And On to School

I first attended Kimberly Ave school. It was a little difficult since I was the new kid in first grade. I did have an advantage because my father Al, was the school janitor. I knew some of the teachers especially Miss Nickols (ck spelling), the Kindergarten teacher. My father did work for her at her summer home in Old Lyme and my brother and I would go with him to help. She was a very nice person. She never married but that was not unusual for women teachers of that era.
I also remember going to Yankee baseball games with Mr. Fisher and his son. Mr. Fisher was principal of Kimberly Ave school and my father's boss. We would take the train into NYC. I think we got off at 125th street. I don't remember how we got to Yankee Stadium. I do remember most of the players. The ones I do remember are as follows; Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Doctor Bobby Brown, Billy Martin, Moose Scaroin, Phil Rizzuto. Of course my spelling of some of these guy's names needs to be checked. Anyway I continued at Kimberly ave School finishing the forth grade.
I do remember my brother Ron & I helping my father shoveling snow off the sidewalks of the school. And back then it really snowed. I remember especially when it snowed on a Saturday. We had to get up early to shovel so people could walk to Saint Peter's Church which was across the street from Kimberly Ave School. The sidewalk was on a corner and we did a lot of snow shoveling. A big job for a nine and a twelve year old. Eventually the city bought my father a snow plow but before that we did all the snow removal ourselves. Try doing that in today's society. More to come.

The Saga Continues

Just a clarification on my move to the hill as I said I was 7 years old when I moved to the hill. The year was 1947. My first friend was my next door neighbor Linda Baccioci. She had a little shed her father built for her sort of a doll house. We played in there and I was the father and she was the mother and her siblings, Frances & Eddy were our children. I think back at those times with fondness. There was such an innocence in our games. We imitated adults. Adults that were worthy of imitation. I also had a friend name Joe McGee. Check spelling. He lived further down Kimberly Ave. toward Haddads. Joe was a great kid. Don't know where he is today. I remember my brother's friends, Paul Murphy, Charlie Larson, Jackie Hubert, Camille Esposito, Billy Ford, Billy Lafferty, Johnny Cuisak, Eddie ( Zeke) Zankowski, and more. We had one of the first TV sets in the neighborhood and all the kids came over to watch it. I think it was a 9 inch oval TV. Can you imagine watching such a small screen? We got a dog name Taffy. She was a jumper. We first named her Lassie because she was suppose to be a Collie. That didn't happen she looked more like a greyhound. So we changed her name to Taffy. As I said she could jump. We had a gate in our back yard and the kids would get on their hands & knees one after another on one side of the gate. We would have at least 5 kids there. Someone would call Taffy and she would come jumping over the gate and the 5 plus kids behind it. She was a great dog and lived to be 16 years old.