphlet listed all of the requirements for the merit badges and then proceeded to indicate how those requirements could be met.

Once you had mastered the requirements for a particular merit badge and felt comfortable in being tested by someone proficient in the field, there was a merit badge counselor list kept by a troop committeeman. My troop was in Sachem Council and this covered Belmont, Arlington, Waltham, Watertown, Lincoln, Bedford and Concord. For popular merit badges like Safety or First Aid, there would be a merit badge counselor in each town, but for a merit badge like Chemistry or Astronomy, which few would be interested in passing, there might only be one or two counselors for the entire council.

The normal procedure was to secure a blue merit badge application, fill it out and have it signed by your scoutmaster indicating his approval. Then you would get in touch with a merit badge counselor from the list, explain who you were and what merit badge you wanted to pass. Some merit badge counselors handled more than a single merit badge. A mutually satisfactory time and place were agreed upon for the examination. The meetings with the counselors varied a great deal in the way that your knowledge of the subject was checked out, but once the counselor felt that that you had met the requirements, he would sign the application and you would return it to the troop committee chairman.

As time went along and I attained the rank of Life Scout, it became clear to me that getting Eagle rank was not going to be a possibility. I had managed to swim the 50 yards for the First Class requirement, but I felt that the requirements for the Swimming and Life Saving merit badges were well beyond my capabilities, and those two badges were required for Eagle. By that time I probably had 30 or 35 merit badges. I decided that if I couldn’t become an Eagle, I would try for the record number of merit badges obtained by a scout in Sachem Council. I believe that the current record then was between 40 and 50. I was fascinated by the various merit badges and as I studied to pass them, I was learning all sorts of information on a variety of subjects. I found that the merit badge counselors were very helpful and interesting people, and in some cases they challenged me to look into other subjects. I had no idea how helpful all this information would be to me in the near future.

It wasn’t too long before I held the record for the number of merit badges, and my mother, who sewed them all on my sash, soon covered the front and began sewing them on the back. By that time I was rather well known throughout the scouting community and there were people who were interested in seeing that I was given the opportunity to qualify for Eagle. One of these people was George Saurwein who was the President of Sachem Council and happened to be a member of our church, Payson Park Congregational Church in Belmont. He held the position at Harvard as the Superintendent of Building and Grounds, and he therefore knew a lot of people at Harvard who operated in a number of capacities. Mr. Saurwein contacted my father with a proposal which my father relayed to me. Frank Vaughn who was the diving coach for the Harvard swimming team was willing to work with me at the pool in the Indoor Athletic Building to meet the requirements for the Swimming and Lifesaving merit badges. There was some kind of a nominal monetary arrangement for the instruction I was to receive. The plan was for me to meet Frank at the pool every day after attending school at Watertown High School and we would work out for several or more hours.

On the first scheduled Monday I took the trolley on Mount Auburn St. to Harvard Square and walked down to the Indoor Athletic Building where the gentleman at the entrance, who checked in people, was expecting me, gave me a towel, and directed me downstairs to the locker room and the showers. Frank was very accommodating and knew the problem I faced. He had obviously worked with many others before who had a fear of the water, and he soon instilled confidence in me. Day by day I could see solid improvement, and it reached a point that by Friday night of the first week when we were having supper, I was able to announce to my parents that I was going to make it. By the second week we had gone beyond the swimming and were well into the life saving part of the program. You had to have people who acted as victims, and my victims were members of the Harvard varsity swimming team. I was tall and very thin while the members of the team were mostly taller and definitely much more heavily muscled and heavier in weight. So, my efforts to break holds were real challenges. They were really very cooperative except the son of Hal Ulen, the Harvard swimming coach. He wouldn’t give an inch and we had quite a battle. At that stage the adrenaline was pumping and I was too close to victory to give in to anyone. I slept well every night as you can well imagine. On Thursday of the second week Frank announced that we ought be able to wrap it up on Friday and that I should ask my father to stop off after work. That’s what happened. He arrived in the pool and sat at the bottom of the spectator area. After a chat with Dad, Frank said we should show him what I could do, and he threw rubber covered weights into the pool for me to recover by performing surface dives. This was easy for me, but I could see that my father was amazed. Frank called me out of the pool and presented me with an American Red Cross lifesaving patch, a signed Red Cross card as well as the two signed merit badge applications. I was thrilled beyond belief.

I soon submitted my Eagle application and shortly thereafter I was presented with the award at a meeting of my troop’s sponsoring organization, the PTA at the James Russell Lowell School. The auditorium was filled and after the Eagle badge was pinned on my shirt, I pinned a miniature eagle on my mother. George Sauerwein was supposed to be there, but he had been called to Pittsburgh to accept a painting given by the Mellon Foundation to Harvard. However, a hand written letter he sent from his hotel in Pittsburgh was read and he closed by saying I declare you to be the outstanding scout in Sachem Council.

Beyond Eagle there were additional awards, Bronze, Silver and Gold Palms requiring five, ten and fifteen merit badges beyond the twenty one for Eagle. I had all of the badges I needed, but there was a six months time requirement between each award. I did get the Gold Palm before I was drafted into the army, and by that time I had earned a total of ninety two merit badges.

There was an interesting sidelight to the swimming. There were several boys in the troop who were having problems with the swimming requirement for First Class, and with the type of instruction Frank Vaughn had given me, I was able to pass it on. I knew the scoutmaster of the troop at the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and was able to have the pool for a session each month to give swimming lessons to these fellows.

The whole scouting experience had a great impact on my life and I am sure it led to acceptance as a student at Harvard and to successfully completing the OCS course at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, GA. Certainly I developed a high confidence level to take on all sorts of challenges and meet them head on.

FARM MECHANICS MERIT BADGE

I joined Troop 51 of the Boy Scouts of America in February of 1937. The troop met at the James Russell Lowell School in Watertown, Massachusetts each Friday night. I became fascinated with the opportunities for learning various skills, and I rose rapidly in rank. I soon reached the point where I was working on merit badges which were awarded for meeting requirements of a wide variety of subjects. Since I spent my summers on my Uncle Ben’s farm in Amherst, New Hampshire, it was logical that I should try to obtain merit badges which were related to farming. My uncle had a dairy farm and he kept a herd of Ayrshire cows. Besides taking part in the normal day to day farm chores, I was also involved in the haying operation. My uncle drove a Fordson tractor while I operated the mowing machine which he pulled behind. Later on I would operate the hayrake, also pulled by the tractor. The Fordson tractor was made from a Model A Ford which was stripped down and had the rear end rebuilt from a special kit obtained from the Ford Motor Company. There were large rear wheels which had spikes bolted on, and the final result was a very satisfactory pulling machine. Before each haying season Uncle Ben would replace the spikes on the rear wheels with diagonally place lengths of wood so that the grass and hay would not be pressed into the ground as the tractor rolled along. At other times the traction from the spikes was excellent for hauling wood, the manure spreader and other such operations.

The various farm activities led me to work on farm related merit badges. Many of these merit badges were not often obtained by scouts in my home council, Sachem Council, which covered a number of towns west and northwest of Boston. As a result there wasn’t a need for merit badge counselors or examiners to see whether or not a scout had met the specific requirements for the farming related merit badges. In the case of merit badges like First Aid, Public Health, Swimming, Camping, Carpentry, etc., there were a number of counselors available, and for the most popular merit badges, there were often counselors in each town. Therefore arrangements were made so that I could pass those farm related merit badges with the head of the United States Department of Agriculture extension office in Milford, New Hampshire, the town next to Amherst. One summer I passed the Farm Mechanics merit badge and became fairly conversant with how various farm machinery operated and what maintenance was required.

The following summer I arrived at the farm in Amherst just before the haying season began. A few days later Uncle Ben sharpened the blade used in the mowing machine, and soon we were ready to mow. The sharpening operation actually consisted of filing a series of truncated triangles of steel which were attached to a metal bar. Two opposite sides of each triangle were sharpened so that as the cutter oscillated, the blades cut in each direction.

As we started to mow the first field, the mowing machine seemed to be operating normally, but at the lower end of the field where the grass grew much denser, the mowing machine did not cut cleanly and the grass jammed causing the machine to slew around. My uncle wanted to know what was going on and told me to Get on the ball! The jammed grass was removed and we made another pass. The same thing happened again, the grass jammed. The air turned blue as my uncle removed the cutter blade for a resharpening operation. The next day the cutter bar was reinstalled with the same disastrous results.

I thought I knew what was wrong, but I hesitated to suggest a solution. In the operation of a mowing machine, the forward rolling of the wheels causes gearing to rotate a cam. The cutter bar is attached to the cam through a connecting bar called a pitman bar, and each time that the cam revolves, the cutter bar moves back and forth and cuts the grass. At the end of each stroke the individual blades are supposed to stop under cast iron teeth. It was obvious to me that the blades were stopping in the wrong position on each stroke. The solution was to adjust the pitman bar with a wrench. This could effectively lengthen or shorten the pitman bar and properly adjust the position of the cutting blades to the cast iron guides.

I finally got up enough courage to suggest an adjustment of the pitman bar. My uncle exploded and yelled, What the hell does a city kid know about a pitman bar? He added further comment about my parentage. He finally cooled off a bit and decided to give my suggestion a try. With the adjustment made, he got back on the tractor and I got back on the mowing machine. We started out and the cutting proceeded smoothly. I hoped that the next pass through the thick grass would be succesful. It was, and the next pass after that, all clear with no jamming. I almost think that Uncle Ben was sorry that we were successful. He started to talk to me again two or three days later.

WEST JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

SCIENCE CLUB

When I attended the West Junior High School in Watertown, MA in the 1936-1939 time frame, Mr. Robinson, the science teacher, started a science club one year and this enabled us to go on fascinating field trips.

One of the first visits was to the Watertown Arsenal where the barrels of large guns were machined. This was a key facility of the US Army and many people were employed there. When World War II occurred, the Watertown Arsenal was considered to be high on the hit list for an enemy bombing attack. Periodically there were test blackouts so that if a bombing attack became a reality, an effective blackout would make it difficult for enemy bombers to find this plant. Later on when I was in the service with a battalion of 155 mm howitzers, I often wondered if their manufacture started in my own home town. It became general knowledge that all of the barrels of the 155 mm gun known as the Long Tom came out of Watertown. Larger guns such as the 240 mm howitzers all came out of this plant. After World War II, refinement of the atomic bomb resulted in smaller but very effective weapons, and ultimately an atomic cannon was developed to fire atomic shells. Those huge barrels were machined at the Arsenal, and I recall on one occasion, as I drove past, seeing a barrel on a flat car. Some years later I was on a business trip to Texas and Oklahoma, and John Pennington, a Raybestos Field Representative, and I stopped off at Fort Sill, and among the various displays was a complete atomic cannon with its carrier.

Our visit to the Watertown Arsenal was to see a particular testing device which determined the tensile strength of metals, but to get to the lab we passed through manufacturing facilities which contained huge lathes for turning the outside of the gun barrels, and equally large boring mills for machining the inside of the barrels to precise dimensions. High overhead were cranes which moved the barrels from operation to operation.

The tensile tester was impressive. A test bar of metal was threaded on both ends. One end was screwed into an absolutely huge pendulum perhaps eight feet long, and the other end was screwed into a crossbar. The pendulum was then raised to a nearly vertical position and then released to let it swing down freely between two large steel posts. As the pendulum passed through the posts, the cross bar was stopped and the result was that the test bar was stretched beyond its tensile strength and it broke. The broken ends of the sample were then microscopically examined to learn more about the metal failure. Several samples were tested before us and it was a most impressive demonstration. We learned that the only larger testing machine of this type was in Germany, probably at the Krupp works.

The visit to the Lever Bros. plant in Cambridge was fascinating. We first saw huge vats containing fat and caustic soda for the reaction which produced soap and glycerin. The vats were 12 feet to 15 feet in diameter and quite deep. In order to properly mix the materials, workmen stirred the contents every day or so with long wooden paddles. As I recall, the complete process took up to two weeks. There were many vats and they were in various stages of reaction. Once the contents of a vat were ready for further processing, the soap started on interesting paths. The same basic soap was used to produce entirely different final products. For instance, lilac perfume was added to the basic soap and it was pressed into bars. Voila-Lux Toilet Soap. The same perfumed soap was directed between two large, round steel platens, one embossed with diamonds, and the result was Lux Flakes. Some of the basic soap had a rather peculiar odor added along with a rusty looking dye. The processed soap was pressed into bars and packaged as Lifeboy Soap, long advertised by Lever Bros. as a prevention for BO! A portion of the basic soap had air blown through it to reduce the density to the point that it would float on water. Pressed into bars, it was packaged as Ivory Soap For Skin You Love To Touch, 99 and 44/100 % pure. When we departed we were all given a box with samples of what we had seen manufactured.

Some years later when I was at Harvard I took a course in Industrial Chemistry and went on a tour of the new Proctor and Gamble plant in Quincy to see the latest method of manufacturing soap. Here, instead of having the huge vats with the reaction between the fat and the caustic soda taking place over many days, the fat was converted into fatty acids in large vertical hydrolyzers, and in a continuing operation the fatty acids and the liquid caustic soda mix were both fired against each other in a 2 ft. x 2 ft. x 1 ½ ft. reaction chamber, and the soap was produced almost instantaneously. The manpower required was a fraction of the older plant and most workers were involved in moving the packaged products. One fellow sat in a control room with all sorts of screens in front of him. While seated in a chair he was able to direct materials from raw storage areas through the entire soap making process which was as fully automated as one could imagine.

Not far from the Watertown Arsenal was the Crawford Stove Factory, one of many nationally known plants in East Watertown. On nearby Chestnut Street was the Underwood Factory manufacturers of Underwood Deviled Ham and other products made under the Underwood label. Next to that plant was Lewis and Shepherd who made lift trucks. After my senior year at Watertown High School I worked at Textile Thread, a plant that made all sorts of heavy industrial threads used by manufacturers all over the world.

To get back to the Crawford Stove Factory. The purpose of the visit was to see how sand castings were made from cast iron. We saw the complete process and were amazed that such an operation was taking place across the street from a residential neighborhood. We did see finishing and assembly operations of stoves as well. It is interesting to note that the house where Ken Landin, our son-in-law’s grandmother lived was built by Mr. Crawford, the head of the stove factory, and in the kitchen was an original Crawford Stove. We traveled to the Revere Sugar Refinery in Boston one cold winter day for a tour of the plant from the unloading of raw sugar from the boat to the final packaging. As the burlap bags of sugar were unloaded they were stacked in a huge storage area which, although covered, was unheated and rather damp. I was happy to be wearing a warm woolen mackinaw. The large burlap bags were moved to the base of a conveyor belt and pulled onto the belt by fellows on either side using large hooks. These workers sliced open the bags along the sides with machetes as they started up the incline. Some of the raw sugar fell onto the floor, and I picked up a piece to show to my parents as I knew they would be interested. At the top of the conveyer belt other workers hooked off the burlap bags and the raw, brown, crystallized, unrefined sugar tumbled into hot water for dissolving it for the refining operation. The empty burlap bags were tossed into another container also containing hot water so that all of the sugar was recovered. This operation resulted in sweet water which was introduced into the processing at an appropriate spot. Meanwhile the dissolved sugar being refined was filtered, recrystallized, spun dry in centrifugal extractors which rotated at 1200-1500 times a minute. At this operation, the crystalline sugar dropped through the bottom of the centrifugal when it came to a stop. The stopping was done through brakes which were lined with friction material. I didn’t know that at the time, but later when I worked for Raybestos, I learned that a lot of our R.I.C. brake lining was shipped to Louisiana for the sugar centrifugals used to extract the raw sugar crystals from the pressings of sugar cane. There was a lot of heat used in the refining, and it didn’t take very long for us to realize that our heavy winter coats were getting uncomfortable.

During the various operations at Revere Sugar, whenever there was removal of water containing sugar, it was sweet water and was concentrated and at some point reintroduced into the flow. As a result, the refining resulted in little loss of sugar and it was a very efficient operation. The amount of impurities removed between the raw and the refined sugar was very small. I remember that in the area where the refined sugar was ground to obtain confectionary sugar and where it was packaged, you couldn’t see across the room because of the fine floating particles of sugar. Today OSHA would have immediately shut down that operation, but this was in the 1930’s. When I got home that evening I reached into my pocket to show my parents the lump of raw sugar that I had picked up, but I found nothing but a gooey mess of raw sugar lining the inside of the pocket. Evidently the heat in the plant beyond the raw sugar storage area caused the problem. There was also a little stickiness on the outside of my clothing.

We toured the Hood Rubber Plant in Watertown one day and that also proved to be very interesting. That plant made rubber footwear such as rubbers and overshoes, and I recall my mother occasionally took me to an outlet store on the premises to get fitted for bad weather footwear. While we saw some of the footwear manufacturing on the tour, we spent most of our time in the area of hard rubber manufacture. Here the principal products were battery cases. They ranged in size from the ones used in automobiles to the ones used in submarines which were so large that several of us could stand inside one. We were surprised to see automobile battery cases made with company logos of all of the major battery manufacturers on the outside surfaces. I think it was the first time that we realized that a manufacturer’s logo didn’t mean that it necessarily made the entire item from scratch. We looked at battery caps pouring down a conveyor belt, and were told that they made 180,000 per day!

The West Junior High School Science Club was a great idea and it was an eye opener on local industries and production methods.

OLD TIME RADIO

When I was in grammar school at the James Russell Lowell School in Watertown, MA, there were teachers who specialized in certain subjects and gave instruction at a number of schools. One such person was Miss McBreen who taught elocution. My 5th or 6th grade class met with her once every couple of weeks and practiced choral speaking. For some reason she selected our group to appear on radio station WHDH which was located in a building in Kenmore Square in Boston. We had a number of rehearsals, and on the appointed day we traveled to the station for our live appearance which took place around dinner time. Of course, all of our families were by their radios to hear their little darlings perform. We were a bit early for our stint and had time to wander around, and when we looked through a particular open door, there was a box with a glowing green rectangle perhaps 2 in x 3 in. I had no idea of what it was, but one fellow said That’s a television screen, and he proceeded to explain what it was all about. I guess that he was a subscriber to Popular Science Magazine. This was in the mid thirties, and while all sorts of television sets are commonplace today, back then there was only radio. We were looking at a prototype of what everyone looks at nowadays.

Everyone had their favorite radio programs and followed them religiously. You listened and you visualized. Every weekday night at 6:45 P.M. my folks listened to Lowell Thomas who had a 15 minute news program. He had traveled all over the world, knew all sorts of fascinating people, and had written a number of books on his adventures. I think that Lawrence of Arabia was one of his friends. He reported on the daily news, but also incorporated stories with a different slant. More often than not he had been to the overseas locations where things were happening. He always signed off with So long until tomorrow. His son Lowell Thomas Jr. became the governor of Alaska, and later was a bush pilot. As a matter of fact, he was at Northface Lodge in Alaska when we were there and we flew around Mt. McKinley in one of his planes.

Lowell Thomas was followed by Amos and Andy which just about everyone listened to. This 15 minute situation comedy would simply not be on the air today. Two white men, Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden portrayed all of the characters, male and female, who appeared on the program. All of the characters were Negro, and their accents and language were strongly portrayed. Amos and Andy lived in Harlem, and their formal names were Andrew Hog Brown and Amos Jones. They were partners in the Fresh Air Taxi Company, so named because there wasn’t any glass in the windows of their cab. They had a part time lazy employee called Lightning who wasn’t too sharp, and when summoned would always reply I’s comin boss as he slowly reported to Andy. One of the characters was George Stevens who was married to Sapphire. George was the head of a fraternal organization known as the Mystic Knights of the Sea, and his title was Kingfish. He always had a deal going on, and managed to get everyone in trouble and Amos would express his grief by wailing Awa awa awa. Amos was hardworking and down to earth and was married to Ruby. Andy, on the other hand, wanted to be the grand poobah, the big shot, and he was inevitably brought down to the ground. He wore a derby and smoked a big ceegar. He had a secretary in an outer office, and when he wanted to see her he would yell Buzz me Miss Blue. The buzzer would sound, and Andy would say Come in here Miss Blue. It seems that the buzzer system had been reversed when it was installed and had never been corrected. Another member of the cast was Brother Crawford who was a browbeaten husband, and invariably when he heard some distressing news would say My wife will be very unhappy. Later on, when when TV really started to grow rapidly, Amos and Andy went on TV with black actors and actresses, but it never became as popular as the radio version. Even the TV version was far too demeaning for today’s audience.

After the 15 minute Amos and Andy show I remember it being followed for some years by the Uncle Ezra Show. This emanated from the little town of Rosedale which was a small rural community with a tiny radio station which broadcast by means of a powerful little 5 watter. It was emceed by Uncle Ezra, and basically consisted of local chitchat. It was interspersed by music led by Hezzy who played a washboard. When Uncle Ezra announced a number, he would yell Hit it Hezzy, and off the band would go. The program was sponsored by Tasty Yeast which was a fortified fudge like candy.

Sometime during weekday evenings there was a show titled Lum and Abner. The main characters were Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody who were partners in a general store known as the Jotem Down Store in Pine Ridge, Arkansas. The name of the store was based on the fact that when they took orders over the telephone, they jotted the item down on a pad of paper. Corny I know, but that’s the way it was. The theme of each episode was related to the ongoing activities of a small town. Sometimes the action would carry on for several episodes, but there weren’t any earth shaking happenings. Lum was the one who often got himself into trouble while Abner was the more subdued, married partner.

Just before supper there were a number of 15 minute programs geared for youngsters. My favorites were Buck Rogers of the 25th Century, Jack Armstrong All American Boy and Bobby Benson while Louise favored Jack Armstrong and Little Orphan Annie.

Buck Rogers and his girl friend Wilma Deering were always upholding the good and morally correct views while their evil counterparts, Killer Kane and Ardela, were always bent on dastardly acts. The action took place all over the solar system, and transportation was by means of space ships. Before a space ship took off, you could hear the airlocks slam shut as the atomic engine powered up. All sorts of action happened as warring armadas would attack one another with opposing forces often led by Buck and Killer Kane. The main weapons were disintegrator and paralyzer rays. The former would absolutely destroy anything it hit except a special metal which made up the outer layer of Buck’s space ship. So, when Killer Kane attacked Buck, he and Wilma were safe inside their space ship as the outer shell deflected the disintegrator rays. All of the scientific breakthroughs on the program were the results of the experiments of the good Dr. Huer. It was a serial program, and one adventure led to another, and you eagerly awaited the next episode.

And now a word from our sponsor. You heard that phrase or a variation thereof during every program. The purpose of the programs, of course, was to sell products, and the listeners were encouraged to have mothers purchase certain items when they went shopping the next time. I don’t recall what program Cocomalt sponsored, but that product was impossible. It was a cocoa powder which you mixed with milk, and while it was easy to use as a hot beverage, it was frustrating to use cold. It simply would not dissolve. Air bubbles formed around the powder, and the milk could not reach the powder to wet it. Stirring did not do the job, and the best way to get the Cocomalt into solution was to press the bubbles against the side of the glass with the back of a spoon. It’s too bad that back then the chemistry of wetting agents had not been discovered and incorporated into products like good old Cocomalt. Syrups like Hershey Chocolate were better, but it took an awful lot of stirring to get the syrup off of the inside of the spoon. I took care of that problem by licking it off! And now, back to our program.

Jack Armstrong All American Boy was the story of a Hudson High student who was an All American in everything he did as a leader, in sports, solving mysteries with his Uncle Jack, and in all competitions. One always wondered when he had time to attend school. His buddy was Billy who always seemed to be a step behind. In a parody of Jack Armstrong which appeared years later, Billy would offer some information or suggestion and Uncle Jack would always say No time for that Billy. Jack Armstrong was sponsored by Wheaties-Breakfast of Champions which, of course, was a great tie-in because Jack was a champion in every way, or so it seemed. Even today the Wheaties boxes portray sports champions who owe their success to eating Wheaties.

My mother had her favorite soaps which she would listen to after lunch. Again, they tended to be just 15 minutes in length, and they were called soaps because so may of them were sponsored by companies which sold soaps and detergents. The first one was The Romance of Helen Trent which was the story of how a middle aged dress designer found romance and happiness in Hollywood. Her long time escort was Gil something or other who was a lawyer. Helen’s tribulations went on an on with steady Gil always available. I don’t believe they ever married.

The following quarter of an hour featured Our Gal Sunday. This started out with the announcer saying And now, Our Gal Sunday. This is the story of an orphan girl named Sunday who, as a baby, was left on the steps of the cabin of two old miners in the mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado. Who, in young womanhood, married England’s richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope. This is the story that asks the question, Can this girl from a little mining town in the west find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?

Vic and Sade was another quarter hour program I sometimes tuned in if I were home in the afternoon. The main characters were Vic and Sade Gook and their son Rush Gook who would normally get together on their porch at the small house half way up on the next block to discuss some facet of the day’s activities. Rush often had stories involving his best friend Blue Tooth Johnson. Occasionally Uncle Fletcher would appear on the show. He was Sade’s uncle, and he would inevitably hear a comment which would set him off about some friend or acquaintance who lived in some midwestern state, moved somewhere, got married, had a number of children, moved again, got separated, etc., etc. Uncle Fletcher would describe all of this in great detail, leaving no stone unturned. The program was about inconsequential things, but it was hilarious and ran for years.

On Sunday nights Jack Benny had a half hour comedy show sponsored by Jell-O. Jack’s real life wife was Mary Livingston, and on the show she was his girl friend. The announcer was Don Wilson who was very portly and his weight was a constant point of ridicule. The music was provided by Phil Harris and his orchestra, and the two male soloists were Kenny Baker and later Dennis Day. Rochester was Jack’s black butler and the driver of his 1913 Maxwell. All of these people played character roles on the show. For instance, Phil Harris was very fond of the hard stuff and he had an eye for the girls. Dennis Day was not too swift, and he was always a step or two behind the action. Rochester, on the other hand, was a step ahead of Jack’s plans and always had a sharp retort. The programs generally consisted of a couple of skits in which everybody took part. Jack was considered to be a cheapskate, and the fact that he kept his money in his cellar in a vault surrounded by a moat filled with alligators seemed to come up frequently.

The half hour that followed Jack Benny was the Fred Allen program, and the two comics had a running feud which would end with each fellow appearing on the other’s show. A few months would pass, and the feud would start again. Fred Allen was married to Portland Hoffa in real life and as in the case of Mary Livingston on the Jack Benny show, Portland was Fred Allen’s girl friend on the show. There were humorous skits, but there was one standby on every show, Allen’s Alley. Fred would select a question, normally