New England
and should NOT be used for any reason other than reading enjoyment |
The Roberts family moved from Palmdale to the Stratfield Hotel in Bridgeport, Ct, to a three-bedroom house in Stratford, Ct, where the Roberts family kids went to school for the beginning of fall semester.
We moved to Walnut Ave., Reading, MA, during Christmas break. During Christmas break, we moved to Andover Avenue in Lawrence, MA.
I have often been asked about my ability to cope with so many moves. The Roberts family was part of a "fifty-family relocation move" so I was never alone. It was like being on a large cruise ship.
Bridgeport, CT
We drove across the US in the family station wagon when we moved from Palmdale to New England. It took almost a month because we took many side trips along the way. Instead of a straight line, our map looked like a cardiograph. We stopped at the Grand Canyon, Roswell, Meteor Crater, and Carlsbad Caverns. We visited the Zuni, Navajo, and Mescalero Indian reservations to learn about the Indians and their beliefs, traditions, and lifestyles. We stopped in Norfolk, Va, to visit relatives. Another stop was Washington, DC, where we went to the capital, several museums and monuments to absorb the feel of our nation's capital.
According to my parents, when we got to Bridgeport, we went into the hotel through the back door because we needed baths and clean clothes.
The following day, we split up, male and female, and we went shopping for new clothes. The cut-off jeans and t-shirts of Palmdale of the high desert were not appropriate for Connecticut.
The first week or so went quickly, shopping, enjoying new foods, and visiting places. We often had breakfast at the hotel. We discovered the walls of little doors at the automat. A roll of nickels and an infinite selection of food for lunch. We always dressed up for dinners as they were usually at a nice restaurant. We always had to be on our best behavior as we were on display to the local gentry and the AVCO aristocracy. Gerry had been hired as a department head. If he could not keep his children in line, how would he ever keep his employees in line?
After a week or so, things became mundane. I would take control of the elevator and take my passengers to their desired floor.
We dropped water balloons from the windows in our hotel room. (We were totally grounded when we started freezing them before dropping them.)
We played hide-and-seek on a large scale.
We were getting bored. We were running out of places to visit, so we increased the area of places to visit. New York City was about 75 miles to the west-south-west. It was about ninety minutes by the 'New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad'[Note 1] train, while the drive time was ninety minutes to three hours depending on the time of day and traffic. We would leave The Stratfield at about 10 am and return after dark. We made several trips to New York City. Stage plays, museums, the Statue of Liberty, and the subway system.
Quite often, three or four families of the "AVCO Fifty" would go "walk about" together, and most had station wagons as their family cars. My father would call out, "One, two, three, four—I'm not taking anymore!"
No site within a hundred miles was left unvisited. I don't know who suffered more culture shock, the Californians or the New Englanders.
See also [ Stratfield Hotel ]
Stratford, CT
Stratford, CT, is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is situated on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River, about eight miles east of Bridgeport, CT.
In the 1950's, Stratford had just under 50,000 people. About ten families (most with school-age children) had to take up residency before the school year started.
My parents rented a house painted green and named 'The Green Gables.'
Reading, MA
We rented an unrentable house. 260 Walnut Street was slated to be demolished the following year to make way for Highway 28, and our house was going to be in the middle of the Reading Interchange.
Walnut Street in Reading used to connect to Cedar Street in Woburn, Massachusetts. They used to meet under a Railway Bridge at the city limits, next to a bog. It was a great place to throw rocks and explore "Critters" and live in stagnant water. It was also a great place to explore things that go bang. The boys in the neighborhood would disassemble shotgun shells and make homemade rockets and explosive devices.
Back in the 1950s, you could buy calcium carbonate at the local pharmacy. For those of you who are not aware of it, if you mix calcium carbonate with water, you end up with a frothing liquid and a gas called acetylene, which, if under pressure and ignited, you end up with a substance that goes bang. We found an old steel barrel in the middle of a field of mustard plants. There was a little bit of water in the bottom of the barrel. Using a nail and stone, we punched a small hole in the top of the barrel, put a chunk of calcium carbonate into the barrel, and put the bung into the barrel to seal it. See? You figured it out. After a while, the gas began to expand and escape from this small nail hole. We created a perfect trigger device by placing a candle on top of the barrel.
Several minutes later, the gas ignited with a great "WOOSH!" The top of the barrel top took flight into the swamp, never to be seen again. The barrel looked like someone had used a welding torch, cut the sides into vertical strips, and then opened the barrel into something like a huge daisy. (What else might you expect?) The expanding gas pushed all mustard plants within twenty feet to the ground.
About twenty minutes later, police from Reading and Reading showed up to investigate. They found our steel daisy and smooshed mustard plants but no perpetrators.
My parents warned the school of my "being bored in school" syndrome. To combat this problem, the school assigned many extracurricular activities; crossing guard, working in the audiovisual department, and raising the flag in the morning.
That year, like many, my second cousin, Robin Evan Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies, was the starting pitcher for the "All Stars" baseball game. About ten minutes into the game, smoke detectors went off, and school was dismissed for the rest of the day.
Of course, I was asked if I, or someone I knew, had done it. I was relieved of some of my extra duties and told "the staff" would be watching me.
Some of my first bondage experiences occurred in Reading.
See also [ First RCR ]
Lawrence, MA
AVCO
AVCO had been looking for a large building to move into. They took a long-term lease on several empty buildings along the Merrimack River. During WWI and WWII, the buildings were part of a HUGE mill that made wool blankets for the military. The Merrimack River raced through sluiceways, providing the mechanical power to drive the wool looms. When AVCO moved into the mill buildings, hundreds of Lawrencians appeared for work. It seems they had been promised jobs when the mills reopened. It was difficult, to say the least, to explain AVCO was designing missiles and rockets, not wool blankets. However, many of them were hired to remove hundreds of gallons of lanolin (from the manufacturing of woolen blankets) and create world-class class A clean rooms.
'The Giant Frisbie'
Gerry was initially hired as the Director of Quality Control. An ancillary assignment was to visit the subcontractor facilities to verify that they were providing high-quality components. One such contractor provided one-piece nose cones for missiles. They would take a fifteen-foot square of aluminum, one inch thick. Using a special cutting machine, they would use a vacuum clamp to hold it in place and then, using a cutting torch, spin and cut the piece into a fourteen-foot-six-inch plate.
They would move the aluminum piece to a mandrel, spin it, and use tremendous pressure to form it into a one-piece, no-weld nose cone. During the manufacture of one such piece, the vacuum pump failed, and this 4.5-ton aluminum Frisbie took flight. Neither the walls nor the ceiling slowed it down. For days, we chuckled at the thought of some poor, homeless, and alcoholic person trying to make a police report, saying a house-sized UFO disk just flew over him. The disk Frisbie-style flew several blocks, crashing into an empty lot. Fortunately, no one was injured. As they say, back to the drawing boards.
It should be noted that fifteen years later (while I was working for Gulf-General Atomics), General Dynamics Magneforming had a contract to build nose cones using magnetic eddy effect forming.
The Roberts home in Lawrence
The Roberts family moved into a house at 246 Andover Street in Lawrence, Mass, which was built in the late 19th century as a doctor's home and private hospital/clinic. It had four floors and many, many rooms (seven bedrooms), and a HUGE attic.
The kids each had their private bedroom; Shirlee had a sewing room, and Gerry had an office.
The house had a Grand Staircase next to the front door and another stairway near the rear. It had floor-to-ceiling cabinets (designed to store bandages, sheets, and linens for the doctor's patients), and the kids would play like they were part of a Pullman Car.
The Roberts boys (my father, brother, and I) built a HO gauge model railroad on a 12'x8' plywood layout table in the attic. It had mountains, rivers, a small town, and, oh, it also had model trains.
My father agreed with the owner to update/renovate the kitchen in exchange for free rent. Gerry never did things halfway, so he knocked down a wall, enlarged the kitchen, and put in all new appliances.
There was a coal-fired furnace in the basement. Every afternoon, I had to remove the clinkers, add new coal, and bank it so it would burn evenly. After several months of coal soot in the house, we converted it to a fuel-oil-fired furnace to save money on laundry soap.
The living room was huge. We put down two 9x12 rugs, and they looked like bath mats.
See also
There was a city bus stop just outside our front door. I could ride for free by presenting my school ID card. Traveling west along Andover Street, making a right turn, and crossing the Merrimack River, the bus delivered me to Lawrence Catholic High School (see below).
The year we lived in Lawrence was one of the coldest on record. The Merrimack River iced over, and we could ice skate on it. Our station wagon was parked along side the house. Gerry crawled under the car and opened the valve to drain 100% ethylene glycol from the radiator and engine as we stood there watching antifreeze turn to slush as soon as it hit the ground.
See also
Lawrence Central High School
Being a Catholic High School, Central High had a strict dress code that required blazers and neckties.
One afternoon, it had snowed, and we were using pieces of cardboard and trash can lids to slide down a nearby hill. Somewhere along the way, I lost my tie and was told no more school without a necktie. So, I started wearing a Western-style bolo string tie and a cowboy hat. They thought they may have won, but it was on my terms.
Our Exit from New England
Gerry came home from work and announced that AVCO would be closing the Lawrence facility come summer. He made the pronouncement that we would be returning to California. "You can be hungry in California or Massachusetts, but in California, you can do it in short-sleeved shirts."
When spring came, we packed up the house, called the moving company, loaded the trailer and the car, and headed West to begin our return to California by way of New Jersey and Indiana.
Notes
- ↑ I really enjoyed the crisp blue and white train cars of the 'New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad'
External links
Chat rooms • What links here • Copyright info • Contact information • Category:Root