Paul E. Bolduc – 1/04/04 to 5/28/04
Introduction
Early life experiences influenced me greatly by structuring a theme to the world that I felt and enjoyed. Many of these vignettes are but patina on the polished bowl of life that a grownup might remember and relate. The influence is often subtle and minuscule and, perhaps, only incidental. Still, together these stimuli guide us, each one of us, toward a picture of the world, a worldview or, as our German friends and colleagues might say, a Weltanschauung. In the comments listed below, you will find some of these daily encounters, moments of success and elements of wonder that formed some of my own personal background. Together they form a picture of safety, merriment, satisfaction, inquiry, etc. Perhaps, they will help throw some light on those related events that shaped you and your life.
The Neighborhood of Saint-Louis de France Church
When I was six years old in 1945, my family moved from one part of Centraville (Barker Street) in Lowell, MA to about one mile further away from the center of town. This three family clapboard structure or tenement located in a working-class, French-Canadian neighborhood would be my home for some ~ 16 years until I was ready for the adventures of the Physics Department at the Pennsylvania State University, PSU. These challenging and evocative years (1945 to 1961) served as the formative framework that created a young man having certain skills, many preferences and apprehensions, and quite a few doubts, uncertainties, fears, and questions.
The immediate families surrounding the Bolduc household back then were named: Vallois, Lussier, Beauparlant, Roberts, Bergeron, Roussel, Antifenario (Italian), Beaudry, Pinard, etc. Sure, there were two Greek families living in the house next door. Also, Harry Levin ran the local variety store. His young, Jewish family lived across the street from us. These exceptions were the accepted foreigners in the, otherwise, common ancestral backgrounds. The “lingua franca” was a heavy Quebecois interwoven with an accented English of the tough, Lowell flavor.
There were children everywhere, and they came in all age groups. We played street baseball and climbed all the best trees around. The best tree choices were the maple and chestnut candidates in our yard. Bringing down horse chestnuts with sticks and stones in late summer and early autumn was a favorite treat that only the most uninspired and/or saintly child was expected to forego.
Sure, windows were broken but if God wanted windows to stay intact, He would have made glass more resistant to sticks and stones hurled with youthful enthusiasm.
Street Games, a Successful Businessman, and La Haute Couture
Playing in the street was really not dangerous, since few cars were around immediately after the war and during the Korean conflict. Ordinary people walked, used the bus, and took cabs. The fortunate rich types drove their cars and really stood out as living success stories. My grandfather, the successful milkman of North End Dairy fame, proudly wheeled around in a new Desoto after the Allied victory in Europe. Photos taken during this period show him standing
with distinction in front of this vehicle, a prize and proof that capitalism beats fascism hands down. This was the amiable and, sometimes, gruff Monsieur Paul Charbonneau with a kind heart and a lust for life seldom seen today in these new times of prosperity. Perhaps, life was just simpler and less stressful in the late 1940s?
In contrast, poverty was a respected and a begrudgingly accepted way of life for many people on Ludlam and Dana streets. And, things were not that much fancier on Aiken Avenue or Cumberland Road. There was a certain “je ne sais quoi” chic about this proletarian couture with its mismatched articles of clothing that made the drabness of a well-selected matching outfit from McQuades or Newmans seem strangely out-of-place in our neighborhood!
Hand-me-down clothing was, really, the rage for the in-group. The shirts that Uncle Frank Massey gave me after my Dad’s death were in excellent condition, but very much too large for my frame at the time. A shirt with a 16 and ½ inch collar worn by a boy with a 14-inch neck stands out as a very casual item of dress, indeed!
My First and only Bicycle
At the age of 12, the entrepreneurial spirit took hold of me. The call of the newspaper boy’s life became a vocation, of sorts. Naturally, I looked beyond the immediate financial rewards and the worldly recognition allotted to these boys to a time when I, too, might drive a Desoto or even a new Kaiser Fraser automobile on a Sunday drive and adventure to Lakeview and Nick’s Happy Hour.
The bicycle bought from my cousin Arthur Bolduc, a few years later, for about $12.00 would be my start on the long road to success. This same bicycle stayed with me through my early years at Lowell Tech much after I stopped using it. Still, it afforded me transportation to Kearney Square to pay the Lowell Sun its modest revenue and, on the way back, to make a stop at the main Lowell library for books on Jefferson, the Wild West, Lincoln, a British WWII character called Biggles, Kit Carson, Davy Crockett and the magic of mathematics. This was the same bike that I took for my periodic travels to the farmlands of Dracut to enjoy a day with George Bourbeau, Roger St-Armand, and cousin, Richard Ouellette. How does a young man in 1953 learn the ropes and travel the Sacred Highways of Life without a bicycle? It could not have been otherwise!
Politics, Jobs and the Standard of Living
Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy had worn the Presidential mantle. Senator McCarthy and some neo-fascist assistants had been discredited and shamed. The conflict in Korea was over. Who won in that case? The Hungarian Revolution had shown the world how a post-Stalinist Russia would deal with emerging concepts of home rule.
We tested thermonuclear weapons in Nevada and the Pacific, and the Soviets were making great progress with their weapons. There was radioactive fallout in our air and some of our milk. Later, Sputnik was “beeping” overhead since 1957 and the US had its Strategic Air Command, AKA SAC, on constant alert for possibly delivering megatons of retribution on Soviet cities.
In a sense, quite a few Americans were all on edge and uncertain about tomorrow. In a genuine sense, however, it was exciting. We learned how to “duck and cover” from government TV announcements. People were building nuclear fallout shelters in their backyards and storing a reserve of food, matches, water, and other supplies in case the worst did happen. Some were arming themselves, thinking that neighbors, who had not prepared for this unpleasant moment, would want to partake of these accommodations suddenly.
Movies, Early Television and Entertainment
Ed Sullivan was bringing us Sunday night entertainment. Milton Berle was comforting us with the Tuesday night Texaco frolics. Steve Allen made us laugh on his evening show. Was it called The Tonight Show then? Elvis Presley went about the country gyrating his hips and singing “Hound Dog” and “Heartbreak Hotel” songs.
Every Hollywood flick made in the 1930s and early 1940s was shown again and again on TV. “Our Gang”, Don Winslow of the Navy, and Shirley Temple taught us American ideals and values. Howdy Doody, Hop-along Cassidy, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers were the guiding lights of the period. When “evil lurked in the minds of men”, the Shadow knew, and justice was soon to follow?
Relatives and more Relatives
The late Forties are a blur for this boy. In those years, family members from Quebec would still drop in unannounced after a 400-mile trek from lower Quebec and through Vermont, New Hampshire, and parts of Massachusetts. It was “la grande visite du Quebec” and I recall a distant cousin, Rolande, who was there with her boyfriend or husband. In my eyes, she was stunning and filled with life. I also recall a young boy of about my age, another cousin, I imagine, who taught me how to say quiver and arrows in French. Of course, I knew the word for “arrow” but the word for “quiver” was new to me. Naturally, there were several uncles and aunts, who seemed incredibly ancient to an 8-year-old kid.
Counting all the relatives both local and from Canada, there may have been as many as 20 to 25 people enjoying this visit. It seems that there were always relatives around from different clans. Canadian French family names like Ouellette, Charbonneau, Bolduc, Clermont made up the moment and the drinking celebration of the day! Beer and hard liquor were not unknown to these fine people nor were large meals catered by my mother with some cleanup assistance from my aunts, Lida and Florence, and, perhaps, Aunt Vick or Cousin Claire after the repast.
The Downtown Adventure – an Invitation to the Big City
Lower Jackson Street in the former industrial center of Spindle City reeked of architectural neglect, a burgeoning decay of sorts, when in the summer of 1956 I was reluctantly made aware of its existence. Of course, as a child growing up in the outskirts of the City, I recalled many a trip to the Five and Ten Cent stores (Kresge’s, Woolworth’s, etc.) that clearly represented Lowell’s low-end, retail businesses. This was the location where Merrimack and Central Streets came together, the very terminus of merchandising activity in a municipal thoroughfare of previous grandeur and high aspirations. Kearney Square was Lowell’s answer to Manhattan’s Times Square.
Fanny Farmers Candies plus two huge (very large, at least) department stores graced the opposite sides of Merrimack, each offering the tired shopper three solid floors of furniture, clothing, sporting goods, and, of course, toys. One did not visit the City without checking out A. J. Pollards or the Bon Marche stores. Perhaps, the bloom was somewhat faded on the balance sheets of these two emporia of impeccable good taste in the 50s but, still, feeling the grace of yesteryear and the deliberate ease of those elevators were reasons enough to include them in your Saturday shopping adventures.
Of course, all commercial businesses were closed on Sunday. That was “de rigueur”. Shopping was a Saturday affair although, I seem to recall that stores were open late on Friday night and the last buses left Kearney Square at 11:00 P.M.
The crossing of these two major streets was like a giant red X on a city map that lead the traveler and visitor to the four, far-flung corners of a metropolis offering a habitat for some 93, 000 people. The Second World War had been difficult for many working-class individuals. People had seen relatives and friends, all young men and some young women, leave as soldiers for parts unknown, ten to fifteen years before.
Some came back and others didn’t. Happily, the Depression was long over, although not really forgotten even in the Eisenhower-like recovery. You didn’t see disheveled people out on the streets with hat in hand and a lost and frightened look adorning their eyes. Maybe, there were beggars and flimflam artists in the background. However, they were not seen. Perhaps, it was illegal to be openly “down and out” during this period of economic resurgence; I am not certain.
Sure, there was a guy with big shoes (they looked like shoes, anyway) tied neatly to his knees sitting at a storefront somewhere in that busy retail flurry near the Sun Building. I often saw him selling his pencils (nice, new, No 2 pencils with full erasers, too) there but where were his legs? Was he a WWII veteran or, maybe, someone injured on the job while working for the Boston and Maine Railroad or Darcy Pies? Such questions could really upset a young entrepreneur kid like me making his Saturday morning pilgrimage to the business offices of the Lowell Sun newspaper to settle accounts with Tom, the account manager for the paper Route # 487.
For all you, mathematician types, reading these lines, I will challenge your resourcefulness. Is 487 a prime number? Recall that 3, 5, 7, and 11 are prime numbers but 9 is not since 3 times 3 = 9. Should a newsboy worry about such a matter? Today, I think not. There was another guy that I remember, who also claimed a prominent place in the “Hall of Fame of Curious but Interesting Lowellians of the 1940s & 1950s”.
Unlike the previous gentleman described above, his importance lay more with his accouterments than with any personal disfigurement or marks of valor. Vaguely, I recall his well-dressed, simian partner enthusiastically performing a circus-like routine to the grinding notes and wailing sounds of a hurdy-gurdy. How does one not recall such extraordinary people in the repertoire of one’s historical reality? As I pondered, even more, a lingering question crossed the furtive memory cells of my brain. Were the appearances of these two lost souls from long, long ago, two distinct phenomena or, really, one “Truly Great and Unusual Person, a Giant among the World’s Ordinary Types” that changed my perspective and reality forever?
Since I don’t ever recall seeing them sitting side-by-side on the busy Lowell sidewalk applying their individual craft, I now hesitate to assert that there were really two of them. If only a person of good memory with a fine moral standing and the right age could be found to verify the story! Life often leaves us hopelessly without backup when the Truth needs affirmation! Excuse the philosophical foray here.
Finally, Jackson Street, which leads off Central Street near the old Rialto Movie Theater, must remain the matter of another adventure since so much time was spent focused on the trivia of these previous paragraphs.
A Little Wooden Replica of Fenway Park & Playing Ballgames at 90 Degrees Fahrenheit on the Front Porch at 179 Ludlam St.
Being a rather poor kid in a city like Lowell, Massachusetts, back in the 1950s left you with only a fleeting hope that someday, and somehow you too would be allowed entrance into that Grand Ballpark Stadium of the Stars called Fenway Park affectionately because it was near the Fenway in Boston, I suppose. Watching an actual game on WBZ was possible, of course, but only on the rarest of occasions. Remember that we got a TV set a bit late (after my Dad died in 1953) and that few games were televised at the time. Now, before there were electronic baseball games available to all children, as is the case today, there were, once upon a time, only makeshift game boards to excite and entertain future baseball aficionados.
This is probably where my first attempt at serious carpentry
was exercised. Using only scrap lumber, a hammer, a screwdriver, my Dad’s hand drill, and a few nails and screws, one might say that I made local history or rather tried to make history! The result was a rough-hewed, wooden replica of Fenway Park, even with the Green Monster fence. The end product was more functional than aesthetic, however. I received no credible offers from game manufacturers here or abroad to mass-produce these game boards. The game was elementary in format. Recall that baseball cards were then trendy, and I had managed to gather cards for many, but not all, players in the majors at the time. That was quite an investment in bubble gum, as you can imagine, and my dentist was most supportive of these entrepreneurial efforts. He could find lineups for individual teams in the Record-American, so teams could be simulated to play on the wooden board. Areas on the board were designated as a single, a double, and a triple. A home run required that the ball (a marble in this case) be hit out of the park and fair. Finally, a wooden fence encircled the park, so home runs were not easy to come by. The whole contraption was about one foot wide and 2&1/2 feet long. The diamond area was painted on a flat portion of wood with holes drilled in place at first, second, third, and home, plus one at shortstop and one at the pitcher’s mound location. The outfield portion of the little park also had three additional holes to indicate left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. Any ball ending up in one of these nine holes meant that the batter was out.
Each batter had 3 attempts to make a hit. Otherwise, the batter was called out. The size of the board and its lack of sophistication make it difficult to simulate a “balls and strikes” character. Finally, your opponent representing the other team would roll a marble toward the batter’s location, and you would swing the pivoted mini-bat near home plate to connect with the ball. We could play the whole game in about 15 minutes to gather stats over the summer on which team was the best for each league. Surely, this was a game for the kid with a lot of time on his hands and few resources like dollars, a family automobile, and, perhaps, summer camp to make the warm, sticky, summer days merge into a really fine set of new memories for the internal scrapbook.
However, this was not a game for quitters because many games needed to be played before league winners for that season could be decided. It took more than a love of the game to play in the little wooden baseball league. It took courage and unfaltering, even grim determination to carry on even if you had lost interest in the long-term results! Looking back now from so far away in time, I can only report that, unfortunately, the Boston Red Sox did not take the American League championship in that world of miniature, wooden baseball in the mid-1950s. This raw piece of reality should have been enough to insulate me from any further dismay in my home team’s painful history to follow.
Of course, as a Bean Town baseball addict, I could not discern a heavenly prediction made from a wooden game from the positive message of an enthusiastic, new sports columnist from the Record-American tabloid.
I say: “Let not plain reality blind you from the eternal need for a World
Series where the final and seventh game is won by the Bosox in that glorious baseball park in Boston’s Kenmore Square.
The Fair and Just Guiding Light of Baseball!
This was another hot, humid, and lazy mid-summer morning at 179 Ludlam St., Lowell, MA, in AD 1954. Looking back now, the summers when I was 14 or 15 captured a certain sense of low stress, ease, and general well-being that I have really seldom again ever enjoyed. After a satisfying breakfast highlighted by crêpes or pancakes (a poor second choice, I might add), real maple syrup, and two tall glasses of milk (recall that my Uncle Gerry was our milkman), this young pioneer of the times went across the street to Harry’s Variety Store to pick up the Record-American newspaper. Yellow journalism measured anywhere in the country has seldom reached the descriptive level of blood, gore, corruption, and lack of good taste offered by this ignoble product of low-life, Bostonian thinking.
The first and second pages were always covered with lurid photos of dead or dying gangsters, brutally murdered women, handcuffed politicians ready for some quiet, contemplative time at Walpole prison, and, occasionally, a visiting national figure like Joe Louis, for instance. Of course, such stories sold newspapers, but, really, my interests were focused on the last couple of pages where the baseball results and standings were given with admirable details.
Stories of the “Splendid Splinter”, Ted Williams, often graced these pages with new accomplishments on and off the field. Would he be the same great hitter after his time as a Marine pilot in Korea? At one time, he suffered a shoulder injury that hurt his game. How he could play the “Green Monster” fence in left field at Fenway Park was always worth an article in that morning rag if other baseball stories from the East Coast seemed to be lacking in zeal and interest.
Recall that St. Louis was as far west as professional baseball extended back then. Of course, the real issue was how well the Red Sox were doing in the American League and, especially, how the New York Yankees would handle their next encounter at Fenway. However, these were questions of little import since the Cleveland Indians were making other teams seem like Little Leaguers in that remarkable year of 1954. They had Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, Mike Garcia, and Bob Feller as starters. Who could survive very long against those “bad boys”? Could the Red Sox play better than 500 baseball against the Big Boys with only Ellis
Kinder, Mel Parnell, and, occasionally, Tom Brewer and Willard Nixon on the mound?
Surely, if there were a just and almighty force somewhere in the heavens, then this would be the “Year of the Boston Red Sox” or so many of us, deluded locals, firmly and desperately believed! This situation was a matter of a transcendent faith untroubled by all embarrassing realities!
Now on a beautiful and hot morning like this one, I needed to engage in the sport of baseball, somehow. Surely, I could get my vintage baseball wrapped in thick, black tape, an old bat, and my glove and walk some three blocks to the Mayflower (other people called it McPherson’s Playground) to play a game of pickup baseball. It really wasn’t far. You just walked up Ludlam St. to Hildreth St and took a right, then, you walked past Lilley Avenue and turned left onto Eustis Avenue. On that corner, you just pasted the house of the LaRoche family and the business of
LaRoche Construction. Finally, you continued past a couple of houses on the right and, voila, there was one side entrance to that park of my youth! I guess the official main entrance was on Hildreth Street near Ennell Street, but I always took this shortcut.
I recall this side entrance very well, indeed. Clumps of weeds and grass marked the spot as did broken concrete stairs leading down onto the first of three baseball diamonds. This WPA public works project was as much a park to me as a living memento of the strewn ruins of the Roman Empire monuments of 1900 years before. Somehow, I found it strange that our WPA ruins were evident to archeologists soon after the monument’s dedication in the late 1910s! Was this subtle
proof that Roman contractors had a better grasp of the “ways of cement and concrete” than American engineers in the 193os? Such profound questions were to trouble my feeble mind for a whole lifetime.
There were always other kids my age at the park looking for a game after all! But, today, I did not feel like playing the real game. It might rain, maybe, in an hour, and why go there and have to leave all wet suddenly? No, today was a day for a good game of “punch ball”. Really, we didn’t have a name for this game, so I just, now, made one up. It was a
variation of a similar ball game played by many thousands of city kids across the land. My friend, Bobby Martin, from Jacques Street and I could easily play a quick game in about 30 minutes using only the wooden stairs leading to the front entrance to my house, plus a small portion of Ludlam Street and also the front yards of the Beauparlant and Beaudry families directly opposite our house.
Automobile traffic was so rare in those days that kids could safely play ball on the smaller public streets with little parental concern and no need to worry that the civil authorities might scream “child endangerment”! The Lowell city streets were used more by kids and grownups than by cars and trucks. Today, this statement appears totally bizarre and crazed but back in the 1950s, daily life was remarkably unique and simple in so many ways. Hopefully, there will be time later to clear up some of these important differences for readers too young to have seen them personally.
How was this game of punch ball played? The rules were elementary. One person represented the team at-bat and stood facing the stairs. The other team was placed on the field that extended from the sidewalk by the “banana tree” to across Ludlam Street, and, finally, to the outfield fence, which really was the front of the Beaudry and Beauparlant properties.
There were only outs, homers, and hits in this game. The person at bat needed to slam the tennis ball (using a baseball was naturally out of the question) against the stairs, hoping to strike the edge of a
stair just right to send the ball over the heads of the short players in the road and directly into the yards of our indulgent neighbors. A foul ball was an automatic out, like a pop fly or a grounder caught by a fielder. In terms of comfort, an infielder had a softer life than the outfielder, since the huge “banana tree” offered a blessed area of shade that is so important to a young person when sweat is pouring from your forehead and into your eyes! On the other hand, an outfielder had more time to react to a ball coming their way. Chances for making an out were higher for this player.
Now, I don’t recall that this was a boys-only game. The kids at the corner of Ludlam and Dana streets were remarkably open-minded when it came to integrating life roles, at least regarding tag, “Mother may I” and, of course, baseball. Hopefully, these sterling qualities made them eventually into upstanding American citizens, but relatively little is known today about these lives.
Who accomplished what? Who died unexpectedly young? Were cherished dreams realized? All these questions remain a mystery!
Now, an occasional car or truck and a neighbor walking across the field were the only serious distractions to our sport. Monsieur Bergeron, Madame Levy, Ignace, Leonie, or Alice Beauparlant might quickly interrupt our game on an errand to Harry’s, for instance, but we dealt with this adult interference patiently and with
resignation, I might add.
Little Denise, AKA Gunga Din, might be trying to cross the street for some candy at Harry’s store as well, but, at four years old, we placed some serious restrictions on her freedom of movement! So, you see, these were “the slings and arrows of outrageous forces” that Shakespeare must have been talking about in Hamlet, I believe, but we carried on as “true grit citizens” might be expected to do.
Now, a more immediate problem might be the sudden appearance of my other sister, Michelle, who was also known as Michelle, la Guedelle, and Michelle, la Girouette (the weathervane) at the front door just above the stairs. You just can’t continue a punch ball game under these unsafe and distracting conditions where an eight-year-old fan and advocate of the game is standing in her cute summer clothes on the ball field!
Convention, courtesy, and good sense all say that a “time out” must be called and baseball “law and order” restored! Fortunately, la
Girouette usually preferred to exit through the side porch door, thus posing no problems to the players. Dogs, however, were a different story. These canine types are born ball chasers and fetchers, with no regard for the rules of a neighborhood game. It is in their blood! They simply ignored any admonition from the neighborhood boys and girls
on the playing field regarding “good and acceptable dog behavior” during a friendly game of punchball. Therefore, any ball caught by a pooch was
automatically discounted out of deep respect for the hitter. This rule was true even if one didn’t particularly like that hitter.
In summary, punch ball as played in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1950s
remained the very instrument of our early civic understanding regarding human behavior, courtesy, fair-play, patience, truth, some courage resolve, loyalty and trust. In real life, everyone gets to experience success and failure, a fair ball and a foul ball plus interruptions and dog bites, but the “true blue person” carries on with hope and courage in their heart, plus an open mind and a couple of extra quarters in case you need to make an emergency phone call to your lawyer.
How much did it cost? Who was popular at the movies and on television?
Of course, there were many good reasons to cherish 1954 and 1955, especially if you look at the prices of goods and services, but you also need to look at average salaries. Much emotional stability is invested in family members that have known shared financial stressors over their household expenses over the years and then managed to adjust their worldview and life expectations to reflect some potential “ruts in the road of life”.
(More later)
[ENDE]
Dad – Father Memories
“You are a crêpe hanger like your mother”
la bête enragée
le marabout
le fou
Joke: Do you like peaches? Kiss my ass. It’s a peach!
Fais pas de bruit! Tu vas reveiller ton pere! – Father was asleep on the
couch in the living room at 4:40 P.M. after working at the Beaver Brook
Mills (7:00 AM to 3:00 PM) and resting up before working at East End Taxi for the owner, Spike Beauparlant, from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM
A day at the Barnum and Bailey Circus on South Commons in 1948 or
1949 – there was the giant with his ring large enough to past a quarter
through it. Walking on the grounds; there’s a barker getting our attention;
big tents, quite a few people but not so crowded that we could not get
around; Bob was not there. Maybe, Bob was too young? In the summer of
1948, he would have been only 3and ½ years old. An adventure and a
good memory of Dad. Don’t recall any criticism or verbal putdown. Don’t
have a memory of meeting anyone that Dad or I knew. There were painted displays advertising sideshow activities and freaks. You could gawk at people with terrible deformities in the late 1940s, and no one really took umbrage. Surely, it was cruel and insensitive, but such a cruelty was sensed as funny. Of course, we had never heard of gallows humor, but every day carried its own special nugget of the stuff.
“Sacre bleu” was never used as an expletive, never. My relatives and
neighbors, all Canadiens and Canadiennes to the core, much favored
“Calvaire!” and “Enfant de chien” to that weak and nonsensical curse that
Hollywood has passed onto us as typically French. However,
several other rather strong cuss words were used freely, with a grim,
frustrated anger and silent despair. Women were more discrete, but not the men and the teenage boys.
“Mange de la marde (merde)” carried with it the total revulsion that the author felt for their intended insult target.
“Tu me fais chier!” and “Putain” rolled off an angry tongue like foam from a white water rafting accident!
Alexander Bolduc, my Dad, peppered his speech for emotional effect with a glossary of mean and vicious words often essential in attaining certain rough-hued respect in the Lowell society of the 1940s and the 1950s. He accomplished this goal with his fellow Canadian friends, relatives, and neighbors and during his daily excursions into the English-speaking world of mill workers, taxi drivers, and downtown
merchants. Curiously enough, several acquaintances of my father said to
me and to my mother many years after his death in 1953 that he was a
charming and interesting person. Another confessed to me that he was
quite a handsome and amiable young man that she knew through mutual
friends at social gatherings years before his meeting my mother. That
description left me with a deep and strange feeling that I really did not
know my father. Actually, the person I had known was
now badly mangled by the hurts of a numbing (yawning) poverty coupled
to some bleeding ulcers and a double hernia incurred years and years
before when the Darcy Pie truck that he was driving, somehow, lost its
footing. He tried to keep it from crushing him. Anger and humiliation
cemented his whole character into a man of gangly despair.
How does a scrawny seven-year-old lad begin to appreciate the sacrifices made by a gargantuan creature like this gangly father with four jobs and, of course, very little time at home playing baseball or, maybe, going to the beach or the lake?
We seldom did anything together except eating the evening meal. Everyone around the table had a designated place that never varied. Only death would change this ceremonial family arrangement! Dad was at the head of the table near the attractive cast iron stove and Mom
sat to his left ever ready to fetch more meat and vegetables for anyone
needing seconds or a glass of milk.
Meals were always plentiful with many a leftover meatloaf, Chinese pie, roast beef, and Italian spaghetti awaiting a second gastronomical presentation in our icebox a day or two later!
A favorite memory is really a composite picture of many such cases
where Uncle Jerry, Aunt Florence, Dad, and Mom are all sitting on the side porch overlooking the crossroads of our existence, corner of Ludlam and Dana streets, on a humid summer evening. The meal was tasty but now is the time for relaxation in a somewhat cooler place. Inside, the tenement, it is almost sticky with perspiration and a stagnant air reminiscent of a gym. A soothing shade from the large maple and chestnut trees in our yard gently shelters the four adults from the last hours of the grilling sunshine. Beer and/ or ice coffee and tea are available to drink plus Pepsi, Coca Cola, Sprite and, of course, Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Claire Beauparlant, Leonie Vallois, Donald Bergeron, brother Bob and I are playing “Red Rover, Red Rover let xx come over” or, perhaps, hide-and-seek. The Antefinerio boys, Joe and Carl, would also be there to further spice up these long, languid days of summer.
Candy, Toys, Fun Stuff
Moxie
Tootsie rolls
Bubble gum baseball cards
Mars candy bar
Cracker Jacks
Table Talk pies (apple, lemon, etc.)
Wise Potato chips
Orange-colored, banana-shape candy with the consistency of a chewy
marshmallow
A 5-cent roll of wafer candies
Red hots
Squirt, Pepsi, Doctor Pepper, Coca Cola, Orange drink?
Licorice
Bread dough from the Belgian woman one street up beyond Fisher in
Centerville – fry this in a pan of glowing butter; a rare and wondrous
delight!
Homemade brown-sugar fudge – Memere’s recipe with walnuts – la tire du Quebec!
Chocolate-peanut butter candy – Reese
A 36” Louisville Slugger baseball bat and a ragged baseball wrapped in a black electrical tape were the mainstays of a summer day’s activities.
Dana Street’s cobblestone surface provided a rough and grainy ballpark on those sticky afternoons where your sweat glands XXX
Home plate was a sewer cover located in the middle of the street near the entrance to the white-slate-covered Vallois home.
First base was the telephone pole near the Lussier house.
Pearl Divers – Aiken Street Canal Divers and Swimmers
Race & Ford and Cheever Streets
Four-story tenement dive into the canal was proof of a young guy’s bravery
8 to 10 feet of water
Canals cleaned once a week – Tuesdays?
Rubbish and refuse that graced the bottom of the Merrimack’s diverted waters
Mom’s Nicknames for Relatives and Friends
Her step sister, Marie Gargon, deserved the dubious title of “Marie, Caca”
Sometimes, her brother, Gerry, was “le Chie-en-culottes” – (he who shits in his pants)
Brother Bob’s first wife, Rachelle, also was “la Grande Vache” – (the Great Cow)
Brother Gerry’s wife, Florence, sometimes was “la Reine” – (the Queen)
Mom about Dad: “la bête enragée”. – (the enraged beast)
Dad was never Alexander to those friends and relatives around him. He
was always “Ben” and, sometimes, “Alex”.
Comments of Relatives and Friends
Dad about me: “You are a crêpe hanger just like your Mother.”
Dad’s favorite joke: “Do you like peaches?” – “Well, kiss my ass; it’s a
peach.”
Mom about XX: “la Grande Gueule” – (Big Mouth)
Dad about Angeline Valois: “la Folle” – (the crazy woman)
Mom about little Aimee: “la crotte à Mémère” – (Grandma’s little turd)
Dad to me while on a city bus on Merrimack Street going toward downtown Lowell: “Speak English in public.” This request was delivered with a brusque slap to the back of the head. It’s at a time like this that a boy learns about the rules of the world.
Characters in the Play
Aunt Florence Charbonneau – Gerry’s wife
Aunt Lida Ouellette – Georges’ wife – Mom’s only sister, a few years older
Aunt Mildreth (Millie) Charbonneau –Albert’s wife
Uncle Albert Charbonneau – Mom’s oldest brother
Uncle Gérald Charbonneau – Uncle Gerry – Mom’s youngest brother
Uncle Georges Ouellette – my favorite drunkard uncle and also and
excellent chef when partially sober
Aunt Irène Bolduc –Walter’s wife
Uncle Walter Bolduc – Dad’s brother, a bit older than Dad
Uncle Lucien Bolduc – Colonel Lucien Bolduc – Dad’s oldest brother and the silent family hero, who left Lowell during WWI and decided never to return. His famous quote to me when I was a graduate student at Penn
State was this: “The best thing that could happen to Massachusetts would be that it fall into the sea.” From this brief comment, I suspected that his memories of the place were unsettling.
Uncle Maurice Bolduc – Dad’s youngest brother, the one who died in ~
1943. Mom’s stories about Maurice indicate that he had a violent temper
and that he physically threatened Memere Bolduc, his mother, with harm at home one day. Soon after this incident, he had to be sent to the infamous insane asylum in Worchester, MA for everyone’s well-being. It was there that he died, I guess, during WWII.
Monsieur Vallois, our neighbor at the corner of Dana and Ludlam – he was a soldier in the French army in Africa and naturalized American citizen
Madame Vallois, his wife
Léonie Vallois
Angéline Vallois – la folle – “Sautes, stupidine!” – Dad’s friendly advice to Angéline when she threatened to jump off the porch roof on Dana Street
Céline Vallois
Les Beauparlants, neighbors on Ludlam Street: Spike, Alice, Claire and
?? plus Ignace
The Antefornerios at 179 Ludlam St. (second floor) and later on Ludlam
near les Vallois
Les Bergerons: Donald, Norman ?? on Dana St. – ask brother, Bob
Madame Lucier on Dana St. – Le huissier (usher, bailiff) was a popular profession when Kings ran the show in France.
Monsieur et Madame Roussel on Dana St.
Madeline Chaplin and Pinky MacDonald – Mom’s friends
Tales of Lowell from brother, Bob, at school
There was a reform school and Tom recalls where it was located
Dick Bertrand, a classmate of Bob’s
“Bertrand, prends la porte!”
“N’agaces pas le chat!” – Denise’s comment to Eric or Sarah, her two children
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