Credo – Early Beliefs
When a newborn first gets started on his/her life journey, it is usually recommended that certain, basic preparations be made, early on, to facilitate the path that the parents had chosen for the child.
These are the “dos” and “don’ts” of the world or guideposts to the consciousness that furnish the young mind with a capsule version of local reality. One might consider these the user’s guide to a successful, early childhood experience.
I am proud to say that my first years on our planet Earth came with such a comforting plan. I take no credit for the work that my parents put into this family project. Essential features of my personal plan are listed below as bullet points to future events.
Details of a Boy’s Early Experiences
1) My dog, Pal – a wonderful German Shepherd, male dog
2) Monsieur Poulain – our landlord at 4 Endicott St in Pawtucketville, Lowell, MA
3) Ronald LaCouture – neighbor boy, next door
4) Ma mère et mon père
5) Mémère Bolduc, paternal grandmother
6) Mon oncle et ma tante Charbonneau, Gérard et Florence
7) Jésus, le petit Jésus
8) Sunshine through that kitchen window overlooking White Street from our second-floor apartment
9) Les poules (chickens) de Monsieur Poulain
10) Les allemands en guerre- The Germans at war
11) Les français en France en souffrance – “souffrance” is suffering
12) Drawing a cartoon figure of Adolf Hitler, which my mother kept for years
13) Le marchand grecque de fruits et légumes avec sa charrette et son cheval – The Greek merchant of fruits and vegetables with his cart and horse
14) La paix dans notre voisinage, Endicott Street – Peace in our neighborhood
15) My whole physical world consisted of a block of streets extending from Moody Street (now, University Blvd) down White Street to Endicott with a left turn there to Street X and back up to Moody, again.
16) Pearl Harbor attack on 12-7-1941
17) Birth of my brother Bob on 3-25-1943
18) Death of Uncle Maurice in an asylum, June 6, 1944
19) Dad often not home – He was working for Darcy Pies or off “relaxing with the boys at a Franco-American men’s club, a half-mile away on Moody Street
20) Conflict at home between Mom and Dad – harsh words, temper flare-ups, screaming, Dad punching a wall in the kitchen. Unbridled anger can scare a kid.
21) These antics were followed by accusations like “Tu es folle” and she would respond, “Toi, tu es une bête enragée.” In translation, you would have heard: “You are crazy” to which she would have said: “You are an enraged beast.” It was quite difficult to feel safe in this family situation. Clearly, my parent’s relationship had many rocky moments, but constantly facing a potential job loss or long unemployment with little government assistance apparently caused some emotional friction in our household.
22) Sadness for me started after Pearl Harbor with possible East Coast attacks from German-based submarines or military planes.
23) Mom was often very worried, which made me worried, too.
24) Playing cards with my Mom – “rouge ou noir?” “red or black?”
25) Building a house of cards – fragile, but great fun, too. Life is unpredictable!
26) Drive to downtown, underground garage next to police station with Dad in his Darcey Pie delivery truck. The truck was stored there overnight for safety.
27) Making margarine by squeezing the red dye from the plastic wrapper of the vegetable, yellow paste package
28) Saving empty, tin, can containers for the war effort – money for metal
29) Smell of lilac bushes in the spring. So refreshing!
30) Taste of fresh rhubarb from the front side garden near the white picket fence separating our yard from that of the neighbor
31) Being very angry with my mother and jumping into the bathtub after turning on the water while still wearing my street clothes. Then, not going out with my mother for a Bon Marche shopping experience as punishment.
32) Locking myself in the bathroom, in a moment of defiance, and refusing to come out at the request of my mother. Mr. Poulain had to fetch his large stepladder to open the bathroom window to save the day.
33) Running to the bread truck on Endicott to get two loaves of bread. Cousin Richard carried one and I, the other
34) Taste of fresh gingerbread coming out of the oven
35) Learning about the large, two-family attic with the help of Mr. Poulain. Why was there a large sliding door separating the two halves of the place? How does a fire spontaneously start by itself without wooden matches to start the blaze?
36) Smell of incense burning in a tiny cup in front of a holy picture of a saint.
37) A long and narrow kitchen pantry loaded with drawers, cabinets, and counter space plus pots, pans, jars, all located off the main kitchen eating area. Simple feeling of safety found amid a surrounding of food items. Food means all is OK.
38) Saying my prayers at night
39) “J’ai l’hoquet, qui l‘a fait? C’est Jésus, je l’ai eu, et je ne l’ai plus.” – “I have the hiccups, who made them? It was Jesus, I had them, and I don’t have them anymore.”
40) Mary, Jesus and Joseph, the Holy Family, making us safe
41) The funny story on how my dog, Pal, pisses on a bush
42) Fear of air raids, drawing the curtains at night, Dad with his air raid warden’s, white, metal helmet and the gas-mask ever at the ready. This seemed serious.
43) “What happens to bad little boys?”, my mother asked after I had been through a long period of “the terrible twos”. This happened when she was pregnant with Bob. Apparently, a frightening story had appeared in the Lowell Sun about a mother that had become very angry with her son, so she killed the baby, chopped him up into many, tiny pieces and, then, had made a stew out of the remains. She told her husband, when he returned home from work, that there was a big pot of fresh chicken stew on the stove pot for dinner. Maybe, I suddenly changed my ways and became the model child of the era. I don’t recall but this story had petrified me at the time. Even today, it seems a bit much for calming down an anxious three-year-old boy, who was, soon, to lose his place of privilege in the home. Maybe, adults don’t always act in the most thoughtful way in handling existential crises, especially, that of being new parents?
44) Visiting the hen house located in the large backyard of the property and, also, the plentiful victory garden area to the left of the chicken coop
45) Helping Monsieur Poulain water his trees, bushes and flower bed in the summer. He would not accept any help from Ronald, the Belgian boy next door, since Ronald had once left the outdoor water faucet run spilling precious water onto the sidewalk. The concept of a “persona non grata” was still outside my active Latin vocabulary but I could feel its meaning in Monsieur Poulain’s reticence in accepting the young lad’s assistance.
Conclusions
These little stories shaped the way that I, eventually, saw the world. Similar stories happening in the lives of the other young children living unique experiences in nearby Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian Jewish, etc. neighborhoods – unique ghettos across the city – formed the very fabric of the city’s multi-flavored character. To me, we were all foreigners different but equal in every way.