Author: patcamerino

After a year, my mother found it was no easier living with her mother than it had been with her mother-in-law and we returned to Niles, to the old neighborhood. Although there were other houses available in town, my father got along very well with Mrs. Andrews, the landlady who owned our old house on Cedar Street and who, no doubt, offered a rental he could easily afford, both in dollars and in the time he contributed taking care of her yard and repairing odds-and-ends around her own home. So, we moved into another house she owned that was previously rented by my music teacher on Seneca Street.

The front room, once occupied by Mrs. Corbett’s piano, was now filled with a red couch, stuffed chair, knickknack table and left-over dining-room chair. The adjoining room served as a place for meals, if relatives ate eat with us. The first floor of the house was completed by a small kitchen, yet one large enough for a table and chairs, allowing us to eat daily meals there instead of in the dining room.

The kitchen was equipped with a gas stove and a real Frigidaire. Refrigerators in lieu of ice boxes had now come into vogue for city living. The grandparents’ houses up-the-hill and on-the-farm had them, therefor my father could not complain too much about this modern appliance in our current home. Now my glass of water could have ice cubes from aluminum trays with a pop-up lever for releasing them. I could also make my own popsicles from flavored Kool-Aid and the flat sticks bought in the grocery store.

The usual pantry and sink adjoined the kitchen. Enclosed stairs from the kitchen led past a landing for the backdoor and down into the basement with its modern washer. We did not yet own a drier. Depending upon the season, wet clothes still hung on lines outdoors or in the cellar.

Access to the second floor was from the front room. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom with the usual claw-footed tub. The house, itself, had been built only three feet away from a two-story apartment building next door. The window-shade in our bathroom was consistently pulled down to preclude a too-intimate communication with our neighbors.

My bedroom gave a view of the Lincoln schoolyard. My desk was located so I could see what was happening outside at any time of the day or evening. Over the next four years, I spent many hours staring out that window and, on many sleepless evenings, listening to the moaning of the train passing through Niles to places I one day wanted to see.

The best feature of my room was a very low, but long, closet under the eaves that contained all of our out-of-season stuff, and a lot of my precious junk, including boxes of comic books my mother later discarded while I was away at college. The collection had been in mint condition, since I did not allow any of my friends to borrow them. My favorite, of course, was Mad Magazine which cost a mere dime! I sometimes wonder what Captain Marvel and Action Comics might be worth today.

Nothing physical had changed since I had left the neighborhood a year ago and reappeared at age fourteen. I missed the new friends I had found in the country. In both locations, no friends my age lived close-by. Nevertheless, in the Ridge the days at school and on the farm had passed pleasantly. I learned there was a difference between being alone and being lonely.

A Freshman in a junior high building designed for grades seven through nine should have a magnificent year. I could have been a top-dog and not an underdog or some sort of bottom feeder subject to the predation of upperclassmen. My own experiences do not confirm this conclusion.

The beginning of my freshman year in high school in Mineral Ridge had been great. I had been readily accepted by upperclassmen, even Seniors, as well as my fellow classmates. Returning to Washington Junior High School, I was a Nebbish, even if this word for my “nothingness” did not exist, at the time, in my vocabulary. This role may have been the result of my entering the ninth grade after classes had begun for the academic year. Although I had been at WJHS for my entire seventh grade, my absence in the eighth made me an invisible kid to my peers, only fourteen months later. My teachers welcomed me back. Once more they had someone to respond to the questions they posed. Maybe that was part of the problem.

The language of junior high had not yet included the word, geek, but the concept, none-the-less, existed. I gradually learned that the only way to turn geekdom into an advantage was to help other kids get through their own classes. At reunions many years after high school graduation, I was informed by fellow alums that they had made it through Latin only because of the ponies I had trotted out for them.

No doubt the content of the classes I took was relevant to my later studies, but I recall little about them or the teachers who taught them. I did like study halls. They were not overly supervised and so it was possible to whisper to others assigned to the same open-period. However, given my social standing, my own whispers were limited. I had plenty of time to complete my homework during school hours and, thus, free myself for other events after school.

Yet, there was little for which I needed the time I had earned. Although I knew the jocks who took part in under-varsity sports and I attended their football, basketball and track events in season, I never became part of the group who gathered around the popular ones. I was, also, not readily welcomed into other extracurricular activities and seldom thrust myself upon them in junior high. A couple of years later, I attempted to fit in with other students.

So, my freshman year slowly dragged on, making limited memories of what a dreary time I was experiencing. There were hopes that next year, as a sophomore in high school, things would be different. I would be moving to Niles McKinley High School. In this new location the size of the class would expand by our joining with kids from Jefferson Junior High, which served the other side of Niles. I recognized I needed to change, perhaps become more assertive in meeting new people. I knew the life being expressed during my freshman days could not be endured for another year.

When does the new year begin? For most people the answer is January 1. Not for me. For almost all of my life, the year begins in September, with the start of the academic year; it results from my time spent as a student and in my career in higher education.

Back in 1950, when I was fifteen, I looked forward to changes that would commence when the leaves turned to reds and golds. I was anxious to begin my sophomore year, the year of the “wise fool.” It was then that I transferred from Washington Junior High School to the 10th grade at Niles McKinley High School. It was supposed to have been a year of change, of improvement. There would be new kids to meet, those from the southwest side of Niles who had not gone to WJHS. And it worked, more or less.

This was also the time when my Journaling began. I had purchased a thin, brown, spiral-ring Engagements book. Each page had space for multiple days but little room for any extensive entries, which was actually a good limitation. The first entry I made was for Monday, January 1, 1951, halfway through my sophomore year. It read: “HAPPY NEW YEAR, family played Canasta ‘till 1 A.M., went to 12 Mass. About 5:00, Mom and I went to Camerino’s.”

Canasta was a family card-game I played back then, along with Hearts. My father and uncles were avid Pinochle players; I never learned how to play the game. Given that January 1 is a major Holy Day, back then called the Feast of the Circumcision, I had to attend Mass. An obligatory holiday dinner was mandated for going up-the-hill for the evening.

The entry for January 30 stated that for the first semester of my sophomore year I received 3 A’s and 1 B, but omits what courses they were for. My guess would be that the B was in plane geometry, since Miss Galster, who taught everything she had learned directly from Euclid and Archimedes, seldom, if ever, gave an A to anyone for any mathematical course.

During the first days of February, classes were cancelled because of a foot of snow. The cold I picked up led me to Dr. Williamson’s office for a penicillin shot, no doubt part of the reason I’m now allergic to this antibiotic.

Another entry that month indicated I was nominated for president of the sophomore class and that Bob Wick was elected. Bob was probably the most popular kid in high school; he was elected class president every year.

One of the items of interest was a trip to Kent State on May 5 to take the district test in Biology. A week later I learned I’d placed seventh in the northwestern Ohio district. The only real social event worth noting was decorating the gym for the Sophomore Class Party with the theme “Old Shanty Town.” Evidently I did attend and reported that I “had a lot of fun.”

Wednesday, June 6, 1951, was the last day of the year, once more I ended up with 4 A’s and 1 B. The notation for that final day included the statement: “Miss G was nice today.” The additional class was personal-use typing. It would seem, on rereading this Engagements book, that the year of the wise fool was less boring than I thought it was at that time. There may not have been events of any special nature, but I did survive it, being “alone” much of the time, but not feeling overly lonely, a true wise-fool.

“Nothing happened today” are very sad words for a teenager. Being an adolescent suggests something important must occur each and every day. Surveys tell us how young adults text, snap, tweet and message one another 24/7. It’s even essential to transmit photos of what they are about to eat.

Seven decades ago, technology did not exist to document these desires, these needs, but they occurred, none-the-less. Instead, personal events were recorded in diaries, a method going back to Samuel Pepys in the 17th century, if not even to the time when “all of Gaul is divided into three parts.”

My own efforts began, formally, on January 1, 1951, when I was fifteen and a sophomore in high school. Each day there were notations on classes I took and kids I knew; mostly on those I envied, because they always seemed to be “doing” more than I could and were involved with friends I lacked. My own life beyond classes and attendance at basketball games included movies I went to several times a week.

Visits from aunts, uncles and cousins merited comment. More frequently, I went to my paternal grandparent’s home, which I found to be very boring. There’s not much enjoyment in listening to full-volume arguments in Italian when you don’t understand the language, even if the body speaks very eloquently, especially during games of pinochle or hearts.

In addition to visits and battles with relatives, the entries included comments on stamps I bought from the Post Office or from the Jamestown Stamp Company. My other hobby was writing to foreign pen-pals in England, Germany, France and Sweden. What a treasure it would be if only I had kept them, the letters; I still have the stamps.

An even greater treasure would have been if I had made personal comments about worldly events, such as two occurring that fall. Without elaboration, I noted I had listened to the signing of the Japanese Peace Treaty in San Francisco on September 8. Shortly afterwards there was another note about the peace treaty talks beginning on October 24 at a place called Panmunjom , or as I had spelled it: Panmunjun. Instead, I was more inclined to record receiving the latest copy of Open Road, a monthly, teen-magazine, costing ten cents. How I longed for my own “open road!”

The beginning of my make-believe adventure is mentioned for June 26: “Keys of Murder.” An ageing, yellowed-page copy of this uncompleted mystery I began writing that year is probably buried in some box in my closet. Although events, personal and public, were occurring, they held no validity for me. As far as I was concerned, “Nothing happened today.”

In the teen-years to follow, this phrase became almost a daily reference in my high school diaries. There are days when the words were repeated in fancy twirls or strangely formed letters to fill up the vacant space. Back then, the unquiet reader in me wanted a life like the ones lived by Tom Sawyer, the Hardy Boys, and the heroes found in Ellery Queen mysteries, e.g., The Chinese Orange or The Siamese Twin.

Yes, events, real and imaginary, comprised my daily life. It’s possible to visualize them as fog, itself, or objects fogged in by other mists, being alone or being lonely, with all of life ahead of me or all of life behind me. The events of my life can be tasted, in memory, with sweetness or with bitterness. They may be salty or bland. Everything depends upon the truth of the conclusion: “nothing happened today.”

Before the days of Netflix and streaming videos, films were shown in movie theaters, the rundown sites for more than cinematic entertainment. Teenagers in the early 1950’s had to leave home if they wanted to participate in this visual world.

Although many teens were able to drive, I had to walk two miles to spend a few hours in the Robbins Theater, in the business center of town, or in the McKinley Theater, located at the edge of Niles. The Robbins, next to the Grill, our high school hangout, was preferred to the McKinley, even though its quarter admission was a nickel more expensive. Both showed double features; the Robbins had first-run films rather than mere Westerns. I usually went to the movies several times a week.

In January of 1951, I saw such stars and films as: John Payne in Tripoli and Howard Duff in Shakedown; Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in Summer Stock and Robert Young and Barbara Hale in And Baby Makes Three; James Stewart and Barbara Hale, again, in The Jackpot and Randolph Scott in The Nevadan; Bill Holden and Barry Fitzgerald in Union Station, along with Joan Davis and Andy Devine in The Traveling Saleswoman, a very good mystery and a very good comedy. The month ended with Mario Lanza in The Toast of New Orleans and Broderick Crawford and Glenn Ford in Convicted.

I seldom missed the shows on Wednesday; that was “Bank Nite” at the Robbins but not at the lower-priced McKinley. Between the two midweek films, the theater lights would be turned on, revealing a stage with ragged, burgundy curtains and a small, round wire-cage tumbler, wheeled out for the drawing of the names of winners from an original sign-up list of patrons. The prizes amounted to 5, 10 and 25 dollars for each of the three drawings. You had to be present in order to win; unclaimed dollars were carried over until next week’s event. The largest awards occasionally reached a final, magnificent bounty of $400. So those who came were often less interested in the movies, themselves, than in the chance to become a big winner. The intermission was not the time to buy another bag of ten-cent popcorn, those chewy kernels soaked in a yellow fluid held all of the buttery, salty taste one could consume and not be completely satiated.

“Bank-nite” was not the only method for increasing the sale of movie tickets and popcorn. Alternative evenings would offer free pottery, a different dish each week. It was possible to get six dinner plates and all of the dining accessories, including gravy boat, if you went on a regular basis, as I did. Not all enticements were free, however. In addition to bank-nites and dish-nites, opportunities were presented for the purchase of books, one or two dollars a piece, making up the current Collier’s Encyclopedia. My extended education depended, in part, on the twenty-volume set purchased throughout the year at the movie theater.

Netflix and other media sources provide modern entertainment, but the Robbins Theater offered money, dishes and an advanced education, all for a very reasonable price. You can’t get that by streaming productions onto your cell phone.

Summertime in my sixteenth year was boring. I tried to get a job at a local Isaly Dairy store and thought I might be lined up for one in Girard, a few miles from Niles. I never heard the reason why it did not turn out. I didn’t really try very hard to find anything else. Summer employment of teens in the early fifties in northeastern Ohio was scarce; all the openings were filled by young adults seeking full-time work.

I did envy my friend, George Davies, who landed a job as an usher at the Robbins Theater. It would have been great earning money instead of spending it there. I must have attended a movie three or four times a week. I’m not sure where I got the money for it, other than from donations from my mother, with a hope I might be there for bank-nite winnings. It certainly wasn’t from my father, who ignored me most of the time, or at least when he was not threatening my mother and me with financial or bodily harm.

I did, however, start writing my mystery novel that June. By the end of the summer I’d completed four chapters of The Keys of Murder. It was a locked-room mystery at a large country estate. I may still have a copy stuffed away in my closet.

I also spent hours working on my stamp collection. I focused on US stamps and made trips to the Niles Post Office. It’s a good thing each stamp cost only three cents back then. In the forties and early fifties, it seemed that the color of almost every stamp was a variation of purple-violet. I’m not sure why I collected stamps, other than FDR did. I did not know any collectors, personally.

I also had time for continuing my correspondence with foreign pen-pals. I wrote a letter to someone almost every other week. A friend gave me the addresses for two Japanese boys he was writing to, but my mother forbid me to correspond with any “Japs.” For some reason, “Germans” were OK. That summer my favorite uncle, Bill Moransky, did take his family and me to a baseball game in Cleveland when they were playing Detroit. The Cleveland Indians was the team to see in person or listen to on the radio. I seldom did either; my father was the one who listened intently to them on the radio and went with his buddies to the games in Cleveland.

On our return trip from Cleveland, Uncle Bill stopped at Nelson Ledges with its rock trails and a few caves where I felt like Tom Sawyer. Since then I’ve enjoyed the occasional chance I’ve had for spelunking in Pennsylvania and west Texas or in Mammoth Caves in Kentucky and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

Another attraction was to visit a shrine, a past-time my mother and her relatives enjoyed. Another uncle, Frank Borecki, took us along with his wife, Rose (my mother’s sister) and their son, Frankie, to Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine near Euclid, Ohio for the Labor Day weekend. I was able to escape the confines of Niles and the Mahoning Valley only on very rare occasions.

I felt a continuing sense of boredom that summer. Since then, I’ve learned I created my own boredom, as did many teenagers who expected the world will freely give them magnificent adventures, like the ones found in the books I read. Nowadays, they use virtual reality and X-Box games to attempt to eliminate that feeling. Nothing much really changes. My boredom was of my own creation, or my own lack of creativity.