The Curious Pilgrim

By Alvan St Jacques

A boy born in the depression, given low odds upon surviving birth, was declared brain-damaged, yet despite the doctors predictions, the boy survived. These are the travels and trials of a frightened boy who ran away from an orphanage, seemingly pursued by an invisible terror, and who found his way through the frozen streets of a cold, unforgiving winter. In northern New York, a boy who was rejected and considered an outcast by many family members was to survive the odds placed against him. Yet time after time, Gary survived and was seemingly protected by another unseen force. Gary lacked money and work skills and thus ill-fitting clothes on his back. Gary began to search but for what, where, or when? This is his story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453592724

Alvan St Jacques

Alvan St. Jacques was raised in Amsterdam, New York, along the historic Mohawk River noted for its tales of the American Revolution. He has received his degree in psychology from Ashford University. He also holds a degree in laboratory science from Almeda University. He and his wife live in sunny Florida with their cats and a Labrador retriever, who thinks he is a grandfather to a litter of kittens. St. Jacques’s travels had taken him from the days of the depression to the Indian Reservation in the Dakotas, the streets of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, to the Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain, and to the frozen lands of Antarctica. He is currently working on a master’s degree in education.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Beginning

Sometimes I wonder where all began. Perhaps it began in the depression of the 1930s. Our town had a lot of kids who were living with their folks on relief. If one lucky work in the mills in the way of life is saying when the whistle blew the folks were trudging off to the mills, for many languages were spoken, such as Polish, German, French, Yiddish, and Irish. Our heroes, the iceman, were delivered ice twice a week. They carried a set of ice tongs and a twenty-pound block of ice, with a pad on the shoulders, up to two, three, or four landings. A sign on a window would be evident. There’s always gossip of a strong iceman and a widow. Of course, if she had too many kids, she was a suspect.

The coalmen would always bring a bag of coal or put on the coal on a metal slide that went through a cellar window. The coal was delivered by a large truck. Often we get a show with a clatter and rolling of the coals. Sometimes they fell off the truck and were quickly picked up by the onlookers.

In the evening hours, cries were heard, Get your vegetables here! The horse-drawn wagons carrying bright, washed fruits and vegetables from the farms that surrounded our small city. Or the ragman would call out, Rags, rags! Scissors-grinder would be hawking his services to sharpen knives. His wheelbarrow, whetstone, and various cutlery would be there in gleaming finery. Well, much of this was our entertainment. As the sun would set, the families sat on their stoops, or porches, or opened one of the front windows to gossip. Then out would come the favorite chairs, the lemonade, a macaroni, potato salad, and beer. The radios would be all turned up so we could hear news of Europe. Both Hitler and Churchill were in the news or there was a fireside chat by President Roosevelt. Radio programs like The Inner Sanctum, Fanny Brice Major Bowes, Charlie McCarthy, Fibber McGee and Molly were the favorites, and then we had our heroes, Lone Ranger and Jack Armstrong, and Captain Midnight, who were our favorites. Everybody had a favorite. We all hope your neighbor had a station you wanted to hear.

Laughter from the bordello and shrieks of delight were head from across the street. On our street, we as children learned to swear in about four different languages. The most prominent was Italian, followed by Ukrainian and Polish. The Micks or Irish lived up on Reid Hill. It seemed that the Irish and the Polacks were constantly fighting in the saloons or dance halls. A few times at a Polish wedding, a ring from a doorbell brought an assassin’s bullet for a revenge killing earlier. Walter Winchell once quoted, If you want to commit murder come to this city in upstate New York. It was rumored that a retirement place for the retired Black Hand included the presence of the KKK in the late twenties, numbers, game rooms, bookies, and a few strong arms to make sure you paid your tabs. Mother was deathly afraid that Dad would wind up in the river some night. He had his deals but stayed away from the heavy-money group. On the whole, the city in the Mohawk Valley was a good place to live. We had an opera house, vaudeville theatre plus three movie houses and a city of over twenty textile mills. (end on insert)

For entertainment, we children brought up an impromptu band. A washtub for a bass drum, a kazoo, a flag, and a whistle plus cooking pots to bang on and a few troops to march with the neighbors put up with this for a while. Then our parents would call us in. Sometimes we played kick the can, Red Rover, tag, or hide-and-seek. Then it would be time to go into our homes. If we were tardy, our parents would come after us with a switch to paddle us. The older kids stayed out later.

Now the older boys had a good deal going. They were members of the CCC (Civil Conservation Corps). That was a high status. They were earning money for their families.

Their uniform was usually green checkered jackets and laced leather boots. They were a big hit, especially with the girls, because they could afford to take them out to a dance or a movie.

On Saturdays, our parents found a way to get rid of us so that Mom could clean the house and Dad could sleep late. We would be trundled off to the movie house. The movies started at 10:00 a.m. Mom would pack us lunch, and we were given a quarter, with which we paid for the movie, the popcorns, and candy bars. We have seen several cartoons; News of the Day; a short, two Westerns, and a serial displaying the death-defying deeds of Tailspin Tommy, Captain Marvel, or Buck Rogers played by Buster Crabbe. Often bingo was played, and a dish, teapot, or a cup and saucer were brought home to Mom.

Childhood diseases were rife. Often the whole blocks had bright red quarantine signs on the doors, warning people not to enter and if entered would not be permitted to leave until the incubation period was over. The diseases were measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and the flu or the grippe. Polio was the biggest scare. We were forbidden to play with the children who had survived polio, as they were considered unclean.

One winter, it was way below zero in upstate New York. I was five years old. I had forgotten my hat as I walked with my father in the biting cold. He turned and realized my head was bare. He became very upset with me. Within a few hours, my ears began to sting and ache. A week later, I developed a terrible earache. The whole side of my head began to swell. Doctors were brought into my house. The doctors said that I needed immediate care, as surgery was the option, but my mother considered an operation on the mastoid a dangerous brain operation in an age before antibiotics. The doctors told my mother an old folk remedy. They gave my mother and grandmother instructions. At this point, the pain was unbearable. They were told to get some flannel towels that were big and thick and were rolled up in long tubes and soaked in boiling water, wrung out, and were packed the sides of my head day and night without letting up. The pain plus the hot towels was too terrible to describe. There was no medicine for pain, nor antibiotics for me. Finally in the late of the second day, I began to sleep, and the pain became less. On the third day, my eardrum burst and drained, and my fever left me.

Chapter 2

The Back Streets

At times, we were blessed with celestial entertainment, with displays of heat lightning. The whole street seemed to light up. This, of course, was usually followed by a large bellow of thunder. We crawled into the arms of our parents and felt secure. I recall my parents’ arms and feeling secure. I had asked my mother what had caused the thunder. She thought that it was the angels bowling. My grandmother was of a different vein. She carried holy water when she saw a lightning flash across, or when she threw the holy water at the windows—with her white hair flying in a whirl, defiant, and eyes glaring—she would exclaim, Get thee behind me, Satan!

It is hard to look back at all these years of the story. That actually lived our young lad an early age shown are realities of life. These are typical boys, the problem, and practice of young children out of place in orphanages asylums and reform schools and prisons and sailing graduating in 12 v or a survivor. Of course, there were some mentors who let you learn the ropes against all that started here. In New York, in 1930s, we all lived at the end of town where a polyglot of languages was spoken, such as Ukrainian, French, Italian, Yiddish, German, Polish, and Irish. In those days, we called each other dagoes, frogs, micks, krauts, guineas, wop, kikes, and greasers.

Many of us learned to swear in several languages or at least knew several phrases. Sometimes on the Polack hill, there would be a shooting at a Polish wedding by those on the other hill. Often revenge found itself by the poles beating up a mick. Someone was found hanging by their thumbs from the lampposts in the wee