CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR—ANCHORS AWEIGH!

    

USS Sellstrom (DER-255) photographed with Lockheed EC-12 AEW aircraft over North Atlantic.

      My last year as a permanent resident of Continental Village was the closing chapter on the familiar life of a sheltered teenager. The future beckoned. I was facing new choices. A selective service draft board was operative in 1957, so I was obligated to serve in the army if my name was chosen. The draft served as the underlying pressure for many of my decisions between January and the end of August.

     More important to me than the draft was my bottoming out love life. In January I found out that my steady girlfriend, Barbara Clune, had been dating another boy for several months. Having failed at persuading her to end this relationship, I requested that she return my class ring. I also told her that I would not take her to my senior prom as promised in the fall of 1956. I had made the promise before she admitted the new relationship and I felt that she was responsible in this matter. Her mother thought differently. Mrs. Clune phoned my mother and explained that her daughter received a promise from me and that it ought to be kept. My mother agreed. I was caught in the middle and my feelings were doubly hurt. I reluctantly agreed to take Barbara to the Stepinac H. S. senior prom at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, N. Y. She returned my class ring. I stopped dating her.

     When Barbara returned my class ring she made a request to leave a comment in my school yearbook. She wrote: "Gene, forgive me for my wrongs. Success and happiness in everything you do. Love, Barb." I thanked her.

     When it came time for the senior prom, Barbara and I met again for the last time and we conversed and danced together. Her boyfriend, Frank Tucceri, brought his date to the prom. Barbara and Frank were looking at each other across the dance hall while their partners pretended not to notice. It was an uncomfortable situation for the partners. When the band played the Tennessee Waltz I wanted to go into a corner and hide. I forget who provided the transportation for Barbara and me but it wasn't Frank. It was another couple from the Peekskill area who also attended the prom.

     On the upside, Fordham University sent me a notice in May, 1957, that I had been admitted to the freshman class of law school in NYC. It would cost $75 per semester. My mother and step-father had mixed emotions when they read the notice. Proud of their son, no doubt, but instantly recognizing the logistics and costs involved. Sending one of their six children to college was impossible. Room, board, tuition and books, how much would that cost? Stepinac H. S. had cost my parents $60 per month. That covered tuition and transportation, but excluded the cost of used, grade-level text books and other miscellaneous items. For school lunch my mother packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, tuna fish sandwiches on Friday, and I drank water when I did not have a nickel for soda.

     The budgeting of school money looks like a bargain at today's prices but pause, and consider that in 1957 wages were much lower. So with apologies my mother and step-father quietly closed the discussion about college. I don't think they realized how much I was in favor of that decision. Plainly stated, I did not want to continue my schooling. I had no idea what I wanted to do but I was adamantly opposed to more schooling. It was an unsolvable mystery how informal and formal schooling would follow me like a ghost after I left Continental Village. I could and did read books. 

     Cast off by my girlfriend, I was in a funk. For pocket money I continued to perform odd jobs on request, such as lawn mowing, planting trees and flowers, etc., for the neighbors in Continental Village. I even worked some evenings at babysitting. I heard the sound of cicadas and crickets in mid-August and that signaled the end of summer and the coming of autumn. Laughter and excitement were missing in my life. I realized that I was thoroughly bored with my staid surroundings. What I craved was a sudden breakout—a real adventure and travel to distant places.

     Often I could be seen swimming or fishing at the lake on sunny days. I spent lonely hours fishing and rowing a boat in the evening, and trying to find an escape route from the funk I was in. I had fewer friends at that time. I hung out with Stanley Esposito, Cliff Holmes, Billy Wert and George Perry. With the draft hanging over my head I had no plans for the future. George Perry had a job. I never asked him where he worked. I should have, but I wasn’t interested in an eight-hour job either. George was also subject to the draft. Young men who went to college full time got student deferments. Some of my friends were already in college. Billy Wert was one. He was studying mechanical engineering at Union College in Schenectady. In the 4B graduating class at Stepinac H. S. all but Frank Nicolai and Gene Palmer were scheduled to attend college in the fall.

     Sometime in late July or early August my step-father, Art Palmer, Sr., gave me a list of career options to consider. He had printed and numbered the choices on a letter-size yellow page ripped from an old Navy log book. After handing it to me, he sat at one end of the kitchen table and I sat at the other end. I read the choices: (1) Get a job, perhaps where your friend George Perry works. (2) Stay home until the draft board sends you a draft notice. (3) Join the Navy or Air Force.

     At the time he provided me the list of career choices my step-father was in the Navy Reserve on active duty, assigned to a reserve training ship berthed in the Hudson river. He was a Master Chief Boilermaker. We discussed each option on the list, positives and negatives. He suggested that I make a decision by September 1. I had been thinking about these same choices during the summer months and I was ready to answer him near the end of our discussion. Under the circumstances, I chose to join the Navy. No surprise.

     My step-father obtained several Navy BUPERS manuals from the naval library at Fort Schuyler in the Bronx. They were manuals explaining and diagramming electricity and simple circuitry. He suggested that I read and digest as much as possible, that I should seek a trade in electricity or electronics in a Navy school after boot camp. "Some day in the future, Gene, you will be working for IBM at Poughkeepsie." That prediction was never realized. Over the course of time I did study electronics and later I would make my career choice in Broadcast Engineering.       

     My step-father made arrangements to visit a Navy recruiter at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. On the day we met the recruiter I was asked to furnish a birth certificate and a high school diploma. There was an unexpected problem. My birth certificate showed my name as Eugene Tittmann, and the school diploma showed the name as Eugene Palmer. My step-father explained it and the recruiter accepted the explanation. My step-father and I signed an affidavit that those two names belonged to the same person, hereafter known as Eugene Palmer. Then I was given a travel voucher and notice to be at the Navy processing center in lower Manhattan at 9 A. M., August 29, 1957.

     I managed to get there by train and taxi on time. But I had a terrible hangover and I was very sick. I drank vodka, orange juice and beer the night before. A Chief Petty Officer entered the rest room when I was puking, for the 12th time that morning, and sarcastically uttered, "Momma's boy. Afraid to leave home." Wrong, bloated bully blowhard! I drank too much. I learned a lesson about mixing drinks that I would never forget. Navy recruiters gave me a temporary physical discharge and another travel voucher and sent me home with instructions to return. "You're in the Navy now," they said. I returned sober three days later to finish processing. I was sent by bus to Bainbridge, Md., where I entered boot camp for three months' training. When that training was completed, I was sentenced to six months training at naval electronics and radar school in Great Lakes, Ill. Didn't I say earlier that I was adamantly opposed to more schooling? My resolve in this matter was as fragile as my love life. Before leaving for Great Lakes I enjoyed a two-week leave at home in Continental Village.

     My step-father told his buddies at Fort Schuyler and several of the Continental Village volunteer firemen about my temporary physical discharge. I'm sure all had a good laugh. I visited with Cliff Holmes and his family when I was home on leave. On one occasion I showed up at the Holmes' house wearing Navy whites. In uniform I looked like a stranger. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes examined me as though I was a misplaced circus clown. I took off my hat. Their children, Cliff, Lois and Edith, made comments about my crew cut or lack of hair. They all made fun of the white Dixie Cup hat that was part of the uniform. I put it back on. They all laughed. So did I. A few days later, falling back on old habits, I bought a .22 cal. Mossberg rifle with intention of hunting raccoons again. But I changed my mind and did some target shooting on Gallows Hill. I shot down a small maple tree near the cave. Not even Don Quixote would attack a small maple tree. There wasn't a sensible explanation for it, as I recall.  

     That's all I can remember about my leave in Continental Village before taking the New York Central train from New York City to Chicago. About seven months later it was anchors aweigh aboard the USS Sellstrom (DER-255), a radar picket ship which patrolled the North Atlantic Barrier. My aspirations for travel and adventure were destined to be fulfilled.

     In closing I leave the reader with the entertaining song "Weigh, Hey, and Up She Rises" by the Irish Rovers: 

    

    

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE—BAIT FOR GNATS AND MOSQUITOES

 

Jitterbug fishing lure.

     Fishing in Cortlandt Lake and Spy Pond became a hobby of sorts for the boys of my generation. Spy Pond had eels, catfish, sunfish, bluegills, bullfrogs and carp. Cortlandt Lake had shiners, eels, catfish, sunfish, bluegills, trout, pickerel, largemouth bass, and perch. Below the dam were suckers in season. Continental Village was a great place for freshwater fishing in the years that my family lived there.

     During the summer months the best time to fish was in the evening. Boys fishing from a rowboat used live bait (shiners) and artificial lures. Of the latter my favorite was the jitterbug. It was designed for bass. My friend Paul Kuty preferred the Hula Popper lure. I doubt if the bass could distinguish colors at night but they could hear the jitterbug sputtering on the surface of the lake behind a boat and it drove them into a frenzy. They attacked it as though it was fish junk food. The addiction didn't last long. It ended when a bass was caught and tossed into the bottom of the boat.

     Bread was good for sunfish and minnows but bass hit on something more substantial, an object colored black and green with yellow eyes and a small aluminum plate in front. It had two underside triple hooks. It had to stay afloat and it had to make a noise. That was the essence of the jitterbug. In the years that I fished in Cortlandt Lake I caught several bass over 15 inches long, and one that was eighteen inches long.

     Pickerel preferred shiners. Deep fishing near the dam or from the sides of the dam produced the most pickerel. They were bony but they tasted almost as good as perch, which I caught in or near the same locations.

     The best place to catch eels and catfish was at the lake inlet, where there was a small wooden bridge. Here my friends and I witnessed a host of fishing oddities. Fish jumping out of the water to catch surface and low flying insects. Catfish that swallowed a hook and bait so deep into the stomach that the only way to retrieve the hook was to pound the catfish with a big rock and split it open. I used to jump on the head of the catfish with my heel. Some of the catfish fought back. They had pectoral and dorsal spines that would sting a hand or arm on contact. The stings itched at the spot of penetration. Catfish used these weapons defensively. The catfish would flip and flop when a hook was retrieved from its mouth, and it was the lucky, as well as careful boy, who did not get a catfish sting for a souvenir.

     The eels were a different class of critters. Slimy and smooth, they would try to wiggle out of the hand of the boy holding it with one hand while pulling the hook out of the eel's mouth with the other hand. The situation called for a third hand—not for the immediate business at hand, but to ward off the mosquitoes and gnats that were in the face, hair and sometimes mouth of every boy fishing at the bridge. We were bait for gnats and mosquitoes. Large horseflies were a terror during the day, but the tiny stinging insects were worse because they could not be seen easily or felt until they drew blood. Thick clouds of these tiny blood-suckers could be seen hovering over the bridge before nightfall. We thanked the hungry hordes of bats that dove into them after dark.

     In 1953 I hooked an eel at the inlet bridge but failed to land it. I will never forget it. It was larger than a man’s arm and I had a hard time reeling it toward shore. At times it felt like dead weight. It bit my fishing line and snapped it. It then got away.

     If this eel is still alive today I would not like to be the person who hooked it.

     Eventually we learned to apply insect repellent before we left home. Despite this defensive measure the aggressive insects at the bridge flew into our mouths and got caught in our throats. Good reason to keep your mouth shut while fishing. That was also part of the learning process. Another part of the learning process was the use of wire leaders. With the hook and weight located at one end of the leader, the other end was tied securely to the fishing line. The wire leader prevented the eels from cutting the line with their teeth.

     All of the boys used night crawlers and cut-up sunfish or bluegills to catch catfish and eels. We usually obtained our bait the day and night before we scheduled a fishing event. Each of us obtained our own bait. A flashlight, an empty tin can and quick hands were a few of the tools necessary to get a good supply of night crawlers. Scientific journals called these large earthworms Lumbricus Terrestris. Thank God they didn't bite.

     Most people have no idea how fast and slippery these worms are when an attempt is made to pull them out of the ground. My friends—Cliff Holmes, Paul Kuty, Raymond Kuty, Wayne Matthews, Danny Ferguson, Frankie Smith, Alan Monowitz, Billy Wert, and Myron Lazar—became worm-catching experts. Leftover rainfall or early dew aided a worm-catching enterprise. Nature’s competitors were inactive when we harvested these worms. Moles recognized the threat to their territorial dominion and retreated when they heard human footsteps above them. Robins were envious but did not compete after dark. Cats, dogs and skunks did not interfere.

     Until now I have not mentioned the presence of snapping turtles or water snakes in the lake. Long ago I saw a copperhead in the lake near the inlet bridge. It was swimming close to shore when it disappeared. I never saw a rattlesnake in the lake but they can swim too. I saw several water snakes. During the ten years I lived in Continental Village I saw many venomous snakes on land. I was never bitten but I killed a few. Snapping turtles were frequently seen in the lake too. Some were large enough to cause serious injury to swimmers who dared to approach them.

     More than the fear of venomous snakes in the lake, the fear of thin ice on the lake was a greater fear. A single boy could walk on ice that was one inch thick. Several boys walking or skating on the same thin ice area would be inviting trouble. Sometimes we dared each other to go as far as we could on thin ice. We would start from the beach and walk or skate toward the inlet. The first hint or sound of cracking ice caused an immediate retreat. The safer option was a game of hockey. Playing hockey was more of a challenge and more satisfying.

     The figure skaters were a different breed. They showed up with fancy new skates and bright-colored winter clothes and skated smoothly in circles. Men and boys, woman and girls, all skated in a shoveled out area near the primary beach or secondary beach (across the lake) when there was solid ice underneath. No one drew more attention than Butterball Hauser. Mr. Hauser got his nickname due to his stomach girth. My step-father called him Butterball, as did several of the volunteer firemen. He had a spherical shape like a large toy top, and when he spun in place on ice he looked like a large toy top. The only thing missing was the string. Yet the man was an absolute marvel of dexterity on the ice. I never saw him make a mistake or fall.

     My respect for thin ice tells me that I skated too far with this chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO—HURRICANE HAZEL SIDESWIPES CONTINENTAL VILLAGE

  

Track of 1954 Hurricane Hazel copied from Wikipedia.

     According to the National Weather Bureau, Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of the 1954 hurricane season and was the strongest and only Category 4 hurricane to ever hit the North Carolina coast. It hit the coast of South Carolina-North Carolina border in the morning of October 15 with maximum winds of 150 mph. Wind gusts about 100 mph were reported from several locations in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York as Hazel raced northward. Wind gusts of 90 mph were recorded in northern New York, and a peak wind gust of 113 mph was recorded at the Battery in New York City.

      During the evening the storm reached Pennsylvania and then it temporarily weakened. A transformation of energy between an incoming front and the dying storm reignited Hazel to form a freshened hurricane over New York State. It passed through Syracuse but sideswiped most of the state. I remember torrential rains and winds blowing about 80 mph when the effects were felt in Continental Village and Peekskill overnight. The next day all was calm. There were tree branches down everywhere and small pools of water in various places including the dirt roads and driveways. Telephone and electric lines were down in various places. At the nearby Salt Box house one of the two ancient maple trees lost a huge branch, the size of a regular tree trunk, which lay on the ground.

     My brother John and I got permission from the Boyd family to cut firewood from the broken maple tree. We used an axe and a cross-cut saw with a handle on each end. It took us about three hours to cut all that was fallen. Mrs. Boyd and her young daughters Janice, Maris and Paris were watching us. I noticed that Mrs. Boyd had dark brown hair but all of the cute little girls with rhyming names had blond hair. We shared the logs with the Boyd family and helped clean up the yard.

     There were several limbs down in the old apple orchard nearby. John and I went into the old orchard and cut up several large apple limbs for firewood. The grass in the field was still wet and there were puddles of water here and there. We got wet feet, wet shoes and wet socks—all soaked with water from the storm. We noticed pools of water in Putnam Road, which was still a dirt road at that time.

     The following day I met my friends Paul Kuty and Cliff Holmes and a few other boys. I think Raymond Kuty, Paul's younger brother, and Wayne Matthews were with us. We walked to Spy Pond to see if it had flooded. There were several deep pools of water outside the perimeter of the pond and many of the orange-colored carp were trapped by overflows. (These carp, possibly koi carp, may have been stocked by the Cinnabar Ranch owners prior to 1947.) We went home separately and returned with an empty wooden box, one fish net and several fishing knives and began to harvest the carp for crab bait. Pants rolled up above the knee, shoes and socks safely stowed on dry land, we waded into the pools of water dipping the net or slashing the carp with knives. Often we cut the fish in half. Within an hour we had enough bait for a cash crabbing enterprise at Annsville. We had to return home to get our bikes and crab nets.

     When we were fully organized, we rode down to Annsville on our bikes and set up at the small white bridge over Sprout Brook on the Old Albany Post Road. The muddy water in the brook was higher than I had ever seen it and the water was moving along much faster than usual. We had to weight the crab nets with a few stones to get them to drop close to the bridge. The crabbing enterprise proceeded normally and we caught many lively, scampering blue and red claw crabs as the tide was coming in. I remember that not one passing motorist stopped to buy any of our crabs that day. Lacking pocket money, we skipped the usual candy and soda at Kornfeld’s store and tavern. We divided the catch evenly, with Paul and Raymond getting a double share because they had two nets.

     We brought our crab catch home. There had been a lack of appreciation by motorists along the highway, but we reckoned that there would be considerable appreciation at home. Wayne's father actually gave him some money for his catch.