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| 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.
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