What does a baby remember and if later claims are made about first things remembered, maybe it is from hearing things repeated until it seems to be your own memory. I do not remember learning to walk but think I remember crawling and finding that much easier than walking Then there were the endless buttons of childhood clothes that were hard to get fixed by stubby fingers. Finally you had to learn to tie your shoes and this task took some doing but also finally got mastered. We once asked mom how many times we had moved and she said, "eleven times in ten years." Some of these moves occurred before I was on the scene but I do remember living in Phelps and moving from there to Ithaca when I was about three.
I went to school by bus when I was four and found myself in the first grade taught by Miss Squires. My brother was two years ahead of me and not happy that his kid brother was also in his school now. That scene would be repeated for many years with him not being happy to have a kid brother around. The great thing is that we get along so well now. I quickly learned to read and that has remained a passion to this day. I enjoyed riding the see saw and the swings on the playground but the best part was learning to use the monkey bars. I loved recess and ran to be the first on the bars. Around fourth grade I went to another nearby elementary school and my brother went to Junior high school downtown in Ithaca. Imagine his delight in not having his kid brother around. We lived in the Ithaca area for six years and dad was the manager of the Ithaca GLF store which mostly provided feed for area farmers. He could pick up two 100 pound sacks of feed and carry them to where they were needed. He had to be very strong to carry that much at one time. To this day when I think of that store, I can smell the molasses used to make the feed. Dust was everywhere of course and we thought the store was our own and loved to be there and run about. He had a secretary named Betty who had to have the daily accounts balance and sometimes would look for an arithmetic error at the end of a working day while trying to make the day's totals balance. We couldn't leave for home until the books were balanced.
GLF was the Grange League Federation and started by and owned by farmers to have better control over their feed costs. This organization later became Agway and my dad worked for this company for over 40 years rising from laborer to store manager to district manager to director of sales training.
When I was seven, mom announced that she and dad were soon going to have another baby and it seemed to me that this happened the next day. Actually we were taken to stay with Aunt Florence for a couple of weeks while the baby thing got resolved. Gary was their third boy and was actually born in a hospital in Cortland, the first of us to be born in one. With baby in hand our parents picked us up from our Aunts house and we settled back into life in Ithaca. This was August, 1947.
We discovered like many families that changes were coming quickly to farm life. We were able to buy our first refrigerator, our first electric stove and our first easy spin dry washing machine. Best of all we got our first new car, a 1947 blue Plymouth. I remember two of our previous cars, a 1922 Chevy and a 1936 ford. The Chevy's roof leaked when it rained and we used to complain about that. The ford kept us going throughout the war years although it was hard to get descent tires and they frequently had to have inner tubes patched before we could continue on our brief travels.
Lots of things were rationed especially gas, sugar and other essentials needed by the war effort but we made due with what we had. Cooks learned to substitute in their cooking like honey for sugar. Since we grew most of what we ate or raised the animals we needed, we were quite self sufficient and bought few items from a grocery store. Several vendors would visit the farm on a weekly or monthly route and we enjoyed the few things that were offered. Spices came from the vendors as did brushes from the fuller brush man. When a bakery truck came by we always wanted half moon cookies that were frosted half with chocolate and half in vanilla. It was fun to have a whole cookie and to carefully eat one side or the other leaving the favorite side for last. I liked the vanilla side best so quickly ate through the chocolate side and then tried to make the rest last and last but being a kid it was too quickly gone. We did not get such treats very often.
Visitors were a novelty and usually close family friends or relatives. Seldom did anyone stay over night except maybe for a visiting grandmother or cousin coming to stay for a few days. We lived in a two family house and so there was always a family next door and there always seemed to be other kids to play with. The Walkers lived next door for quite a while and they had one child, Mary Ellen who was about our age. She had lots of golden books and large packs of gum that sometimes she would share. She also had her own two wheeled bicycle and would go on short bike trips with my brother who had his own bike. I spent any money I got as quickly as I got it so never was able to save enough money to get my own bike. I was seldom allowed to ride brother's bike and that is the way it goes for second children.
Around the time I was in fifth grade, we moved to Waterville because my dad had gotten promoted to district manager and had to look after several GLF stores up in that region of New York State. We rented a tenant house on the farm of Mr. Billy Barrett and my brother would be over helping Mr. Barrett in any way that he could and later he helped out another farmer Mr.Mannion. He could not get enough of farming and wanted to have his own farm from early days onward. I started trombone lessons while in the fifth grade since it was quite obvious that I did not want to become a farmer. In my fifth grade class we had two or three sets of twins and a set of triplets and their shenanigans in the classroom caused much merriment. I got into trouble when I told my fifth grade teacher that she was fat. She was of course but I got into trouble for telling the truth. I do not remember the punishment I received but it probably was a dandy. When I was ten I took up smoking in the ravine behind the school. I finally gave that bad habit up fifteen years later. Cigarettes only cost 25 cents a pack in those days.
When I was in the seventh grade we moved to Newark Valley because dad had a new territory to supervise that was located in the south central part of the state as well as northern Pennsylvania. Here we were able to buy our own small farm and the first house my parents ever owned. They completely remodeled the kitchen and redid much of the rest of the house as we were then able to move in at last. Here we would grow to adult hood and our family would gain one more child but that will have to wait for another installment.
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