Half the Lies I Tell Aren't True

By William Wydra Sr.

When Willie was a first grader, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he built a log cabin out of Lincoln Logs that was so professionally made, that his parents were summoned to school to see it, along with the principal and the entire student body. It was decided that he was too smart to be in first grade, and they immediately moved him up to second gr

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Aug 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638376170

William Wydra Sr.

William "Warsaw" Wydra Sr. has been a carpenter, plumber, brick and block layer, electrician, welder, diesel technician, auto mechanic, machinist, master trouble-shooter (MacGyver couldn't hold a candle to him, it's said), business owner, president of three corporations, skydiver, pilot, songwriter, Rotarian, dog breeder, farmer, coal hauler, church deacon, engineer, architect, draftsmen, on the board of directors of three trade schools, trainer at a trade school, world traveler, service manager for over thirty (union) men, operations manager for over fifty people, article writer, speaker, crew chief on a race team, inventor, patent holder, comedian for 18 years, comedy writer, commercial writer, truck driver, home builder, and concrete finisher, and he physically built his own home. While doing all this, he could tell you who sang every song playing on the radio from the 1950s to the 1980s. He is a son, a husband, a father, and grandfather of five.

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Chapter-1

IN THE BEGINNING

I Started Life at an Early Age

I realized early, that I was a man trapped in a woman's body————then I was born.

It's a shame; you have to grow old to realize how brilliantly you accomplished goals you didn’t even know you had. At age seventy, it's amazing to see how vivid your thoughts and images of life were during the seasons of your young years.

We all try to remember back as far as we can, and sometimes it's astonishing how our older minds can uncover memories you thought were just dreams of your youth. Too much to ever consider they really happened—but with the help of your parents telling others, you find out the truth.

My first remembrance of my childhood, was a hot day in the early fifties. I’m not sure of my age: I suppose, two or three years old. When I was lying on a bed with my mother in a trailer on a naval base in Orange, Texas, where my father was stationed. All of a sudden, the window burst open, and a huge horse stuck his head inside. I remember my mother giving him his carrot and swooshing him away, while she told me to get up and come to breakfast. I can still can remember the sweet taste of the pancakes in the tiny kitchen of that little trailer. My only other memory of that trailer was when a flood came, and my sister and I were rushed into my dad's car in just enough time to get away from the torrent of waters. As we drove away, I took my favorite place on the landing behind the rear seat, just below the rear window of dad's Packard. I watched people running everywhere to get away from the raging water. It was only in my later years, while listening to my father and mother talk to their friends, that I knew I didn’t dream these things and they actually happened. After a bit, when dad got his new orders, he rented a trailer to bring all our stuff, including our cypress living room set, which someday hopefully would be mine. We traveled to dad's home in Mount Carmel, PA, where mom found out later, that he went AWOL because his orders would have taken him away from us for a long time. We stayed at my gram's house for a short while. They stored all our stuff in the cedar attic of gram's house, and dad moved to work in New Brunswick, NJ.

After a visit from Pennsylvania, when my mother brought us to see him. We got to my dad's apartment, it made me so sad. I mention this only because; all my dad had was a little dinky room under the stairway in a basement, about two doors up from where would eventually end up staying. The thing that bothered me the most was how he made his coffee. He had a mug that he’d put water in. Then he had a little spring looking devise that had a plastic end where two rods extruded, then they came together in a swirling manner. He would put it in the cup and then unplug his only light and plug this devise into the receptacle so it would heat up the water. After which he’d add instant coffee. He would then unplug it and plug in the light so we could see in the room again. I must say the design of this water heater made me curious, and the glow it showed when it was in full power was intriguing. I still couldn’t help thinking, as we left him to return to Pennsylvania, that this was all he had to be comfortable, while he was making money to support his family. Even at this early age I felt a need to help. As we traveled home in the car along the highways between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When weather permitted the windows being down, I would stick my arm out the window so the wind would make my hand go up or down depending on which way I turned it. I would say to myself that it was my quest when I grew up: I would make enough money to buy all this land that my hand was pointing to, as far as the eye could see. I would force myself to hold my hand out as long as I could so that my dad would never be in that situation again. So, I was already setting the stage for things to come, and I was not even in school yet. Go figure.

We were staying with my dad's parents on Fig Street in Mount Carmel, and he was staying in there by himself so he could make enough money to bring us to New Jersey with him.

When dad was tired of only seeing us on the weekends, he packed us up in the old Packard, and we relocated to New Brunswick.

I can vaguely remember our house on Bayard Street as a second story apartment with an enclosed stairway in front and an outside stairway in back. The rooms were small but nice, and we had a nice kitchen in the back, and the bathroom was upfront to the one side under the stairway.

Dad worked as a window washer, and one day while reaching up on a window sill, he was bitten by a praying mantis, and he fell off the scaffolding, falling between all the air conditioners, and broke his leg. They said that an inch or so either way, and he could’ve been killed. So, here we were in New Brunswick, and dad was laid up with a broken leg. After six weeks, or so, he was ready to go again and took a job with mom at Johnson and Johnson's.

Every morning my sister and I would walk to school, which was made up of leaving our stoop, crossing Bayard Street, where there was no traffic, turning left, and walking approximately nine blocks on Bayard to the intersection of Neilson Street, where we’d make a right turn to stay on the same side of the street, then continue passed some stores for two blocks. Then at the next intersection, we’d turn left across Neilson and down a big hill on Richman Street. Our gray sculptured stone school halfway down that hill sat behind a big courtyard of placed brick and cobblestones. It was guarded by a humungous black iron gate. Something right out of today's Harry Potter movies. Almost haunting.

Lincoln Logs

My first endeavor of my future destiny was on the first day of first grade. At that public school on Richman Street. I guess in an effort to measure the student's abilities. They put us (all grades) in a common room together, virtually dumped piles and piles of Lincoln Logs on the floor, (Google them) and instructed all the kids to make anything they wanted. There were wooden logs, plastic shingles, doors, windows, and even bricks for chimneys. So, as the other kids were making teepees and such, I built the exact replica of the house I would later physically build for my family, (out of memory) on a farm outside Ashland, PA.

It was so well constructed, with windows, doors, chimneys, and even a boat port, that the teachers called the principal downstairs to see it. He was so amazed that they put it on a board, so as not to break it. I said, Don’t worry, I can build another one.

They arranged to have my mother and father, to come to the school. They were not pleased with missing work to come into school for any reason. So, when they got my parents there in the auditorium, in front of all the kids and teachers, the principal, after showing everybody my log cabin, presented me with an achievement award for my ingenuity. The principal told my parents that I was too smart for first grade, and dad agreed to move me to second grade. My mom disagreed with that notion because it would put me behind the other students in later years. Mom was wrong. I excelled in everything I tried.

Willie Lump-Lump

The next thing I remember while living on Bayard Street. I was in first/second grade, and one day on our way to school, my sister and I were walking with an older friend when I tripped over his foot and hit my head on one of those steel light-poles with the concaved indents and the raised ridges. I busted open my forehead to a point that blood gusted out everywhere. It was right in front of a medical building on Bayard Street. So, the older boy picked me up and ran into the building, and they put umpteen stitches in to close up the gap. From that day on, whenever I got excited, upset, or angry, this big lump would protrude from my forehead. Everyone near me knew something was about to happen. In my later years, all my employees would avoid me when my lump was out because they knew I was upset over something. In later years, when it was out and I walked down the center of my shop at Ashland Diesel Engines Inc. It almost reminded me of the part in the cowboy movies, when the villain walked down the center of the street and mothers would grab their children and run off and close all the doors and windows in the town. My people called it The Wrath of Willie.

It was so noticeable that my grandfather used to call me Willie lump-lump, when it would pop out. Sometimes it was hilarious. It was then that I knew how to use comedy as a tool or weapon, to avoid much more embarrassment. So, a silly, funny, happy fellow I’d be, because if I did anything wrong or stupid, I could always get away with it, due to the fact that people just chucked it off as That's only that wacky Willie.

Another memory of my first/second-grade year is when I inadvertently spoiled a crime without even knowing it. One day we stopped, as we did every day, into a little squeeze-in newspaper stand that doubled as candy store. The kind where if two people wanted to pass from the front to the back, they had to turn sideways, take a deep breath, suck in their guts, then exhale once they had passed each other.

Bookie in New Brunswick

This one particular morning, as my sister was paying the for our candy and salted pumpkin seeds—which I enjoyed most of all—I was standing right behind the door so as not to be in any of the fat peoples’ way. I saw something stuck under the corner of the door holding it open. Which was odd, because it was a chilly out. I bent to pick it up, pulling really hard to free its wedged spot. As I did my sister had me by the collar of my coat and was dragging me out of the store to the sidewalk. We started running to the corner so we could cross on the proper light change and not be late for school. As we ran, I stuck the item into my coat pocket. I looked back to see the door closing. Not seeing the item again until everything settled down in the class room. When I got my wind back, I went to hang up my coat. I reached in my pocket and grabbed it in my hand along with my pumpkin seeds.

Returning to my desk, I opened my hand, and there among my seeds was this dollar bill. It was folded to a point of being approximately one-by-one square inch and about three-fourths of an inch thick. I unraveled the bill slowly to discover it was a fifty-dollar bill, and as I looked closer, I saw the number 420 in red ink on the edge of the bill between the writing and the edge of the bill. I didn’t know it at the time, but this number 420 will revisit me. Out of panic, I swallowed hard with my first thoughts of getting a beating from my dad. I immediately jumped from my chair, ran up front to the teacher's desk, and showed her what I had found. The expression in her eyes was more than I could take, and I started to cry. I was a bit of a cry baby back then. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly around the money. As to make my fingers that extruded from under her vise-like grip turn white. As we ran down the wooden hallway, I still remember the clatter that our hard leather shoes made on the floor.

As we entered the principal's office, she threw me into the death chair. The chair in the outer office that all the kids have to sit in until the principle was ready for them. As I sat quietly, I could hear in the distance a woman from the office (I thought maybe the principal's wife) talking to someone on the phone. She finished that call, and immediately dialed another number, that I later learned was the New Brunswick Police Department. As she finished, she turned and walked toward me, still sitting in the death chair, and said, Your mother and father will be here soon.

My dad and mom worked together. To make them take time off from work again, was the last thing that I wanted to do. With that, my heart started beating so fast that my sweater moved up and down. As I sat with my head down in that hard wooden chair. Almost slipping out, because the chair was too big to rest my feet on the floor.

After what seemed eternity, my mom and dad showed up. They were being escorted by a police officer wearing a full uniform, with a gun, night stick, and handcuffs dangling from his big black belt. They all came through the old huge heavy wood-framed glass doors of the principle's outer office. My dad gave me The Look as he passed me and entered the principles inner office. As the door closed behind them, I could only see the tops of mom and dad's heads through the large glass panes separating the outer office from the inner office. The policeman stood all the time they were in there. Every once and a while, my dad would stand up and point to the money on the desk, in a way that told me I was in deep trouble. As I overheard some of the muffled voices, it seemed this money was from the store owner's book-making business, which was kind of strange, because I never saw any books in his store, just newspapers. When they came out of the inner office my mom and dad, the principle, and the policeman were smiling. They said I did a well for being honest and that they were proud of me. For some strange reason, my mom and dad were able to keep the money. Get this: no beating, no hollering, no nothing—makes you wonder. Although the store was closed and I never went in there again, however, I did end up with a pile of pumpkin seeds.

Dad's Magic Elixir

Our back wooden outside stairway would take you up to our kitchen. Where one midsummer day, my dad hustled up a case of homemade wine, which he and my Uncle Frank had made months before the winter set in. Dad sat the case on the white and black checkerboard linoleum floor; then, after a bit, the bottles started bursting open from either the heat of the day or the jostling of the trip up the thirteen steps of the outside stairway. It was just like the air-raid drills that I watched on the military shows with my dad. Everyone was running in six different directions, with their arms over their heads so as not to be hit by the bottle caps or gushing wine that filled up our small kitchen and was already making its way out and down the outside wooden stairway. Mom and dad were screaming, Take cover! watch out! for what seemed like forever. Finally, the commotion stopped, and just the sizzling of the remaining wine bubbled out of the nearly empty bottles. The momentary silence was only broken by the simultaneous Holy shit! from my father and O My God! from my mother, followed by laughter from my sister and me that filled the whole backyard. Slowly walking into the kitchen unveiled the sight of this purple-colored substance caressing, clinging, and dripping off the ceiling light, switches, refrigerator, stove, toaster, and every nook and cranny of the otherwise normal everyday kitchen of that time. A sweet but sour stench that filled the entire tiny room. The wall paper had to be replaced along with any surface that had any kind of an absorbing texture. The black and white linoleum floor still had a purple tinge to it when we moved out a year or so later.

Black Box w/White Buttons

We were fairly poor but had some neighbor's that were a little better off than us. One couple living right across Bayard Street took a liking to me and welcomed me in their home many times. I called them Aunt and Uncle, but they weren’t related to us. We were always taught to say that or Mr. and Mrs.—out of respect of their age or something like that. It was there that I witnessed my first magical trick. Better than finding coins behind my ear. This intriguing small black box with several little white buttons could control the TV, without getting out of your chair. This to me was like landing on the moon. It plagued my young mind that it was possible to do such a thing. My brain went into overdrive, and I could not concentrate on anything except that little black box with the white buttons. At one point, it bothered me so badly that I had to know what made this box work. Once, when I saw the seam where to two pieces came together, held together by four snaps, I took a butter knife and was in the process of cracking it open when my aunt came in the room. She grabbed me by the shirt and escorted me outside before the butter knife hit the floor. Needless to say, I didn’t have to call them Aunt and Uncle anymore.

Early Years in Mount Carmel

Lying on the back ledge of the Packard, underneath the rear window watching the stars at Christmas, I knew when we went through St. Clair, Frackville, Mahanoy City, and Ashland, because they all had Christmas lights that were strung from pole to pole across the street. I knew we were getting close when I saw the gigantic polar bear in the showroom on the corner shop on Route 61 back then. It is now Second Street, St. Clair (Bear's not there anymore.) Eventually we’d get to Mount Carmel and Bushi and JAH-jee's house.

Being a kid in Mount Carmel was the best. Bushi (Grammy in Polish) would walk me up Fourth St., to Oak Street every Friday night to play the pools. It was just a menagerie of great fun-loving people. At Christmas time, it was highly decorated, and we would go from store to store to get warm, then back out in the snow. There was two Santa's, one in Guinean's and one in J.C. Penny's. I would visit them at least three times back and forth until they got wise. Bushi would give me her pool chips and let me throw them in the barrel. There were four barrels, and certain chips went in certain barrels. I would just stand there and watch the people throwing their chips in the round, cage-like tumbler, making a rememberable sound. Then the man would latch the small wire door and put it in motion by the crank handle on the side. Sometimes, when they got tired, they’d let me crank it (slowly) from on top of a wooden vegetable crate. We’d go in almost every store on Oak Street and at the end of the night, before we went home, we’d go back to see who hit the pools. On one occasion the man yelled out, Mary Wydra! and Bushi hit $50, which we weren’t allowed tell JAH-jee. (Grandfather in Polish) Bushi is my dad's mother, and JAH-jee is my dad's father. This Bushi was my good Grammy.

The Great Victoria Theater

One of my biggest thrills was going to the Victoria Theater on Third Street. The most beautiful theater of all time, where some times during the year, you could get in the matinee for just a can of peas. Bushi was missing a lot of canned peas.

First thing you’d do when getting through the two glass doors: you’d check out all the candy treats inside this little show room. Then you’d go just outside the room, to the popcorn machine. You’d take a paper bag from the storage tray on the machine, place it under the chrome looking shoot. Put a nickel in the slot, then this monstrosity would bellow out this awful screaming sound that could wake the dead, similar to a 747 taxiing to the active runway. You could watch the popcorn dance around inside this giant plastic dome. The popcorn would enter your bag then shut off, and quiet would come back to the theater. Starting my mischievous years, I would wait until the best part of the movie. I would run the gantlet and put my favorite machine through its paces, just to piss everyone off. Fun. This trait would follow me through the years. Look out world; he's here.

The Vic had a gigantic chandelier, where we would throw juju beads in by the hundreds from the balcony, red velvet carpeting throughout the entire floors, center and side balconies, Plush plus. I dreamed of someday owning it, but it was sold and torn down during my poorer years. I cried.

To have a magnificent theater like the Vic would be envied in today's road shows, a large stage with red velvet curtains. I still imagine what it would be like to play there when I was a Comedic Headliner doing an hour and a half show, getting standing ovations from sold-out crowds of 1600. What a dream.

One time, I and some friends from the Fourth Street Gang went to a matinee at the Vic, but with an ulterior motive. The week before we saw the coming attractions, with our hormones swelling, we’d discovered that the first dirty movie ever was coming to the Vic. Splendor in the Grass.

So, on this day, after the matinee, we went up in the balcony, where no one could find us, and we hid there from 1:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. so we could watch this adult-only movie. Our first glimpse of a dirty movie. After about twenty mins, we couldn’t understand a thing, so we all got up, and while screaming, we all escaped through the upstairs exit doors, running down the steel steps to the ground and taking off to Oak Street, and the Hollywood Pizza shop, for the best Pizza ever. I still visit it today. It tastes as good at seventy years old as it did at eight years old. It just has a unique unforgettable taste.

Coppers

Right across Third Street from the Vic was one of my favorite places to visit. Copper's Novelty Shop. I hardly ever had any money, but I would go in every time the movie let out, just to look around, but since I was a youngster, Mr. Copper wouldn’t let me out of his sight. One time, instead of having popcorn and juju beads, I kept a quarter from Bushi's cute money, and I finally bought something I saw a couple of weeks back.

Now starting to realize that girls weren’t just for beating up, I bought this small powder blue box, it couldn’t be more than one-by-one-by-one square inches, with a sign beneath saying, The smallest falsies in the world and with a small woody on. I said, I’ll take it.

Mr. Copper slowly removed it from under the glass counter, then took a plain brown bag, just large enough to holster my gem, folded the bag precisely, and looked both ways to see if anyone saw us. He handed it to me, and staring me down, he said, Do not open this until you’re in your very special private place and you’re alone.

I turned and ran out of the tiny shop, running like mad down Third Street, turning left, and running down the hill past the junior high school to Fourth Street, turning right on Fourth Street. Watching that no one was following me, I ran into Joe Shuta's back yard to my Bushi's back yard, through the kitchen, up three sets or stairs, into JAH-jee's room, and then into his cedar closet, where, when I was very young, I used to shit in JAH-jee's dress shoes. I was there alone, so I closed the door, leaving it cracked open just enough to view my prize, hands shivering, and heart beating wildly. I slowly opened the bag, took out the tiny box, my eyes glued to it. I opened the tiny box, and there they were. The smallest false teeth I ever saw. A feeling came over me that can’t be duplicated to this day: guilt, embarrassment, anger, but then after a while, laughter. I’d been hoodwinked, and that feeling would follow me from that day on. I felt like, I could shit in JAH-jee's shoes again.

What a devious stunt in my earlier years. In this cedar closet, there was a shoe rack. Sitting at about a thirty-degree angle, over the steps leading downstairs. JAH-jee would put his shoes, toes down, on that angled wall, hooking the heels on a little strip of cedar, so as not to slide down. If you had good enough aim, you could shit, and it would go right to the toe, unbeknownst to anyone, until he stuck his foot in. Could be one, two, three days or a month, but when it happened, all hell would break loose. "That little rotten bastard!" He always called me by my middle name.

Bingo Chips

I was a little bastard who should not be left alone to think. These were two ingredients that shouldn’t be mixed together. One day up in Bushi's room, while I was going through her stuff, it came to me that her red, see-through bingo chips were the same size as a penny, so I grabbed all the chips and shoved them down my you’ll grow into them jeans with the cuffs rolled up three times pocket. I headed down stairs, out the back yard, to Joe's store (our back yards came together), so with a pocket full of bingo chips, I burst into the shop and headed right to the gum ball machine, which not only gave you a regular gumball—but there were special balls.

A Silver ball = 10 cents; the beige ball with two strips = 2 cents; the sparkle ball = a nickel. So, with only one chip in my trembling hand and my heart pounding, I closed my eyes, held my breath, and dropped the chip in the tiny slot, knowing if the chip idea failed, I’d be in deep doo-doo. I slowly turned the handle, and—Wala! —it worked. With a sigh of relief, I emptied my pocket of every chip, carefully so as not to drop any and give myself away.

I got loads of special balls, but now I had to make my first big decision in my short life. Do I cash them in now or wait to cash them in, spread over several days, so as not to be suspected? My first corporate decision! After weighing the odds, I elected to cash them in right then and there, figuring I would get it over with before Joe checked the machine for pennies. Leaving the store with loads of candy and a big smile on my face, I finally got one over on someone as payback for: the smallest falsies in the world; I only wished it was Mr. Copper. It wasn’t long before some of the Fourth Street boys found out about my wealth, so I had to share. I visited the store every day with Bushi's tick book, and Joe knew me, and with Bushi's permission, I could get one-penny candy, so staying with Fourth Street tradition, I’d spend ten minutes going up and down the glass counter, leaving fingerprints everywhere, before I would make my decision. So, he knew me well. Joe never spoke about the gum ball incident, but he moved it upfront, next to him, to hear the penny drop, and never let me out of his sight.

Living at Bushi and JAH-jee's house was great. I stayed on the third floor with my retarded Uncle Chester, learning people skills early in life. Skills I would use my whole life—especially when I bought my four businesses. My parents had to stay in NJ, so my sister and I had to live in Mount Carmel, but it was an awakening experience. First and most pleasurable was waking up in the summer with the windows open, hearing the birds singing, and smelling fresh baked bread. The building adjacent to my Bushi's house was the Home Bakery—that would play a special purpose in my earlier years. It would teach me, hire me, and haunt me, all through my learning years. The front of the Home Bakery was on Fourth Street across from Durko's Bar, one of my dad's favorite watering holes—and mine when I became of age. The rear of the Home Bakery was on Fig Street right next to Bushi's. Entering the rear took nerve; it was full of bats, swooping down, trying to get in your hair, until you got past the big coal furnaces. The ovens were where they baked everything you could imagine (great sticky buns). I learned a lot of business tactics I would use later in life.

Living with Chester trained me in social skills. If Chester had a toy that I’d like to play with, I learned in the three years I spent with him, that if I told him I wanted to play with that right now, I didn’t stand a chance of getting near it. Chester was very strong and had no problem handling me, but if he was playing with something and I sat on his bed, with my back to him, I’d just put my head down and whimper.

Along with some sighs and maybe a tear or two, Chester would eventually come over and ask, What's wrong, Billy? And I’d answer, Nothing. Then he would get wilder, as the back and forth would last long enough until I would tell him, I know you won’t do it, and after a while, he’d surrendered his toy to me. My first lesson on dealing with people: strength does not always work; you can use these skills to cope with any situation. It changed my perspective forever.

At Christmas my parents would be home from NJ, and we all took part in the Christmas dinner. Breaking holy bread with each other was my favorite. All the kids, basically me and my sister, were the headliners because we practiced our songs and showed off our skills in entertainment. Standing on the steps in the kitchen, we showed everyone we had talent. The applause got inside me and set the stage for later years.

Playing Baseball, the Hard Way

I was playing whiffle ball on the Fourth Street corner with some older boys I didn’t know. Home plate was Joe Shuta's steps, first base was Durko's Bar, and second base was the nasty woman's corner, complete with a white wooden fence. If any balls landed in her yard, we weren’t allowed to jump the fence to get them—actually game over.

It was midsummer, and a game was festering. As usual, I was the last picked. I was all of fifty pounds, a skinny runt, so I was used to being picked last.

Little did they know I was playing hard ball on the Aristes Little League team. The older boys were cruel. Anytime we were batting, they’d tell me I was up next, and the inning would end. When we’d come in to bat, I’d grab the bat, but they’d put someone else in, and I’d ask, when was it my turn. They’d make up something, like, This kid has to go home, so he has to bat now. But he never left and came up to bat again before I got to bat.

Some of my buddies from Fourth Street started to complain to let the kid bat, thinking I was an easy out. In the last inning, with all the shouting, I finally got to bat, and on the second pitch, I connected, and I drove it over the white fence onto her roof. Game over. I never had a problem being picked last after that.

First Job/Just One Pump

I got a job at the Home Bakery. Anna was the owner, and she was mean, but taught me a lot about business. My first day I saw the bread slicer working, it intrigued me. I was a machinery nerd and had to see how machines worked: fascinating. My first task was to fill the jelly doughnuts, so Anna showed me the jelly machine and instructed me how to insert the doughnut on the tube and give it one pump—only one pump. So, I went to work, inserting doughnuts over the tube and giving it only one pump. I filled three dozen and put them in the glass cabinet so people could see them.

The pump resembled a grease pump in a garage. It sat on the table and had a fill tube on the bottom and a pump handle that you pushed down once. After finishing the three dozen, I told Anna I was done, and she was amazed I’d done it in such a short time.

Did you clean up the pump?

No

Well, it has to be cleaned for tomorrow's jelly.

When I looked down the pump and saw the inner workings, I cringed. To clean it, you had to stick your hand down to the bottom and wipe the spiral bar that actually turned when you pumped, forcing the jelly out of the tube. So, here I went, and by the time I finished, I had scars and nicks, and my hand wouldn’t open for a short time, but it was rinsed and clean.

This went on for about two weeks, until one day I had a baseball game in Centralia in about one and a half hours. After getting the pump ready, I started, and when I saw the time and Anna wasn’t around, I went crazy. Only one pump, my ass. Two pumps, three pumps, as many pumps as it took to use up all the jelly. The people that bought jelly doughnuts that day were in for a treat. I had to use two hands to transport them to the glass case. I just had to rinse the pump out, and I was heading to the game. Funny, because when I was rinsing out the pump, in a hurry, and wiped a lever, the whole spiral assembly came out. All this time, I was getting scarred up—but Anna never showed me how. I imagined, at the game, what happened when they bit into the jelly doughnuts: Pow! Jelly everywhere. I just smiled. I was let go the next day but would return in later years to paint the bakery.

Moving to My Real Homestead

Moving from Mount Carmel to my true homestead, Wilburton No. 2. Aka Mid-Valley. Aka the Patch. Most kids would consider this a step down; whereas, I considered it heaven. From nine or ten years old to my graduation in 1968.

Anyway, this was my new environment, and I loved it. Shortly after getting settled into my new digs, I met my first true best friend for life. Pokey, a midsized dog, all black with a white chest. I would say he resembled a border collie, and for years I would run through the bush and the anthracite coal grounds, (the Black Desert), and the colliery, my new playground with Pokey by my side. The only time I would leave him locked in the house was when I rode my bike seven miles to the Ringtown Valley farm to work.

Pokey

Any time I went somewhere, Pokey was with me. He was so smart that, when I had my baseball uniform on (good old number 5) and I left the Patch on Main Street. from the front of our house, he’d make a beeline to the bush, behind my house, looking both ways for traffic. Then he would run down to the path that ran behind our house. It went from Mount Carmel to Aristes. We always thought it was part of the Appalachian Trail, but we found out later it wasn’t. It was just a nice path in the bush to walk without being seen. So anyway, I’d pedal my old rinky-dinky bike, that I found on the dump and restored back to good working condition. It was a two-mile ride to the Aristes baseball field. Only to see Pokey, already there sitting right behind first base where I played.

Anyway, when I called for him, he’d slowly crawl with his head down, thinking he was bad, and I would hit him when he finally got to my feet. I’d pat my chest, and he’d go into a frenzy. Jumping up on my chest, licking my face, tail wagging. He was as big as me when he stood up. Needless to say, I had no trouble with bullies when Pokey was nearby. He was well behaved, so the coach let him stay for the whole game. After the game, I’d grab my bike and head out. Instead of following, he darted back into the bush, and when I got home, there was Pokey, on the front porch, panting from the run, just like he’d never left the porch, and I’d laugh as I got some water for him and hugged him, like there was no tomorrow. I’d laugh and tumble with him in the front grass.

Let me tell you about the Patch, which housed the coldest bedroom on earth mine! Well, you step out of bed onto linoleum, in a room with no heat. Or stand over the register above the kitchen coal stove while drying after a bath. The phones were still a party line (which meant that everyone in town had a specific ring); ours was two short rings. Everybody knew you were getting a phone call, so anyone who wanted to listen in on your call, could.

In later years, when I started going out with girls and I got a call