CHAPTER 2

My Earlier Years

At the time of my birth at Norwegian Deaconess Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, Mom and Pop lived in a house in Midlothian, Illinois. The house was on a street topped with white rocks. During the first adventure I recall I dashed across the street in front of an approaching car. I excelled at this, but one day, my very small puppy who followed me everywhere, was not similarly skilled. Pop replaced him with a large Airedale bitch that later berthed 13 pups.

The first day I went to kindergarten, my hands were pried from my mother's hand. At lunchtime, upon opening my lunch box I got my first scent of a ripe banana.

Mom divorced Pop during his hospitalization due to his race at the train crossing. Uncle Sammy, the second youngest brother, found me a haven at a Catholic church "Our Ladies Academy" in Mantenoe, Illinois. My dog, pups and all, were given away.

I was incarcerated day and night, as far as I was concerned, beginning at age 5. The first night while a nun put me to bed in a dormitory, I cried. I wanted my Mommy. I started first grade there and probably finished 2nd grade there. I was obstreperous. I fought a classmate in a gymnasium, and got whacked on the knuckles with a ruler in classes. During a spaghetti dinner I made a fuss over something I found in my food; it was during the Epiphany and a Nun smacked me. I had found the prize that I considered a lump in my food. I made a fuss, not knowing that it had been put there on purpose.

During my first year at Our Ladies Academy I contracted diphtheria during an epidemic. My throat was swabbed with iodine and I spent a week on my tummy with a needle in my back. Kids in my ward were moved to one of two places; those who would live and those who would not. When it was diagnosed that I would live I was moved to the survivors’ ward where I celebrated my sixth birthday, had visitors and got presents. Toys that were brought to me were played with that day, then taken away and burned.

At age seven I went to live with my Mom. After Pop recovered from his injuries he would get me some weekends. My first recollections of weekend visits with Pop included going to the movies. We saw “Squaw Man”, the first talking movie; the cost of admission was 5 cents for 10 cents and me for Pop. The next time we saw The Jazz Singer with stereo glasses, the red and green kind. We had to leave early, probably because one or both of us did not enjoy the show. Visiting with Pop at a restaurant one day he bought me my first piece of blueberry pie and we chatted with the waitress. The waitress, Katie, slapped Pop's face when she found out he'd taken me to Starved Rock, Illinois and stood her up on a date. So, I got up walked over to her and slapped her face. Katie reminded me of that for over 60 years. Katie was 16 years old when she and Pop married and he became her third husband. She later became my second Mom. On another weekend, Pop took me to the beach at Hammond, Indiana and asked me if I knew how to swim. When I said I could, he picked me up and threw me into the water. It was over my head and I learned right then and there that fiction was not fact.

At age 7, Dad took me for a day and we went to Riverview Amusement Park, near Chicago. I rode on the world’s highest Roller Coaster, at his urging. I got a headache from that and have not since been on a roller coaster.

At the age of 8, during a visit to my Dad, he took me to a huge factory building in Harvey, Illinois, where he worked. He handed me a .22 caliber single shot rifle together with ammunition and asked me if I wanted to hunt. I said yes and he loaded the rifle. I quickly shot at a bird sitting on a roof truss. I missed the bird but not a window. The first instruction I can recall he that ever gave me was then. He said, "Outside, hunt outside!" He then handed me a .22 air rifle as well, said, “Have fun” and I left the building with a .22 caliber rifle and an air rifle.
I went into the countryside where I met another boy who invited me to go frog hunting with him. He said we needed jars so I said I would go ask Pop for some. At the age of eight two guns were heavy for me so I asked him to hold the air rifle. I returned to find no one, a fact that I sadly reported to Pop. That began a relationship during which Pop demonstrated courageous patience with me.

During this time my mother and I lived in one-room apartments with Murphy beds. One of our neighbors had two daughters. Betty Curtis was five and her sister was seven years of age. Betty Curtis was the first girl I ever kissed; we hid behind a couch but her sister caught us in the act. We moved shortly after that.

Mom was bitter about Pop. The next place we lived was in a big building and I learned to play marbles. At the next place we moved Pop brought me my first bicycle. He also brought me a real baseball uniform, once worn by Zack Taylor, acquired for me by Uncle Harry Slonaker, Aunt Besse's husband, who was in boys’ welfare work. The first day I wore it I kneeled into some doggy-doo and Mom threw it out. She refused to wash it. When he gave me a wooden replica of a Tom Mix six-shooter she smashed it when she first saw it. The six-shooter had been acquired from Ralston-Purina Company. It cost some box tops and a dollar. She trashed a Mickey Mouse watch he gave me when I showed it to her.

I was pretty jumpy in those days and by improving on a nervous habit learned to wiggle my ears; either one or both. I also liked chocolate, which almost killed me. I ate a box of Ex Lax TM one day and among other obvious symptoms I turned almost blue by the time my mother got me to the doctor.

Mom or Dad put me in another private school, Sherwood School for Boys on Chicago's north east side. At this school I took French language lessons, music and piano lessons, danced in small pageants, and played a bird whistle and cymbals in a band. I played “ America the Beautiful ” at my only piano recital.

Taken to a nearby beach one day I got into a fight. My opponent was a sore loser and later when I was not looking, hit me with a thrown brick that blackened both my eyes and knocked me out. My mother came and consoled me and treated the resulting black eyes. I think they expelled me as I went back living with my Mom.

Dad took me to visit Aunt Besse who lived then in Logan Square often. She would baby me and feed me milk from a ceramic cow with a spout in its mouth. Uncle Harry Slonaker once took me to Boys City, where he was a co-founder, and I got my first meaningful civics lesson at that time although it did not sink in until many years later. Dad took me on many weekends and we interacted with his family.

Uncle Jack ran a pool hall in Chicago and his son Bruce; Billy and I went there occasionally. This picture from left to right shows Uncle Bisco, Bruce, Billy, me and Uncle Jack. It was one of few days when my knickerbockers were not sagging near my ankles; a chronic condition that vexed Aunt Besse.

My mother did try to nurture me. She bathed me, washed my hair with Castile soap, had me photographed and tinted the photo herself. She gave me milk money when she had it. My mother bought a $500 insurance policy from Prudential Insurance Company at a cost of $2.00 per month. This premium was paid by her, then my father, and finally by me until the policy matured and I cashed it. The money came in at a financially critical time in my life.

Mom and I moved just about every time the rent came due, from one area in northeast Chicago to another. We lived near Montrose and Gault, 6400 North Sheridan Road, and State and Superior. I went to Joyce Kilmer School, Eugene Field Elementary School, and Northview grade schools. At Eugene Field the school provided me milk and some lunches. This caught the attention of a fat bully. He mouthed off to me and I did to him. So, I also had to learn to fight and win, or else, because although I was fast and I ran, I felt running away was not dignified. I stopped, turned and punched him until he cried and went away.

While living near the intersection of Montrose and Gault Streets, the Chicago Outer Drive was being built at the far edge of a temporary man made lake. I went fishing there once and was forever hooked on it. My partner, another ragamuffin, and I caught nothing but were given a perch by a man that day. One winter day, I fell through the ice and into water up to my neck. I had to be rescued. The man who saved me took me to a heated shack near the edge of the lake and somehow contacted my Mom. She had forbidden me to go out on the lake. Mother had to leave work and come get me. She demonstrated anger as she usually did but was quite solicitous

One day, the G-Men chased gangster Pretty Boy Floyd down Montrose Avenue past the corner where I lived. I heard the chase and looked from the 3rd story window to no avail. But I later saw the car, bullet holes and all, garaged for a while at a nearby corner garage. He was later found murdered in a road culvert near Detroit. Rumor had it that the Touhey gang, notorious in its day, had performed that act of public service.

Dad provided child support money, except once when the banks were closed. I usually got a hard earned nickel for milk money, which I most often converted to pennies for pinball machines or to shoot dice. I also had sticky fingers in a minor way and skipped school a lot to listen to our radio, even when I had shoes. One song of the times was “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter”; it impressed this lonely kid. I discovered that being at a movie was the perfect place to escape from my troubles.

Mother worked as a commercial artist, tinting color on to black and white portraits, painting miniature portraits on to ivory tablets and retouching black and white portrait plate glass negatives. She previously worked as a milliner. Aunt Besse blamed the fumes from the millinery for her mental lapses. Having seen her parents beaten to death probably contributed.

The picture of me here, at about age 10, was one she tinted. One wintry day a kid and I played the “run in front of the car game” on an icy street. I fell with my legs to a sitting position in front of the left front wheel of an oncoming skidding car. Not able to rise in time I swung my legs around scant inches before they were run over. The driver, aghast, stopped with his car door abreast of me and tried to speak, but I was able to rise and run away. I finally stopped playing that game.

Mom rented an apartment on Pratt Avenue near Sheridan Road, about 6400 North. The landlord, Mr. Slater had a son with whom I played. I also stole his watch. Around the corner on Sheridan Road, the 400 Theater played the latest movies. I saw “The Lemon Drop Kid” and “Turn Back the Clock”; both starred Lee Tracy and or Jack Haley. I also got hooked on Buck Rogers and Tarzan movies there. I had milk money and school time to spend.

Soon the rent came due again and we moved to a very low rent district near downtown at State and Superior streets .I spent most of that summer with no shoes. While living there I saved up a dime, skipped school and went to the “ State and Lake”, a downtown theater. On stage were Dave Apollon and his Harmonicats. He told a joke which I remembered and had the opportunity to repeat to him in Los Vegas more than 30 years later.

Mom smoked Old Gold cigarettes, so I did, too, when I could find them. She got real good at hiding them. When I found a flat pack behind a couch cushion I took one or two and smoked them. She got frustrated and finally beat on me with a two-foot tall ashtray stand. I was badly bruised and after that got more careful. Mom tried to get me to go into a synagogue, but unsuccessfully. She did drag me within a half block of one but after I broke away and ran she gave up.

In 1933 Dad gave me and I proudly wore a pair of high top boots with a pocketknife scabbard built in to the top, high style for boys at that time. The knife had a small compass in a stag bone handle and I proudly wore the boots and displayed the knife. One day at school I got into a dispute with some boys, over baseball cards and I was sent to the office of the school principal. The principal confiscated my knife and I was heartbroken as well as in trouble. Within days someone had broken into the principal’s office and stolen a few things. Several days later I saw a boy with a knife just like mine, except the glass lens over the compass had been broken. I took it from the boy by force and was again sent to the principal and suspended from school for a week. As a result, I missed a week of arithmetic that accented long division. I never saw that knife again. At home alone, I perfected a game I had developed from dice, which I also used for shooting craps. I had some baseball cards, one of KiKi Cuyler, one of Lon Warneke, both Chicago Cubs players. With 9 baseball cards placed as fielders around an imaginary ballpark, and a few “batters”, I rolled the dice. Different numbers resulted in different actions. For example, two 1s are a short single, 1 and 2 a long single, two 2s a double, a pair of 3s a triple and a pair of 4s a home run. Other combinations of numbers became double plays, groundouts, fly outs and strikeouts. I played that game for years.

Mom decided to go to California and visit some relatives. We took a Trailways Bus and a week later there we were. We walked into a small restaurant in East Los Angeles, probably on Brooklyn Avenue where one or more of her relatives cautiously received us. One of them had a menu in her hand and revised it as we visited, near the rear of the restaurant. If I recall correctly, they owned the restaurant. We stayed a few days and went to New York where Mother found some work. We stayed all month at the Stratford Arms a block from the Empire State Building. During that month I was never at loose ends but got into potential trouble from some “put-and-take tops” that stuck to my fingers. I also wandered around, walked many long blocks, and explored the Empire State Building.

In 1933, to forestall a run on the banks, President F. D. Roosevelt had all banks closed for about two weeks; a moratorium. During the bank moratorium, Mom, with me in tow, went to Detroit to get some money from Dad. Later she put me on a Trailways bus in Chicago sent me to Detroit a vacation with Dad and Katie (nee Rosa), who had become Dad’s second wife. When I got to Detroit I went on a nice vacation with Katie and Dad. In 1935 we went to New York to visit Aunt Besse and her hubby, Harry Slonaker. Uncle Harry and Aunt Besse took me to a restaurant, the first ever I could recall. I was allowed to order a chicken dinner but when it arrived I could not eat it. I had filled up on bread, water and salad. A high point of my trip to New York was a visit to Coney Island with Uncle Harry Slonaker and Dad. At one booth they both shot with a pistol at a ball that bounced up and down at the end of a rubber string. Uncle Harry fired the first shots hit it nine out of ten times. Dad fired and hit it ten out of ten times. At another booth they fired a submachine gun, one shot at a time with the objective to shoot out a small black spot with 3 shots. Dad seemed to do it but a fragment of paper or a figment of the imagination of the carny prevented him from getting a prize.

Uncle Harry later took me to a Boy’s City club house, showed me the facilities and gave me a microscope which many years later I gave to my cousin Lionel He had grandchildren; I had none and no hopes for some at that time. As Uncle Harry and I walked down the street, in step, we were photographed by a street photographer and solicited for payment. Uncle Harry paid the photographer and got the picture. Many years later it came to my family as a family memento.

We returned to Detroit. Dad drove a 1934 Airflow DeSoto auto. On the way back we were cruising down a mountain road at about 90 mph and a small Ford convertible passed us as if we were standing still. Dad he decided to see how fast his Airflow would go. Just as we neared a 100-mph somewhere in Pennsylvania, we passed an intersection. There stood a police officer standing next to his car, with his hand in the air signaling us to stop. Dad speeded up and was not apprehended.

After I was delivered to my mother I was told she was planning to move to back to New York. I did not want to go back to New York. I had just been there so at age 12 decided to live with Dad and Katie. When my mother went into the bathroom to take a bath, I packed what I could into one suitcase, took a taxi, and went to Dad’s apartment in the Monticello Apartments House in Detroit. Alma La Casse, the desk clerk paid the taxi driver and let me into their apartment where I hid out in the bathroom, waiting for Dad and Katie to return. Mom got there first with the police. Dad and Katie arrived only minutes later. After much ado, including screaming and accusations of kidnapping, the police took me to a detention center, also known as Reform School. Dad protested to the extent that he wanted to spend the night there with me.

Reform school was a degrading experience. I was stripped naked and examined by 2 old men; one of whom asked me personal questions. (I was not molested but many years later considered that had been a possibility and that the questions were of a sexual nature.) After I showered and dressed in a uniform we marched to a dorm room. We walked from place to place in formation. Formations were in strict single file and when I turned my head, once, a line monitor hit me in the side of the face.

Mom packed up and left and I never saw her again. (She did write to me for several years but on the envelopes wrote insults about Katie and my father.)
Dad bailed me out, and I lived with him and Katie in a one-room apartment at the Monticello Apartments (later to be renamed the Renaissance) on Jefferson Avenue near the Detroit River. I learned about sharing. When Dad's friends had no place to stay, they stayed with us. During the Renaissance in Detroit the Hotel was renamed the Renaissance Arms. I first met Jerry and Louise Webb there; they bunked with us at least once. Dad and Katie had friends named Mrs. and Mr. Mac Callum, Myrtle, and their daughter, Lorraine. He was a guard at the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel. Lorraine was a freckle faced redheaded girl about my age. She was probably pretty as was pointed out to me on a regular basis. I was jealous of her. She got a lot of attention.

When I started school in the 6th grade in Detroit I had to take a special phonetics course to eliminate my Chicago street accent and nasal whine. Barstow Elementary School had a population of 95 percent black kids, a few Sicilians, and me. The Sicilians were the toughest. One of them, in a confrontation laid a knife against my throat and at the same time explained the playground rules to me. Shortly thereafter, Dad decided I should go to a safer school in a better neighborhood. Katie got deeper into the job as my second mother.

The Renaissance Arms building is 3 stories high and each has a center hallway. People left empty bottles on the back porches at the end of each hallway. Many had paid deposits that they ignored so I salvaged the bottles and redeemed them. Each Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle brought me 2 cents. Dad gave me a couple of “Indian Head” pennies, which he advised me to save. I did until I had five and then spent them. When given a rubber stamp set I produced several editions of one-page newsletters, which I foisted on visitors for a nickel a copy. The subject matter was about fictional birds with names like “Ima Parrot”, “Red Robin” and “Nutsy Sparrow”. I soon realized I had no future in this business.

I found a job and worked a week in a local grocery store, filling and delivering grocery orders. I cleaned the onion bins; old onions stink. The owner paid me five dollars a week. I quit after one week.

Dad, in his pre-enlightened days, was prejudiced against people of the N word persuasion. Other things I learned, as I played near with "River Kids" like J. R. and Dougie Banks included a strong sense of survival and fair play. One exception was when I took a dollar from a stack of bills on Dougie’s mom’s dresser and proclaimed to Dad and Katie that I had found it. After a 3rd degree by them which included going to a field to show the exact place where I claimed to have found it under a rock, the matter was dropped and I was allowed to spend it. I bought a pair of roller skates.

Dougie and I were the only two non-black kids in our group of 4 to six. We usually avoided fights, especially when outnumbered. Dougie and I played a lot together. His mother treated me kindly. During the 1935 presidential election primary Parkyakarkus, a popular comedian on the Eddie Cantor Radio Show, “ ran” for president of the U.S. Dougie and I rigged up a six by 2 foot cloth banner on two posts. We drew “Parkyakarkus in the White House” on it, and paraded it up and down Jefferson Boulevard on weekends.

The apartment house is near the factory, Oroxo Grinding Wheel Company where my Dad built machinery for the owners, Doc Meyers and Victor Schaeffer, a German scientist and German-American engineer. Oroxo Co. built grinding wheels and also pioneered tire-retreading technology. Doc Meyers sported a dueling scar on his cheek from Heidelberg University, a souvenir of a rite of passage during his college days. Victor Schaeffer had owned the factory in Harvey, Illinois where my father had worked when he tied the train at the crossing. Mr. Schaeffer had paid all the hospital bills and living expenses for my Dad and me.

Next door to Oroxo and on the corner of Rivard and Hastings Streets a Gulf Gasoline service station gave “Archie and Veronica” comic books to customers on Friday. After school, usually on a Friday, I often walked to the factory and stayed around until Dad went home. He and I would shower and he told great stories and sang songs. Once while we showered with one of his friends, Jerry Meyers, he warned me about “dropping the soap”. I learned to look forward to Fridays. A Seagram’s Distillery Company office across the street seemed to be a magnet for burglars. One day a robber, a Negro, made a near fatal error and broke into the Oroxo premises. Dad was working late, caught him, beat him severely with his fists, broke the man’s arm and then called the “cops”.

We moved to Third Avenue, near Selden Street, in a third floor apartment overlooking the alley. A retail shop occupied the first floor. One day I came home to be informed that the store directly below our apartment had experienced a great deal of water damage because I had left the water in the bathtub running that morning. A sign in a barbershop window proclaimed a barber’s union strike and the price of haircuts went from 10 to 25 cents.

I enrolled in Jefferson Intermediate School, loved shop and developed a crush on my 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Nelson. The shop course instructed us on how to repair light fixtures, make and solder electrical connections, and run a metal lathe, a milling machine, and a metal forge. I made a metal ball-peen hammer and a screwdriver. A classmate, Bob Nadeau, from Louisiana, had a head of blonde kinky hair and interesting behavior patterns. He also told some tales of a sexual nature, which involved Negro girls and vowed that a man was not a man, until he had “done it with a Negro girl”. My cronies surmised that his Daddy probably could prove his own manhood based on Bob’s mulatto features.

I tried singing and liked it probably because a girl who lived on the second floor, liked to hear me sing. She was very sweet, my age, and had only one arm. Her last name was Schilling.

I made friends and we played games in the alley. The games included hopscotch, “kick the can”, “baby in the hole”, “baseball move up”, and “hide and seek” AKA as Ole Ole Ocean Free. I also skipped rope. The neighborhood kids boxed with gloves in the alley, at one time or another. We also had some plain alley fights. Katie had told me to stop fighting or "do not come home". One day one of three brothers of the Monroe family and I fought over something. My previous fights were defensive or obligatory but this was different. For the first time I felt angry enough to want to hurt so I did some damage. Then I had to fight his bigger brother and then his younger and much smaller brother, in that alley. It resembled a marathon. I was sure that Katie heard or was told, their parents were the "landlords". I hid out. At ten P.M. I had progressed to the back porch of the second story. We lived on the third story. By eleven o'clock that night I was hungry so I climbed the last set of wooden steps and went in. Nothing was said; I was fed, and went to bed.

Most of the boys had rubber band guns, especially after had Dad made me a rubber band gun. The projectile was cut from the inner tube of an automobile tire. Tubeless auto tires had not been marketed to the general public. We kids had great rubber gun fights. Then, Uncle Ruby, using a band saw made one from a plank and shaped it like a Thompson sub-machine gun. He gave it to me. This made me the envy of the other boys and irked one mother. Her remark that I was too old for this kind of shenanigan became a memorable moment in that it hurt my feelings. That had not happened before. My feelings had been pretty well encased.

We had a neighbor, “Red” Hill, his wife and infant son. Mr. Hill was an official in a labor union. The little boy died, at the age of two, during a tonsillectomy. He failed to recover from the anesthetic. Red’s wife committed suicide rather than go to a dentist. I earned my first whole dollar at one time from Red by photographing his wife as she lay in a casket.

Shortly after that I was permitted to start as a street salesman for the Liberty Magazine. I tried it for a week and switched to Saturday Evening Post. Curtis Publishing Company also marketed Ladies Home Journal and Country Gentleman. Each week, as I met increasing incentives and goals of Curtis Publishing Co., I got bonus prizes. As we moved around Detroit I kept my old customers and hot sales spots by returning to those areas the days of publication. This meant a lot of after school travel except for vacation days. I roller skated most of the time but when the load got larger, pushed a wagon. I traveled from six to 10 miles per day in this fashion. I wore out many pairs of roller skates. The metal wheels covering would wear down to the wheel frames and as they went “out of round” became unusable. The applicable term at the time for this condition is “hot boxes. One day I peddled my magazines from apartment to apartment and knocking on doors or making deliveries to regular patrons. I went down a fire escape to go to a lower story and was accosted by a seemingly pleasant tall man, who hinted that he might throw me off, unless I gave him my money. He got it all, $1.39.

On the first two days after I received my magazines I delivered to my regular customers. The next day or two, in the evening, I went to Vernor’s Ginger Ale emporium a few blocks from the Detroit River at the corner of Jefferson and Woodward Avenue. People would drive up, order a cream ale for a dime or a glass of Vernor's Ginger Ale for a nickel and drink in their car. One night I got there and a boy was doing my thing. I ran him off, by force.

In 40 months, starting with six Posts a week, plus five Journals and two Country Gentleman a month I worked up to 135 Posts each week (50 over quota), plus 35 Journals and 10 Country Gentleman each month. I received almost every prize offered including the final prize, in 1940, an offer of a $1,200 scholarship loan for a college education. Other prizes included a baseball glove, briefcase, football, and boxing gloves. When I won a wood lathe with a three-inch throw and a 12-inch bed, Dad provided an electric motor and a bench.

Back to the 1930's. We moved to a nice apartment near Wayne University on the other side of town. We enjoyed a reasonable prosperity. It was about four miles from the shop but it was a more peaceful area. In the mid 30 s Wiley Post and Will Rogers were killed in a plane crash in Alaska. I sat on a street curb and felt very sad for them. The depression was in full bloom. Dad had a job. Money had value. Tomatoes were three pounds for a dime, corn cost ten cents a dozen, bread five cents a loaf, a burger a nickel at White House, and a dime at White Castle where they also sold a plate of chow mien for a dime. Dad had a car and we took vacations. On most Sundays we would drive to Belle Isle and get an ice cream with a fancy cone for seven cents. Gasoline cost a dime a gallon and there were few taxes. In Economics class the teacher declared air and water classified to be free commodities. Vacation trips included Hastings, Hell, Crystal Lake, Kalamazoo, and Bad Axe, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois.

During a vacation trip to Hastings, Michigan we visited the Parmelee family. Hastings is not far from Battle Creek, Michigan. Dad had made friends with Harvey Parmelee who had a ranch and a home a lakeside resort. We visited there at least annually for several years. I fished from a pier and at age 14 met Hortense there. We were the same age; I was shy, not her. One evening we sat on the front porch and her sister turned out the lights. I was afraid to touch her. We talked about the future and she said she would like to work in a hostess house in Hastings. About ten years later I figured that out. She developed into a beautiful woman sooner than I did into a man. At the age of seventeen, Dad, Harvey and I sat in a bar next to the lake and Dad pulled out one of his cigars, bought a beer and handed them both to me. I lit up, drank up and soon threw up. I did not develop a taste for cigars or beer until many years later. In the1990s a Parmelee recognized the Nosanov name, when my cousin Danny’s son, Dr. Michael Nosanov put up his shingle and began his medical practice. He bought property along the lake if not the lake as well.

At Hell, Michigan I photographed the first sand sculpture I had ever seen; three life size pigs and bought a postcard that stated, “Hell, yes, this is the place”. During a trip to Crystal Lake where I was scheduled to meet Dad and Bruce, my motorcycle broke down en route and I had to hitchhike the rest of the way. I arrived just as they were leaving. Dad stopped on the way back, changed the points condenser and coil and I followed them home from there.

Our most memorable trip came because of an accident. In 1934 Dad fell off a tire mold he had built for Oroxo Grinding Wheel Co. and broke his heel. Victor Schaeffer gave him six weeks off. With his foot and ankle in a cast, Dad rebuilt the engine and sanded and repainted his 1929 Oakland Coupe the first week. The next week I got in the rumble seat, he and Katie got into the car and we drove to California to visit his mother. In Nebraska the engine faltered and sputtered due to vapor lock in the fuel line. Dad solved the problem by wrapping a wet rag on a fuel line and sitting on a front fender and metering gas from a can into the carburetor while Katie drove until we got to Funk, Nebraska where a mechanic fixed it. High in the mountains in Colorado I got sick and heaved up; tasted like an overdose of pickle upon which I had feasted at the last lunch. I rode in the rumble seat all the way.

When we got to California, it rained during the entire two weeks we were there. Dad spent several days repairing the refrigerator from which emanated sulfur dioxide, the refrigerant of the 30 s. The house stunk, my eyes burnt a lot and I kept away as far as possible. Grandma Sarah was overjoyed to see us and gave Katie a fur coat and a black onyx ring of white gold with a diamond set in the middle. Grandma Sarah had been widowed from her third husband. During that trip I was to find out later that Grandma Sarah lived two blocks from Betty's grandmother’s house on Malabar Street. During that time Grandma Sarah hugged and kissed me. It was the only time I ever saw her. I met cousins Gloria and Marilyn Nosanov for the first time. I also met a sweet girl that I liked named Gerty Goodrich.

On the way back to Detroit we stopped in Chicago to visit Dad's sister-in-law, Sophie. Sophie had already divorced Uncle Sammy, who was on the lam and had changed his name to Sam Norton. She married the owner of the 400 Theater in Rogers Park. When Dad introduced Katie to Sophie and bragged about the nice way Grandma Sarah treated Katie, Sophie exploded with, " She should have spit in your face" and raved about Dad marrying a "sheiksa". Katie was somewhat surprised, too. She had been married to Dad for three years and "didn't know he was Jewish". Seems the subject just hadn't come up. (Many years later Katie gave me the ring. The onyx was cracked, the diamond was missing and the gold was worn. I had the ring renovated and given it to Susan, my oldest daughter.)

Sophie had a lifetime ailment that plagued some of her brother in law’s wives. She suffered from being angry with the Nosanov “boys”. They behaved somewhat footloose and fancy free. In the 1960's Sophie’s first and notoriously ex- husband, Uncle Sammy at about 60 years of age died as a Norton and with a smile on his face. Sophie was still angry with Sammy and did not come to his funeral, but his last two wives did. There was also a lady there who was not sure if she was his wife or not plus two of his other lady friends. Uncle Sam reared a daughter born to a second wife, Gary. The nature driven father is a nameless Marine who strayed into Gary’s life one night.

Sophie also had Herbert, his only son aka Herbie. He came to the funeral in spite of having had fallen out with his dad. I believe there would have been other kids there if they had just known that Sammy was their father. Herbie had changed his name from Nosanov to Nortel; he did not want to be a Norton; I presume that in Chicago some folks may have been still looking for Sammy who had terminated his previous career as an indebted gambler. Herbie owned the largest Oldsmobile auto agency in Michigan at the time of his death from an overdose of pleasure in the form of nitrous oxide also known as laughing gas. He left his second wife and three daughters.

In 1935 we moved to a house on Longview Street on the East Side of Detroit. About this time I ate too much, and got fat. A doctor diagnosed me with a heart murmur and I had to diet. I developed a bad case of eczema. Dad and Katie tried almost every salve and old maid’s remedies, including putting my urine on the rash. Finally it was brought under control with a salve named Noczema TM.

One Memorial Day, during a visit from Katie’s sister Helen and her husband Dave, we all went to Riverview Amusement Park, near 5 mile Road and Gratiot Avenue. Dad blew $20.00 on a carny type ping-pong ball scam, needing just “ one more number” for a big prize. The ping-pong balls were blown into the air and collected in a cup. The lucky winner could pick a junk prize or strive for a big one. We left that game in poor humor.

As we started to pass another game I bummed a nickel from Katie’s brother Dave, so I could win a beautiful wooden Radio Flyer wagon, with sideboards and full of groceries. The player picks a number on a wheel that the carny man spun. The numbers were laid out on a counter between the players and the game booth. If the pointer is at the player’s selected number when the wheel stopped a prize he wins. Not knowing the rules I put my nickel on number 11, but after the carny man spun the wheel. The wheel stopped and with the pointer at number 11. The man tried to deny me the wagon, but unsuccessfully, as the other patrons began to demonstrate. I proudly towed that wagon all around the park. Several times people in the park accused me of being a shill. The groceries came in handy during those depression days and I used that wagon for years, finally wearing it out. For many years after, Dad would say, “ He could fall into a s--t house and come out smelling like a rose”.

I still sold magazines but now I crossed town from Detroit's East Side to my old West Side customers and haunts two to three days a week, after school. I skated there with two bags full of magazines crossed on my shoulders, except when I pushed my wagon there. I wore out several pairs of skates. As the wheels wore the rim would become exposed and be called "hot boxes". Skates cost a dollar a pair. I didn't know what shoes cost and I only wore out one at a time, albeit very often, because I pushed a wagon when I had no skates. Pushing my wagon with my left leg as a motive force and my right knee in the wagon resulted in excess wear on my left shoe and right pants leg at the knee. I am sure Katie could not decide whether it was cheaper to feed me or clothe me.

Mrs. Hester was the landlady and lived upstairs. Danny Parker lived next door and played the trumpet. Virginia Hardy lived two doors away and was about my age; she was friendly, had boobs and a mustache. They had bicycles so I wanted one, too and having saved $ 25.00, I obtained permission to buy a J. L. Hudson Special bicycle. That made delivering and selling magazines more convenient and Virginia liked riding on the crossbars of my bike. Mrs. Hester gave me my very first drafting set, which I still have. It was crafted in Germany and has compasses, lead holders, and inking pens made of steel and sterling silver. Dad gave me a set of molds that I melted on the kitchen stove in a frying pan and cast into lead soldiers. Dad supplied scrap bulk lead from which axle arbors were made at Oroxo Grinding Wheel Co. The soldiers resembled World War One infantry riflemen and machine gunners. Al, the corner grocer across the street paid me a penny apiece for them. I painted up some with model airplane paint and sold them to him for a nickel apiece. He resold the unpainted soldiers for five and the painted soldiers for ten cents. I started a stamp collection.

In 1935, Dad received a Soldiers Bonus of about three hundred dollars. He and Katie bought a beautiful brick house on Promenade Street in a quiet sub-division on Detroit's East Side. The house had a three-car garage and we had a dog named Preshus. We had a rabbit. Then Uncle Jack's wife Maxine died and Jack, together with his son Bruce and daughter Beverly came to live with us.

During this period that my father got the moniker Pop which distinguished him from Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack was on the "lam" and had changed his name from Jacob Nosanov to John Wilbur Norton to protect himself and his children. When he moved to Detroit to live with us he changed Bruce's and Beverly's name to Norton and Dad changed his also to Norton.

In 1996 Katie gave me an original Wednesday, September 19, 1934 edition of the Chicago Herald and Examiner, front page. Right next to a column of about John Dillinger and “Baby Face” Nelson was an article about Jacob Nasanov (sic), Uncle Jack. A copy of an original clipping is in the Appendix of this book. This explains why I remember being left in the house with Bruce during Uncle Lionel's funeral. His name is also in that article as he was killed, along with an innocent 12-year-old boy during Uncle Lionel's attempt to torch a Chicago warehouse. Uncle Lionel was an amateur and died in the fire. It seems Uncle Jack turned State's evidence in Chicago and was allowed to depart under cover. For many years later, many Nosanovs were wary of strangers asking questions.

The vacant lot next door served as a football field and a sandlot baseball field in warmer weather. In the winter Dad and Uncle Jack, with our help, shoveled dirt around the edges to create an embankment and put enough water on it to make an ice rink for skating and or ice hockey. We had hockey sticks and one winter even had a real puck. We had no protective equipment and occasionally incurred some cuts and bruises. The John Myers family occupied the house on the other side of the lot. Their 2 daughters often played with us. When a baby boy was born to them it had only one arm. That was a shock to me. Their daughters were my age and once during a close contact game with one she hugged me. I felt a rapid pulse beat from her vaginal area that literally pounded against me. I stayed clear of her after that. Many evenings Dad, Katie, Jack and I played pinochle.

A kid with very fast hands knocked me down for the first time, Harold Novak. His younger brother, Bobby and I were friends. So I had Dad teach me more about football. Harold was also a faster runner and often tackled me so hard that I was hurt. Dad gave me numerous massages when we lived in that house. He gave a great alcohol rubdown. He taught me to roll when retrieving a loose ball and spent a lot of time slapping a football into my stomach to toughen it up. I met new playmates, Willie Reiske and Junior Hermes. Willie and his family took me to church with them one Sunday. My first encounter with ostentation was a boy who lived in a house on the Outer Drive a block away and had his own pinball machine and a lifetime supply of nickels with which to play it. This was also my introduction to inflation. When I lived in Chicago, a pinball machine could be played at least five times for a nickel; more if you won and played back your winnings. Outer Drive had a landscaped island median strip. We sometimes played football on it but it was narrow and cars were an unwelcome hazard.

My baseball heroes, the Detroit Tigers, won the pennant 2 years in a row. The Detroit Free Press columnist “Iffy the Dopester” who touted Hank Greenberg, “ Goose” Goslin, Charley Gehringer, Billy Rogell, and Mickey Cochran. Other heroes of the moment included Eddie Rickenbacker and his Gee Bee racing monoplane and “Wrong Way Corrigan”. When “Wrong Way” came to Detroit City Airport on a barnstorming tour, I held a camera over my head and took his picture next to his plane. I developed the film and printed it myself. I used a bathroom as a darkroom and had a sealed roll film developing tank that I could transport to another room and spin while doing homework or playing cards.

I took trumpet lessons. Bruce's Uncle Sam Amster came to stay with us, as he, like most of the population, had no job. His sister was Esther Horn, Bruce’s aunt. Sam had been a trumpet player in Souza's band, and offered to teach me to play. Dad and I went out and we bought a sterling silver Boscher trumpet for two dollars. It had three holes in it. Dad silver soldered over the holes and cleaned it up. A month later, when Sam Amster left I could play any tune requiring only natural notes, but no sharps and flats.

One day while we were away, Preshus chased the rabbit to death; we had locked them both in the three-car garage, where they had plenty of room. On another day Dad instructed me to pull all the weeds from a 10-foot square area of turf near the back door. It took all day, because I did not want to and developed a lifelong, strong dislike for yard work that day.

Bruce and I became friends and Beverly earned a reputation for spoiling our fun. She began by walking over to Bruce and me as we played checkers and sweeping the checkerboard clean. After that anything, which upset her, or any time she got hurt, it was always said to be my fault because Jack would never let Bruce be blamed or punished for anything. Once, while we played sandlot softball, I batted a ball, which struck her in the stomach and as a consequence was banished from the game. In spite of jealousies I was happy to have Bruce as a playmate. He was pliable, understanding and fun. It was at this house that his cousin Francine Horn came to visit at the age of four, threw Katie’s guppies into the toilet, and flushed. Katie never invited her again.

My chores were to wash dishes, shovel in coal, shovel out ashes, and when needed, shovel snow from the driveway. Bruce dried dishes and he and I sang songs when we did them. We sang songs like “Jack of Diamonds” and “Into a Drugstore Filled with Hope”. We sang mournful tunes like the one with the words “Let My People Go” but still ended up doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen.

Dad, Katie, Bruce, Bev and I moved into a new wood frame house in a new tract on a narrow lot at 14841 Wilfred Street, in 1936. There were many vacant lots. The house had a basement, a first floor and an attic large enough for two rooms. Pop added asbestos shingled siding. A one-car garage sat in the rear, accessible by two ribbons of concrete. Pop gave Bruce and me several bundles of Celotex (a fuzzy asbestos wallboard), hammers, and roofing nails and told us to wall off a room for a bedroom in the attic by winter. We did.

The attic had no heating so we learned to sleep in the cold. Bruce and I slept in the same bed and used three methods for heating. We covered up and passed gas as much as possible. We would sneak down at night and prop the door to the attic open. We also got some heat when Dad and Katie would return from an outing and bring us each a hamburger. The hamburgers were rectangular in cross section, long and covered with mustard, pickle and relish. The burgers warmed us with love, calories and further possibilities for flatulence. To this day I pass gas a lot because I deem this to be one of my survival capabilities (I have slept in some very cold places since those days).

(Edwin) Denby High School had just been built and I started there in the first class. It was 1936. I started at Denby High in 1936. The Wilfred Street house was one block from Conners Boulevard and two miles to Denby High School not far from Hayes and Kelly Road. The first year I pushed my wagon there often but was disabused of that practice by scornful classmates. I walked to school during snow and rainstorms and on nice days roller-skated. I took a photography class and won a prize camera. Katie bought a piano and took lessons. Uncle Jack added a middle name to become John Wilfred Norton and bought a wig. One evening, during a visit from Katie’s brother, Joe the cowboy, he asked Uncle Jack to pass an ear of corn. So, Jack threw it to him, which created a short-lived tradition.

I made a friend, Orville Lippert, who was interested in, and built rockets. He and I would horse around but he was bigger. One day I kicked him, probably accidentally, in the groin. He urinated blood for several days and that cooled off our friendship but we continued to walk the two miles together to Denby High School. I elected to take a college preparatory class. My favorite non-academic classes became Drivers Education and Photography; the latter taught by a Mrs. Stein. Driver’s Education and Photography had not been high school subjects before this time.

I had a gas producing stomach during high school. Mine just leaked out when it was ready and sometimes in class. A student, who sat behind me, pointedly remarked on this one day. His name is Robert Buckley. (This is ironic because he is the only other Denby High School Alumni, Class of 1940, listed on the Internet in 1999.) I figured out much later that if I took time to make more “pit stops” I could have saved myself embarrassment.

My friends included the Wolnevitz brothers, Bobby and John. Their Mom treated them and me gently. Their dad treated them in a coarse Old World fashion. I met him once and made sure that would not happen again. Bobby became Detroit East Side Ping-Pong champion. I never beat him but could beat his older brother, John. I spent many evenings at their house playing pig pong in their basement. Leo Krapp almost always bugged me on my way to school. One day I beat the Leo out of him. He became friendly after that. Bruce and I were close confidants.

I joined the Detroit Junior Intelligence Bureau (JIB); a city sponsored affair designed to keep kids busy. I played on a fast pitch softball team, and then later on hardball teams. But, I was good at softball and played first base in some good competitions. I could pitch hardball well, but I was too wild, and a lefthander, so I played first base. I also came up against a high school pitching star who beaned me three times in as many times at bat. Beaning may be too strong a term; he hit me in the hip each time. I pretty much played less sandlot hardball after that until I was in the service. Many years later Bruce told me that he did it intentionally.

Our softball team once played the “Joe Louis Brown Bombers” in a Detroit Times Tournament; in the 1950's in L.A. I would later play against the “Art Aragon Golden Boys”. In the Joe Louis game I broke the index finger on my left hand for the first of several times. I was catching Rick Ferrell who could throw many great pitches; very fast, curve either way, a hop, a drop, and a change up. We had no signals. He threw 'em and I caught 'em. Rick introduced the team to Jewish deli food on one game trip. At age 17 it was only my second taste of it. My mother once bought me a “kischke”, a deli dish, during our trip to New York. It is a sausage made from an cow intestine as a casing into which is stuffed a tasty, spicy, high calorie, mix of ground meat and I don’t know what else.

One day I entered a drawing for 2 baseball tickets and won. Katie went with me and I attended my first major league game. Rudy York had a streak that year and hit 59 home runs.

Our basement had small windows at the top. One end of the basement housed the furnace and coal hopper. Coal, delivered into the basement through one of the windows had to be shoveled into a pile near the furnace; a task assigned to me. I also shoveled out the ashes. At the other end we fired pistols and rifles into a target box. The center of the basement housed a water closet. We played ping-pong on an old dining room table with rounded edges. Behind the furnace was a little bench on which I had mounted a small wood turning lathe I won from Curtis Publishing Company. The house next door, when under construction, seemed to be a great source of lumber so Bruce and I built a dark room under the stairs to the basement in which I could develop and print photographs without tying up the bathroom. I built a photo enlarger.
I entered and won a few photo contest prizes. My award-winning picture of Katie hung at an exhibit in J. L. Hudson’s Department Store, near the Campus Martius in Detroit. I took, developed, enlarged and printed it myself. In another contest, I won a Bakelite point and shoot fixed focus camera known then as a candid camera. The winning picture was of our dog, Preshus, and a cat, playing together. I drew many sketches of handguns while doodling. Some were of existing revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. Others were innovative designs. I drew perspective views of houses fronting on streets, including the house on Wilfred Street. Katie criticized one drawing, of which I was initially proud, as unpatriotic. The drawing depicted a one legged U. S. Navy man, leaning on a crutch. Katie told me that the drawing was unpatriotic.

A French-Canadian who with his wife had 12 children bought the new house, next door, when finished. The first time Preshus pooped on the new carpet, Dad stepped on the poop in the night. He threw Presus through the screen door without opening it. Preshus was a smart dog and did not do that again. She was not allowed in the kitchen eating area at meal times and would sit in the porch with her head on the top step, (in the kitchen). We enjoyed the kitchen table. We played pinochle on it many evenings. One dinner, Uncle Jack passed the corn by throwing it to Katie’s visiting brother, Cowboy Joe. He was a real ranch hand. He had records and played them. I learned to sing A True Blue Bill @ that way. For a short time we had a baby possum. But, one day my Uncle Jack gave it too much booze and it fell into the basement toilet and drowned.

Some wild parties were held in our basement. Three of Dad’s friends from the wild side were Dee Taylor, Cal Harris and George Porter. The two guys were bootleggers who allegedly ran whiskey from Kentucky, through Michigan to Illinois. George used to let us play with his .38 caliber Special on a .45 frame. The wooden handle had several notches on it. One night, after a party I took his picture while he was dead drunk in our basement. He told good bootlegger stories and was a fun guy, as was Cal Harris. Cal gave me my first suit, white pin stripes on green and taught me to drink booze.

At this age I went to my first mixed gender party away from home. I remember my first taste of apple cider as a guest at this beautiful home in Grosse Point, Michigan while still a high school student. They had donuts, too. I was impressed that the hosts could afford to be so generous. During high school I met Frank Sinning, a classmate. We went canoeing in Belle Island as part of a graduation outing and he introduced me to listening to the bells of the Carillon. I felt that compared to me he was a very balanced person and thought highly of him. He was later to fall to enemy fire in World War II, according to a letter from Bruce.

We listened to radio programs at home on a regular basis. My first favorite was “The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters Show”. The favorites among us kids as pre teens included “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy” “Little Orphan Annie”, “Mark Trail”, “Henry Aldrich” and the “Lone Ranger”. We faithfully listened to comedians Eddy Cantor, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, and Ben Bernie

We listened to “WLS Barn Dance”, “Town Hall Tonight”, “Fibber McGee and Molly”, “Lux Radio Theater”and “Amos and Andy”. . Radio soaps included “Stella Dallas”, “Myrt and Marge”, “Helen Trent”, “Phil Harris/ Alice Faye Show”, “The Shadow” and “The Mummers”. Many sponsors were too numerous to mention but included Jello, Ipana Tooth Paste, Camels, Chesterfields, and Ex Lax. Dad loved radio and in 1939 bought a Wilcox Gay Recordio in a big cabinet. It could play and record records. Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy livened our lives as the clouds of impending war loomed. Then the German Army invaded Poland.

Katie vehemently argued with Dad over me going into the service. She did not want me to volunteer. Bruce and I would often shoot out of the back bedroom window. I hit one more than once but once we cooked and ate a Golden Plover.

In June 1940 I graduated from Denby High School in the first graduating class and received my first ever diploma. I had moved so frequently as a youngster that I did not previously matriculate from grade school or junior high school. I was probably the 1940's version of the class geek. I had had little time to develop social skills and in fact, had never heard those words. I carried a B average in an academic curriculum and would have done better had I studied. I had a photographic memory for many subjects. I had to study to do mathematics and algebra homework. When prom night rolled around I was still socially ignorant, especially when girls were involved, so I did not mind that Katie refused me permission to attend. I had a Detroit Times newspaper route. I delivered newspapers before sunrise, first from my bike route at that time and used my bike for that, carrying two bags of newspapers across my chest, crossed like bandoleers.
I delivered newspapers from my first car, which cost $ 30 and ran intermittently for almost three months. The fabric part of the roof leaked rain and melted snow. When it broke down we hauled it to a dealer and traded it in. The trade in allowance was $ 15. Dad did all the negotiating. I bought my second car for $ 95, a 1936 Olds coupe. It had a solid roof and a radio that worked.

The Big Band Sound predominated our music. Some of the music has special memories for me. They include “Green Eyes” , “String of Pearls”, “ Chattanooga Choo Choo”, and “Pennsylvania 6-5000". Johnny Wolnevitz, another friend, and I would cruise about and sing songs, like “Blues in the Night”. I had a couple of dates in it. John and I went on my first date to Bob-Lo Park with two cute girls. The park, several miles from Detroit and on an island, is in the Detroit River. The boat ride was almost romantic. We went on rides, bought refreshments, and probably flirted. I drove to the girls’ home, parked in front of their house, and necked. The girls were persistent and did not want to quit. I chickened out and we both had to literally eject them at their front door. We had apparently started something we did not choose to finish. I was afraid of my own ignorance about those matters and of other consequences. For example, I often came home late after playing Ping-Pong and at 1:00 A.M. One morning Dad grabbed me by the shirt, shoved a big fist in front of my face, and said " Don't tell me that you've been playing Ping-Pong this late". But I had been and insisted.

Dad wasn’t sure of my attitude sometimes so he finally called in some help; and high powered at that. Aunt Besse's husband, Harry E. Slonaker. Uncle Harry took me for a walk one day and explained my Dad's concerns. Uncle Harry is renowned as the founder of the Boy’s Brotherhood Republic in the 1930s, which later evolved into Boy’s City and the Boys and Girls Clubs. I resolved to try to be more attentive to Dad’s concerns.

During weekends I worked with my Dad on home improvement construction contacts that consisted of installing concrete slabs, sewage septic tanks, and sewage leach fields. Working with Dad, I dug, mixed, leveled and finished concrete. He ardently preferred to do any job only the best way. He and Uncle Jack, when collaborating on a project would emotionally debate what that might be. I never heard either them say the words “We can do it cheaper”, only “This will be better”. When my Oldsmobile needed rings and valves, Dad installed them for me, but only after I painted the entire house, fence and garage woodwork.

I began to think about my future and realized that I did not want to become a doctor or an attorney. Dad wanted me to become an apprentice tool and die maker or machinist and work in a shop with him. I realized many years later that he had manifested an act of love. But, I was fascinated with flying and decided to become an aviator and/or an aeronautical engineer.

Bruce, Bev and I would sometimes curl up in Dad’s bed when he and Katie went out. We listened to scary radio shows or made up scary stories. Beverly complained and we were told to stop doing that.

In 1940-41 I got both curiosity and itchy feet. I signed up for a subscription to Aviation Magazine and eventually got 26 issues. I read the first few. I read an ad about a new idea named television and signed up for a weekly mail order course, sponsored and given by Dr. Lee de Forest and Dr. U. A. Sanabria. I received and did the first two lessons.

I hitchhiked to Chicago. I arrived at Aunt Besse’s house in Logan Square at two in the morning, smoked a cigarette, we chatted and she put me up for the night. Next morning she found a burn scar on her dining room table where I had left a burning cigarette. She reminded me of that for many years. I looked up some of Bruce’s and my relatives. One girl, Shirley, introduced me to “two cents plain” and her boy friend. She wanted to see who had the larger chest, him or me. Having carried loads of magazines for years, I won. We also visited an aunt and uncle of Bruce’s, the Amsters. His aunt, to me, was a model of motherhood and domesticity and made lasting impression on me. She had a daughter named Francine who when younger, visited and flushed Katie’s guppies down a toilet bowl. I also visited with my cousin Herbie Nosanov, Sophie’s son. He talked me into taking the bus back home instead of hitching a ride. He gave me a couple of bucks and drove me to the Greyhound Bus Station. When I got home, two or three weeks after I left, Katie had thrown out my mail from the television people. That ended my budding TV technical career.

Red Parker and I took a trip. Although terrified of heights but even more afraid to show fear, I did things I did not want to do. In Kalamazoo he and I climbed a 100-foot high ladder to the top of a fire lookout tower, dove from a 40-foot high diving board at the Y. M. C. A. swimming pool.

Red Parker and I planned a trip to Lumberman’s Monument in west central Michigan. We packed a tent, hot dogs, rolls, mustard, salt, and raw eggs and went to sleep. As we slept on the floor, in the living room of the house at 14841 Wilfred Street, Dee Taylor, Cal Harris’s girl friend woke me. She huddled over me and began to get cozy. I surprised myself and started to emerge from my “cocoon” at which point she broke away. After I heard her report to Katie, later that night, I opined that she was checking out my sexuality.

The next morning Red and I headed for the Lumberman’s Monument in Michigan. The afternoon we arrived we disrobed and went to swim in the Au Sable River, knowing full well that the water temperature was close to freezing. As we got out and began to dry ourselves the rains came and stayed for a day and night. We dined on raw franks, eggs and soggy bread, in leaky pup tents. When the rain stopped we left. I was glad to get back home.

In 1940 at Lawrence Institute of Technology I received a scholarship courtesy of the United States, National Youth Administration’s student work program for my first year of college. I wanted a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. The school had gliders in the front yard and a glider pilots club. The glider pilots were older and mature guys who planned on becoming fighter pilots during the pending war. In my mind it was awesome.

After delivering the Detroit Times newspaper during pre dawn hours I attended daily classes. After classes, I graded papers and swept floors. Lawrence Institute of Technology (L.I.T), an offshoot of the University of Detroit, had a football team and a basketball team. Lawrence Tech was in the Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario Football Conference. Athletes got scholarships. The basketball players were a rowdy, friendly bunch and let me play during practice games. One of them, Sammy Lieberman, stood a slim 6’3". He played hard and fast, and fared well against major university opponents. His teammates had rowdy fun and included one “Jungle Jim” a heavyset six-footer. One day, after one of his friends had crammed all weekend to get his homework done and had it stacked in front of him in a study room, Jungle Jim lit a match to it. The resulting chase created havoc and abundant laughter. Jungle Jim got away, for the moment, at least.

The first year I earned 40, three semester units. This, in spite of the fact that I caused an explosion in the Chemistry lab. I had ignored the instruction that (I think) one poured hot hydrochloric acid into the water, not the reverse. This experiment is conducted under a vented hood. When it blew, I dived for the sink opposite the hood and immersed my face under a water tap, rinsing out my eyes as well. My blue pants received acid and all but one drop was rinsed off as well. The resultant orange stain became the only casualty of the event.

One day while shopping for myself for the first time, I got the feeling that no one ever bought Dad anything and as he worked very long hours, he had very little fun. So, I bought him a Kabar hunting knife and hoped he would find time to use it. (He later gave me that knife. While practicing throwing it, many years later I broke the blade and sent it to that factory for repair. The Kabar Company replaced the blade and sent it back, without charge, with a note stating, “Our knives do not break”. I bought that knife in the Campus Martius area of downtown Detroit at a large store named Sam’s which sold just about everything. It was a predecessor of the discount stores of later years.

Bruce introduced me to a pretty girl named Vivian Wakefield, part Cherokee Indian and part Irish. We first met in a hospital and I visited her often. A car, in which she rode, while returning from a Lutheran Church group social, had crashed. She was ejected from the car and hit her head against a concrete curb. The accident injured her spine paralyzed her from the waist down. Vivian had tremendous faith. She started to make plans for us.
During a visit to Vivian I met a kid, Joe, on her floor who had been in an accident and in trouble. He showed me a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson Police Special revolver under his pillow and was afraid a nurse or attendant would find it. He talked me into taking it. When I showed it to Dad he suggested I get it back to Joe’s family. Joe agreed and told me where to deliver it. I took it to his uncle in a Greek restaurant on Jefferson Boulevard.

Vivian started to recover some use of her legs but during an exercise fell and relapsed. They moved her to a home about 80 miles away where I was to visit her only once more, and for the last time, about a year later.

World War II was all but imminent. Some of our boys went to Canada to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. I thought about it, I had studied WW I. Dad had been a Petty Officer, Armorer, in the U.S. Navy Air Corps during WW I. My World War 1 heroes included members of the Lafayette Escadrille, the Hat in the Ring group. These men first fought as volunteers for the French Air Force and later the survivors became members of the American Expeditionary Force. These flyers included Nungesser, Lufberry, Coli, Hall, Bishop, Brown, and Eddie Rickenbacker. I learned about them from collector’s cards included with Fleer’s Bubble Gum. German flying aces such as Immelman and the Red Baron were also shown on the cards. Immelman is credited with inventing an aerial maneuver in which the pursued pilot turns and becomes the pursuer. After the war, Rickenbacker became President of a major airline. Any mention of WW1 heroes should include Alvin York, an infantry rifleman who became a legend. He preached and practiced his theory, learned when turkey hunting, “pick off the ones in the rear first so as not to alert the front runners.”

Movie newsreels showed gruesome films of Japanese soldiers executing Chinese prisoners. Reports indicated that the Japanese killed 10s of millions of Chinese. The “ Rape of Nanking” became a legend.

On December 4, 1941 Dad, Katie and I visited one of Katie’s relatives in Joliet, Illinois. On December 5, 1941 a Chicago newspaper headline proclaimed, “Roosevelt tells Japan to get out of China or else”. On December 6 a delegation from Japan began negotiations in Washington D.C. On December 7, 1941 Japan rained bombs on U. S. Navy ships and bases in Pearl Harbor and attacked numerous other U.S. bases including those in the Philippines. World War II came to the United States.