The Extraordinary Life Of An Ordinary Nobody

By Robert Charles Murray

This is a story of a man living an ordinary life, or so he thought. But reflecting back after seventy-five years, he realized how extraordinary it really was. He knew, like others, the answer to any question is always no until you ask the questions. In high school, his dream was to become a famous DJ. He was a DJ at the time but never really that famous. Then he wanted to be a TV celebrity. He worked in TV but never became world famous. He wanted to become a captain for a major airline, he managed to become a private pilot and that ended there. He wanted to be a meteorologist, study severe storms, hurricanes, and typhoons. He wanted to study all kinds of severe weather, maybe work for the National Hurricane Center. He studied these things, but never worked professionally on it. He had the same dreams of many young men and women. That's how his life became extraordinary. It's all in the book and all 100 percent true. Enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636928975

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The Extraordinary Life Of An Ordinary Nobody

Robert Charles Murray

Copyright © 2021 Robert Charles Murray

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-63692-895-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63692-896-8 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63692-897-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

A fun, fatual, concise, complete, entertaining, and true account of an ordinary nobody’s life, where extraordinary events made it very special and all worthwhile.

This book is lovingly dedicated to my aunt, Virginia May Murray.

Virginia passed away at the age of ninety-one years on December 14, 2015. During her life, she was completely dedicated to everything she did or undertook—as a private secretary to the president of a large company for whom she worked over forty years, to the man she loved over that same period who passed long before her, and to me as a rock that kept me on the straight and narrow for more years than I can remember. I think of her often and look up to her for guidance occassionally because I know she’s not only watching, but I can almost see that finger she’d point at me sometimes, saying, See, I told you.

Preface: Extraordinary Life

Extraordinary Life

When I first floated around this idea, including to myself, why are you writing a book, the answer always came back the same: isn’t everybody?

Seriously, what with today’s political climate, books are literally flooding the marketplace. Politicians and lawyers seem to own the required reading lists. I’ve read a few. Then, as I was starting the early chapters, I thought this might be a great time to actually write something not based in partisan politics or legal mumbo jumbo, that is a true story of real events that actually happened over many years. The many incredible, some even odd events, were clearly unusual for one single person to actually experience in a single lifetime. Not only that, a book like this would certainly be different than the climate of the day. Again, everything on the following pages is absolutely 100 percent true and at times, even in the more serious times, would provide a bit of comic relief as to just how things came together in most every incident. Wow, that sounds like a potential best seller if I ever heard one. That will be up to each and every reader. Let’s get started.

Chapter 1

I

n the Beginning: The First Ten Years

1944–1953

September 18, 1944

My mother received the " Okay to launch ," or so I was told, just before midnight; and so off she went to the Truesdale Hospital in Fall River, Massachusetts. She later told me the next five and a half hours were easy compared to the next fifty or so years that followed. Mom was always joking when the opportunity presented itself, I think.

September 19, 1944

I was born this morning, they said the sun didn’t shine. AM 5:27 was the official announced time. This was the beginning of the extraordinary life, but I didn’t know it at the time. As you will see, I didn’t really realize or understand how extraordinary it would be until well after it was, like now.

We lived on the top floor of a two apartment complex at 425 Cherry Street, Fall River, Massachusetts. This is right across the street from BMC Durfee High School, where my dad attended and graduated in the 1930s.

He went off to the Navy to meet his two-year military obligation to service. Back then, if you didn’t volunteer, you were going to be drafted into the Army. So he did his civic and military duty and joined. He went overseas and left Mom with me. You know, I really hadn’t given that much thought as to why until now either. When he returned, he went to work at a mill plant office. Smith and Chase Electric, it was called and sold electrical supplies from wiring to light bulbs, to home builder companies and electrical contractors. He cleaned up, no kidding, in those early years; but it was with a broom, starting at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder as an intern sweeping floors and literally cleaning up, as I said. Slowly but steadily, he climbed to the top of that ladder.

He was determined to be a success at anything he did in those years. Indeed, he actually ended up buying and owning both companies several years later.

He’d take me to work occasionally to show me off and, to be honest, show me what he thought should be my future in the electrical contracting business. He was determined there as well.

I can say that with surety because I remember him saying that many times. He was sure we would follow in his footsteps, if not me, my brother, who made his debut in 1946.

Those years were pretty ordinary with a few interesting exceptions. The most notable thing, I guess, that I remember in those days was the Coca Cola machine where one could put in a nickel and get a glass bottle of Coke. Dad also had an ample supply of candy bars in his desk. Mr. Goodbars they were called, milk chocolate and salted Spanish peanuts, an absolutely delicious combination, also five cents each in stores everywhere. The good news is they are still available in some stores. The bad news is they are no longer five cents and about one-fourth the original size. But at the time they were big enough to share with at least one other person.

Another in the office memory that I cannot forget were two other warehouse employees: Eddie, the size of a longshoreman with the grip and hug of steel; and Norm, much slighter, lighter, and not as able to squeeze all the breath from your body when he saw you.

Not far from the Plymouth Avenue office were the Saturday visits, quite common, and always looked forward to after the office visits to a little store on Stafford Road in Fall River that featured a stunning array of penny candy that was actually a penny.

The bad news is that little store is no longer there. Even more bad news would be that, if it were, the candy would no longer be a penny. Those days, as we say the good old days, unfortunately are gone forever.

I was later told I was vaccinated from all the childhood diseases of the time and still managed to come down with, I guess, mild cases of all of them and others as well.

As my father climbed the corporate ladder, so to speak, each rung produced larger paychecks.

This is when the experiences outside of Fall River began in earnest. It was 1949, and at the ripe old age of five, my brother had joined the family. He was three, and we all went to New York City for a long weekend. We did the tours, of course. Everybody that went there did them, I guess, in those days.

Looking back, I remember more than perhaps many five-year-olds might. There was the trip to the UN. That was okay. Then we went to the Empire State building, and I’ll never forget the elevator ride from the first to the eighty-sixth floor, which took exactly fourty-three seconds. Yes, two floors a second. When we reached the top floor, my heart, lungs, knees, and feet were still on the twentieth floor. That was not only impressive but scary as well. But I survived; we all did.

Next was a trip to the NBC network television studios where there was an experiment in the works with color television. This was also the place where the hit children’s show Howdy Doody was broadcast every afternoon at 5:00 p.m. Buffalo Bob Smith was the star and host with a cast of puppets, and even some real people entertained daily. There was Clarabell, the clown that didn’t speak, only honked; the Indian princess called Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring, on whom I had a wicked crush at five years old, mind you. Dad thought we’d get to be on TV as a member of what was called the peanut gallery. Come to find out, the waiting list to do that was about a month long or more. Then one morning we all rose at the crack of dawn to be a part of the window dressing, again at the NBC Studios, Today Show (still on the air today). The star back then was a fellow by the name of Dave Garroway. For whatever reason, he came outside and walked right by me, tapped me on the top of my head, and said hello to dad. That, I was told then, was the big deal of the day. It was a great trip, and as you see, even at my tender age, I recall most of the highlights.

But all these things must come to an end at some point. So home we went after four very memorable days in the Big Apple. I can’t help but wonder at this very early stage how many of my experiences you folks my age or close to it also remember?

At five years life was pretty good. I was attending school at Sacred Heart Catholic grammar school. My brother Bill came along as I mentioned, in 1946, and a sister, Kathy, late in 1949. She almost became the firstborn in Fall River on January 1, 1950. That would have been a really big deal, I guess. Gifts galore from many local merchants, baby formula for life, that sort of thing, always awarded to the firstborn in any New Year. But I said almost. She was like six hours earlier than her reservation. Oh well, stuff happens. I thought life was getting a little crowded at our house, but as it turned out, Mom wasn’t done yet. But that’s for later.

Back at grammar school, we had sisters, Catholic nuns to be exact, who in those days dressed like penguins that all of us boys used to joke about. They were as tough as they needed to be, sort of like Marine drill sergeants that could get your attention with a smile and a foot-long wooden ruler or a Ping-Pong paddle. I know that for a fact because I was on the receiving end of a Ping-Pong paddle in an attitude adjustment exercise in the principal’s office on at least two occasions that I remember.

Back in the late forties and early fifties BE (that’s Before Elvis), we had two exercises on a regular basis. The first was the duck-and-cover exercise that the entire city participated in when one was called. This was all in case some country, like the Soviet Union, who was always mentioned as the culprit of choice, decided to drop a nuclear bomb from one of their planes that had somehow managed to find us in Fall River. They were infrequent drills but also something you can’t forget. The other far more frequent were the school fire drills and that horribly loud, eardrum-piercing sound, the klaxon horn alarm, that could cause hearing impairment if you didn’t cover your ears when you were in the vicinity. They scared the hell out of me initially, to be honest and truthful. But being a boy in whatever early grade in school, you could never let that be known, for fear on instant ridicule by the other boys for sure and especially some budding young lady a row or two away that you had your eyes on more than the blackboard at the front of the room. I just hated them later on because they all occurred without any notice, well, to us students anyway.

I became fascinated by two things in these years: one was flying and, of course, I was determined to become a pilot for a major airline at some point in life, like when I reached ten or twelve, I thought; and music, especially 78 rpm records. Do they jog a memory or two? Thought so. Naturally, I was going to be a radio star and celebrity as well as a pilot.

I had a pretty fair collection of these 78 rpm ten-inch records, two of which I played incessantly to the distress of my father. One was a recording of Once in Love with Amy by Ray Bolger. The other was a song called the Happy Wanderer by a group called the Wanderers. Both were one-hit wonders. Go figure. There were others: Tennessee Ernie Ford, who started this narrative in a way with 16 Tons; Wheel of Fortune by Kay Starr; God Bless America sung by Kate Smith, who also had a TV show in those days. Finally, Doris Day with Que Sera Sera and Patti Page with How Much Is That Doggie in the Window. Those were all my favorites.

My plane fascination was with the then New England airline, Northeast Airlines, and their nineteen-passenger DC-3s and the forty passenger Convair 440s that flew from New Bedford to Martha’s Vineyard in twenty minutes flat at the then breakneck speed of 130 miles per hour. My grandmother lived on the island; so I always had a built in excuse to go there and, of course, always wanted to fly.

In the later part of the first ten years, the one-way fare for the flight was $9.00 (yep, nine dollars). You don’t even want to know how much it is today.

Believe it or not, I accomplished both, becoming a DJ and a pilot. That too is for later.

Dad climbed another latch or two on the ladder to now office manager and with that came a pretty significant increase in salary.

That raise became a new single-dwelling home, and shortly after that a brand-new car, where the well-to-do people lived in the city’s west end. The car became the talk of the neighborhood for a week or more. It was a Mercury Montclair, all white, a convertible black roof, with an encased spare tire mounted in a black metal case on the extended rear bumper with the word Montclair written on the encasement. At the time, clearly a statement, one had arrived, so to speak.

Now we had a driveway and a one-car garage, but Dad always parked the car on the street near the front door of the house. Even I was old enough to understand why.

I got into sales, even in the early fifties as well, collecting old magazines pretty much from anywhere on our block and around the area and attempted to resell then for at 60–90 percent off to the neighbors, just in case they missed that issue. My price for each was determined on the condition of the periodical and on my developing skills to let’s make a deal, of course, and also on how fast I wanted to get rid of them. No reasonable offer was refused. I think it was about an even split between being a sales genius for the idea and a neighborhood pest for ringing doorbells in midday.

So it was in the years 1944 to 1954. The one other memorable thing was Hurricane Carol in 1954. Much later on, I would marry a girl named Carol, who also became a hurricane in my life. That too is for later on, but I can say today I had two stormy periods in my life, one in 1954 and the other in 1974.

Okay, on to chapter 2. Impressed yet? I hope so, just from the recall. I keep thinking about that basement full of books!

Chapter 2

Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll

1955–1959

Iwould have thought this might be a pretty short chapter, to be honest, because in the grand scheme of things, like a lot of ten- to fifteen-year-olds, I was essentially caught in the cross fire between what parents, particularly Dad, thought my life should be like and me experimenting with everything from record collections, in my case a rather substantial one. In my case, it was basically from the moment the seven-inch 45 rpm records came on the scene to more interests overall than one could possibly imagine, I think. I was going through all the phases of life one experienced back then. I think many at the same time, if that’s even possible, then along came the best one of all, going through puberty and, oh yes, discovering girls.

I wondered for a while what was it that exactly happened in these years that was influential, spectacular (as there will be in other chapters), or, quite honestly, even interesting to write about. Well, as it turns out, pondering can be revealing, and these days I had plenty of time for that. But I had to actually work up the desire to do so. Then as I struggled to make notes, oftentimes over several days, not putting a word on paper, just alone, in a quiet room, waiting for inspiration to happen. Suddenly, all these years came roaring back to life.

I did think about it for many days. I finally realized that these might have been the real formative years of my future life’s work, desires, needs, wants, ideas, you name it. I now think this actually showed me a pathway to my future, if not completely, a great start for sure. One major event that initially I thought a waste of my time and their money and everything else was my parents’ decision to buy a used upright piano, find a piano teacher with the patience of a saint, and ensure that I would become the next Liberace. But in hindsight, I now understand why they thought, in fact, became convinced, that my interest in music dictated that piano lessons were a natural progression, I guess.

Liberace burst on the scene with a weekly television show I simply could not get enough of. I was absolutely fascinated by this very flamboyant yet extremely polite, soft-spoken gentleman, who literally made this eighty-eight-key instrument do anything, play anything at the speed of light, or so it seemed, and never missed a note.

The only one that didn’t believe that after a painful two years of practicing an hour a day and not progressing to the concert halls of the world was me.

Well, I can say I tried, going on two years and the second book of John Thompsons piano course and more. I started to lose interest when I realized how much practice was involved. But I have to give the parents an A for trying.

Once we all realized that their insistence and my resistance would never find common ground, the somewhat imagined pain and suffering ended. I bid the piano teacher goodbye. I wonder to this day who was more relieved by it all and could not imagine what might be next. I would soon find out.

This came in short order in the form of ballroom dancing lessons each and every Friday night at the New Bedford Hotel. Once again, resistance to their wishes proved futile, and I grudgingly at first accepted my fate, all in the name of cultural training. Well, it was here that I met the very first love of my life. It was here I found Donna. You see, part of the training was that all the boys all dressed up in a white shirt, tie, and sport coat, gathered roughly thirty to forty-five minutes before the start of the Friday night classes in a hallway like area above the ballroom. All the girls gathered in a room at the end of that hallway. It was the boys duty and responsibility to ask one of the ladies to be their date for the evening.

The singer Richie Valens had the first few words certainly of his huge hit absolutely right. I met a girl, Donna was her name song came out right about the very same time and has a special place in my memory to this day as a result.

After three or four weeks, I couldn’t wait for Friday nights to arrive. We learned the waltz, of course, the tango, the mambo, the cha-cha, and whatever else.

Most of the time I really had no idea of what was going on, sort of like my feet were on autopilot, I guess. I was too busy watching and being with her. It was as they say puppy love, and I chuckle to this day recalling those days as one sick puppy.

Of course, the fifties were most marked by the birth of rock and roll. An 45 rpm records had an A side and a B side and sold for from anywhere from seventy-nine cents to ninety-eight cents depending on where you bought it.

Elvis became the superstar