A Charmed Young Life

By Richard A Moore

This is a story of growing up in a 'Leave it to Beaver' New Jersey neighborhood during the 1950's and experiencing the dramatic cultural changes of the 1960's, while in high school and collage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Moore
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781736231340

Book preview

1.

BACKGROUND

CALL ME ISHMAEL. ACTUALLY, call me Rick. I’ll explain in more detail as the story unfolds.

It all began on 7-27-47, a run of 7s which I have never really counted on as good luck, but makes me feel good every time I’m asked to repeat it. Good karma. If life is 50% luck, 40% hard work, and 10% sheer brilliance, then I have made the most of the luck part. Coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s was not a bad place to start. Yes, polio was still around in the ‘50s, it struck one of my grammar school classmates; and we didn’t have 250 TV stations, but growing up in the land of Leave it to Beaver and stumbling into the Age of Aquarius was a blessing.

I had the good fortune to miss the Black Plague, the Inquisition, the Depression, and two World Wars. I had the further good fortune of being born in New York City, the center of the universe, riding the post WWII economic boom and the migration to the suburbs. Also of major significance, I was a white male, when that was the equivalent of being born on third base. All this good luck, together with great parents, wise mentors, and good health, is almost embarrassing. I have tried hard not to mess things up.

Suburbia in the 1950s provided neighborhood schools you could walk to and vacant lots you could play on after school, all safe without adult supervision. Doors were not locked, and milk and eggs were delivered by the milkman to your front porch. But big changes were in the making. The car became king, chain motels/hotels sprang up, and McDonalds and rock and roll were born. Computers were being developed, first to fight the Cold War and put men on the moon, and then to be commercialized and change almost everything.

In high school, in the early 1960s, I could hang out at the local pizzeria, buy ONE slice for 25 cents, and listen to Walk Like a Man by the Four Seasons. In college, in the second half of the 1960s, I could still listen and dance to great music, get drunk, flunk physics, get drafted, and get a girl pregnant. The last one almost happened but didn’t. The others did.

2.

THE FAMILY AND 1950’s

BOTH MY PARENTS WERE only children. My father was fine without a big family and would say you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives.

I never knew my grandfathers, who died long before I was born, and both grandmothers died by the time I was 10 years old. We had a nuclear family, Mom, Dad, my sister Leslie, and me, with little talk of our family tree. The only two stories I remember were on my mother’s side of the family. Her father, Harry May, was born in Charleston, SC, which remained a great mystery to us northerners, and remains so today. Her mother’s maiden name was Schleiermacher, apparently related to the German reformed theologian and philosopher, Friedrich Danial Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834), although an e was lost somewhere along the way. There is a statue to Fred in an Austrian village that my sister once visited. Whether the ancestry is true or not, I didn’t inherit any of his intellect or passion for religion.

It would have all ended there, except my good friend Mike Hanlon was deeply interested in his ancestry and tracked his family tree to the Mayflower. He convinced me to get on Ancestry.com and track down my grandfather, Harry May, to Charleston. I did, but despite my best efforts couldn’t track Harry earlier than his time in Brooklyn, NY.

Mike took up the hunt and he too couldn’t trace Harry back to Charleston. He did however dig into my father’s side of the family and found that I’m related to John and Priscilla Alden, of Mayflower and Pilgrim fame. This beats Irish potato farmers, but when you find out that there are 35 million descendants from the Mayflower, it’s not so impressive, but fun to know.

Now for information I do know and care about.

My father, Lester James Moore, was brought up a Catholic in Brooklyn, New York. When he was born in 1909, Brooklyn had only recently been made a borough of NY City. Before 1898, it was the second largest city in the U.S. with about 3 million people. Brooklyn had a local paper, the Brooklyn Eagle, and of course a local ball team, the Dodgers. More on that later.

My dad went to Brooklyn Tech high school and then right to work for Consolidated Edison (Con Ed), the local power company. College wasn’t even considered in those days. In high school, he was president of his fraternity and a good but skinny second baseman who could turn the double play. He hit for average with few home runs and played for many years after high school on the Con Ed team, long before I was born. He also played basketball and had a deadly two-handed set shot that was the style of the day.

Dad hurt his back when I was young, so I rarely saw him play baseball, except once during a father/son ball game when I was about 14. He couldn’t run because of his back but made good contact and hit a few singles. I was proud of him. He wasn’t brilliant, but by every measure had a well-developed emotional intelligence. People liked and trusted him.

During WWII, Dad was in his mid 30s and as an only child could have avoided the draft. Nevertheless, he enlisted in the Navy and spent the last years of the war in the Pacific on a mine sweeper, the USS Brock. After the Japanese surrendered, the Brock put into port at Nagasaki, a month or so after the atomic bomb. Somehow, on leave, he picked up a Japanese rifle which he took home as a souvenir. It remains one of my treasured possessions.

On shore leave, likely against all rules, he took pictures which show the complete devastation from the bomb and, even today, take your breath away. He wrote captions on the back of each. One picture shows rubble as far as the eye can see, with one concrete building partially standing. In the foreground, a Japanese civilian is standing with his back to the camera relieving himself. His caption was Jap toilet. I have often wondered if exposure to the radiation might have been a factor in the lung cancer that took him too early at 56. Smoking unfiltered cigarettes might have also contributed (you think?!).

By all accounts, my father’s parents’ marriage was not a good one. The Depression was hard on my grandfather, who took to drink and became abusive. When my grandmother and father went to the local parish priest for advice and support, they were told: The man of the house must be obeyed. Simple as that, except it wasn’t the answer they were looking for. My father left and never again went into a church, except once when my sister, Leslie, got married. I understand.

His father died in 1940 from the booze, while my parents were on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. When he got the news by phone, he didn’t tell my mother because he knew she would insist on immediately returning for the funeral. Mom apparently had a plan to reconcile her new husband and father-in law. She was very persuasive in this regard, but never had the opportunity. It was sad to end that way, but Dad was a man of strong opinions and his father had burned too many bridges. He was also very much in love with my mother and wanted her to enjoy the trip. I don’t know anything else about my grandfather, because my father never talked about him. But more importantly, he did not repeat his father’s mistakes.

My father’s mother died when I was about 10, but I did get to know her a bit, though from a distance. We moved to New Jersey when I was 3 and Grandma stayed in Brooklyn. She didn’t like the suburbs and so didn’t visit often. She was a big formidable woman, at least from my point of view, and I never warmed to her -- likely because I was so terribly insecure as a little kid. The one defining remembrance is her coming all the way to NJ, on public transportation, taking me back to Brooklyn to see an afternoon Dodger game and then back to NJ. I think she stayed the night, although she didn’t like sleeping in the suburbs; it was too quiet!

As I mentioned, my father was a man of strong opinions; some would say he was to the right of Genghis Khan. Actually, I would have called him a compassionate Republican and if you read about Genghis Khan, you will find him to be a brutal general, but a brilliant, thoughtful, and inclusive administrator of his empire -- the largest in human history. He would have liked my father and vice versa. Dad did not like the Democrats and often associated them with creeping socialism. If FDR’s name came up at the dinner table, you knew you were in for a history lesson delivered with passion. FDR was not the hero in these lessons.

My father’s thoughtfulness, on the other hand, is best illustrated by what I’m most proud of, although I didn’t know it until after he died. After WWII, the ranks of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars were bulging. In our new suburban home in Cresskill, NJ, Dad was approached to join the American Legion several times and always declined. He never said why. You see, at the time, these organizations excluded Blacks and Jews, among others. He was not against organizations that had rules and criteria for acceptance based on merit or talent, but he flatly rejected racial and religious bigotry, especially given his experience with the Catholic Church. This was a progressive approach for the mid 1950s and one with which my mother heartily agreed.

It’s not possible to talk about my dad without including sports, especially the Dodgers. In my father’s day, baseball was king. Basketball was a distant second and football essentially stopped at the college level. For anyone who lived in Brooklyn, there were two religions: the formal one and the Dodgers. The 1950s were one of the most exciting times in baseball history. For most of the decade there were three teams in NYC and often there were subway World Series. The Yankees from the American League and either the Giants or Dodgers from the National League. There were only 8 teams in each league and the NY teams were always in the hunt.

In the early 1950s the Dodgers lost several heartbreaking series, some to the Giants in the National League race, most notably in 1951 when Bobby Thomson hit the home run heard around the world. But mostly it was the dreaded Yankees who broke your heart. I was too young in the early ‘50s to understand the game, but I could understand my father’s and mother’s despair when Dem Bums lost.

By 1955, I was part of the family cheering section and cut school the afternoon the Dodgers won the World Series for the first time in many years. I watched the final few innings at Doug Welty’s, because his house was closest to the school. We watched on an early black and white TV with a screen about 8 inches wide and a blurry picture. It was sheer joy to see it and not just listen on the radio.

Dad worked for Con Ed and they had terrific seats in all three stadiums, so we went to a lot of games. The best seats were at Yankee Stadium, right behind the dugout on the third base line. I didn’t realize how good we had it. But my most memorable game was a night game at Ebbets Field. The Con Ed seats were in the mezzanine over first base and given how small the field was, you were literally hanging over the first base coach. Great seats. The game in question was between the Dodgers and the St Louis Cardinals. It was a high scoring game, since by the 9th inning Stan The Man Musial (Cardinals) had hit three home runs and Roy Campy Campanella (Dodgers) had hit 2. The Dodgers were behind by 3 runs as they came up in the bottom of the 9th and people began leaving the stadium.

The Dodgers started clawing back, scored one run, and people began coming back to their seats. The crowd was going wild with everyone on their feet screaming. Dad, who wasn’t about to leave early, was one of the first on his feet. I was amazed at his enthusiasm and soon all four of us (Dad, Mom, Leslie, and me) were on our feet screaming. Campy came up again, two runs behind, two outs, and two men on base. Not to be outdone by Stan the Man, he hit his third homer and won the game. Today they call it a walk off home run. We were too hoarse to talk on the ride home, but this was the best of the best.

Those Brooklyn Dodgers, Campy (2), Duke Snyder (8), Pee Wee Reese (6), Jackie Roberson (5), Carl Ferrilo (9), Gil Hodges (3), Junior Gilliam (4), and Don Newcome (1) were The Boys of Summer so well described by Roger Kahn years later.

In the later ‘50s and early ‘60s, there weren’t many ball games on TV. One baseball game each on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Dad loved to watch, but I didn’t because of my short attention span. What kept me interested was Dad’s knowledge of the game and the things I learned while listening to him describe what was happening. He would start strong, but usually after a beer or two would doze off by the 3rd inning. Then I would go out and play.

When the word leaked that the Dodgers were moving to LA, the reaction was just short of the one after JFK’s assassination. It tore the heart out of Brooklyn. The agony was felt most deeply by Dad, but we all grieved. I understood for the first time how much Mom cared about the team.

Speaking of my mother, you couldn’t have gotten a better one. Althea Josephine May was a smart kid, skipped a grade, and graduated high school a year early. Her father died when she was 7 in an accident at work. He was a mechanic and a truck he was working on slipped off its support blocks and crushed him.

As noted, my grandfather, Harry May, was born in Charleston, SC and moved north presumably for work. My grandmother, Nana to Leslie and me, worked in a florist shop and my mom started working there to make ends meet after her father died. Mother was encouraged to go to college by her teachers, but it was out of the question financially.

After high school, Mom got a job at Con Edison where she met Lester. She was 7 years younger, which was common at that time. Today she would have gone on to college and been successful at whatever she did. You see, in addition to being smart, she had an even more well-developed emotional intelligence than Dad. She was a liberal Democrat who could have debated my father to a standstill, but wisely chose not to. She was much better at getting her point across in more subtle ways. She could see both sides and was an accomplished negotiator on domestic and other issues. Today she would have been comfortable and effective in the most delicate State Department negotiations.

When Leslie was in college, she would bring friends home for a visit. After a bit, the girls began calling Mom Big Al despite her small stature, as a term of endearment. It became clear that many of them felt more at home at our house than at their own. Mom was a good listener and was not judgmental. She respected everyone on their own terms, regardless of race, religion, nationality, politics, or sexual preference. She was curious, open-minded, and way, way ahead of the times, especially with regard to lifestyle issues. I took it for granted at the time, but it was quite remarkable. Leslie and I have benefited from her example.

Mother was involved in church and town affairs, including the Cresskill Board of Education. More on that later, but early on she got involved as a volunteer supporting the schools. As part of this, she arranged for a woman speaker to make a presentation to the PTA. I didn’t understand this until much later, but the woman was on the far left of the political spectrum, a socialist, and spoke as one. This horrified the more conservation section of the peanut gallery, and Mom got what amounted to hate mail. She had the courage of her convictions and the turmoil passed.

In summary, Leslie and I couldn’t have had better parents. They imparted their values by living them, doing the right thing when no one was watching, and prepared us to be responsible adults, even if we didn’t always measure up. They were, and always will be, our quiet heroes.

My sister, Leslie, was born in 1942 before my dad went in the Navy, and I was born in 1947 after he came back. My arrival didn’t sit well with Leslie, as it meant competition. The fact that I was a cute little redheaded kid didn’t help either. We fought pretty much from the time I could throw a punch until she left for college. Although there was much internal strife, which sorely tested my parents’ patience, the wagons were circled when there was a threat from outside. My sister was ready to protect me from schoolyard bullies at any cost.

Once she left for college, we buried the hatchet and became fast friends. Both of us were born in Brooklyn and moved to NJ in 1950 when I was 3. My only memory of Brooklyn was of Leslie catching fireflies in our postage stamp backyard on a hot summer night and smearing them to expose the glow. An exploitation of what little nature there was in Brooklyn at the time.

I recently visited the street where I was born in Flatbush, at the end of the D train. It hasn’t changed much in 70 years.

3.

CRESSKILL, NEW JERSEY

I WENT THROUGH SCHOOL (K-12) all while living in Cresskill, NJ. The 1950s was the first decade since the roaring ‘20s that people felt a real sense of optimism. Jobs were back, wages were increasing ahead of inflation, and the great migration to the suburbs began with the promise of your own house and backyard to enjoy the fruits of the American Century, a term coined by Henry Luce in Time magazine.

My parents followed the promise from Brooklyn to 103 Union Avenue, Cresskill, New Jersey. We moved in 1950 when the house cost $10,000. I don’t know what the down payment was, but the remainder was financed with a 20-year mortgage. I do remember my mother’s great joy in 1971, when the mortgage was paid off.

New Jersey and Long Island received most of the out migration from the city, with Connecticut in third place. My father never spoke of the move, but I often wonder how he felt about leaving the city. Like his mother, I suspect he was a bit bothered by the quiet, at least at first. That is to say nothing of the commute. He took a bus from the top of Union Avenue, 3 houses away, to the Port Authority on the west side of Manhattan, and then a second bus cross town to his Con Ed office one block south of the United Nations on the East River. And this was before the buses had AC. But he never complained.

On summer evenings, just before 5:30 pm, I would go to the corner and wait for the bus and we would walk home together. On really hot days the windows in the bus were open for some air and he would get off with his coat off and tie loose, which was more often than not, a bow tie. These short walks were the highlight of my long summer days. I would bring a rubber ball and we would play a crazy game of catch on the way down Union Avenue.

Once home it was dinner at the kitchen table, all four of us. Mom was a good cook, although that all escaped me at the time. Food prices were reasonable and there was always meat (not much fish), a potato or equivalent, and a vegetable. It was the last part I had trouble with, but the rules were clear about cleaning your plate. Leslie was OK with veggies and it was my constant hope that I could figure a way to transfer my veggies to her plate. One of the few cases where she would have put up with my antics. Sadly, I never figured out a plan that had a chance of working.

When it was just the four of us at dinner, which was most of the time, conversation was about the day’s activities and the weather, rather bland. My parents didn’t fight and if there