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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=95 BGCOLOR="#999999" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="176005f0ermwup.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#111111" FACE="Arial" ><B>I  Didn't  Do  It  Alone   </B></FONT><B> </B><B> </B><B> </B><B> </B><B> </B><B>|    </B><B> </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="I Didnt Do It Alone "><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05b90a20.gif" border=0 width="144" height="162" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=385 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>I Didn't do it Alone</B></div> <div> <B>Part 2</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>   </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#111111" FACE="Arial" ><B>  The Monongahela River was wide and deep. We would swim at the butts. We had a name for our swimming beach. We called it the A-B-A-B. (Allenport Bare Ass Beach) Mr. Downer was the captain of the Sailor, one of the largest boats on the river. He lived in Allenport, and a small boat would bring him ashore when he had time off. When the Sailor came up river, Captain Downer had the boat swing in to let us get in the waves made from the huge paddle wheel at the stern. The waves would get up to four or five feet high. The river was really contaminated from the Noel Chemical Plant up the river, and the waste water from the steel mills and coal mines. All the towns ran their raw sewage into the river. Many times we would see feces floating past us. The guys would holler, "Look out, turd ahead." Then we would slide our arms in front to make sure we didn't get slapped in the face with the poop. World War Two was in full swing. There was little or no thought about cleaning up the river. Polio was common in those days, but no one from Allenport contacted the disease. Our exposure in the river made us immune. Heck, this exposure was probably as good as the Salk vaccine that came out later. </B></FONT></div> <div> <B>     I don't remember my grand parents. They all past away before or shortly after I was born. I had an old German uncle, John P. Spielman, who I thought of as my grandfather. I just called him Uncle, and his wife, Auntie. The other uncles and aunts, I used their first names as Uncle Bill or Aunt Alice. Uncle lived in Monessen about seven miles down river. His two twin sons, John and Nick, I called Uncle John and Uncle Nick. They were about the same age as Mom. Uncle lived above his soda pop factory, and had a gas station next door. When I visited, I would drink soda pop by the gallons, or at least that's what they said. There was no doubt that he thought a lot of me. Many times he would take me in his Model-T Ford when he took his pigeons off about 20 miles away to have them exercise and return home. His pigeons won many races. The club would have them transported by rail, and turned loose about 500 miles away. During the War, Uncle was watched by the FBI as the rumor had it that he was sympathetic to the German cause. Even so, his son John was an air raid warden in the area. I can still feel his warm hands cupping mine when I came in out of the cold. Mom said that I developed a lot of Uncle's traits. I loved the guy.. </B></div> <div> <B>     I was ten when World War Two started. Dad was listening to the old Emerson radio as President Roosevelt told of The Jap attack on Pearl Harbor. Mom started to cry. Dad lost a brother, Uncle Arthur, in World War One. Dad just stared at the radio. Brother Jack and sister Martha were going to California State Teachers Collage in California, a town about ten miles away. They both knew that Jack would be called into service. It wasn't long after the war started that there was a lot of activity. The mills worked overtime, the rail road had freight trains running on a continuous basis. I remember the famous 400 coming through town. The engine had 20 drive wheels that were about 8 foot high. Behind were about 200 coal cars loaded. Each town put up an honor roll with the names of all the people in the service. A gold star was placed next to one who was killed. </B></div> <div> <B>     Our next door neighbor was the Reeds. Their son Tom was in the Army Air Corps. He was a navigator in a B-17 bomber and was killed. I will never forget when a gold star was placed on the honor roll and in the Reed's window. War didn't seem so exciting anymore. </B></div> <div> <B>Our gang collected milk weed for the government. It was used in life jackets to replace kapok that the Japs had control of. In school, we knitted socks and scarfs for the soldiers. There was a sea plane type of aircraft that would take people on a short flying trip for a couple of dollars. It wasn't long until they found him to be a spy taking pictures of the mills and other plants from Pittsburgh to Morgantown, West Virginia. He was executed. That's the way they did spies in those days. </B></div> <div> <B>     Jack went in the Navy and was the Communications Officer on the cruiser USS Philadelphia. When he was in Post Graduate School at the Naval Academy, Mom and I traveled by train to see him. That's the last I saw him till he returned after the war. </B></div> <div> <B>     I remember my first real job. I worked at a bowling alley in Charleroi. I set pins. There was no such thing as automatic pin setters in those days. I would sit behind the pit that the pins would fly into, take the dead wood off the alley, and reset the pins after the last ball came crashing down. If I did a good job, the bowlers would roll a quarter down the gutter for a tip. That was a good tip. Soda pop was five cents. I liked Pepsi. You got 12 ounces for that hard earned nickel. I would take about $4.50 to $5.00 home each night after working from four in the evening till midnight. I felt like I was somebody. </B></div> <div> <B>     My first gun was an old wore out B-B gun. I was about nine or 10 at the time. The back alley was covered with slag from the mill. I put some of it in the barrel and shot it. One day I saw a sparrow sitting on a limb not far away. I shot and killed it. When I found the bird, I almost cried. I don't know what ever happened to the gun, but I never messed with it again. I found out early in life that guns kill. </B></div> <div> <B>     Mrs. Beasel was my 7th Grade teacher. Of all my teachers, she was the one I thought the least of. She said I wouldn't amount to much, and she may have been right. I will never forget the time we were studying Stephen Foster. There was a recital, and all the parents were invited to hear their kids sing. She assigned me to sing, Old Dog Tray. I told her I wouldn't do it, but the old biddy forced me into it. When I got up to sing my part, I thought the end of the world had arrived. Damn, I was scared and Mr. Foster probably turned over in his grave as I sang, "Old dog tray ever faithful, grief cannot keep him away ------." I finally made it through the 7th grade by the skin of my teeth. It always helped to have your father on the school board. I had many trying times in my life, but another year with Mrs. Basel would have topped the list. </B></div> <div> <B>     When I started high school, I met Buckey Henry. He was a boxer and invited me to work out with him. They met above a garage in Vesta - not to far from home. Swats Adamson was the trainer. Swats was in his 60s and had been a professional boxer. He was short in stature. His ears were completely closed off. You couldn't even put the head of a pin in them. His nose was flat to his face and his eyes were beady. His hands had a hard callous between his thumb and forefinger caused by breaking clinches. He boxed Harry Grebb, one of the top boxers in his day. Swats beat him. It was said that Swats killed another boxer in the ring, and never fought again. Even so, Swats was a really likeable man. </B></div> <div> <B>     When I got in the ring with Buckey, I took after him like I was in a street fight. That was a mistake. Buckey jabbed me till my face was a bloody mess. It wasn't long till Swats had me ready for my first fight in the town of Fairhope. I don't know how much experience this guy had, but I worked him all over the ring. Swats finally told me to go easy on him. We had an exhibition in a bar in Monessen. Buckey and I were to put on a little show for the boozers in the bar. In the second round, I tagged Buckey with a solid left and he went down. Swats was upset as he was trying to expose Buckey to a few promoters. I had fun with this till I joined the Navy. </B></div> <div> <B>     I took the collage curriculum course in high school. I picked Latin as a foreign language. Old Miss Bradley was the teacher. She would point her boney finger at me and start talking in Latin. I didn't learn much in her class, and I don't know nor do I give a hoot anything about Latin. Mr. Iams was the science teacher. When he was upset, he would say, "There's gonna be music but your not going to hear it." He lived on a farm, and most days his shoes were covered with mud. Now to take the cake, I had Buckey Snyder for history. He served in World War One and that's all he talked about. That was the only history he knew anything about. So you can see, I had a well rounded education in bull crap. </B></div> <div> <B>     During this time I became interested in girls. My buddy Tom was dating Edna. One day I decided to give her a call and to my surprise, she invited me up to her house. I started dating her, and I dated her till I joined the Navy.   Edna lived in Stockdale, a town about 4 miles up the river. I would catch the street car to visit her. I will never forget Halloween night in 1948. I went up to visit with her. About 9:30 in the evening, I started out of the house. It was so foggy that I couldn't see my shoes. It was almost like being blind. I was invited to spend the night, but decided to walk home. The street cars stopped running. I finally made it to the highway. It took me about four hours to get home. The next day word came that several people died in Donora from the smog. This was the first time that the term smog was used. Donora, a steel mill town, was located about seven miles down river. </B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>The "Donora Death Fog" </B></div> <div> <B>     Horror visited the US Steel company-town of Donora on Halloween night, 1948, when a temperature inversion descended on the town.  Fumes from US Steel's smelting plants blanketed the town for four days, and crept murderously into the citizens' homes.  If the smog had lasted another evening "the casualty list would have been 1,000 instead of 20," said local doctor William Rongaus at the time. Later investigations by Rongaus and others indicated that one-third of the town's 14,000 residents were affected by the smog. Hundreds of residents were evacuated or hospitalized. A decade later, Donora's mortality rate remained significantly higher than neighboring areas. Thank goodness, we didn't have the smog in Allenport. The fog was bad enough. </B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>In Retrospect</B></div> <div> <B>Everyone pretty much came from the same background. No one had a lot of wealth, but everyone seemed satisfied with his life. Our parents were blue-collar workers, and we had a clear understanding of the meaning of hard work. It seemed as though everyone had some type of summer job. We would deliver newspapers, cut grass, polish cars or do whatever we could to make some spending money. When I think about those years in the Mon Valley, I think of steel mills, competitive sports, good friends and truly great people.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania</B></div> <div> <B>9 June 1949</B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>   A gruff shout from somewhere behind me stirred me to action.  "Okay, men, drop your skivvies,"</B></div> <div> <B>     I couldn't see the guy who shouted but next to me was an older man who was going back in the Navy.  Several tattoos decorated his arms and legs.  He was called Boats. He dropped his shorts to his ankles.  I followed suit.  As my shorts fell, my color rose.  I had never stripped naked in public before. </B></div> <div> <B>     As he looked at me, Boats shook his head slowly.  The expression on his face seemed to say, “What the hell is this man's Navy coming to?”</B></div> <div> <B>     At age seventeen, I was thin, five feet ten and a half, and weighed a hundred and twenty-eight pounds.  I imagined I was not quite the specimen Boats was used to serving with.</B></div> <div> <B>     A doctor and a corpsman started down the line, poking at each man's groin, and telling him to cough.</B></div> <div> <B>“The next time I tell you to cough, turn your damn head. What do you think I am, a handkerchief?” </B></div> <div> <B>I was learning fast.  This was my third trip to Pittsburgh since finishing high school a few weeks before.  I had been turned down twice before for flat feet, but on this day, my feet seemed to develop a satisfactory arch.  I squeezed my toes in, and it worked.  I passed the physical, and was told to report to the third floor.  It wasn't long before I raised my right hand and swore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.  I was in the Navy.</B></div> <div> <B>One of my best buddies, Tom Meli, had tried to enlist with me, but was turned down for hypertension. Tom was short and on the heavy side.  I was sad indeed when I found out Tom would not be going with me to Boot Camp at the Great Lakes, Illinois.  </B></div> <div> <B>The year before, Tom and I had taken a trip to New York to join the merchant marine.  We were sixteen at the time.  Tom's father was reluctant to let him go, but dad convinced him that we were only feeling our oats, and would return home after being rejected as underage.  </B></div> <div> <B>We caught a bus to New York, and were met by my cousin, Tom Bivin.  He was an attorney and vice president of the Great Atlantic Insurance company.  He lived on Long Island's exclusive Gold Coast, in a small incorporated village called Planedome.  When we got off the bus, he had no trouble finding us.  We wore bell bottom dungarees and T-shirts, and smelled to high heaven from Mennon aftershave.</B></div> <div> <B>      A couple of girls invited us to a large stone home with a circular drive a few doors down from the Bivin's.  We were met at the door by a butler.  I told the girls no one at the Pittsburgh Steel Company was over my dad</B></div> <div> <B>Dad was a crane operator, so I didn't lie.  Nobody in the plant worked higher up than he did.  The girls were not impressed.</B></div> <div> <B>     After a short visit with the Bivins, Tom and I went to the Merchant Seamen Union Hall.  There was a line of old seamen seeking work.  It wasn't long until we were told to go home, and come back in a couple of years.  Dad was right. We caught the next bus home.  Adventure was in our blood. We decided to join the Navy after high school.</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="_"><U><B><IMG SRC="05a251e0.gif" border=0 width="37" height="30" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>  Next Page</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>