Author: patcamerino

Niles, Ohio is my hometown. At least that’s the response I give when asked the question. Technically, it’s not the place where I was born, although I often state, even officially, that it is. As noted elsewhere, I was actually born in my grandparents’ house in Mineral Ridge, when my own parents were living above a hardware store on North Cedar Street in Niles. For most people, their hometown is the foundation for their lives, often the place of their favorite memories. While this might be the site of my own foundation, it is not the focus of my favorite recollections.

Although I have alluded to several particular sites in Niles, perhaps an overall compilation would be useful, even if the locations are few. The central building found downtown is the McKinley Memorial with its library and auditorium. I spent many hours in the library while I was a student in the nearby Niles McKinley High School. The baccalaureate services for my graduation from Niles McKinley, along with other citywide assemblies, were held in this auditorium. The second floor, above the library, housed a memorial collection for William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United States, who was born in Niles in 1843. However, he spent much of his life in Canton, Ohio, where he was buried following his assassination in 1901.

Other than the memorial building, itself, not much about McKinley’s life and political career were evident in his hometown. His name was incorporated in the designation of other structures, e.g., the McKinley Theater, which showed second-level movies, and the McKinley Grill, next to the Robbins Theater, that served as a local hangout for teenagers. There was also the McKinley Savings and Loan, of which my cousin Fremont was later the CEO. A suburban division of Niles was McKinley Heights, where my mother worked in the local mall, built when I was in highschool.

The tallest structure downtown was the seven-story Niles Bank Building. I never went above the first-floor lobby where the tellers were located. Nearby, between the Niles Bank and the McKinley Memorial were the Post Office and the Fire Station. A block away was the Police Station. Several churches, including St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church, were commingled with other surrounding commercial buildings. The only other business building was for the Niles Daily Times, owned and managed by the Wick Family. The local department store, a few drug stores and furniture establishments were part of the downtown collection of businesses along Main Street and its primary crossings, State Street and Park Avenue. I do not remember there being a single restaurant among them. Other than the McKinley Grill, the only place to eat downtown was at the Niles Luncheonette and the Dairy Queen.

There may have been one or two disreputable bars on the outskirts of the downtown area, but I was too young to know much about them. The only comparable place I occasionally visited was the local newsstand/magazine shop which had its backroom I could not enter. I had to be satisfied with the covers on the open stands in the front of the store. I was led to believe the material in the backroom was for “adults-only.” I also understood this was, also, the place for “playing-the-numbers.”

Long before stateside lotteries or nationwide Power Balls were known, my father would choose three numbers he hoped would be called so he could win five or ten dollars, based on a twenty-five or fifty-cent bet. Almost all of my adult relatives played-the-numbers. My maternal grandmother used her dreams to determine, in some mysterious fashion, which three numbers she should play. Occasionally, the pot would grow, as a result of winless rounds, to be almost one-hundred dollars. I never knew anyone who won that much.

The southern end of Main Street was marked by the Viaduct which passed over the Mahoning River not far from its juncture with Mosquito Creek. The pavement consisted of red bricks which rumbled as cars passed over them. Their sound always assured me, when I was being driven home in the evening from relatives living in Mineral Ridge, that we were, indeed, back in Niles, and only a few minutes from our house. Under the Viaduct was the Train Station, which I seldom saw, except when Uncle Joe went off to war. I never had a reason to use the railroad system out of Niles. The Greyhound Bus Terminal was near by and more frequently used. On the north end of Main Street, on the way to Warren, was the General Electric factory where my Aunt Mary worked, making light bulbs.

The Central Park, on the outskirts of downtown and not truly “central,” was the only remaining feature of downtown Niles. The park had a pool and fountain, usually without any water unless there had been a rainstorm. There was seldom anyone in the park. This was a time long before the day of homeless sleepers and to-be-feared wanderers. Nevertheless, I usually walked rapidly under the trees as I ventured from my house into the downtown section of Niles.

Today, almost all of the buildings downtown are empty and boarded up. I would be more reluctant to walk on Main Street late at night now, than in the 1950s. Niles is truly in the nation’s “rust-belt.” Its current claim-to-fame, if there is any, is being the home of Congressman Tim Ryan, who has been a candidate for the U.S. Presidency. Niles is the birthplace of Number 25; it is unlikely to be the birthplace for Number 47.

School, itself, was not the major site for extracurricular past-times. For many classmates, hours were spent at the local YMCA. Before the tenth grade, for many young Catholics, this “Y” was out-of-bounds. The approved, alternative “Y,” Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, my local parish, was devoted mostly to the jocks. The parish priests, with their limited command of English, were not interested in catechism as much as they were in sports. It wasn’t until the year I was in tenth grade that the parish reintroduced religious classes for Catholic teenagers and a fuss was no longer made if we participated in events held at the YMCA.

I was not part of the gang of boys who hung out with the Mt. Carmel CYO. I did go with friends to the YMCA housed at Jefferson Junior High. This was my place for playing ping-pong, the only sport at which I sometimes was able to win a game. During my junior year, I was pleased to have helped design and build the group’s float for the town’s Halloween parade. I went to “sock hops” there, where I enjoyed myself even if I did not really know how to dance.

I did try to go to the religious classes held in the parish, but they often did not have enough participants for a session, and we would leave without beginning. I’m not sure if St. Stephen’s had the same problem.

During the late forties and early fifties, the separation of Mt. Carmel’s parish and St. Stephen’s parish was a result of classic, socioeconomic divisions. Mt. Carmel was attended mainly by those of Italian descent; St. Stephen’s was for Irish and wealthy Italians. Back then, St. Mary’s in Mineral Ridge was for the Polish, the third major ethnic group in the area, but their youth program was minuscule and not available for car-less teens like me.

In addition to supporting teams for church leagues and a place for teen-dances, my parish was also the site for the annual Italian festival, held in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, whose feast day was July 16. The days surrounding this date became the time for the major summertime, social event for those in high school, regardless of their religious background, as well as for many adults, even the Irish. Carnival rides, centering around a Ferris wheel, as well as the booths for games-of-chance and others for ethnic food like pizza or hard-rolls filled with fried-peppers-and-sausages, provided nine days of merriment in midsummer.

The only competition the festival had was the annual town carnival. The Niles-wide event had more mechanical rides than the festival had, and more games-of-chance, with larger stuffed prizes, even if fewer were ever won. One year, I came back with a gold-painted ceramic box with a mermaid sitting on the lid! I do not recall how I won her. For many years, she guarded my small treasures, even if my mother made me cover her with a white, plaster-of-Paris brassiere!

The Mt. Carmel Festival also had much better food and a more intimate atmosphere than did the town carnival. Nevertheless, the Niles carnival had a large, teenage attendance. Most of us got there on foot. The gathering was held on a field at the edge of town that much later became the grounds for the current McKinley High School.

Back then, it was safe to venture out in the evenings and walk to places that now would be of a doubtful nature for any sensible adult, let alone those in their teens who do not yet drive. Today it’s called “free range parenting” and often in large towns or cities parents may be fined for the illegal action of allowing their kids to venture forth on their own. In the fifties this was the only way to go.

My junior year in high school was more rewarding than I would have expected from my previous years in Niles. The classes that year were the beginning of what would become part of me for the rest of my life, even if I did not realize it at the time. Latin III was taught by Miss Evans, called “Birdie” by her students when a reference was made about her. The name came from the general view that she was somewhat “flighty.” Or nervous. Or easily distracted. Miss Galster was again the one for Algebra II and I could look forward to a B in this subject no matter how much I prepared. Mr. Scheler taught Chemistry, a subject I enjoyed, even with hydrogen sulfide experiments in the lab. Miss Campana, the most popular teacher in high school, had her own group of favorites, which I was not part of; she gave interesting takes on American history and current events.

Then there was the fragile-looking Mr. Bond, who taught the Speech classes. Technically, I was enrolled in Speech II, but the class had both juniors and seniors, the latter of whom were enrolled in Speech III. The class served as a substitute for English. For most of the year, we wrote compositions for debates and for individual forensic events. My own preference was for ex temp. Others chose humorous or dramatic declarations, which they wrote and delivered in class and for competition.

Extemporaneous topics came from current events found in news magazines. When in competition with students from other schools, I’d be assigned a topic on which I had to compose a ten-minute response. It was a valuable lesson on how to organize my thoughts. It also meant that, during my junior and senior years, I spent considerable time in the evenings reading Time and Newsweek in order to be up-to-date on national and international events. On a Saturday morning at a high school somewhere around Cleveland or Youngstown, I would learn if I had read the right articles during the preceding week. Since each school lugged its own magazines to every speaking event, those of us who competed in ex temp had access to recent copies of the articles from which the judges might have made their selections, in case we had not read the right ones. I became adept at scanning and speed-reading under pressure.

I was also responsible for maintaining my own debate box with its three-by-five index cards which had notes on the affirmative and negative sides of the semester’s regional debate topic, or “resolution.” I was assigned as “second negative” for my junior year but have forgotten what the resolutions were for that year. However, one year, probably my senior year, the topic did involve the future of the United Nations, an international organization recently formed in New York City!

Going to other high schools in northeastern Ohio each Saturday was challenging. For me, the “NFL” was the National Forensic League and a reference to my own inter-school rivalries, even if I never earned a varsity letter and had little interest in the “other NFL.” Each weekend I looked forward to seeing friends from other schools with whom I would compete.

The only disadvantage in taking Speech, rather than English, was this limited my knowledge of literature. We did not have the chance to read, in depth, “the great books” by American or British authors. On the other hand, there was a focus on grammar, per se, and on diagraming sentences.

The fundamentals of writing and practicing for debates and ex temp presentations allowed me, later, to pass the state entrance exam, thereby omitting a need to take Freshman English in college. Instead, I enrolled in courses in which I read short stories as well as classical plays. On my own, I read whatever students found to be currently available in the university bookstore. Liberal reading has had advantages over what might be limited to years of high school and college reading lists. I must admit, however, that it is even more rewarding, in today’s electronic world, to have on-line access, at no cost, for all of the classics ever written!

The most rewarding events of my junior year in high school were associated with weekends devoted to interscholastic debates and ex temp presentations in forensic competitions throughout northeastern Ohio. There were also new adventures in social settings. Although I never felt I was truly part of the “in group” of Niles McKinley, I really wasn’t completely excluded. I attended events on my own, and many times I was lucky enough to infiltrate existing groups and do some “riding-along.”

Riding-along was the mainstay of being an adolescent. My father refused to buy a car for his own use, let alone for a teenager like me. Since he walked everywhere he needed to get to, including his work in the local steel-mill, I had to do the same. He had his own driver friends who took him to gambling places. I should find friends who had access to their dads’ cars to get to places to which I could not walk. And so, I did.

I frequently went on ride-alongs with Scott Garrett, who was a close friend and closer rival. The word wasn’t used at the time, but “frenemy” would have been very descriptive, even then. Scott was the only son of the school superintendent for Niles. He was bright and we always tried to outdo one another in all of our academic work. Debate and forensic events served as a primary battlefield. He also played basketball, baseball and track, areas in which I was vastly deficient. Scott, also, had access to his father’s car and allowed me to join with him and his buddies, especially Bill Smith, when he thought the result would improve his standing in our competition. He later became a nuclear engineer in Seattle. Later, at high school reunions held every five years by our graduating class, we have said “hello,” but have never had a real conversation.

Back then, we were always taking opposite sides in most of the verbal interactions we had, even while driving. Our destinations were places like Hat-o-Mat or Isaly’s or that new place on Route 422, McDonald’s with its twenty-five cent hamburgers. Sometimes, a group of four or five of us would attend a movie at the McKinley Theater which routinely showed second-rate films such as House of Frankenstein or Jungle Headhunters. Audience participation was part of the fun.

Scott and I became members of the usual leadership groups such as Student Council and the newly formed Ductorian Society. Neither of us would be elected President of any of them, but we did vie for the lower offices in both the prime groups and the secondary ones, like Social Studies Council.

School-wide sock hops were the major sites for social gatherings. I would attend but usually volunteered to take tickets or do other busywork, so I did not need to have others notice I was not dancing. I had “fun” participating and being there, but usually wished I was “really” having fun and “really” participating instead of merely “observing.”

The year of 1951 passed quickly enough, and Christmas was upon me. Once more I received my Christmas present before the day actually arrived. That year it was a proper student desk, one I used throughout the remaining years of high school and college, when I returned home for vacations. It had a built-in clock! My journal has a note that my father gave my mother a can-opener and some candy. Once more, we spent the evening “up-the-hill,” where I received a five-dollar bill from Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe. I looked forward to the second semester of my Junior year, even to further interactions with my frenemy.

Modern technology, even if it wasn’t called that back in the fifties, came slowly into my house. My father saw no need for it. It wasn’t until January 1952, during my junior year in high school, that we acquired our own telephone! My father had no reason to communicate with anyone, except for an emergency, when he would ask Mrs. Andrews if he could use her phone.

There were, however, telephones available when we lived with his family “up-the-hill” or on my grandmother’s farm. Actually, the telephone on the farm had been of modest entertainment value for me. We had a party-line. Our phone was the classic “ring-two” variety. The entertainment value, of course, came from picking up the receiver, after hearing a “non-ring-two,” and quietly listening, making sure not to breathe loud enough to be heard by the true callers.

The telephone in our new residence in town had a semi-private line with Mrs. Andrews. I never listened to her calls! Our number, 1-9758, later OLympic 2-9758, was listed under my mother’s name, since my father still did not really want to be identified as owning one. I enjoyed calling others in my classes about homework assignments.

Television, the other major technology of the fifties, had been discovered by our relatives several years before my father found it. Occasionally, we would visit my uncles’ families (either Uncle Bill Moransky or Uncle Frank Borecki) and spend the evening watching TV with them.

However, the first television I saw, in person, was in the home of a professor at Kent State University when several of us high school sophomores went to the regional biology exams there. We stayed overnight and were housed by a faculty member who owned a two-square-inch television set! He invited us to watch it with his family. A flat magnifying glass was mounted in front of the tiny screen to allow all of us clustered nearby, very nearby, to view what was being telecast in fuzzy black and white images.

Development was rapid. My relatives all purchased stand-alone television sets with twelve-square-inch screens. We did not need to cluster as closely around the large piece of furniture housing the cathode ray tube and its fleet of tungsten tubes. It was not a great distance to walk from the chair to the set in order to change the channels receiving the signals from the local ABC, CBS or NBC stations. On the other hand, it was not easy for someone to twist the antenna to the correct position to minimize the fuzziness. Sometimes, one of the viewers would need to stand there and be part of the bunny ears.

My father finally allowed a TV set to enter our house during my senior year in high school. Our set was guarded by a ceramic black panther, crouched on top of the set, who concealed a dim light bulb, so we did not need to view the grey, washed-out images in complete darkness. In the late afternoons, my father watched baseball games, while he listened to the radio broadcast of what was being said about the plays he was viewing. Occasionally he might watch one game while listening to the radio broadcast of a different one.

My own tastes ran to such productions as: Lux Video Theatre, The Colgate Comedy Hour, Truth or Consequences, Red Skelton Show, Dragnet and Our Miss Brooks. I often stayed awake until the Indian chief appeared following the National Anthem. In the early years, his profile was seen about 10:00 p.m.; somewhat later, he arrived near midnight.

The third, new technology also came during my senior year, the window air-conditioner. The window frame in our dining room no longer housed a supplemental winter cooler for our icebox, which had been replaced by the year-round Frigidaire. Thus, the window-opening could now be used for the box that kept the downstairs of our house cool during the summer. On hot, humid nights in Ohio I had the choice of a damp breeze from an open window, while lying on a soft bed in my room, or a colder blast, while attempting to sleep on the hard floor downstairs. I also had to learn to doze off listening to the hum of the fan for the air-conditioner, a more consistent sound than that of an oscillating fan located on the second-floor landing that was intended to cool both bedrooms. Yes, modern technology gave me new options. I loved it.

Each Fall and Spring, a deep cleaning was called for throughout the entire house in which I grew up. The extent of the actions varied from season to season and year to year, depending upon the history of prior cleaning. Some actions might be delayed with an entire year or more in between. This was certainly true for wallpaper cleaning!

This significant cleaning event called for the purchase of new cans of the dough-like material that looked like, and to a certain extent, smelled like play-dough, that squishy solid used to form strange creatures and, when rolled flat, to copy comic strips from the Sunday newspaper.

Before it was used, wallpaper cleaner had the same pink color as playdough. Afterwards, it was a putrid gray, having been used to erase the grime from the walls in every room needing treatment. The hardened lumps were discarded at the end of the day.

Although cans of the cleaner had to be purchased annually, this expense was less than having to re-paper every few years, even if this practice was the full-time occupation for my grandfather, Luigi, and his eldest son, Joe. We could have purchased new wallpaper at cost. The labor, itself, was free, especially if my mother and father joined in the effort. When they did, I had the task of cleaning up the scrapes remaining from the cut rolls. This was a more limited role than when I was allowed to join the ritual of wallpaper cleaning. When I was very young, I could use a small wad for the lower part of the walls, being very careful not to leave streaks of leftover grime. For some reason, as an adolescent, I was seldom called upon to participate in the erasing.

Seasonal cleaning also included washing curtains. It was a recurring challenge to pin the wet curtains to the drying rack. Special care had to be taken to make sure that the cloth was stretched just right as it was tacked over the series of small pins surrounding the frame. A misjudgment required that the procedure be restarted from the point of the error. An ill-stretched, awkward appearing curtain was not acceptable for covering the cleanly washed window.

Another part of the seasonal event was removing every dish or knickknack from every cabinet, washing each item, and replacing it – often on new shelf-paper, unless it was the kind that was glued directly onto each shelf. Not all of the items were stored in permanent wooden cabinets affixed to the walls. There were a lot of stand-alone metal units which needed attention. Of course, there was also the weekly cleaning – dedicated to dusting and vacuuming floors with a Hoover that had a light on the front, no doubt so you could more readily see where the dirt was. For certain locations there were long tubes with a variety of attachable brushes in order to reach difficult places in corners and in the upholstered furniture filling the rooms.

Although not part of annual housecleaning, there was also the weekly, if not daily, use of the washing machine with its dangerous wringer for squeezing out excess water before hanging everything on lines – outside if the weather permitted, or from lines strung indoors. Washday could always be identified by the humid smell of drying laundry in the basement. Large items, like sheets or towels, might be ironed with a table-sized “mangler” – with its own even more dangerous revolving tubes through which the damp cloth was passed and steamed dried.

Kitchen appliances also required routine cleaning. Fortunately, unlike relatives who lived in the country and were not joined to a gas line and had to use kerosene stoves, ours was a modern gas one, using fuel piped into the house from a network of gas lines rather than directly from butane tanks. Although an electric range was too modern for us, we did have an electric refrigerator with a small, centralized compartment for ice-cube trays. There was no need for a freezer compartment, since frozen food was not common, although Bird’s Eye products could be found in grocery stores.

Not all appliances were large. There were toasters, for example, which opened in the front and back to reveal racks and heating coils for toasting bread. There was no timing-device; the user kept a wary eye on the process to make sure the finished product could be removed without being burned. Nevertheless, scraped toast was acceptable, especially with enough grape or apple jelly on top.

Another small appliance was the meat grinder that was attached by a screw device to a counter or tabletop. Decisions had to be made regarding the appropriate grid to be inserted to assure that the extruded meat would have the right consistency.

Although not part of the kitchen appliances, another small, electrical appliance needed constant attention. The radio. Actually, the radio tubes required attention. They always seemed to be burning out and needing to be replaced. Unless a variety of replacement tubes was kept in the back of a cupboard, a special trip to the hardware shop had to be made. Usually, several tubes were taken in for testing; it was not always possible to identify the burned out one merely by sight. Just because the glass was not black did not mean the tube was usable. Later it was equally difficult to determine which tube needed to be replaced in order to make the television set work.

In fact, when my father would become angry with my mother and me, his major counter action was to remove one of the TV tubes and hide it away until he had been appropriately appeased. We were never sure if the set was not working because of us or because a burned-out tube needed to be replaced. Whether or not wallpaper cleaner needed to be applied, was a much easier decision to make.

January 1952 began the second half of my junior year. Although I always kept expecting that the events of my life would improve, they really did not. My father still complained about my mother and me taking money from the cup which served as our home bank. We had no checking account; I’m not sure credit cards had been invented yet. Other families had arrangements for items to be placed on “lay-away,” until they were paid for and brought home. In our house, everything was truly “cash-and-carry.”

Our cash for daily use, primarily for the purchase of food, occasionally for clothing, was kept in a cup on the kitchen shelf. That January, like many before and afterwards, my father stormed that my mother or I had stolen his money from the cup. Since he did all of the grocery shopping, he knew when something was missing. Once more, he threatened to stop buying food for us. I’m not sure what the alternative might have been, but the words were emotionally abusive. Meanwhile, he saw fit to continue his gambling on weekends. It was usually cards, probably poker; he often lost several hundred dollars at a time. I never heard about his winning anything.

In my diary I continued to comment on my classes, especially my chemistry laboratory experiments and my reports, composed for my Latin class, on Roman life and culture. The orations of Cicero were the focus for this year’s translations. My love for things Roman began at an early age.

I continued to have a social life dependent upon transportation provided by a few friends, who, luckily, had cars for cruising Main Street and the avenues leading to Youngstown, where the new drive-ins were located. Weekend bake-sales were popular for ways to raise class funds for social activities; I had fun working at several sales throughout the year. My mother never contributed any products for these sales. She disliked any form of cooking; baking was at the bottom of her list. I attended the dances for the purpose of taking up tickets and observing the interactions of others.

My own romantic interests, actually “infatuation interests,” centered on Martha Smith, who was under the control of Don Castle, the guy she dated throughout high school and finally married – not happily from what I gathered, later, at high school reunions. I devoted many diary entries to recalling my conversations with her, as well as her (and my) arguments with Don. At the time, with my believing I had no chance of success, I could not understand any reason for his jealousy. Obviously, viewpoints were relative to personal perceptions.

My social participation continued to be that of a worker-bee. School-wide elections were held for students to run the city for a day. I served as the master-of-ceremony to organize the event and coordinate the gatherings for the election campaign speeches. I was disturbed, however, when several of my friends disrupted the procedure by tossing free bubble gum to the audience.

I had helped a close friend develop his own campaign speech to be elected mayor and was greatly annoyed when he disregarded our final form for an ad lib appeal for sympathy. He lost. The guy elected mayor was another close friend, an older student, who was also an amateur boxer. Anyway, I enjoyed being part of the political process.

I kept wishing events in my own life would improve, somewhat magically, I now recognize. I was busy with classes I enjoyed. I had friends whom I helped. I did not believe I, myself, needed “help,” but did desire “approval” and the “popularity” others seemed to have without much effort.

There were days when I walked across the bridge over Mosquito Creek, on my way to school, and wondered if I should make a sharp detour over the railing, but I quickly realized suicide was an unforgivable sin and no doubt my life would get better in the future. My senior year would improve, somehow. And then there would be college, somehow. My future did not depend upon what a kitchen cup might provide. A scholarship to Kent State would help. All I needed to do was keep doing what I’d always done.

Each spring there was an announcement of the junior-class boys who had been chosen to represent the city high school in the events of Buckeye Boys’ State. This year, the BBS would meet for a week at Camp Perry near Port Clinton, Ohio. The five selected by the local American Legion to represent Niles McKinley High School included: Scott Garrett, son of leading educator; Bob Wick, son of newspaper editor; Bill Trimber, son of City auditor; Dick Rader, son of American Legion officer; Bob Billig, son of councilman and industrialist; and Frank Mills, son of another leading industrialist. Dick Rashilla and Al Salerno, who were part of the same popular group of juniors, were conspicuously absent from the list. I, too, was not among the representatives for the “honor” of learning, first-hand, about state government. As “Rash” said to me: “We’re nothing but two little Dagos from the wrong side of the tracks.”

Martha Smith, who worked on the Niles High Crier, the school newspaper, heard this viewpoint indirectly confirmed by our Principal, Mr. Sharp, when she interviewed him about Buckeye Boys’ State. He maintained he had nothing to do with the decision made by the American Legion. I should not have been surprised.

Niles was home for three major ethnic groups: Italians, Irish and WASPs. The Italian Catholics of Mt. Carmel and the Irish Catholics of St. Stephen counterbalance the WASPs. I had not really appreciated the existence of the groups before my experience with BBS. During the school day and among fellow students, no ethnic distinctions were evident. My personal realization of such differences came from adults in the community in a strange way.

I was frequently surprised by the response I received when I was being introduced to an adult hearing my last name, for the first time. “Camerino? But you don’t look Italian.” I often felt they thought I was trying to deceive them in some way. This was not like the case with the two football players who were the only black students in Niles. They did not depend upon any deception to cover up our distinctions.

My only response to the statements given by these adults was one which I later thought was really insufficient, but I could never think of a better one, no matter how hard and often I tried. My usual reply was: “And neither does Wish-Bone Dressing.”

I still don’t have a rebuttal to the comment about my ethnicity, identified by name but not by appearance. At least the reaction people had was not as demonstrative as the one my mother experienced in high school. When the KKK learned, in the early 1900’s, that she was a Polish Catholic, they tried to throw her out the school window, at least that’s what family legend says. The Wikipedia entry for Niles confirms the stories of the religious riots led by the nativists that occurred there following the First World War.

However, politics have changed. My cousin, Fremont Camerino, served for 34 years as the President of the Niles City Council, and Mayor. Thirty-year intervals may allow for cultural and political changes. Wish-Bone Dressing may, indeed, be more than just Italian.

The classes I took during my Senior year continued in the classical, college-bound tradition. I had a newly assigned homeroom, the place where the day began and ended, where announcements were received over the intercom system to inform us about the day’s schedule of events.

Trigonometry represented the mathematical offering for the Senior year, as interpreted by dear, cranky Miss Galster. Actually, she did mellow during the year; I finally received an “A.” This was, after all, to be her final year of teaching.

Miss Evans continued to have us translate Virgil’s Aeneid and learn about Roman culture. My ponies were still greatly welcomed by others in the class.

Mr. Lamb taught Physics and I managed to become his star pupil. The class, except for Scott, saw no problem in my grading the quizzes he popped and helping them understand the correct answers.

A new class was “Driving,” with Mr. Davis as the instructor. Strangely, there were only three boys and about thirty girls in the class. Apparently, boys learned earlier from their fathers. For me, it was a case of “hope-for-the-distant-future,” since my father did not own a car and there was no likelihood he would ever buy one.

Public Speaking, the substitute for English, was again led by Mr. Bond who placed me on the varsity-team of four for weekend competition in interscholastic debates. For extra credit, I gave not only the morning student announcements on the school-wide intercom system, but also, the play-by-play summaries at home football games. That too was fun, even when the on-off button didn’t work on the microphone and a handkerchief was used to block, one hoped, the lively comments of Dick Rader, the fellow-student who served as spotter and relayed to me what was happening on the field. If he could have been heard, his color-commentary would have proven to be highly interesting but un-broadcastable.

From time to time there were special assemblies. One I mentioned in my diary entry for October 16, 1952, was with a Lieutenant from the Naval Reserve in Warren: “He pointed out the advantages of signing up with the Reserve. It might be a good deal, but not for me. I intend on waiting until they draft me and hope I don’t come out too bad. I have to serve at some time or another. Hell, is life worth anything in this day and age? You work in school and college to get an education. Then you go out on the battlefield and get killed. Why spend all that time studying? Why do we have wars anyway? Why can’t we live in peace? Someday I’ll see to it that we do. The adults of today and yesterday made a mess out of everything. It looks as if it’s up to us to straighten it out. That is, if we are still alive about twenty years from now. Anyway I hardly think we can make a worse mess of it.”

Feelings really don’t change, do they? Adolescents wanted to change the world, but we failed, as have the many generations before us, and, no doubt, as will all those who will come forth in this third millennium.

At least we didn’t have to be fearful of high school shootings.

Some of my reflections have been based upon recollections stimulated by entries from my diary for the year 1952. Here I’ve transcribed a few direct statements from this source, with minimal editing. At least they give an idea of how I felt and wrote some 70 years ago.

Wednesday, December 24: Tonight was Christmas Eve and as usual we had to go “up-the-hill.” Mom and I had a boring time listening to them gab in Italian. To pass away the time, we played Canasta and then Fish. Mom gave me a radio-clock for Christmas, but what a way to present it. As I was getting into bed, she decided to plug it in. Half the enjoyment of receiving a gift is the manner in which it’s given. Christmas gifts should be wrapped and put under the tree on Christmas Eve and opened on Christmas morning.

Thursday, December 25: What a Christmas Day this was. I spent the day in my room learning Russian and studying English literature. [I had bought a Berlitz book on Russian, having decided I wanted to learn Russian on my own. The extra work on English literature was to make up for the deficiency due to taking Public Speaking in place of formal English.] What a way to celebrate a holiday. I think the ideal way would be – on Christmas Eve to sit around the tree as a family and sing carols. On Christmas morning after Church, should come breakfast and then opening of Christmas presents. Christmas should be a time of love, but around here it is far from that. Of course to “him” Christmas is a time to fill up his stomach on Christmas cookies. He has been yelling because she didn’t bake. But why should Mom bake when he throws stuff around?

Tuesday, December 30: Again, I was a scholastic hermit today, since I spent the day in my room studying and listening to the radio. Of course, he’s at it again. Yes, he’s on another financial warpath. Why is it he always gets hot at this time of the year? It seems that every year around January first, he blows up about approximately the same thing. I guess I will never learn to understand him. I only hope that I shall never become like him. One reason why I am keeping this chronicle is, if in the future I ever tend to become like him, I can re-read this and return to humanity. So, the main reason is to read this book and become a better father to my son or daughter, for I don’t want “shem” (sic) to hate me as I hate my father.

Wednesday, December 31: And so ends the year of 1,952, Anno Domini; the year 5,712-13 for the Jews; 1,372-73 for the followers of the Prophet Mohamed; 2,612 in the Japanese era; and 2,705 years after the founding of the City of Rome. At times it has been a boring year, at others to be an interesting one. Still it’s one which I would not care to relive. Life is but a long row of rooms in the house of time. We enter a new room each year, never to go back and unable to look ahead. Each room contains both joys and sorrows which we examine upon our one-way journey. Others travel through different rows of rooms but, in this maze, the room paths often intersect. Thus, we share the joys and sorrows left by Fate when she built these walls of life in the house of time.