The Adventures of Young Victor Huber

By Richard T. (Dick) Miller

Completion of this project was something Richard T. (Dick) Miller had thought about for a number of years.
The recounting of his experiences, his lifestyle as a member of French Hill, the French Canadian Catholic Community in Nashua, New Hampshire, as a young man gives the reader an insight of what this little known way of life was like.
His college years and adventures as a tank platoon leader in the U.S. Army as well as a test pilot and a combat pilot in Vietnam round out this interesting account of The Adventures of Young Victor Huber.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 5, 2009
• ISBN: 9781469106885

Richard T. (Dick) Miller

Richard T. (Dick) Miller was born and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire. He and his family lived in the French speaking section called French Hill and this environment governed his worldly awareness during this period of time. After graduation from Nashua High School, the author spent one year at the New Hampton School, attended The University of Vermont from where he graduated and was commissioned a Second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in June 1960. While at the University the author was a member of the Sigma Phi Fraternity. He has been married to his wife Gail, who he met at the University of Vermont for more than 50 years. While at the University their first child, Elizabeth, was born. Over the years they were to have four children, Elizabeth Anne, Richard II, Daniel John, and Lori Sue. Seven wonderful grandchildren were to follow. Richard T. (Dick) Miller served as both a tank platoon commander with the Second Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas and after graduation from flight school was assigned to a variety of flying assignments including a year of combat flying in Vietnam. He is presently retired and he and Gail live in Kingwood, Texas.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Ghosts of the Past

The chopper was vibrating severely as First Lieutenant Victor Huber pressed for as much airspeed as possible. The flight had taken off in the pre-dawn darkness in order to reach its objective at the first light of daybreak.

He was pushing his aircraft’s performance to the limit and he knew that the other three H-21’s flying in formation with him were feeling the same sense of anxiety and apprehension.

These were old Korean War vintage cargo choppers that had seen their day and didn’t have much lifetime left in their tired old bones. With their two sets of rotor heads and rotors, these large choppers tended to vibrate excessively when any number of criteria such as air speed, excessive load weights, temperatures, unbalanced rotor blades as well as a myriad of other confining conditions and combat related damages had been reached or exceeded.

They were underpowered, looked ugly, strange and were routinely called Flying Bananas due to their appearance.

These old flying machines had been sent to Vietnam to accomplish several missions, loosely packaged by the United States Government as an overall objective of preventing the overthrow of the democratic forces of South Vietnam. It was in this type of antiquated helicopter, the H-21, better known as the flying banana and officially designated as the Shawnee that the first helicopter crews were shot down and killed in Vietnam.

The crews that flew and maintained these choppers were made up of a diverse group of pilots, crew chiefs, gunners and maintenance personnel, who were all consolidated into an efficient unit with the catch-all objective of supporting the Military Forces of the Republic of Vietnam in their struggle against the forces of Communism.

The pilots themselves were mostly Warrant Officers, mostly older and mostly very experienced. They pretty much all had many years of flying time that spanned a period going all the way back to the Korean War. The younger Warrant Officer pilots, who were generally to be assigned to these H-21 units after Victor had been there as a commissioned officer for several months would come at a later date and were also well qualified for the task at hand. Thus, the composition of the pilot core when Victor arrived was highly experienced and Victor was always thankful that he was able to learn so much from these men.

In order to make Flying Bananas semi-combat effective, two 30-caliber machine guns had been added, one in the front right side door and one in the main entrance left rear door. These weapons were permanently mounted on all of the H-21 choppers. The crew chief manned the rear gun and a volunteer on a three-month tour assignment from the Twenty Fifth Infantry Division stationed in Hawaii manned the front gun.

Victor had to admit to himself that he rather enjoyed flying these old underpowered crates as they could take quite a beating and still get you home. Unfortunately, missions were dictated by a bunch of government appointees, politicians and bureaucrats in both Saigon and Washington that had no clue as to the situation and made decisions based on contaminated intelligence that was fed to them by Vietnamese spies and traitors. The war was run from thousands of desks, not in the field. It was no wonder that America lost the war.

A battalion of the South Vietnamese airborne had been airdropped two days earlier in the Iron Triangle. This drop zone which was somewhere between Cu Chi and Ben Cat, not more than twenty five to thirty miles from Saigon, was completely controlled by the Viet Cong and contained hundreds of miles of tunnels. The Viet Minh had long ago built some of this tunnel system during their long war against the French. Several miles had been added to the tunnel system since then.

Just flying a helicopter over this area was an adventure in itself. There wasn’t an occasion when a helicopter flying over the Iron Triangle would not come under fire. Anti aircraft, guns were placed in tunnel openings, in the middle of the villages and towns and along all the roadways. There were no friendly troops in this area and the Vietnamese government had been trying to take some of this land back but to no avail.

The airborne battalion that had made the jump had been decimated, as usual, and little more than a hundred or so were still in any physical condition to fight with the remaining troops either severely wounded or dead. These survivors were completely surrounded by several battalions of Viet Cong and on the verge of complete annihilation. Victor felt sorry for the poor airborne troops. They and the rangers were as a whole a dedicated lot. This is not to say that several of them were not also Viet Cong sympathizers.

The four choppers were assigned the mission to extricate the survivors as quickly as possible, another great leadership decision made in Saigon.

This would mean that the four choppers would minimally have to make six trips in and six trips out of this rapidly diminishing survival area. Chances of survival on this one were not the greatest for either the airborne survivors nor for the helicopter crews.

The first question that came to mind was why the entire company of some sixteen to twenty aircraft available wasn’t used. Better going in once or twice with eighteen helicopters than six times with four.

That answer of course was simple. If something went wrong, which was more than likely, there would be a loss of only four choppers and four crews. This was academic, however, as everyone on the mission knew that the probability was that the Viet Cong already knew when and from where they were coming. The Viet Cong had infiltrated every level of the Vietnamese Army from the regular ground troops to high-ranking officers to include several generals. This was confirmed after the war and came to no surprise to anyone.

The four choppers were on their second trip into the drop zone. They had come in empty on the first trip at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet and dropped in at a rate that was about the same as an autorotation, almost vertical and at a very high rate of descent.

The first entry was rather uneventful. A high altitude approach was usually successful on the first landing as the Viet Cong were taken by surprise, if there were no operational leaks. The only way to assure that was to change either times, schedules or landing areas without telling anyone in the Vietnamese Army. This sometimes led to confusion on their part but better they be confused than our guys dead or wounded.

The first exit with some wounded paratroopers on board was made at tree top level. The non-wounded were left behind to hold off the Viet Cong until all the wounded and dead could be evacuated. American troops had always held sacred that no wounded or dead would ever be left behind. Every soldier that Victor had ever met, whatever the rank, believed in this sacred practice and firm commitment and dedication with pride. The Vietnamese Army in most cases did not. It boiled down to the survival of the cowards or in many instances the traitors.

The ground fire was quite intense on the way out. It was made worse by the fact that the choppers were way overloaded and consequently was unable to obtain the speeds that gave the pilots more flexibility to maneuver and avoid enemy concentrated fire at tree top levels. A couple of the choppers were hit by the ground fire on the exit, although not severely.

Both the entry and exit on the second extraction were to be at tree top level and on different flight paths. The Viet Cong were waiting, as was expected, on this run.

From this point on and on subsequent entries and exits, the enemy knew what the evacuation plan probably was and the strategies that most likely would be attempted. The only surprise left was coming in and leaving from different directions.

At tree top levels the enemy had a short time to react and the aircraft was a target for a smaller time period by individual Viet Cong groups. The intense ground fire started some three to four miles from the pick-up point.

It’s funny that there is little to no panic or apparent fear when things get hot. The gunners are busy shooting and suppressing enemy fire and the pilots are busy flying this underpowered monster while trying to keep from hitting the treetops. It’s a real rush. The shaking comes later.

For what seemed an eternity, groups of Viet Cong would pop up and fire at the choppers. They were hidden in tall elephant grass, rice paddies as well as in the edge of the jungle clearings. They seemed to be everywhere. They were no more than a few feet away at any given time and Victor could see the details of the men that both his gunners were mowing down. He could even see the bullets ripping through the enemy.

Sitting in the cockpit of the choppers was like going to the IMAX Theater. What surprised him was the fact that there were lots of women and young teens firing at them and being cut down as well. The enemy was located but a few feet in front of Lt. Huber and the bullets ripping through them played out in slow motion. As far as the Viet Cong were concerned this was everyone’s fight. That’s why they won, commitment.

Victor could feel the bullets ripping through the fuselage and rotors of his chopper. There was no excessive noise from the enemy fire, just severe vibrations that he could feel at the controls every time a bullet hit the chopper. The chopper was getting very difficult to fly and the vibrations were at a level of a possibly self-destructive situation. For some reason none of the crewmembers had been hit yet.

That’s why war is a crapshoot. It has very little to do with skill. Survival is mostly luck.

Vibrations in a helicopter are the prime indicators of possibly severe consequences. A good helicopter pilot survives by the feel of the vibrations and this feeling can only come with a lot of flying time in many flying situations. There are numerous types of vibrations and after the pilot has accumulated a respectable amount of flying time, he can pretty much differentiate the basic cause and the reason for the specific vibration. Some causes cannot be rectified and the crew brings the chopper back on potluck. Others may be due to a regular maintenance defect but with bullets, ripping through there is no telling what the damages and subsequent consequences may be.

Lieutenant Huber saw a small local gravel road in the distance. It had been carved out of the jungle and he headed straight for it. There were no choices left. The road was one of those roads built between villages and probably didn’t see much travel other than on foot and by ox carts.

The other three choppers continued to their assigned landing zones with instructions to fly back over the downed aircraft and pick up survivors if they were not overrun or in a close range firefight with the Viet Cong. Lieutenant Huber didn’t plan to be on the ground very long. Not if he could control the situation.

Huber knew that they would be landing in the middle of the Viet Cong concentrations but he had no choice. It became a matter of quickly taking off again if the causes of the vibrations could be identified and somewhat temporarily repaired in a very short period of time while on the ground. The other option was destroying the chopper and getting out of there on foot if the Viet Cong were about to over run the damaged chopper.

He could even take off without finding the vibration problem if he could be assured that the damage was not in a critical place or he could just take potluck.

He advised the crew of his plan which was that as soon as the chopper came to a stop, the crew chief and rear gunner were to get out immediately and check the rotor blades and rotor heads for damage. In the meantime, the co-pilot was to check the fuselage and the rest of the general external chopper areas for damage to see if the bullet penetrations were in a place that would or could cause damage to the transmission, engine or control mechanisms.

These were very anxious minutes as the old Flying Banana approached the road. The jungle all around them was thick and the elephant grass in the field that surrounded the road was tall. The area could hide a battalion of Viet Cong and nobody would see them.

This was the toughest part as far as Victor was concerned. Nothing was happening on one hand. They were no longer being fired on. On the other hand, he was waiting for the helicopter to disintegrate before he got it on the road.

The landing, although tense, did not attract enemy fire and the old Flying Banana came to rest on a dirt road in the middle of a rice paddy surrounded by thick jungle growth and elephant grass.

Where were the Viet Cong? They were nowhere to be seen or heard. This was both a crucial break as well as some of the luck they would need to get out of this jam.

The crew chief and the front gunner were the first out of the aircraft as it came to a stop. The co-pilot quickly followed them. Victor stayed at the controls in case a quick take off was necessary in order to evade the sudden appearance of the enemy. Whether the attempted take off was successful or not was not the point but it did add another option to their limited survival plan.

The first to report back to Victor was the crew chief. There were several holes of varying sizes in the rotor blades but no apparent damage to the rotor head. That was positive. Much of the vibration was probably coming from that.

The co-pilot reported that there were several bullet holes in the body of the aircraft but none, by themselves, that would prevent the chopper from flying. In fact, vibrations due to these fuselage penetrations would probably not cause a severe vibration problem in and by themselves. The concern would be as to whether or not the rounds had caused damage to some internal mechanisms.

The consensus was that if the rotor blade vibrations could be minimized, the craft would be safe enough to fly on to Tan Son Nhut, the airbase outside of Saigon where Victor’s unit was stationed and where all the maintenance was performed. The aircraft would vibrate severely but by lowering the airspeed, it would hopefully make it back.

The pilot’s greatest asset is a great crew chief. Huber knew that the unit had the best of the best and the fact that the crew chiefs flew all the missions with their chopper of responsibility gave the cockpit crew a sense of comfort and confidence.

No individuals worked harder or with greater dedication than the crew chiefs. Not enough gratitude nor appreciation could ever have been given to these dedicated men. Good flying techniques are rather useless without a top-performing vehicle whether it be in aviation or on the race car circuit.

The crew chief had two or three rolls of duct tape that he used to tape loose cargo down or that he even used for taping prisoner’s arms and legs when the prisoners were being flown to one of the interrogation or prisoner of war camps. Of course, the prisoners who were thrown out of the aircraft by the Vietnamese guards while being interrogated enroute to these camps had no use for the tape. This was not an uncommon practice by the ARVN troops. This practice was quickly discontinued, however, when the crews refused to fly prisoners with Vietnamese military guards.

Eventually the prisoners were flown using the crew chiefs and gunners as guards. Of course, the American Saigon Warriors had no clue as to what was going on and if they did, they refused to admit to it. This was the way the war was run and the American chain of command remained innocent and conveniently ignorant.

The rotors were disconnected from the transmission and gear boxes from inside the cockpit and the engine shut down. The tape was applied around the blade where each hole was located. This took several wrappings and would by itself cause vibrations but hopefully not as severe. Victor had seen this done before so he knew that it would probably work. You’ve got to be desperate when you trust your life to a roll of duct tape.

Time was running out as Victor could hear the gunfire in the heavily foliaged areas. This could be fighting with some of the surviving Vietnamese paratroopers. It was hard to tell who was where. Things get very confused during the heat of battle, especially in the jungle or in overgrown areas where visibility is at a minimum. Regardless, there wasn’t much time.

Suddenly, one of the choppers returning from the pick-up zone could be heard in the distance. Victor finally caught sight of the chopper as it was making an approach. He knew that if he could hear it as well as see it, the Viet Cong could hear and see it as well. This in itself would be a dead giveaway as to his location.

As the rescue chopper approached there was a sudden explosion of ground fire aimed at the incoming aircraft. The Viet Cong now knew where they were. They knew that someone would try to get the grounded crew help or take them out of there.

Lieutenant Huber contacted the lead rescue choppers, which already had partial loads of Vietnamese survivors and wounded but kept the number of passengers down to allow for a pick up. He advised them to get out of the area and that they would be taking off as soon as the taping was complete and the chopper restarted, which would probably be in a matter of a few minutes.

The rescue lead craft advised that they would climb to a relatively safe altitude and monitor the take-off and follow Victor’s chopper in. Victor gratefully acknowledged the transmission and advised the rescue chopper that Victor’s ship would be flying extremely slow, just enough airspeed to fly maintaining altitude and minimizing the vibrations which were sure to occur with the taped up rotor blades.

After all the crew were in the chopper Victor proceeded to start the engine on the old H-21 Banana and without bothering with all the pre-flight checks applied maximum power for his takeoff attempt.

By this time, the bullets were flying in Victor’s direction. Things were getting real hot. Every additional second on the ground was inviting disaster. The enemy bullets were now hitting their marks, the chopper gunners were busy returning the gunfire and the chopper was being raked with bullet holes as it started its take off.

Suddenly, Victor awoke as he always did in the middle of these often reoccurring dreams or nightmares.

It was two thirty A.M. and Victor would fall in and out of his dream world for the rest of the night. Many of Victor’s experiences, such as this one, while he served in Vietnam kept reoccurring in the form of dreams or of nightmares.

These reenactments were not necessarily bad and in some cases actually quite enjoyable. He would miss them if they completely ceased to occur.

He actually thought, on occasion, that he missed the war.

CHAPTER TWO

The Great Frog Migration

French Hill! Who ever heard of French Hill? But there is, or at least there was such a place, and it was located in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Everyone has heard of Little Italy in New York City and of the Irish Areas of Boston. Ethnic areas such as China Town in San Francisco, the Polish Migration to Chicago, the Amish Communities of Pennsylvania as well as hundreds of such migrations by various ethnic groups over the short history of America have been well documented. The United States was built and flourished on such migrations.

There were many so-called ghettos or islands of isolated French Canadian minorities established primarily due to social, economic and cultural considerations throughout New England. These were mainly located in towns where mills were located and where work could be found. French Hill was one of these communities.

Most families moved and settled together so there tended to be many relatives living in the same community. It was therefore generally not necessary to have a great deal of interplay between the various French communities as most relatives, friends and portions of whole Canadian villages stayed together. The Frogs, one of the names used to describe the French Canadian immigrant, were very family oriented and this is what made these communities unique and gave them the confidence necessary to start a new life in a strange land.

Very little is recorded or known outside the central to northern parts of the New England area about the migration and the influence of the French Canadians who migrated to Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. About one million made the move from the mid eighteen hundreds through the late nineteen thirties. Smaller groups settled in the Midwest, primarily in the states of Michigan and Minnesota.

Most of these hardy people settled in these industrial centers because earning money to support their families was the main reason for the migration. The jobs available to them, other than the labor requirements in the lumber and paper industries were all located in the industrial cities.

The American factory owners treated these Quebec workers poorly. They were nicknamed Chinese of the East for the willingness to work hard for low wages at mostly grueling clothing mills.

Life in Quebec had not been an easy one for these migrants. Most were from an agricultural background and good farmland had become very difficult to obtain. Available land had become very scarce and the farmers were forced to move further and further away from the prime lands until the available properties were too far north to grow crops or the land itself was too poor to sustain crops. Thousands of French Canadians fled these devastating conditions to find work in booming New England factory towns.

In all, about ten percent of Quebec’s population moved to the northeastern United States to find a better life.

Culturally, religion was the central common denominator. The church was the main building block to these ghettos or communities. The church, being the center of all aspects of the typical migrants life, brought with them all necessary support organizations such as the various orders of priests and nuns to run the convents, schools, orphanages, hospitals and cultural organizations necessary to maintain the migrant society as a Catholic and French speaking society within the English social order.

It was under these conditions, controlling mechanisms and restrictions that these new American residents lived their new lives.

It was in this community called French Hill in Nashua, New Hampshire that Victor was soon to be born and spend the first eighteen years of his life. These would be formative years as well as mostly happy ones.

Frog, Pea-Souper, Canuck. Victor always kind of liked the sound of these and so did most of his friends. After all, he was a Frog. He was a Pea-Souper. He was a Canuck. He was of French Canadian descent. So were all his friends and relatives. All ethnic groups had names attached to them. Some of these monikers were rather comical and some rather derogatory. Nobody cared. Political correctness had not yet been invented.

Victor and his friends had a nickname for all the various migrant groups. In Victor’s mind, these were terms of endearment or recognition.

Some monikers were even descriptive of eating habits. Victor loved frog legs and still does. He frequently hunted large bullfrogs in the spring. summer and fall evenings. He’d cut off the rear legs and bring them home for his mother to sauté. When he got older, he’d sauté his own. Many of his friends hunted these delicious creatures and also enjoyed them.

Pea soup was a stable in Victor’s house. His mother always had pea soup either on the stove or in the fridge. Many of his relatives and friends ate a steady diet of this wonderful soup. The only questionable thing was that Victor and Gail had an ongoing difference of opinion as to whether it was split pea soup or whole pea soup. This was very serious but the difference of opinion was finally resolved. They were both delicious.

Canuck was different as it was used as a degrading term first by the English in Canada and followed by the English descendants living in New England. This was deemed no problem in Victor’s mind as he didn’t know anyone in French Hill who cared what the English thought much less said.

What could possibly be wrong with this name-calling? He asked himself that question on occasion and always came up with the same answer. Nothing!

Although Nashua was a small city, it was nonetheless the second largest city in New Hampshire. Of course, New Hampshire had more cows than people in those days so being the second largest city did not make it a major metropolitan area.

The city itself was built at the confluence of the Merrimack and Nashua Rivers. The Indians that had inhabited this river valley had long since been driven out.

At the time of Victor’s birth both rivers had been heavily industrialized with textile, shoe, pulp / paper and tanning mills built for the most part by the Yankee business sector which at that time controlled the general economy of New England.

All by-products and undesirable materials from the mills were disposed of directly into the rivers from these manufacturing facilities. At that time, even the cities and townships along the rivers disposed of their sewage directly into the waterways, by way of sewer lines.

A continual parade of turds was constantly observed floating down both rivers and the banks were nothing but muck, slime and indescribable compounds that would try to eat you up as you stepped onto the banks and sunk down to your ankles and at times even to your knees.

Suckers were the only fish that survived in these polluted waterways. The kids would catch them but, of course, threw them back in.

Victor often imagined what these two rivers would have been like in the days when the Indians were the sole inhabitants of this area. These waterways must really have been something to behold when abundant trout, pickerel, salmon, bass, perch and a variety of other fish and animal life were plentiful.

The banks of the rivers at first sight provided the casual observer with an attractive panorama of the many types of trees and beautiful looking valleys, but upon closer inspection of the rivers themselves, this was a deceitful image. This is not to say that all waterways were this way. The main rivers South of Concord, the capital, certainly were but there were countless brooks and ponds as well as the rivers to the north that were extremely clean with trout, pickerel and perch, that were abundant as well as edible. These areas were, however, devoid of industry, and subsequently, the accompanying waste products.

Today’s environmentalists would have been quite taken aback had they witnessed this misuse of our natural gifts. The results were disastrous for the rivers, the fish and the surrounding environment. But as usual, this imbalance in both the protectionism philosophies and the needs of both the working society and the financial ownership segments had a common result. This balanced imbalance, so to speak, had a positive affect on the survival of both the immigrant labor force and the investment and ownership segments of the society.

There was at a minimum a situation of balance in the coexistence of the various segments of influence and interests at the time. Pollution is not always bad especially when the survival of humans is at stake. Victor was always a believer that the human financial and survival needs should dictate the environmental concerns and not vise versa. The planet will survive. The human race, as we know it today certainly will not but the planet will survive to welcome a new form of sustainable life in the thousands and millions of years to come.

The Yankees, through land grants and subsequent resale or gifts for favors, first settled the city as well as the whole area. At the time of Victor’s birth, the inhabitants’ make-up had changed dramatically to include a very large population of French Canadians along with various minority numbers of Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Irish, Jews and of course, the Yankees who still owned most everything. What was a financial boom for the Yankee and an environmental disaster for the land and waterways was to become a boom for the many immigrants who left their homes throughout the world and made a new life for themselves and the generations to come.

Wherever labor was needed, the French Canadian was conveniently located to fill this requirement. The French Canadian immigrant may have been cheap labor to the Yankees but to the immigrant it was a better life and held the promise of better things to come for the workers and their families, financially and educationally. These population patterns were more prevalent and pervasive in a small city like Nashua as any significant population changes were very noticeable.

CHAPTER THREE

A New Pea For The Soup Bowl

It was on a snowy winter day in January nineteen hundred and thirty eight, in the city of Nashua, New Hampshire, that Victor Huber introduced himself to the world.

There were two hospitals in Nashua. Memorial Hospital, regarded as the English hospital, was downtown and St. Joseph’s Hospital, the French speaking hospital, was located in what was considered to be in the third French section of Nashua, which was normally called off Lake Street or off Kinsley Street by the French Hillers.

The Saint Joseph hospital was managed and run by French speaking Catholic nuns. Most of the nuns in the various parishes and hospital were from several different Orders and generally imported from the French-speaking province of Quebec in Canada. Most nuns assigned to the hospital were registered nurses. Local French speaking lay nurses were also used. The head of each ward and the various hospital departments was, as one would suspect, a nun. All the doctors who practiced at the hospital were French speaking, although most spoke English fluently.

There were, for the most part, five certainties of life for Frogs or Pea Soupers who lived on French Hill. They would be born at the St. Joseph Hospital or in the Province of Quebec, they would attend St. Francis Xavier Church and School, they would die at St. Joseph’s Hospital or at home in French Hill, their funeral would be held at Phaneuf’s Funeral Home or in their living room in French Hill and they would be buried at the St. Francis Xavier Cemetery. That’s simple. Why complicate life. The only unknown was how many cars would there be in the funeral?

Victor did his share in order to adhere to tradition. He was born at St. Joseph Hospital. That covered the first of the five certainties of life. Apparently, all went well and after a few days in the hospital, Victor and his mother made the big move to French Hill. Victor made the move sans circumcision, which had an interesting effect at a later time in his life.

From this day forward, the Church and the subsequent cultural way of life guided and, in many cases, dictated almost every decision and event that would have any effect on Victor’s future life.

Lock Street. That’s the Street where Victor came home to from the hospital and where he was raised. It was the home that he lived in until his departure for his higher education after high school graduation.

Victor arrived to his new home to a full house. All the residents on both floors of his new abode were from his father’s side of the family, the Huber and Laflamme side.

Grandpère Huber was the only real Huber who lived in the two family home. He had married Memère-en-bas, translated from the French meaning grandmother downstairs". She was a Laflamme. They lived in the downstairs unit with their son Thomas, Victor’s father, whom everyone called Bébé meaning Baby. He was called Bébé till the day he died. Victor’s mother, and the newly arrived resident, Victor, completed the downstairs complement of people.

The upstairs entourage of relatives included Victor’s great-great Grandmère known to him as La Vielle Memère-en-Haut, The Old Grandmother Upstairs; his Great Grandmother, her daughter, known as just plain Memère-en Haut; Grandmère Huber’s two sisters, Alma and Delia and their brother, Willie. That’s a mighty dose of relatives to come home to but life seemed to be relatively normal.

Victor never really understood the ownership arrangement other than one half the house was owned by his Grandmother and Grandfather Huber. The relatives who lived upstairs owned the other half.

Aunt Alma’s husband had been in World War One and died in the nineteen thirties. She had never remarried and Victor knew her as Tante Tite, a slant for Little Aunt as she was very short and extremely skinny.

Aunt Delia was a spinster and was never married. She was just plain old Ma Tante Delia, My Aunt Delia. She also was a little taller than Tante Tite and very skinny. She was spoiled and had always been taken care of. She was taken care of her whole life and always lived with the family. She died of a strange disease. Her whole body became as hard as a rock. In later years on a visit to Nashua Victor tried to straighten out her fingers that were curled around the guardrail on the bed but could not. Her whole body was that way and Victor was sure she suffered intensely prior to her probably welcomed death. As usual, no one would discuss the ailment. Most everything was a secret.

Uncle Willie was just plain old Uncle Willie, liked by some and disliked by others. He always lived with the family and was known for doing three things other than working in the mill. This was drinking, chain smoking and sitting in the rocking chair. Victor never did see him mow the lawn, paint or even breath hard. He was a nice enough fellow but, like Victor’s father, was totally spoiled by all the women. Unlike Victor’s father, he had no ambition and no noticeable interests. Victor knew that this must of bothered his Grandpère Huber as the only time Victor ever saw his Grandpère Huber furious was when Willie had gotten drunk and insulted Victor’s mother on his way upstairs. Grandpère went flying upstairs, pounded on Willie, threw him down the stairs and then off the porch and warned him about coming back to the house until at least the next day. Everyone was aghast!

With the exception of Chine, Grandmère-en-bas’ little Pekinese dog, these made up the composition of the household on Lock Street the day Victor arrived from Saint Joseph’s hospital.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Pea’s Pod

Victor’s new home was a very typical French Hill residence. There were basically two types of homes available to the Pea Soupers at that time. There were the two to four family homes built on two levels and the six to eight family tenements built on primarily three or four levels. Victor’s home was a two level, two family home.

The house did have a nice and maybe even a beautiful yard. The lawn was always green in the summer as Grandpère Huber worked hard to maintain the lawn as well as the plants in the yard. In the winter months, Victor built small ski hills that he and his friends used on a regular basis. Snow forts were built and destroyed throughout the winter. Shoveling of the sidewalk was done by Grandpère Huber and later by Victor.

The yard was surrounded by a well-maintained picket fence. It was painted every two years with new white paint. Victor remembered that because he started at a young age helping his Grandpère paint it and soon was responsible for painting it by himself.

The picket fence gate led to the side porch. The porch had two doors, one on the left leading into Victor’s downstairs home and one straight ahead that led to the hallway and stairs to both the basement and the upstairs home of the relatives.

At a very young age, Victor painted the front and side porches almost on a yearly basis with battleship gray deck paint. This involved scraping off the pealing paint, as the long severe winters were very hard on painted surfaces. The storm windows and screens were also painted with white paint every few years. In later years, Victor painted the whole house several times by himself.

In the middle of the front lawn was a metal rose arbor that you could walk through and which was totally covered with miniature red roses. There was also a large rose bush that bloomed with nice large pink flowers. Victor’s mother always had fresh roses on the table during the blooming seasons. On the east, side was an elm tree that his grandfather trimmed severely every year. The tree was not as tall as the house because Grandpère Huber kept it trimmed that way. It would not be long before Victor did the trimming. He spent many hours up in that tree playing all sorts of imaginary games. Mowing was left to Victor’s grandfather and Victor always was there to help him, wanted or not.

In the basement, area changes were made every so many years. For most of his childhood, there was a big coal-burning furnace, which heated both the downstairs and upstairs apartments. The large basement coal bin held enough coal for the winter. Once a year a big truck would back onto Aetna Court and hook up with a slide and unload enough coal for the whole winter. After the unloading was, complete and the dust settled, Victor and his Grandpère would get the shovels and shovel the coal into a neat pile in the coal bin.

During the winter months, Victor would shovel the coal into the furnace during some of the daylight hours but his Grandpère Huber would take care of most of the coal shoveling chores himself. When Victor was in high school, the furnace was converted to an oil-burning furnace and the coal shoveling duty was forever eliminated.

The basement was a place where Victor and his Grandpère and Grandpère’s brother, Uncle John and a few of their friends spent a lot of time.

There were several large canned goods storage units to keep the canned vegetables from the garden, the old fashion washing machine with the manual ringer and a work bench where his Grandpère Huber and his Grandpère’s brothers cut up tobacco leaves and rolled their cigarettes or cut the leaves up into pipe tobacco. This was great fun for Victor when he helped cut and roll cigarettes with his Grandpère. Victor’s Grandpère had a manual cigarette-rolling machine. Thousands of cigarettes were made with this basic piece of equipment. Grandpère Huber didn’t smoke cigarettes. He smoked a pipe. Uncle John smoked cigarettes so the results evened out. They both got what they wanted out of the equipment and the time spent cutting and rolling.

The large cupboard type cabinets in the basement were always full of food of some kind. Grandpère Huber had built these himself. Most of this food had been canned from the vegetables harvested in Grandpère’s leased garden along the railroad tracks at the bottom of Lock Street. Some, however, were canned from fruits and vegetables purchased fresh from various farms or orchards and others were traded out with neighbors. The Hubers did eat well.

The storage area under the stairs was used to store sacs of potatoes from the garden. There were enough potatoes stored along with some that had been canned to last the winter.

Later when Victor was older, his father had a dark room built to process film. He had taken up photography as both a hobby and as a way of making some extra money. The photography developing room was built to replace the old coal bin.

The floor of the basement was painted a battleship gray and the concrete walls white. There was