A frghtening reality of my hgh school years (1953 – 1957) rested on the fact that any city or town in our US of A could be wiped off the face of our globe literally, in a brilliant, hot flash!
This spectacular event coud happen unannounced during a Red Sox basebal game, at the Pollard Library, during Sunday Mass or when I was deliverng my daily editons of the Lowell Sun from door-to-door. It might even take place at the Mayflower Park, just up Ludlam St and, then, a sharp turn to the rght onto Richardson Road.
In the back of our heads, we all knew this grime fact and, yet, we, all, pretended not to know it and to live for that moment or that song-fest, or that carnival ride. Curiously, we were all Great Pretenders, just as that popular song rang out.
Dad & Mom lived with it as did Uncle Gerry & Aunt Florence plus Uncle George & Aunt Lida. Then, there were all those cousins bearing the Charbonneau name, living on Lilley Avenue. Their parents, Albert and Mldreth, too, carried that somber truth daily as they trudged along Centralvile’s streets and alleys.
On the Ouellette side, I assume that, deep in their hearts, my cousins Florence, Claire, Richard, Paul (Bouchie) and Georges (Soap) also carried this fervent truth in their guts. There was no escaping ths clinging reality. It scented the very air to our nasal passaages. Curiously, we had become a community of quet, new believers in the magic of pretending together.
How to Survive when the A-bomb is overhead?
In 1951, Lowell, like many mill towns in Massachusetts, was still staggering from the lack of technical talent, decent jobs, a modern-day education at the elementary and high-school levels while hoping for urban renewal to magically change everything for the better. First and second generations of immigrant mill workers from the surrounding decaying, textile factories walked the streets like “wounded warriers” seeking employment in new tech start-ups that needed experienced workers in telecommunications plus training in radio, television and radar manufacturing techniques.
The former rural, farm workers, who knew Quebec’s ambience of dirt, cattle, horses, wooden plows, rocky soil and log cabins for living quarters, lacked the expertise required to successfuy compete in this new world.
In the summer of 1951, their lot – my Dad was among them – appeared quite dismal if not desperate. All that they could expect as careers was to provide pools of low-paying, dead-end jobs to the system while living on the crumblig margins of Lowell’s under belly.
Indeed, it woud take the efforts of Dr. Martin Lydon (?) from the Lowell Technological Institute, LTI, working closely with colleagues from the US Air Force at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts, to shed some encouraging light on this scene.
WIP – more soon! WIP – more soon!
Clear Warning Signs
As a clear warning of the world politcal situation, once a week in the 1950s, air-raid warning blasts would awakeed the city’s inhabitants (mill laborers, years before) at 6:00 AM. For us in Centralville, this warning would go off at the designated time but only on Tuesdays. The same fire-station warning blasts would also be used to announce local school closures due to inclement weather. Then, it was a welcome morning announcement – “no school, today.”
George Bourbeau, Roger St-Amand and Richard Ouellette – Their Reactioms ?
How did my school friends and the many kids in our streets and alleys react to this rather unpredictable, post-war state of being?
We had won the war against the Nazis and Japanese fascism by working closely with our many allies, including the Russians, but a tense period of East-West hostility already filled most geo-political transactions across the planet.
Josef Stalin still maintained an iron grip over the Kremlin and the Red Army on the Continent. In sharp contrast, America’s interests were focused on establishing a democratic, free-trade set of independent countries all vying to reach their political and economic goals through discourse and compromise.
Yes, WWII in Europe and in the Pacific was finally history. Some veterans slowly appeared on our streets and, especially, in Kearney Square, doing their weekly shopping with the rest of us. In parades and on national holidays, a spotlight might highight their presence. Often, the local press celebrated their valor with beautiful expressions of patriotism.
Even then, Kate Smith’s intonation of “God bless America” would easily stir the very foundations of our being.
WORK IN PROGRESS – more soon
Televsion was still a thing of the future, but radio continued to entertain us in kitchens and living rooms across the naton
sudden was over, and the ration coupons were no longer so hghy valued, but many areas of sccarcety such as limted supples at the hobby shop,
My friends, George and Roger, knew it
Strategic Air Command: B-36 “Peacemaker” Operational Flight (Jimmy Stewart -1955) (HD)
B-52 Stratofortress – Take Off
Strategic Air Command – Britannica