The Autumn of My Time

By Richard Talbot

The Autumn of My Time is an autobiography of my life and my family. The narrative sweeps across a century and a half of Americana, and documents the trials and tribulations of a growing American family through the days of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, The Korean War and the Vietnam conflict.
It tells the story of gentler times, when families lived and worked in adjoining towns. Cousins actually knew each other and went to the same school and played together on weekends. When radio was in its infancy, automobiles had rumble-seats, TV was a fantasy and neighbors knew and helped each other.
It spans the gap from World War I through Hitlers invasion of Poland, and Japans cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of World War II, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
My story goes on to describe how I received a direct commission and became an officer pilot. How I nearly flew for Air America in the Far East, flew in Iceland and in Alaska and then joined the First Cavalry Division to serve two tours of combat in Vietnam. I tell you how I received a college degree in only one year just before I left the service for retirement and a new life as a civilian.
My narrative tells you how I became a professional racquetball player and a racquetball club owner, won nine national racquetball championships, was the general manager of three retirement and recreational communities, raised a family, wrote two books and now in here in The Autumn of My Time, document for you the story of my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514467183

Richard Talbot

Richard Talbot is a retired U.S. Army major. He served two tours in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division as a combat helicopter pilot. Since his retirement, he founded an educational manufacturing company and has worked as a town administrator. Richard has managed racquetball and health clubs and is a nine time national racquetball champion. He is the author of two other books: The Reckoning Trail and The Autumn of My Time.

Book preview

THE AUTUMN

OF MY TIME

Richard Talbot

Copyright © 2016 by Richard Talbot.

ISBN:      Softcover       978-1-5035-3654-8

     Hardcover      978-1-5144-6719-0

     eBook      978-1-5144-6718-3

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/11/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Dedication

BOOK I

Chapter 1 The Early Years

Chapter 2 The War Years

Chapter 3 Peace Again

Chapter 4 The Mountain

Chapter 5 Animal House

Chapter 6 My Sister Debbie’s Memories

Chapter 7 Thoughts From Bill, Betsy and Even John – my Other Siblings

Chapter 8 A Brief College Career

Chapter 9 This is the Army Mr. Jones

Chapter 10 Basic Training

Chapter 11 Fort Sill, Oklahoma

Chapter 12 The 506th and Phoenix City, Alabama

Chapter 13 Summer Maneuvers

Chapter 14 The Fabulous 506th Beer Garden Revisited

Chapter 15 When A Man Meets A Woman

Chapter 16 Day to Day

BOOK II

Chapter 1 Warrant Officer Candidate School

Chapter 2 WOC Class 57-12 - The First Four Weeks

Chapter 3 WOC Class 57-12 The Wild Blue Yonder

Chapter 4 Passing the Check Ride

Chapter 5 Advanced Training and Graduation

Chapter 6 Trial & Error

Chapter 7 The 91st Cargo Helicopter Company

Chapter 8 The World’s Greatest Picnic

Chapter 9 Re-Assignment Iceland - A Hardship Tour

Chapter 10 The Land of the Midnight Sun

Chapter 11 Flying Adventures Under the Midnight Sun

Chapter 12 The First Army Flight Around Iceland

Chapter 13 Leaving Iceland - The Great Scrounger

Chapter 14 A Wild Voyage

Chapter 15 A New Assignment - Fort Eustis, Virginia

Chapter 16 North to Alaska

Chapter 17 The 49th State - 1961

BOOK III

Chapter 1 First Winter Stories & Survival 1961-62

Chapter 2 The Second Year in Alaska 1962

Chapter 3 The Cold Winter of 1962

Chapter 4 The Summer of 1963

Chapter 5 The First Cav Division, Fort Benning, Georgia

Chapter 6 Off to War - Vietnam

Chapter 7 The Combat Missions Begin

Chapter 8 Life and War Continues

Chapter 9 Ft. Eustis, Virginia, & My Mail Order Bride

Chapter 10 Back to Vietnam - 2nd Tour

Chapter 11 Back to Company C

Chapter 12 My Last Tour of Duty

CIVILIAN LIFE - A NEW CAREER

Chapter 1 Real Estate & Playco

Chapter 2 I Turn Pro

Chapter 3 The King George Racquetball Club

Chapter 4 The New Racquetball Club (a very short Chapter)

Chapter 5 The Green Pond Corporation

Chapter 6 Back to the King George

Chapter 7 I Retired Again.

A Final Footnote

After Thought

PROLOGUE

Have you ever lingered around the dining room table after a good meal on a holiday evening with family and friends? Gathered around are relatives and people whom you see but once or twice a year. The delightful smells from the remains of a delicious meal just completed waft from the kitchen, while a troop of young children scurry from room to room in endless play, waiting for apple pie to be served for dessert.

Over coffee or other forms of liquid refreshment, the oft told funny stories of the family start to be retold — how Daddy milked the cow in his good clothes and then fell into a bathtub full of water (after consuming eighteen Manhattans at a party). Or, how Mother who never drank, came home from that very same party, flopped down in a kitchen chair, giggling away for over an hour before she fell sound-asleep.

Great secrets are revealed and small events from yesteryear grow mightily in size and importance. The family history begins to be retold in humorous vignettes, and newcomers who join the group learn from these gatherings that Benjamin Franklin and John Wilkes Booth were both distant relations, or that the family is a direct descendant of the Earl of Shrewsbury and are in the family-tree of the kings and queens of England.

These assemblies of family and close friends are similar in kind to the ancient gatherings of prehistoric man before the written word, when the tribe would meet and stories exchanged before the campfire in smoke-filled caves, and those stories were passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, the unfolding and unwritten history of the family. Many of those stories would become lost in the cobwebs of their minds and were forgotten, while some were changed and took on a new and wondrous form that was then repeated down through the years.

Every few years, in a family as in a tribe, one or two of the chairs around the table at the family gatherings become empty. Uncle Carl, Aunt Lee or Grandmother Booth is no longer there to cast their memories of family before us; yet the family circle always seems to mend itself. The young children, who were once-upon-a-time at play around the feet of their elders, grow to adulthood and replace their forebears whom have faded away. As these children grow older and slip into the empty chairs to join the story telling, they too begin to weave their memories into the patchwork quilt that forms the family history and help to pass the stories ever forward.

I look around today at the scattering of families across the country, no longer living for generations in the same community as they did in years gone by. Families try to keep in contact by telephone, by e-mail, Face-Book, Twitter or Skype; but how do you reach out and hug someone on a computer? There may be a few holidays, vacations, weddings or funerals when a family gathers, but how can cousins, nieces and nephews grow to really know each other as the years drift by? The real sense of family is slowly being lost, replaced by endless cable TV, I-pads and I-phones and the Worldwide Web. As the eldest remaining member in my family and not wishing to lose the rich tapestry of memories of all the stories that have been woven into my family’s quilt at the many gatherings of my tribe, the following collection of remembrances are of my family and my life in The Autumn of my Time— the story of my American family.

Some names in this story have been changed for obvious reasons.

DEDICATION

To my Wife Maryann and Chief Editor (and soul-mate).

To our son and daughter, Mark and Laura.

To our Granddaughter Roxana.

To my Brother Bill who has designed all of the covers of my books

To my other brother and sisters, John, Betsy and Debbie

To the rest of the Talbot and Booth families.

BOOK I

CHAPTER 1

The Early Years

One of my earliest memories is a story told to me by my Grandmother about my Father, Dick Talbot. In 1912, when he was very young, his family lived in Roseland near Newark, New Jersey. My Grandfather was a prominent dentist in Newark and employed a large household staff for his residence. One day my Father was sent to his room for some minor social infraction or other dastardly deed. He always said he was confined on bread and water, but I had it on good authority (my Grandmother Talbot) that he was well fed.

Father was a tall, gangling youth of eight, with black hair, dark eyes, a Roman nose and whose frame was sprouting like a young sapling. It was a warm summer afternoon, and a breeze wafted the smell of flowers and new mown grass through open windows of the house. Being a charming fellow, from his upstairs bedroom window where he was confined, he spied Tess and Annie, who were maids for the family, walking in the garden. Tess was from Ireland with bright, curly, red hair and was the upstairs maid wearing a crisp light blue uniform, while Annie, with her short black hair and twinkling dark eyes, in her starched white uniform, had just arrived from Germany and worked in the kitchen.

Father threw open the sash and in his most charming manner, begged, Please Annie, I’m wasting away to nothing up here! I’m skin and bones and need nourishment. You and Tess go to the kitchen and get me something good to eat. But don’t let mother see you.

Tess called back in her Irish brogue, Bread and jam, I believe, might be just the ticket for a young man who is starving to death, young sir.

Father possessed a long string and a wicker basket, which he lowered to the young women below. They promised to reward him handsomely if he remained quiet and did not tell on them for coming to his rescue. They picked up the wicker basket and disappeared around the corner of the house.

In a short while, Tess and Annie returned carrying the basket which was covered with a blue and white striped towel. They tied the string to the handle of the basket. Pull it up carefully Dickey, called Annie, as you don’t want to bang the basket with the glasses of jam against the house.

My Father cautiously hoisted up the treasure to his perch on the window sill. Lifting the basket was a difficult chore for him as it was extraordinarily heavy and must, he imagined, have been filled to the brim with delicious treats. Once the wicker basket was secured on the windowsill, his jowls were actually watering as he whisked away the towel and discovered nothing but lumps of coal!

Down below, the two young maids burst into laughter at the howl that came from the upstairs window!

* * *

When Father was in his early teenage years, he developed an unknown malady that caused him to shake, and he also grew over a foot in less than a year. At times, he was unable to control his body and would shake and grunt. The doctors and specialists of the day were in a quandary as to what was wrong and simply confined him to bed for several years. He missed going to high school and was home-schooled by Grandmother Talbot. He had always wanted to be a doctor, but now his hopes were dashed as he could not possibly qualify for college. Through tremendous self-control, he was able to overcome the illness on his own. However, for the rest of his life, he would shake or grunt occasionally. It is very possible that he had Tourette’s Syndrome which is nearly impossible to control, but Father overcame the disease and lived a normal life.

The years of confinement had taken a toll on his young body. When he was finally allowed out of his room and back into the world, he had grown to over six feet in height and was very thin and weak. Father was not about to be a sickly wimp and had read about an early fitness program from someone called Charles Atlas. The article showed a skinny guy on the beach and a big, muscular bully kicking sand in the skinny guy’s face. The caption said, Don’t let a bully put you down; take my Charles Atlas three-month training course and turn your muscles into bands of steel and then defeat that bully!

Father wrote away for the course. This was well before workout-gyms and the program was designed to be done at home using such exotic equipment as a chair or a broom stick or a wall. As an example, he would grasp a broom stick at the top with his fingers and slowly work the stick up with his fingers until he reached the other end of the broom. (Try it sometime, it’s tough to do.) He would pick up a wooden chair with one hand and hold it at arm’s length for as long as he could before putting it down. Another exercise was to plant your feet and push against a wall with steady pressure (today, we call it passive resistance training and is very effective). With his dogged determination, he exercised hours every day and actually did turn his muscles into bands of steel for the rest of his life.

* * *

Elizabeth Booth, my Mother Betty Talbot, was a well-known tomboy in her youth, with curly blonde hair, a cute button nose, knobby knees and great athletic reflexes. She competed with all of her brothers in all sorts of sporting events and has always maintained that she usually beat out the boys. However, Mother had other talents as well that would serve her in good stead in later years. She had a beautiful voice even as a young child, which one day, would lead her to the Julliard School of Music in New York City. Here she studied to become an opera singer.

My Mother was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1908 and raised in Highland Park, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Mom’s father, Carl H. Booth (and my Grandfather of course) had a great baritone voice and was a choir director in the local Presbyterian Church. He would take his singing group to a near-by Army training base during World War I to entertain the troops. Grandfather would prop this little, cute eight-year-old girl up on the top of the piano in her polka-dot skirt, and there she would belt out songs and lead the troops in singing There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy and other popular WW I melodies.

* * *

I guess the most famous story ever told to me of my family came from my Grandmother Talbot about her Grandfather George Henry Banister. Back in the 1880’s he had a good deal of money to invest. He had a choice of owning a majority share of the fledgling Prudential Friendly Society (now The Prudential Life Insurance Company) or investing in the Brown Shoe Company in Massachusetts.

He believed that insurance policies were not Christian, because they took advantage of people, so he opted for the Brown Shoe Company. Needless to say, the family fortune has never been the same, but we always had a lot of shoes.

I never fail to dream what if every time I see the Prudential Rock of Gibraltar commercial.

* * *

My Uncle Dave Booth had a story similar to my father’s story about the basket of food. When he was a young boy in 1920, David caught scarlet fever which was quite contagious. He was confined to his room for several weeks and forbidden bakery goods and sweets during his illness. In those days, if you got sick, you were locked away in your room to hopefully recover— and no radio to boot!

In those good times of long ago, the local baker delivered to Uncle David’s home three or four times a week (Those were the days when stores actually delivered to homes and doctors made house-calls!) Uncle Dave, being a bright young lad, secretly talked the baker into providing him with some of his baked goodies each time he delivered to the house. David would lower his shopping list down on a string from his second floor bedroom, and the baker would fill his order and send it back up to his room in a brown paper bag tied to the end of the twine.

At the conclusion of his confinement, Granny Booth discovered hidden in Uncle Dave’s closet, a huge supply of uneaten rolls, breads and sweets. It turned out that there were other hungry folk in David’s bedroom that had their own sweet tooth as well. You see, the goodies were covered with some enterprising ants, and Granny had to call in the local exterminator to get rid of the swarming beasts which had infiltrated the entire house by way of the bedroom.

* * *

In the spring of 1932, Father met my Mother while singing in the Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Daddy was a soloist in the church and a dashing young man. He was a tall, lean Irishman with dark, flashing eyes, black hair and with a magnetic personality that drew the babes like iron filings to a magnet. My Mother was a guest soloist one Sunday, and was quite the looker when they met. She had blonde hair cut in the short bobbed fashion of the day, with a heart-shaped face, smiling lips and twinkling eyes that drove all the guys nutty. Both of them had excellent voices, and soon sweet harmony was being made and not just by voice.

However, there was a slight problem. Mother was already engaged to a wealthy gentleman by the name of Bill Canada (he didn’t really own Canada). Good Grief! Would Mom and Dad never be together? Would there never be children? Would I never be born? No way, knowing my Father!

Father was very, very smooth with the ladies all his life. In no time at all he had made himself indispensable to Mother and well-liked by both Grandfather Booth and Granny Booth as well. In fact, my Grandfather invited Daddy to accompany the Booth family, including Mother, on a trip to Ohio. With that, the engagement was off with the estimable Mr. Canada, and true love won out— which meant I would indeed be born one day!

When Mom and Dad married in November of 1932, it was the height of the Depression. With very little money in their pockets, they embarked on, what proved to be, an endless honeymoon. They boarded a tramp steamer bound for the Caribbean for a two or three-week cruise. Bridge was a very popular card game in the 1930’s on which many players risked their money. Mother was a great bridge player and, playing with Father, was able to supplement their small horde of money through their winnings at the card table on board ship (Wow, my Mother the professional gambler— who knew!)

When they arrived in the islands, they visited Puerto Rico, Cuba, Barbados and St. Johns and other islands in the Virgin island chain. Upon reaching St. Johns, they decided to stay for a while. They soon discovered that in those days the ships could not actually pull into a dock on the coast of the island. Therefore, they were discharged at sea with all of their belongings and made a sea-tossed, wet arrival by the ancient rowboat ferry that serviced St. Johns from the big ships.

Unknown to the happy couple, St. Thomas had experienced a massive outbreak of malaria a few months before their arrival. Governor Pearson had enlisted the services of Dr. Knud-Hansen, a local physician. He made sure that every resident on the island had his blood tested for the disease, and he treated all who were infected. It was fortunate indeed that their arrival was after the epidemic, thereby avoiding any ill effects from the disease.

Mom and Dad, being the smooth customers that they were, and mostly broke after a week in a local hotel, talked their way into a stay at the Governor’s palace. In the 30’s, society played bridge for both pleasure and for a bit of friendly wagering as I previously had mentioned. The new bridge team was welcomed with open arms. From all indications, they were entertained royally, and made quite a splash on the local society scene and into the local society’s pocketbooks as well.

While there, my Mother determined that Daddy was a closet nudist (which my family all discovered to be true, but more on that later). Father discovered miles of sugar-white, sandy beaches festooned with swaying palm trees and a gentle, deep blue sea, with no houses or people for miles. In those long-ago days, very few tourists visited the islands of the Caribbean, and there were few if any hotels that used the beaches at all. From all reports, he quickly talked my mother out of her clothes (Gosh, my Mother?), and the two of them frolicked in the surf and sand in the all-together.

During their sojourn, it seems that Mom and Dad took most of the bridge money available on the island to pay for their stay, which lasted nearly three more weeks. It turned out, they were kind of stranded as the tramp steamers only called once every month or two to re-supply and disgorge the occasional passengers.

Finally, their return tramp steamer arrived. The vessel was part passenger ship and part cargo carrier. They endured the three-mile rowboat ride over choppy seas out to the ship. Their baggage had grown so large that it completely filled the small ferry. Mother, it seems, had bought every hand-made wicker basket to be found on the island to bring back home as souvenirs and gifts.

Their financial situation was at an all-time low on their trip back to New York. They had a choice to make do with their last few dollars and be able to eat - or play bridge. Mother opted for bridge. Needless to say, the honeymooners won enough to pay their expenses back to the States and did not starve.

* * *

Mom and Dad moved into my Grandfather and Grandmother Talbot’s home in Mendham, New Jersey, after their return from their honeymoon. Two years later a spectacular event occurred— at least I think it was spectacular, for I was born!

* * *

The years in Mendham were filled with great memories. The great old house rested upon 165 acres of rolling fields and woods. Grandmother and Grandfather Talbot had discovered the house in 1921. It was a three-story fieldstone home in disrepair. It took two years to restore the Revolutionary era home before the family could move in from Roseland, New Jersey. Annie and Tess, the two maids, were still with my grandparents and had helped raise my father during his long illness.

Without a formal education and before their marriage, my Father had started to raise vegetables, apples, pears, strawberries, chickens and eggs. He had four long, single story chicken houses built. One was for raising baby chicks, one for egg-layers and the other two to raise chickens for the market. There were two other larger barns where he maintained several cars and trucks and the last for several milk cows.

Father worked as a gentleman farmer for his new family and had a roadside vegetable market on Route 202, supplying local residents with fresh produce, eggs and chickens.

Mom and Dad loved to entertain and throw parties back in the 1930’s. One of their best events was the scavenger hunt. A hundred or more guests would be invited for the weekend. The visitors were divided up into teams. Each team paid ten dollars in pennies which were put into a kitty for cash prizes at the end of the hunt.

On Friday night my Father would issue each team a list of one-hundred items (each list was identical). The players had to go out into the countryside and collect whatever appeared on the list and bring it back to be tallied in at twelve noon on Sunday. The team that collected the most items would be declared the winner and prizes from the kitty would be given out to the champs and runners-ups.

Now you might think that collecting a few items from a list would be a cinch. For example: A keg of ice - (There were ice houses in those days, and one team paid an iceman to bring a horse and wagon to the count-in with a three-hundred pound keg covered with straw to keep it from melting over the weekend. Another more enterprising team simply showed up with an ice cube from the ice-box in the kitchen. They said that their keg had melted. Their keg was counted by the judge.)

A black baby – (There were very few black families in the hinterlands of New Jersey in the 1930’s. And who would loan anyone a baby? But someone did.)

A bust of George Washington from the Newark Library - (Someone swiped it.)

One-hundred fire flies - (Many were caught on those warm summer nights on the great lawn in Mendham in front of their house)

A copy of the Friday Chicago Times — (My Uncle Dave Booth drove to Newark, where a few hundred copies could be found at the newsstands; he bought up every copy in Newark, to prevent the other teams from getting any.)

A man with a beard - (Several were found; one team’s member had a full beard so they were well ahead of the game.)

A full set of false teeth.

Chop sticks - (Not a lot of Chinese restaurants around in those days.)

The hair from a white horse’s tail at least two feet long.

The hunt must have been a blast and took the better half of Sunday afternoon just to check in all the team’s and items. First prize was $100.00 which was more than a week’s pay for many in the ’30’s. The contest was hotly contested and my Father hired a Judge Brierly (a real judge) from Bernardsville to be the judge of the contest. In those day’s, cars were not as reliable as they are now, yet the contestants drove all over the state looking for their items. What fun! It beats television, charades, or a Sony Play Station by a mile.

* * *

The other great event that my Father ran was his treasure hunts. Daddy had an innovative, creative mind and would plan for months in advance of the contest. He wrote out all of his clues in verse and occasionally wrote songs that the players would have to sing. Each clue would lead to the next clue until the winning team found the treasure.

Father’s planning was, to say the least; imaginative (some called it devilish). In the 30’s, the event was usually held in the winter with terrible driving conditions. The clues led the teams all over northern New Jersey. He even rented the old, deserted, 300-room Schooly’s Mountain Hotel, which had been closed up for years, as one of the places in which the clues were to be found.

The Schooly’s Mountain Hotel reminded one of the great, haunted mansions portrayed on the old time radio program Inner Sanctum, which was very popular at the time. It was a forbidding old structure, three stories high, set back several hundred yards from the road in deep, dark woods and with over-grown lawns. Most of the windows in the old tomb were broken out and gave the appearance of some crouching monster with broken teeth and sunken eyes. The hotel was located on top of Schooly’s Mountain near Hackettstown, New Jersey and was a one hour drive from our house in Mendham on the narrow country roads of the day.

One of the features of the treasure hunt was the dead bodies planted by my Father that the contestants would come across. The teams would arrive at the old hotel in the middle of the night, which was empty with no lights (diabolical planning on my Father’s part). They would search through the deserted, pitch black halls and rooms and finally find, what looked like a body.

The dead bodies were made by Father and were very realistic. They were fully dressed and stuffed with rags which made them feel like soft flesh in the dark, spooky rooms of the old hotel. Mom and Dad raised chickens on the grounds of the house in Mendham in those days, and Father would use chicken blood and guts to make the experience very real to the contestants.

They would have to search through the body’s pockets to find their clues. The pockets without the clues were filled with fresh liver or chicken guts. Imagine the surprise (and screams) when the searcher came up with a handful of squishy liver or slippery chicken guts in the darkened cellar of the old, spooky hotel. What a RUSH!

Of course, the first team to find all of their clues would be led to the treasure and declared the winner. The first prize was usually $50.00 to $100.00, as I said, a lot of cash in the 1930’s.

I have a vivid memory from those days when I was a little boy. My bedroom was at the foot of the attic stairs on the second floor. One Sunday night, with a thunder storm booming outside, lightening flashing, and the rain pelting against the windows a party was taking place in the house. Most of the guests were downstairs in the living room of our home in Mendham, New Jersey and Daddy had been running another of his famous treasure hunts.

I must have been five or six years old at the time. I remember suddenly being wakened from a nap by a tremendous clap of thunder that seemed to shake the very room in which I slept. The only light in the room was from the flashes of jagged lightening that rippled across the dark sky outside the window panes and cast deep, black shadows in the corners of my bedroom. I tumbled from my bed and went to look for the safety of my Mother’s arms. I decided, for some reason, that she might be in the attic, as the party-goers had been upstairs earlier in the evening. I opened the creaky attic door as a flash of lightening once again flickered through the windows. As I started to climb the dark staircase, I looked up, and there hanging by the neck from a rope, was what looked to be the body of a man wearing a large hat, slowly swinging back and forth. Suddenly, there was a crash of thunder outside and the following flash of lightening illuminated the scary figure swinging above me. The entire chest of the terrible figure was covered in blood (chicken blood I found out later). With a scream, I fled down the stairs and met my Mother who was entering my bedroom looking for me.

Can you imagine what those poor people on the treasure hunt must have thought when they encountered my Father’s surprises? I sure can— to this very day!

One of the last treasure hunts that Father ran took place in the late 1950’s (on the mountain) at our home in Bernardsville, where we had moved after the end of WWII. He had invited over sixty people to participate and made sure that each team had a car, for the clues took you far and wide. My Father gathered the fifteen teams of four or five players around him and read out the first clue for all of them to hear. The clue led everyone down to the swimming pond on our property. There, in the middle of the dark green water floated fifteen brightly colored balloons, each with the next clue nestled inside. Daddy had neglected to tell anyone to wear a bathing suit and, needless to say, a bunch of contestants got their clothes sopping wet.

The clue led the teams to a large stand of tall birch trees in the woods on our property. There, tied to the top of one of the large birches, were the next clues for all of the teams to solve and follow. (As usual, they were written in rhyme in my father’s own inimitable style.)

If you climb to the top of a birch tree and grab hold of the branches, you can swing off, and the very flexible tree will lower you safely to the ground without breaking.

My Uncle John Booth called out to all of the players that he would climb the tree and get everyone’s clues for them. The teams cheered him on as he ascended through the branches to the top. A birch’s tree limbs grow close together in dense profusion which makes for a difficult climb. Dead leaves and small branches tumbled down as he forced his way higher and higher toward the apex of the tree and his goal.

Uncle John reached the clues, stuck one in his pocket and swung off feet first into the air holding firmly to the tree top.

The tree lowered him gently to the ground, where he let go of the branches and let the rest of the clues, still tied to the tree top, spring back into the sky amid bellows of frustration from the other contestants. Needless to say, the other teams were ticked, but Uncle John’s team had the lead.

One neat set of clues led the unsuspecting teams to one of the gas stations in town. They had to sing a little ditty composed by my father before the gas station attendant would turn over the next clue. Of course, the clue leading to the gas station didn’t tell the players which was the correct station (there were several stations in town at the time). I can still picture hordes of passenger-filled cars darting around the town of Bernardsville, sliding to a halt in front of bemused station employees, and the passengers bursting into song (everyone had to sing to get the clue). You can imagine the surprise of the many gas attendants who were serenaded that day who had no idea what was going on.

* * *

The wonderful old house in Mendham dated to revolutionary times. It had wide, smooth cut, pegged planks for floors and was built of hand-laid stone and mortar that rose to an imposing three stories, with the walls covered with ancient ivy. It had an eighteen foot long fireplace with a Dutch oven in the dining room and a second Dutch oven in the huge kitchen (the one used by Annie). There were nine working fireplaces in the house, including one in the attic.

It’s funny what the ocean of the mind spins to the surface once you begin to sift through the currents of your memories of times long ago. I remember one night when I was very little, perhaps four or five years old, wandering out of the house in my pajamas.

As I previously mentioned, my bedroom was on the second floor, just below the attic stairs. It was very dark, foggy and cold when I left my bed and, for a reason I can no longer remember, ventured out into the night. I can remember the feel of the rough, wet stone terrace on the bottom of my feet through the soles of my thin slippers as I went out the front door. My p j’s became dripping wet from the cloying fog. I quickly became lost in the billowing mist and could hardly see five feet in front of me as I tried to find my way back to the house. Somehow, in my confusion, I ended up on Route 202, the main road to town.

Fortunately, I was soon discovered missing by Mother who called my Uncle Dave who was living in Mendham at the time. He drove off very slowly in his Ford in that terrible, dank, blinding fog, with my Uncle Carl hanging off the running board of the car peering ahead through the twin beams of the dim headlights for some sign of me.

Suddenly, Uncle Carl cried out to Dave to stop the car! There, just in front of the bumper, outlined in the misty light, I stood. Somehow, they had chanced upon me, even in that thick blanket of fog, over a mile from home.

I can still remember wandering about in that damp fog so long ago. It was eerily quiet and my wet pajamas felt clammy against my skin. The black pavement beneath my slippered feet was wet and cold as I tramped along totally lost. Suddenly, just ahead of me, two glowing eyes appeared like a ghostly monster seeking me out. As if by magic, the car screeched to a stop, just inches from my body. I still can’t believe how Uncle Carl was even able to see me in the fog and warn Uncle Dave to stop the car. If he hadn’t, this tale might not have been told.

* * *

Another of my childhood memories is of Annie Frank— the laughing Annie of the story of my father and the basket of coal. Annie was a short, thin woman with black hair, a merry face and a happy disposition. She was our cook, maid, cleaning lady and friend and confidant to us all. She came to work for my grandparents from Germany when she was just fourteen and stayed as part of our family until she passed away at the age of eighty-nine. She was my Father’s nanny when he was young, and she helped care for me and all of my brothers and sisters as we grew up. It was as if we all had an extra mother, grandmother and friend. Many were the times that I had some childhood problem or other and would take my troubles to Annie to solve for me.

She would entertain me and was my companion for hours on end when my folks were away. My fondest recollection was when she would bake her famous apple or cherry pies. Wow! I would sit there in her big, warm kitchen savoring the great smells coming from the oven. My jowls-were-a-water, waiting for my first sample of one of those hot pies right out of the oven with an ice cold glass of milk from the ice box to wash it down. What pure bliss for an empty stomach and a hungry boy!

The old Mendham house, where I was raised, had a huge two room kitchen. There was one main room which contained the stove, icebox (now a refrigerator), a kitchen table and cupboards for cooking utensils, pots, pans, and tableware. The second room was a rough kitchen that dated back to revolutionary times with a wide fireplace and Dutch oven and field stone walls.

Part of the pleasures I experienced of being in the kitchen when Annie cooked were the times when she fired up the ancient Dutch oven with apple firewood and baked the pies. The smells that came from the old oven seemed ten times better than when she used the modern oven in the regular kitchen. She slid the pies in and out of the oven on a wide, flat shovel-like wooden pole, similar to the ones used in today’s commercial pizza ovens. The fire smoke seemed to give the pies a different aroma and a wonderful, distinct taste.

Mama Talbot (my Grandmother) once told me a story about Annie and a beau that she had when she was nineteen or twenty-years old. He was a well-to-do German gentleman who sold farm equipment from Germany in the United States. He met her at our home one day when trying to sell Papa (my Grandfather) a tractor, and soon began to court Annie, with Papa’s permission, of course, for these were courtly times. At long last after an extended courtship, he asked her to marry him, but Annie, who was Father’s nanny at the time, wouldn’t leave our family and said no. As a result, she stayed with us for the rest of her life and never married.

I still recall the time, years after I had grown and left home to raise my own family, coming home from Vietnam to find that Annie had suffered a stroke and was in a nursing home. I took my new bride and went to visit her. We entered the home, and we found her resting in a wheelchair in the hall near her room. She could no longer speak or walk, but she recognized me as we approached and tears began to stream down her face. I clutched her hand and knelt beside her with my head in her lap as my own tears wet my cheeks and soaked into her gown.

It was hard for all of us to see this wonderful, vibrant, life-long member of our family fading away before our eyes. She left us a few days later. She was always there for me and the rest of the family, and she will always be in the hearts of us all.

* * *

In the late 1930’s Mom and Dad sang together professionally as a duet. They were in demand at many parties and sang together at different churches every Sunday to supplement their income.

Once in 1939 or 1940, they competed and won on the famous Major Bowes Amateur Hour on the radio. The Amateur Hour started in 1930 and was the most popular radio program in the country. It continued on TV as the Ted Mack Amateur Hour until 1950. During the Depression, thousands of people would come to New York City to audition for the program every week, something like American Idol. In the thirty’s, the contestants were broke and were trying to appear on the radio, but the thousands who lined up for tryouts mostly ended up in a bread line, as very few were selected to perform.

On the day they appeared, my Aunt Lala, Mother’s youngest sister, took me up into the attic bedroom of my Grandfather Booth’s house in Bernardsville, where she had a crystal radio with the wire antenna strung all over the ceiling of the attic. We took turns listening on the headset as Mother and Father sang. What a modern day delight it was in those days to hear voices from thin air!

At the end of the show, they were declared the winners and avoided the famous hook that Major Bowes used on the Amateur Hour to pull a bad contestant away from the microphone and off the stage.

My folks won a ten-week tour across the United States to visit and sing on local radio stations. Fame and fortune failed to follow, but they did get paid!

* * *

As I indicated earlier, the old, three-story house in Mendham dated back to the Revolutionary War. George Washington was supposed to have slept there. Papa Talbot, my Grandfather, had the home rebuilt in the 20’s. It was in a sad state of repair when he bought the old run-down house. It was termite infested with a roof ready to collapse. He modernized the entire house and after it was completed my Grandmother Talbot worked to have the home recognized as a New Jersey Historic Landmark Building.

The cellar of the house was my favorite place to explore. There was an old story that there was an underground tunnel that led from our house across the street to the neighbor’s home. The tunnel was supposed to have been used during the Civil War for the underground railroad helping escaping slaves flee the South. As I prowled the four dark and dusty rooms in that basement, I looked and looked, but never did find that tunnel’s entrance.

There were one-hundred fifty acres of land behind the house that stretched to the old Schiff Boy Scout Reservation, which was at one time the national training center for the organization. We had planting fields for vegetables and berries, an apple and peach orchard and a wonderful, dark and mysterious forest that stretched out of sight. Many were the days that I wandered those wooded-lands in seek of adventure, imagining that Robin Hood, Indians or the Lone Ranger was just behind the next tree.

My Father used to call in migrant workers in the summer to help with the harvest. We had acres of fresh, juicy strawberries, and a kid from next door and I would beg the pickers for a sample of their efforts. It was tough to get them to part with any as they were paid by the basket for their labor. We had two picking seasons, one for the berries and vegetables and one for the apples and peaches from the orchard. My folks ran a vegetable and fruit stand along the road and sold much of our harvest to motorists that passed by the house.

What a childhood. In the morning, I could walk out of our backyard into the fields and orchards and would have my pick of the best, delicious, dew-covered berries and fruit that we grew. Those days have gone for good and now it’s the A&P or Shop Rite, plastic bags and dried out produce.

On one section of the property, my Grandfather had built four clay tennis courts. He donated them to the town with the only proviso being that the courts would be maintained by the town. My Father helped to found the Mendham Tennis Club. I used to go there and watch my Father and his friends play. Whenever I came to the courts, I was warned never to walk out onto the clay surface when they were wet.

One afternoon in the late fall after the courts were closed for the season, a friend of mine, Clint Barnett, who lived across the street, and I ventured over to the tennis courts. It had been raining for several days and no one was around. Being the little jerks that we were, Clint and I sallied out onto the courts. They were so muddy that we sank in over our shoe tops. We gallantly trudged back and forth leaving a muddy, rutted trail. Strangely, our shoes and socks mysteriously disappeared, and we were forced to return home in our bare feet without them. We arrived at our homes covered with muddy clay from head to foot and I, for one, retired to my bed chamber for a welcome warm bath and a leisurely early supper in the kitchen with Annie.

For some strange reason, I was quickly identified as the culprit by my Father and suffered the indignity of a spanking and no radio for two weeks. Good grief! I missed the Lone Ranger, Hop Harrigan and Little Orphan Annie. And, it was the week that Little Orphan Annie was going to broadcast a secret message for the decoder ring I had ordered from Ovaltine. For you see, I was a Little Orphan Annie secret agent!

Later that night as I was lying in my bed contemplating the good and evil of this world, I could hear, through my open window, the yells and screams emanating from my friend Clint’s bedroom from across the street. Clint’s Father’s hands were larger than my Dad’s, and he sure must have gotten a tanning over our little escapade.

Clint and I were always investigating strange and wonderful places. Across the street, next to Clint’s house was Bockhoven’s Farm. Mr. Bockhoven used to run cows in our pasture next to our house. We were always sneaking over to his farm to explore in the barns and silos. I can still remember the smell of the fresh mown hay as we played hide-and-seek between the bales that were stacked to the roof in the hay barn. There were great tunnels between the bales, and we would spend hours on end at play.

It was fun to be there when they were finishing milking the cows. Some of the hired hands would give us a squirt of milk from a cow’s udder. If you were quick, you could catch a mouthful of the warm, rich stream before it soaked your shirtfront.

I guess Mr. Bockhoven considered us pests, as every time he saw us he’d run us off home.

One day instead of going over to the farm, Clint and I decided to head down into the woods. I had found a very exciting new toy for us to examine, and the diversion ended up saving our necks.

While taking a recent inventory of Father’s bedroom, I had come upon a German Luger (pistol) from World War I, as well as some cartridges for the weapon. I had sneaked it out of the house, and Clint and I took off. We were afraid to actually load the gun and fire it, so decided to build a small fire and throw some of the cartridges in to see what would happen.

While we were waiting for the fire to ignite the cartridges (and probably blow our stupid heads off), we heard the sound of fire engines roaring past the house. All thoughts of the gun were swept from our minds, and we rushed from the woods to see the spectacle, leaving the fire still burning. (I never did become a Boy Scout.)

As we neared the house we saw that the fire trucks were across the street at the Bockhoven’s farm. A great pillar of fire and smoke was clawing its way skyward, spewing sparks that were spread by the wind which threatened the other buildings of the farm.

Come on! I yelled to Clint, and we headed for the conflagration at a run to see the fun.

Suddenly, I heard Annie call out to me. Peter, you come here now!

Clint and I skidded to a halt, and then ran toward Annie who was standing on the kitchen porch waiting for us. As we approached, Annie cried, Give me that gun, Peter!

Much to my surprise, I was clutching the Luger in my hand that I had inventoried from Father’s room. I had run all the way from the woods forgetting that I still had it. To my regret, I never did get a close-up view of the fire that day, for Annie marched me into the house, a thoroughly chastened young man.

The incident actually saved me considerable embarrassment, for the next day Mr. Bockhoven dropped by and accused Clint and me of setting the fire. However, Annie was able to tell him that we had been in the woods that day and were then confined to the house. (Fortunately the fire in the woods that we had abandoned went out by itself and did no harm.)

* * *

For some reason, I had a penchant for getting in difficulty. I loved to go through things, taking inventory of course. Maybe I had a secret yearning to be a supply sergeant in the Army in a future life, and one day found myself in Mother and Father’s room once again. The place was like a magnet! They had great things to look at and, much to my delight; I found my Mother’s diamond engagement ring sitting on a table. I picked it up and put it on to wear, being the dashing young man that I was.

I went over to Jay Hogan’s house; who was a friend with whom I occasionally played. Of course, I took the ring along and promptly lost it. Mother discovered that the ring was missing that afternoon. And guess who she came to talk to about it? ME! Mister innocent— who never did anything wrong, for goodness sake!

We searched the Hogan’s yard for hours that day, but the ring was never seen again. Poor Mother, I don’t think that she ever replaced the ring. If ever someone discovers a diamond mine in Mendham, New Jersey, I’ll know they’re telling a fib!

* * *

Thinking about Jay reminds me of another incident. It was winter time and all of the ponds were frozen in our town. I had hiked over to his house through the ankle-deep snow. Jay and I were playing and had been told by his mother to stay in his yard, but that didn’t seem to matter to two adventurous youths. Somehow, we drifted away and headed for a mill pond behind his home.

We ventured out upon the blue-green ice, which was windswept of snow, and which appeared to be quite thick. However, where the black water went tumbling over the dam, the ice was thin. I, being the daring youth that I was, sallied forth toward the roaring water, when, low and behold, the ice broke and I was plunged into the icy depths. If you’ve ever seen the beginning of the movie IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE with Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy saves his younger brother from drowning in a frozen pond. That’s what happened to me!

I was floundering around in the freezing water, being pulled toward the edge of the spillway getting weaker and weaker from the cold. My boots had filled with water and, together with my sodden clothing; I was being pulled under despite my struggles to avoid my fate. Suddenly, a strange and powerful hand grabbed the back of my collar, and I was hoisted back onto the ice. A teenager none of us knew had happened by and pulled me out and saved my life. It was if God had sent my guardian Angel to keep me safe.

Soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone, Jay helped me back to his house where his Mother stripped me of my frozen, wet clothes, poured hot tea into my gizzard and called my Mom. Later, after driving me home, Mother went to look for the boy who had saved my life, but could never find him.

* * *

As with a childhood memory, winters always seemed to be much more severe back then than they are today. I can still recall a storm that trapped us in our snug home in Mendham for days on end. There was three feet of snow on the roads, and Papa could not get to the train to go into Newark to his office for nearly two weeks. Father and Mother had a difficult time just making their way down to the chicken barns to keep the chickens warm, fed and watered. Daddy had to shovel over two-hundred yards of pathways for the two of them to be able to reach the barns (all by hand of course, as there were no snow blowers in those long-ago days to help out).

The electric power was out for two weeks, and we used oil lamps for light. Boy, I couldn’t even listen to the Lone Ranger or Captain Midnight on the radio (no portable radios in those days). Our electric pump for the well stopped working too, and Father had to haul water up from the well house by hand for us and for the chickens.

As far as heat went, we had a coal-fired furnace and plenty of fireplaces in the house. Annie had an old coal stove in the pantry next to the kitchen and the Old Dutch Oven still worked. I guess we kind of lived like our ancestors did before the turn of the century. With our modern homes of today we’d be hard pressed to get along without electricity and water for such a long period of time.

We raised chickens in those days, and they were a major problem for my folks. The chickens ate a lot of feed and drank a lot of water and with the electricity out, the automatic feeders had stopped as well as the pump that supplied them with water. Mom and Dad seemed to live in the barns during the two weeks without power. The chicken barns were not well insulated. They were heated by kerosene heaters and if a heater failed the chickens in that barn would freeze to death. Dad was always checking on the heat, especially at night when the cold deepened. It was a tough time for my parents, but they and the chickens survived. Well, the chickens really didn’t survive that long, as they were soon processed to sell at the local butcher shop.

Winter weather also reminds me of the time when Uncle Carl nearly lost a part of his tongue when he was a young teenager. There had been a major snowstorm which left a foot or two of snow across the land. We owned a large, four-man toboggan that Daddy had in the barn in Mendham. My Daddy, Uncle John, Uncle Carl and Uncle Dave decided to go tobogganing.

There was a great hill over in Bernardsville that my Father knew about, and the four adventurous souls loaded up the toboggan in the car and set off. They arrived at the chosen hill, unloaded the toboggan and climbed through a split-rail fence that bordered the road.

The steep hill was covered with a deep white blanket of virgin snow. It was a good quarter of a mile descent to the bottom of the slope and would make a fast run. Near the bottom, was another split-rail fence with a fifteen foot opening that would allow them to pass safely through, or so they hoped.

The four adventurers aimed the toboggan at the opening far below, since there was no way to steer the thing as it would travel only in a straight line. Satisfied, the four brave hearts jumped aboard, one behind the other and pushed off with a great cheer.

The heavy sled quickly picked up speed. Halfway down the incline, they were moving at a terrific rate, throwing up a rooster tail of powdered snow in their wake that reflected the colors of the rainbow from the noon-day sun. Uncle Carl was the smallest and was seated in the front. It soon became apparent that their line of travel would miss the opening that they had planned to pass through by several feet. With a yell, the other three abandoned ship and tumbled off head-over-heels into the waist deep snow without mishap. Uncle Carl followed suit, but had waited too long and landed on a wind-swept part of the hill covered with only a light crust of snow. The impact caused him to snap his jaws shut biting his tongue nearly in two.

At the bottom of the hill, the toboggan crashed into the split-rail fence with a bang. It hit one of the fence posts head on and split in two, sending up a shower of wood splinters in every direction.

My Father, Uncles John and Dave rushed Uncle Carl to a local doctor who, thankfully, was able to stitch his tongue back together.

Upon returning a blood-covered Uncle Carl home to Granny Booth (my Grandmother) they got a taste of her wrath for putting a young boy in danger.

* * *

Father and Mother had started a large vegetable and chicken business at Grandfather Talbot’s place in Mendham, as I had previously indicated. The chicken barns were low, one story buildings and one in particular was used for hatchlings.

I remember that in that building were big chests with drawers, kept warm with light bulbs, in which fertilized eggs were kept until they hatched. The cute little, yellow fuzzy chickens were always a source of joy to us all when they pecked their way through their shells. As they grew, they were transferred to larger cages and raised for meat or for egg laying.

Occasionally, Mother would let me help collect the eggs from the hen house. I can still recall being chased out of the barn by a big, irate Rhode Island Red hen trying to protect her eggs, much to Mother’s amusement.

Mom and Dad worked many long, hard hours in the chicken house processing the birds for market. The business as a whole was a chancy one at best, as there were few medicines available then to fight infections in the birds as there are today. Several times they watched the majority of the birds die by the rapid spread of one disease or another. Or, the baby chicks would catch a cold and all perish.

* * *

When we lived in the big house in Mendham, before my brothers and sisters came along, I was the apple of my Grandmother’s eye, better known to me as Mama Talbot. She would read to me by the hour and, because