Lucky Me: An American Life

By Edwin F. Thompson Jr.

Edwin F. Thompson, Jr. loved to tell stories and he had plenty of stories to tell. These are stories of a 20th century American life: from the pre-depression construction trade in Eastern Massachusetts, to flying troop transports into China during World War II, to raising a large family during the post-war era. Eddie was well-loved by all who knew him and he and his stories will long be remembered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456843823

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Copyright © 2011 by Edwin F. Thompso

Library of Congress Control Number:                  2011900708

ISBN:                      Hardcover                              978-1-4568-5268-9

                                 Softcover                               978-1-4568-5267-2

                                 Ebook                                   978-1-4568-4382-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

END NOTES

EPILOGUE

In memory of my first wife, Paula

and

Dedicated to My Children

Pam, Debbie, Edwin III, Cindy and Melinda

and to

My Grandchildren

Jen, Serena, Sarah, Lisa, Ben, Jessica, Jeff, Heather,

Shannon, Katie and Rachel

and to My Great-Grandchildren

Alana, Emma, Erin, Megan, Joe, Anna, Cassidy, Sophia,

Ryan, Charlie, James, Maddie, Merrie, Susie, Sophia,

Hadrian, Ayri and…

And with loving thanks to my wife Barbara for the many

hours transcribing these stories.

CHAPTER I

The Early Years

I first saw the light of day on December 20, 1918. I joined my mother and father and three older sisters, Irene, Phyllis, and Audrey. Some people think that because I was the youngest and only son, I was a little spoiled.

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My family lived in Medford, Massachusetts just north of Boston in a house my father built. There were two bedrooms for six people. My sister Audrey slept in the dining room on an iron cot and I had the little den room all to myself. We had indoor plumbing, while some of our neighbors still had outhouses. We were truly rich! We lived about a mile and one quarter from the middle of Medford, but our house was in a rural area with dirt roads that wound throughout the neighborhood.

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We walked to school because the City of Medford didn’t have school buses. Grades one through six were one quarter mile away. Junior High a mile away and High School was a mile and a half away, in the center of Medford.

It was a great place to grow up because we were surrounded by woods and there was a swimming pond nearby. Back then, there was not much traffic, so we were free to roam at will and our folks didn’t worry about us getting lost. In the evening all the kids in the neighborhood gathered in the dirt streets and played games until dark.

I always had bicycles, a BB gun, baseball glove, football equipment, bat, and money to buy tape for my baseball when the cover wore off. Papa thought sports were a waste of time, but he always made sure that my skates were sharp, my glove was sewn, my bats were repaired. In later years he always drove my mother to my ball games. Papa always had a car. He would buy old Model T Fords for $10.00 and repair them from the wheels up. My job at age six was grinding the valves. I would sit on top of the engine and grind them by hand until he told me they were perfect; I was in seventh heaven when I got his approval. The car was always black. Sometimes he would fix a car and then give it away to one of his brothers.

When I was twenty months old, we were in a traffic accident. My mother was badly hurt and was in the hospital for quite a long time. She was holding me on her lap and my mouth hit something and my four front upper teeth were damaged. When my permanent teeth came in only three teeth grew and they were misshaped. Eventually, when I graduated from ninth grade, my sister Phyllis convinced my mother and father to get me false teeth. When I entered High School I had a plate with four teeth. It was funny that some adults would call me toothless when I was little, but kids my age never said a word about them or teased me. In the spring each year, my mother would buy me a dark blue baseball cap. My sisters and I were baseball fans. Mom would listen on the radio and tell us about them when we got home. The games were always played in the afternoon. Back then, there were no night games.

My three sisters were going to a neighborhood school and I wanted to go too, but according to school rules, I wasn’t old enough. I kept after my mother about going to school, so one day she gathered some books and tied them together and gave them to me and sent me off to school. I got halfway there and chickened out and returned home. This is the first memory I had of my childhood. I started school when I was six years old, but had to stay back in the second grade, because I couldn’t read. I was dyslexic, but no one knew much about it, so I passed on to the next grade. I had difficulty during my school years, but I did get a good education, thanks to the teachers who helped me.

Enterprises

Starting at the age of six, I was always thinking of ways to earn some money. My first endeavor was to sell fertilizer. Milk, bakery products and ice were delivered by horse. Refrigerators didn’t come into common use until the mid 1930s. With my little red cart I would walk around the neighborhood picking up horse droppings. Then I would go door to door selling the horse droppings for 25 cents a cart load. Business was always good.

In the summer my sisters and I would pick blueberries. It would take about two hours to pick two quarts each. On the way home, we would go door to door and sell one quart each for 25 cents. Mother had the rest to make pies.

Another enterprise was dump picking. At different times during the week, I would visit the neighborhood dumps and pick rags. Dumps were scattered throughout the city. We even had a dump adjacent to our property. There were no ordinances against them. I would find lead and brass items. I would take it to a scrap man who would buy them from me. Rags, paper and lead were 2 cents a pound and brass was 4 cents a pound.

We also used to look for lead at the police department’s open air target range. The targets were set up so the policemen could fire at the target into sand. We boys sat on the ground about ten feet from the officers when they were firing their pistols. When they were finished, we would scramble to dig out the lead in the sand to sell to the scrap man. Aluminum pots and pans came into widespread use in the 1930s so aluminum was worth 10 cents a pound. I treasured an aluminum find and my big source was the Malden Hospital. They sterilized needles and equipment by boiling them in water in aluminum pans. If the water boiled dry the bottom of the pan would melt and be thrown out in the dump behind the hospital with the other medical waste. I would pick them up and sell them.

At age 13, I got a real job working in a bakery. I was earning fifteen cents an hour. After the baking was done the baker would drive us around the neighborhood to sell his goods. This job was on commission. I also worked in the Seventh Day Adventists community garden where they raised lots of vegetables. I would work four hours a few mornings each week weeding and they would pay me in vegetables. I would sell them door to door on the way home and the rest went to my mother for dinner.

Elementary School

Our school playground was covered with cinders and all around the school were ledges and boulders. All six grades went to recess at the same time, and we organized our own playtime. We played ball, tag and, jump rope. A teacher always looked on, but never interfered. If someone fell and hurt themselves the principal would take care of it and send them back out to play. We had one teacher for all subjects and about 32 pupils per class. We also went home for lunch. Mother was always there except one day a week when she went into Boston to shop in the open air markets in Haymarket Square. On those days, I would get my own lunch at home. I would start up the kerosene cook stove and heat up some soup and drink at least a quart of milk, then go back to school to play. The house was open and I didn’t mind going into an empty house.

My favorite game at school was playing ball. The school didn’t supply any equipment so I would bring a rubber ball to school. This was a little smaller than today’s softball. We would wrap a handkerchief around our fist and use it for the bat. We made up our own rules. For instance, we had two batters and the regular infield positions. If there were more than eleven players the others would play in the outfield. We would have the same positions from game to game. We only used first base and home plate – both were big stones. If you were out at first, you would move to the outfield and other players moved up one position. If you flied out you changed positions with the person who caught the ball.

Ice Fishing

When I was about ten, my friend Eddie Mack and I got interested in ice fishing. We made our own tip-ups. Mother wore corsets with spring steel ribs in them. Eddie and I would take the ribs from an old corset, attach it to a piece of wood to make a tip-up. Later, when we earned some money we bought regular tip-ups.

We went down to the salt water flats in Medford to get the bait. The tidal marshes along the East Coast were trenched to prevent malaria breeding mosquitoes, because they could not breed in fast running water. When they stopped worrying about malaria, they allowed the trenches to cave in. Eddie and I would catch chubs in the pools left over when the tide went out. From Somerville to Wellington Circle it was all marsh, but there were only 2-3 places that had the pools. (This was on the Medford side of the river). We knew where they were. Toward winter when there was a real flood tide, we would watch the tide to see if the chubs were ready. Chubs could live in salt water or fresh water. We made nets out of acetylene torch wands which were 30 inches long. We bent them and took a broom handle, drilled a hole in the end, and stuck the ends of the torch into the broom handle. We would put an onion bag on the wand. We would then go to the pools in December and get the chubs. They were two to five inches long. We would scoop