William Tremble - A Brief Glimpse

A Brief Glimpse

By William Tremble

Copyright 2015 William Tremble

My parents, grandparents, and great aunts and uncles lived out most of their lives during the first half of the last century. They often began a conversation Years ago when I was a youngBack during the Depression or Back during the war Unfortunately, I only have vague memories of these conversations, and the continuity of their personal recollections of their experiences are now lost to the ages. I also decided to write this autobiographical chronology to try and understand why I am the way I am, and because there are younger generations of people who were not alive to see the United States accomplishing great things. Someday I may have descendants that may want to know what living during a period of time that can best be described using an analogy as life inside the sweet spot, that area on a tennis racket where the ball flies accurately and efficiently off the strings in the center of the racket. The second half of the 20 th century was the sweet spot of human civilization. There were no World Wars, we landed on the Moon, found cures for Polio and other diseases, and we saw the future full of possibilities that we fully expected would be realized during our lifetime because that was just the American Way. We believed it, but so did the rest of the free world. I have tried to chronicle my 55 years on this planet through the eyes of a young boy living in New Jersey and Maine, all the way to being someone with white hair. I also know that I have just scratched the surface of the events that formed my being. I hope you enjoy the ride inside my stream of consciousness called life which is rife with speed traps, speed bumps, and potholes.

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Simply put, I am the product of my mother and father, but I think you all figured that one out once you were given the birds and bees talk. What I mean to say is I am the product of two people who were raised in the same town, but under different circumstances. However, some of those circumstances had common themes.

My father was named John, but was always called some derivation of Jack by his family. He was the oldest of six kids comprised of three older brothers Jack, Dick, and Joe, and two younger sisters Catherine and Nancy, and the youngest brother Don. My uncle Don once told me the differential of 10 years between him and my father made it seem like there were two families, the three older brothers and the three younger siblings.

My grandfather was named Harold, and he worked for the railroad post office sorting mail on a train that came to Bangor. When WW II started he volunteered for the military, but was turned down for a health issue. He was then sent where the civilian work effort needed him and that meant he took another railroad postal job in Malden, Massachusetts where he moved with his wife Margret Luosey Tremble and 6 children. They lived on the third floor of a tenement building that had a store on the first floor and another apartment on the second floor in a predominantly Italian neighborhood.

The stories my father told of his life living in Malden reminded me of the old TV show Spanky and Our Gang. My father became friends with a lot of the boys his age that grew up in his neighborhood. The gang of neighborhood friends included younger brothers, and in this case that meant my Uncle Dick and Uncle Joe. Catherine, Nancy, and Donny were very young children under four.

At the age of ten, my father and his friends jumped on the back bumper of trolley cars and rode them from Malden all the way to Revere Beach to go swimming. Hitching rides on the back of trolley cars staying one step ahead of the police, and the trolley car conductor, just became the way they got around.

He once told a story about one of his neighborhood friends finding an Army Surplus raft. Well once the neighborhood gang had a perfectly good raft that meant they now had to use it. It didnt take long for the group to decide that they would sail down the Charles River all the way into Boston Harbor. As you might have already predicted, one of his friends was struck by sharp debris that was just under the water leaving a large gash in his abdomen. My father remembers that he saw his intestines hanging out of the gash. As far as I know, he got medical attention.

Another of his stories involved his group of friends walking on railroad tracks that took them over a railroad bridge. Younger brothers often would accompany them on these jaunts. One of my fathers friends was the son of Charlie the Barber who lived directly across the street from my fathers apartment. Somehow Charlie the Barbers younger son got his foot stuck on the railroad bridge tracks just as a train came. Charlie the Barbers older son and my father frantically tried to free his foot, but ran out of time as the train approached. They were left with only one choice to lay the younger brother flat on the tracks between the rails hoping the train would pass over him. Sadly, the stairs were left down on the caboose, and killed him.

He also told a story about his neighborhood gang of friends who were all about 11 years old who came up with a scheme to sell raffle tickets for the Malden Boys Club which was an organization that was pure fiction. The money they took from the raffle tickets purchased a toaster, iron, or some other small household item that usually went to their mothers.

As I said before, Charlie the Barber lived across a very busy street from my father. On this day my father was trying to cross the street with my 4 year old Aunt Catherine and 5 year old Uncle Joe. My father held Catherines hand, and Catherine held Joes hand while Charlie told them when it was clear to cross the street. As they began to cross, a speeding car came around a corner and did not see them. Charlie screamed at my father to stop walking, which they did hearing the urgency of Charlies scream. The speeding car came so close to hitting them that they felt the car as it passed. Life is a game of inches.

My grandmother could see the writing on the wall, and once the war was over thought it best that the family move back to Bangor because she did not like the road that her sons were following with the other neighborhood boys.

My father moved back to Brewer with his family when he was 13 years old, and was enrolled in John Bapst High School. Tragically, a year later his father died of a massive heart attack at the age of 39, leaving his wife Margret to raise six kids. I believe my grandmother looked to my father to help keep an eye on his younger siblings. My aunts over the years would say their mother often deferred decisions to my father. If my father said it was okay, then it was okay. My father played Split End for the John Bapst high school football team where they won a state championship. My Uncle Dick was on the same team and was called Stumpy because he played nose man on the defensive line like a stump where opposing teams could not move him.

He told a story of when he was walking home from Bangor with a group of friends one hot summer evening around 10 PM. To cool off they decided to climb the fence and sneak into the Brewer Public Pool to take a dip. They raced to the pool taking off their clothes as they ran, and my father said he made a beautiful swan dive, then in midflight he realized there was no water in the pool, and hit the cement bottom 10 feet below which knocked him out cold. I dont think thats the way he planned to get cooled off that night. Back in those days you did not go to the hospital unless you had a limb hanging off. His friends picked him up and dragged him home to Chamberlain Street where my father struggled with a concussion causing him to lose consciousness over the next two days.