The Beginning

Copyright 1996, John E. Hunt

By way of offering an explanation for this first chapter, I'm printing the prologue to the book I wrote. Its title is "Looking Back" and it is largely an autobiography from 1940 until 1978. There are 13 chapters, with 17,000 bytes to 38,000 bytes in each.

PROLOGUE

You should know that any resemblance to persons or places depicted in this book is purely intentional. This is an autobiographical account of my existence at various locations, at differing times during my life. As such, they intend it to be factual, so street names and place names must remain as written.

I have endeavored to leave off surnames and have changed some of the characters names in the story. At best though, it is a thin disguise and can be penetrated by readers familiar with some of the persons or places mentioned.

It is not this author's intent to cause anyone pain or discomfort by these revelations. Rather, it is told to shed some light on a particular moment which has some redeeming quality that caused the author to store the moment in memory until now.

It was the desire of the author to contact old friends or teachers to reminisce about good times in past years. The letter writing campaign intensified when they turned it into a class project. At first I resented this intrusion by so many strangers. I began to realize, however, the more I wrote to these students, the more clearly events stood out in my memory and the narrative began to flow more smoothly. For that alone, I owe the teacher and his students my deepest gratitude.


It is hoped the reader can piece the story together without too much difficulty and that in doing so, will have a good read and perhaps some personal memory will be called to mind by the narrative.

I thank my wife who has been very patient with my absences and late night toil in this endeavor.

To the reader, enjoy.

John E. Hunt

























C H A P T E R 01

(1940 1953)

The Ides of March 1940 is an auspicious date. That is when I came into this world at a place called Fiskdale, Massachusetts. Julius Caesar went out of this world on the Ides of March, and I like to think that maybe I'm a reincarnation of his.


Mom said the doctor was late getting to the house during the storm at 3:00 a.m. He was sick himself and had to have an appendix removed after he left us. After examining her, he lay on the bed beside her to wait for my entrance. When I did arrive, while he was examining me, I peed in his face. That made my mom happy for some reason. She was a weird lady.

In 1943, a crisis in my mother's life occurred. My father, who had been driving taxis in Pawtucket and Central Falls, went off to World War Two in the Pacific. Mom moved us to my aunt and uncle's farm out in Norton, Massachusetts.

The farm was a great place for kids to grow up. I'd guess it was about four or five acres anyway, nothing that a large family without machinery couldn't work. Everything was done by hand: the tilling, hoeing, weeding, planting, and reaping. They grew everything needed for subsistence in the way of vegetables, and kept some chickens, pigs, a couple of cows, and ducks. My uncle was experimenting with a mink farm operation.

In the summer, we walked along a dirt road that paralleled the farm. About two miles down the road, and across a railroad track, was an old man made pond on the right. They called it Pete's Pond, and that's where I learned to swim at the age of four. My cousin George took me out on his shoulders and then ducked out from under me. I cried a little, but by golly, I learned pretty fast. I remember watching the dragonflies, or as some people call them, darning needles, flitter about on the surface of Pete's Pond, and marveling at their changing hues in the sunlight. On the way home, we picked rhubarb that grew wild along the roadside.

Once, my cousins removed an old barn door and we carried it by hand all the way to Pete's Pond to use as a raft. Another time, we found a dead body in the woods by the side of the road, and it caused quite a stir in the neighborhood. I forget the details of that one, because I think the grown ups were trying to protect us little ones.

My uncle had several old clunker cars and trucks that littered the property, and were good places for nesting wasps. I found that out one day while investigating. When my mother came home from work, she couldn't recognize me, because I had been stung between the eyes, and both of them were swollen shut.

We kids had this special place off in the woods in a clearing where we would play. We built sand cars in the dirt, big enough for us to get into, and we'd sit in them and pretend to race each other through the woods. Naturally we didn't get very far. We had to change vehicles just to make sure that the same person didn't win all the time.

Occasionally, my cousins got some vegetables from the garden, some salt and pepper, pots and pans, and other staples, and with rod and reel, we went off in the woods to a fishing hole. From what I remember, we only caught catfish, so we must have been fishing off the bottom. We built a fire, and cut up the vegetables and put them in the stew pot, along with the cleaned catfish. We ate right there on the bank of the pond. Such were the cares of my world then.

During the Second World War, my dad sent back some pictures of himself and a friend having a good time at some club on one of those islands. Both had hula girls, in grass skirts, draped around their necks, and sitting on their laps. That was some war they were fighting, huh? I only mention that in passing, because he asked my mother for a divorce, and this caused her to have a nervous breakdown. My brother and I were placed in an orphanage.

I don't remember too much about the children's home except that for some reason my brother and I were separated. I do remember seeing and talking with him through a tall, chain link fence that separated our playgrounds. I remember Mom coming to visit also when she started to feel better. Dad had reconsidered His position and begged for forgiveness, so after some time, my mom relented. They got us out of the home and made a fresh start of it.

My first conscious memory of Central Falls, Rhode Island is from a second story window of an apartment on Washington Street. I must have been four years old, so that was sometime in 1944. My father was in the Navy in the Pacific, and my mother was raising my brother and me by herself there on Washington Street. I was too young for school, but I used to watch for my brother to come home from first grade. The school was on Washington Street also; it was a Catholic school, and we only spoke French (My mother is Canadian French, and I didn't speak English until I started second grade in another state, but that's another story.).

The walk up in that apartment was a very scary place for a four year old, especially at night. I still have one very scary memory of a drunk, asleep on the stairs, grabbing my leg as I tried to pass him. His stubble beard on my leg (we wore knickers in those days) scared me, but not half as much as I must have scared him when I screamed.

I remember going to the store with ration coupons to get butter and flour. There was a corner store I used to pass that had an old, wooden, cigar store Indian statue out front. Some old (to me) men used to sit outside on the steps and share a water pipe and the local gossip.
If I'm not mistaken, they cobbled the streets in those days. I remember the iceman delivering ice to the apartments. He'd haul large blocks of ice in his horse drawn cart. The ice was under burlap sacks. When you paid him for your ice, he would take his ice pick and chop off an appropriate amount of ice, grab it with his tongs and toss it over his shoulder, and carry it to your apartment, putting it in the icebox for you. He wore a leather apron. If he were in a good mood, you could talk him out of some chips to suck on.

In those days, the pool in Jenk's Park was filled with water in the summer and all the little kids like me would play in it. The deepest part was less than three feet deep, what is now called a wading pool. I stubbed many a big toe running around the apron. It used to be pretty scenic to walk up the steps to the clock tower, or the gazebo at the top of the rocks, and look out and down at those in the park.

I remember walking downtown and across the Blackstone River Bridge to go to the movie house near there; especially on Saturdays! Those were the days when they had the best cartoons and the continuation of the serials. You were able to learn that the hero really hadn't died in the previous episode, as you had thought, but was saved by some miracle or other.

In 1948 1949, I was living at the Annex in Newport News, Virginia, a decidedly substandard military housing project. I was in the second and third grade. The housing consisted of long rows of wooden barrack like apartments that held four families per building. It was government subsidized housing (read that low rent), and a lot of military families lived there.

We walked to school by following the sidewalk that ran the length of the apartment buildings for about half a mile. On the left was a huge easement ditch, about thirty feet wide, that was always filled with mud and water, but could be waded across at some points, as long as it hadn't rained recently. On the other side of the ditch, there were more apartments like ours.

The family of my brother's friend, who lived across the ditch, was one of the first families in the neighborhood to get a television in 1949. It only had a six inch circular screen, but it was a great drawing card to pack the room on Saturdays. We'd gather at his house to watch "Howdy Doody," or the wrestling and boxing. I can still see the one eyed man with the silk top hat on the National Bohemian can of beer. I hear the man singing, "Say, mister, how are you fixed for blades? Ya better check, Gillette Blue Blades, we mean?" Mom used to tell us that someday, we too, would have a radio like that, with a moving picture. For the present, we had to make do with listening to "Buster Brown," who lived in a shoe with his dog, Tige. "The Shadow, The Fat Man, Green Hornet, Inner Sanctum," and Tonto and "The Lone Ranger" were other favorites. In short, it was the radio for entertainment, or games like Parcheesi or Monopoly. Sometimes, we would make up guessing games and take turns asking if it was animal, vegetable, or mineral. Home entertainment was what you made it.

The housing authority said they would furnish the paint if we wanted to paint the outside of the apartments. All families in each building had to agree. My father was gone, so only my mother and we kids were there. My mom made a game of it by making it seem like fun, and getting all the neighborhood kids to pitch in. Tom Sawyer didn't have anything on her, no sir! The end results looked pretty good too!

A bedraggled kitten showed up on our doorstep one night, and it was sickly. Mom tried to nurture it back to health for several days, but it didn’t look as though it would survive. Since it had just rained and the ditch was full, she decided to place the kitten in a burlap sack with rocks and throw it in the ditch. That night, a scratching at the door revealed that the kitten had, somehow, clawed its way out, and swum to shore and to our doorstep once again. Mom didn't have the heart to try killing it again, so she continued to nurture it, and succeeded in bringing it back to health. She never again tried to get rid of kittens that way.

My paternal grandmother came to live with us for a while, but began hallucinating, so my father returned on leave from his assignment, and signed the necessary paperwork to have her committed to a sanitarium in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Then he went back to his ship, and left my mother to make the arrangements for travel to the sanitarium. We went by limousine, and it was a gorgeous trip, with stops for souvenir shopping in the mountain stores, and eating in restaurants.

On the way back, the chauffeur, whom I suspect Mom was having a dalliance with, stopped off at a farm and my brother and I looked at the various animals while a meal was prepared for us. After the meal, we went home to the annex.


Shortly thereafter, we packed our suitcases (we didn't have any furniture of our own) and caught a Military Airlift Command aircraft from Newport News, Virginia, to Miami, Florida, and thence, on to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The flight was very noisy and bumpy. We sat in webbed seats with our backs to the window.

In 1950, my father, who was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ran the golf pro shop at the golf course. Just above the golf club in the hills, there was a riding stable where one could go and rent a horse for fifty cents an hour to go horseback riding. My brother and I used to do this regularly. The trails led down from the hills, around the edge of the golf course and back to the stables.

Those horses were well trained. You can imagine kids who had never been on a horse, but had watched Hopalong Cassidy, Lash Larue, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies, and the horses never, but never walked! We thought the horses were supposed to run all the time, so the minute we had paid our fare and were hoisted into the saddle, we kicked the horse and he would oblige by trotting off obediently along the trail, way from the stables. He couldn't keep a running pace and would slow down after about five minutes.

Invariably, the out leg of the journey was always the fastest. On the return, all the imprecations and cajoling in the world could not make the horse go above a walk. Naturally, we were late getting back to the stables and had to pay an additional fee. As I said, those horses were well trained!

The man who broke the horses and trained them at those stables was an old black man about sixty five or seventy years old, and he had ridden with T.R. Roosevelt on the attack at San Juan Hill. He used to tell us kids stories by the hour, but sorry to say, I didn't listen as well as I should have, because he was a part of history in the making.

It appears that during or after the attack on San Juan Hill, this gentleman got separated from his comrades. He may have found a place to hide until it was all over, for all I know. I remember he told us that he was left stranded in Cuba after all the others had left. In effect, he was a castaway.

I didn't place too much credence in his story at the time. Years later,
in 1968 to be exact, while I was in the Army and stationed with the Forth Squadron, Twelfth Cavalry, at Fort Carson, Colorado, an article came out in the paper about him that verified his story. Yes, he was in his eighties, and still breaking horses at the riding stables at Guantanamo. From what I gather, the Roosevelt pullout from Cuba was a bit hasty, and he was listed as missing in action. He was restored to the living then and paid all back wages due him.

We lived in a Quonset hut at a place called Bargo Point in 1950. It was built on a peninsula of coral that stuck out into the bay. The

peninsula extended out over a huge expanse of salt flats that led to a mangrove swamp.


A Quonset hut has an apartment on both ends. Usually there are two or three small bedrooms in each one. They are separated by a thin partition. If your neighbor sneezes and you say "bless you," you can generally hear him say thanks. Got the picture? It looks like a large, corrugated, tin drainage ditch cut in half, turned upside down, and having doors and windows.

We kids used to walk out across those salt flats and usually we found old, tarnished, salt coated ammunition shells, and links that had been discarded during the Spanish American War of 1898. (That's the one we got in when the battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor.) Sometimes the shells were embedded in the flats to form names or dates.
We were crossing to the mangrove swamp because there was an old, sunken, rusted out ship in there that we used to fish from, and just about the only thing we ever caught were gars, barracuda, or blowfish. Now those blowfish were funny fish. They had two very big top teeth in front that you had to be careful of, when removing the hook. When you pulled them from the water, they would suck in air and blow up their bodies, I assume, to scare away predators (us). They weren't good for eating or anything else that I've ever heard of, and the skin was tough like leather. We just caught them to see them blow up.


No matter where I was, as a military dependent, my folks had impressed upon me that my actions always affected my dad. If I did something bad and got caught at it, my dad was likely to get called on the carpet for it. That thought was always uppermost in my mind. My father's wrath was to be avoided at all cost. He wasn't a violent man and seldom hit us kids. When he did, it was usually just one whack in the back of the head, and a stern warning not to do again, whatever it was we had done wrong.
I can remember one such incident that happened when we were in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was during the summer months, and I had been going to the wharfs on the base to watch from dockside while the sailors worked on the ships. There were several native banana boats tied up along the wharfs, trying to sell fruits, vegetables, and fish to the sailors. Most of the crews only spoke pidgin English. After seeing me for several times in the area, one boatman became friendly with me and taught me how to peel pineapple for display and to "make a pitch" to passing sailors. He found that with me acting as interpreter, his sales increased. Thereafter, he encouraged me to work for him, enticing nearby sailors over to his boat so that he could make a sale. It was a nice symbiosis we formed, me learning the sales trade and getting an occasional treat to take home to mom, and him learning a bit more English, plus increasing his sales.

One Saturday, when I decided to stay home and read comic books instead of going to the wharfs, we heard on the radio that there had been a big explosion near the piers. Come to find out, one of the ships had been leaking fuel into the water and someone on a banana boat had thrown a cigarette over the side. The resulting explosion had killed the boat crew and caused some damage dockside. I didn't know that at the time, but when my dad found out about it, he told me not to hang around the piers anymore. I disobeyed him the following day, and went down there. It hadn't been the boat I'd been working on, but all the talk that day was about the accident. I was seen on the piers, and word got back to my father. That evening, one of the afore mentioned slaps was administered, and a stern warning not to disobey him again was given. I'd lost my job at the banana boat!

We had a maid and gardener while in Cuba, but nobody should get the idea that we were putting on airs, because nothing could be farther from the truth. Under agreement of the lease between the U.S. Navy and the Cuban government, local nationals had to be hired for that type of work.

So, yes indeed, we took advantage of it, because the wages were inexpensive, but good pay for the nationals.

The first maid who worked for us was old and had a permanent running sore on her elbow. Though she spoke English well, her cooking was abysmal, and my mother didn't get along well with her, so she was fired. The second maid was a large boned, young girl of sixteen, who spoke little English, but could cook and work like a horse. She was very pleasant natured and always tried to keep learning things from my parents and us kids. When we left in 1952, Virgin (that was her name) wanted to come with us. She was from Oriente Province across the bay and came from a large but poor family.

All the domestic help came to the base by boat from Oriente Province early in the morning. They signed into a work pool office and reported to their place of work or to the family they worked for. They worked all day and departed in the evening. A special permit had to be authorized for them to work on weekends because they usually worked weekdays only. They were happy to get the work.

About this time of life, I entered puberty. I knew it, because I had a wet dream one night, and didn't know what strange things were happening to my body. No one had ever told me about that happening! I was scared, but when I asked my mom, she assured me, everything was normal. My mom was great that way. I could usually talk to her about anything. It was almost a necessity, because my dad was not around for a good many years.

Our school May Day festivities of 1951, profoundly affected our banana tree. The banana tree grew outside my bedroom window and was too young to have bananas (about a six inch diameter at base), but offered good shade.


The school was about four miles from my house, and we had to walk down the street and around the corner about a hundred yards to a covered bus stop and wait for transportation. Now today, I know you are thinking school bus when I say that, right? Not so! We were transported in converted cattle car trucks, with open mesh screen on the sides, and an aroma that led you to believe that it was recently used for the original purpose it was built. The school was up on a hill overlooking the bay and you could see the airport and the open air theater with its many bleacher seats off in the distance.

I was in the school band and played the tenor saxophone; my brother played the trombone. For May Day the band played for the visiting parents, and the kids were to put on various skits, play games and dance around the obligatory May Pole.

Naturally, we had to have costumes. My mother had made my brother and me some bright shiny pantaloons of green and red material, with white blouses, and matching bow ties and sashes. This was her idea of keeping the swashbuckling appearance she wanted to achieve. To cap it off, my brother made some swords for him and me, which we buckled onto the sash.

It is necessary to practice for a May Day celebration, so my brother and I decided to practice early. We got a little carried away with the swords, though, and the banana tree that we used to dodge behind from time to time, suffered more punctures and slashes than was good for it. The tree subsequently died. God ought to have known to make those trees more durable. Our parents weren't too happy about that little caper, but we made it up to them by making them proud of us during the festivities.

The Boy Scouts were quite active in Cuba. We went camping a lot, and hiking, and practiced our knot tying and even built signal towers, rope bridges and such like. My brother and I were both scouts. Harold went from Tenderfoot to Eagle Scout while we were there.

I was only ten when we first got there, so I couldn't join. After hearing about some of the glorious hiking and camping that my brother did in the scouts, I pestered my parents to let me join as soon as I turned eleven. One of his camping trips was to the Yatares River in the mountains (I think it's pronounced U tare as). What marvelous pictures he brought back! There are boys swimming nude in the river, diving from rocks, etc. It just looked grand!

I remember the scout shack down by the water, and a long pier that led out over the water, with many small boats tied up. I'd usually arrive early on scout night and I'd walk out on the pier to see if I could spot any barracuda. Being inducted as a Tenderfoot was a singular event in my life.

Not too long after the induction ceremony, we had to put up some static displays on the tarmac near the outdoor theater. There were signal towers, bridges, knot tying stations, life saving skills, etc. All these points were manned by the scouts. Visitors toured throughout the area, asking questions and generally getting a feel of what scouting was like for us. One of my biggest embarrassments was being asked to man one of the signal towers while this kid went to take a leak. I told him I didn't have a badge for semaphore yet, but he said to wave the flags like I was sending a signal. Any fool could plainly see that I didn't know what I was doing up there, and one adult stopped to ask me some questions. I had to admit my inadequacy! What a blow to a young man's pride that was!

In 1951, the Navy took our whole troop aboard three of their ships to visit Jamaica for two weeks during a Boy Scout Jamboree. We anchored in the bay because they had no facilities to handle large ships port side. The plan was to transport us scouts ashore by longboat. We were close enough in, though, that we could see the activity along the shoreline quite plainly. That isn't what held our attention, however.
The water of Montego Bay then, was crystal clear, and though there must have been four fathoms (twenty four feet) of freeboard beneath our keel, one could clearly see the bottom. Even before we dropped anchor, the small boats and dugouts put out from shore to rendezvous with us. When they reached us, some of the larger boats had craftsmen and merchants aboard who proceeded along the hull, and attempted to hawk their wares to the sailors and passengers lining the rails.

What caught most eyes, were the smaller craft that began circling us. The occupants, who were mostly young men without a stitch of clothes, and black as polished ebony, began calling for coins to be thrown to them. When coins were tossed in the water near them, several dove in after the coin, and the water was so clear, you could follow their progress until they had retrieved it. They usually caught it before it hit bottom. They stuck it in their mouth and surfaced amid the cheers of the onlookers. What marvelous swimming abilities they had! Those activities occupied us for a couple hours, and then we were notified to get ready to go ashore, so we packed and boarded the longboats.

Ashore, we divided into more manageable sized groups for the scout master and chaperons to handle, agreed on a time and place to meet for the afternoon meal (The Pirates' Den Restaurant and Bar, of which I'll tell more shortly), and proceeded to disperse to all points of the compass to do some souvenir hunting. Once we were in smaller groups, we became targets for the pickpockets, and some did lose valuables, but we had been warned and most of us came through unscathed.

This was my first lesson in how to haggle price over an article one wished to purchase. Overseas, one never pays the price the merchant is asking, but one must bargain for a lower price or the merchant will not have much respect for you. It is the norm, even among locals. The merchant seldom loses out anyway, because he generally starts his price range at a ridiculously high level, and by the time a price is agreed upon,
he still gets a profit and you are satisfied that you got a bargain. It is a shrewd form of business and one that most Americans are not comfortable with (a fact not lost on the local merchants).

I got what I thought was a bargain and still have some of the articles to this day. A baby stuffed alligator (which has since lost part of its' tail and a leg) now graces a spot under the fireplace logs in my phony fireplace. It scares the cats when they spot it. Some hand carved coaster sets, with Jamaican coins embedded in them, are seldom used because they warp if they get wet. They make good decorations (make that dust catchers, if you're my wife) on festive occasions. I have some carved bamboo vases and coconut shells and several large conch shells.

After shopping, we all gathered at the Pirates' Den for lunch. The motif was lavishly tropical in nature, with miniature waterfalls, palm trees, and other shrubbery. They even had several large and colorful parrots sitting on perches throughout the restaurant. Occasionally these birds let out a raucous cacophony of sound or said something deliciously naughty. The main draw of the place, though, was the super large treasure chest on the stage. It opened up to reveal a small combo inside that proceeded to play Latin rhythm throughout the meal.

We toured the Island and met other scouts from all over the world. We played a softball game against some Jamaican girls who were supposed to be the same age as we were, but they were head and shoulders taller than most of us scouts. They won the ball game, but we had a great time anyway. I still have pictures of that event lying around in
my scrapbook someplace.

When we'd left the states for Cuba in 1950, television was just beginning to come into it's heyday. We didn't have one until a year after we returned to the United States in 1952. I think the biggest change I noticed was that there were now machines that sold candy, cold soda, and cigarettes. All you had to do was drop the appropriate coin in a slot and

pull a handle or push a button. These things may have been around before we left in 1950, but I sure didn't notice them. They were fascinating to me!

My parents couldn't afford to buy a trombone and saxophone for my brother and me when we returned to the States, so since my brother was the older, he got a trombone. He took it with him upon entering the Navy years later, and ended up hocking it to get money to buy dentures for his new girl friend. She promptly left him for another . . . but that's another story. I got a promise that my saxophone would be forthcoming at a later date.

It never did, because my teeth grew in wrong and would not have permitted me to continue playing that instrument. I took to learning to sing in the shower, much to the amusement of my mother, but I got good enough to sing in the glee club at Central Falls High School.

I went to school in Central Falls at a red brick school near Broad Street and Cross Street in 1952 1953. I don't remember the name of the school, but the playground was asphalt. I had just moved there from Cuba. All the kids at that school used to call me, "Cuba," because on my first day of school, the teacher introduced me as having just come from there, and made me tell something about it. Pretty embarrassing stuff for a twelve year old boy to handle! I got over it though, and even made some friends who remembered me when I returned later.

There was a school on the right hand side of Dexter Street, at the lower end, near Notre Dame church. I don't remember the name of the school, but it had a wrought iron fence around it and in 1952 1953, the Boy Scout troop I belonged to, used to hold their weekly meetings in the basement of that school. They weren't as active as we had been in Cuba. All we did was practice our knots and take an occasional hike to Lincoln Wood. I sure hope the scouting picture has improved somewhat from those days.