From...A Scout With No Tonto

…but I know we didn’t get lost. It’s not like we were in Thousand Acre Woods or anything. We weren’t far from real people. If we needed someone, there was a fellow in the Ground Observer Corps hut on the hillside next to our woods---the hillside that would shortly be sporting the new junior high school. But we couldn’t expect the observer to make a phone call for us. His phone was a direct line to a military facility. There was no sense in calling in the Army or Air Force for a few Boy Scouts behind Lloyds. We’d have to go back to Lloyds in an emergency. It would have been opened since 9 am.

The Ground Observers were set up to keep keen eyes on air activity, part of the early warning system in the 1950s. Each hut was about 8 by 8, seemingly thrown together with 2 x 4s and scraps, and fitted with a table, a chair, a logbook, an airplane identification book, and a direct line telephone to a central military facility. It was normally situated on a hill or other raised area.

Observers phoned in all sightings of airplanes---and descriptions of them where possible, using the reference book. Entries were made in the logbooks. These huts were manned 24 hours a day every day until 1958, when night observing was curtailed. As electronic capabilities improved, especially with the DEW Line’s becoming operational in 1957, the Ground Observer Corps faded away. All in all, I think the system may have been based on Cary Grant’s WWII movie “Father Goose” and its frontline aircraft sightings---but without the liquid fortification. In reality the DEW Line began in 1954 as the Pine Tree Line and later added the Mid-Canada Line. All in the cold, frosty north of high winds and falling snow.

This was the height of the Cold War. People were jumpy, and the being Ground Observers gave them a feeling of doing something positive instead of just sitting around and worrying. In most communities, the Corps was a visible reminder of the dangers of the Cold War. They were also helping with the early warning system at a time with limited electronic capabilities. But that was about the extent of the visible reminders in Middletown. We had no Civil Defense Drills or Tests that I remember, although there were “S” shelter signs sprinkled about the city buildings. In school, atomic bombs and associated horrors were barely mentioned.

I don’t remember seeing the “Duck and Cover” movie with Bert the turtle or any other of the Civil Defense movies of the 1950s. We never had any drills at St. Josephs. No hallway ducking. No desk ducking. No panics. We just had a few pamphlets distributed to us, and occasionally we’d have a fire drill. Maybe the nuns thought our religion was enough.

Things may have been different in the public schools, I can’t say. If they had such movies and tests there, the knowledge didn’t reach me.

I saw the “Duck and Cover” movie a short time ago, and the pictures of kids hiding under their desks (rather useless) from the 1950s are just as strange to me as to people born later. My parents never exhibited fear of the Cold War to us kids. If they had any, they kept it to themselves. They housed us, fed us, clothed us, loved us, and gave us “running around” freedom and no reason to be fearful for anything other than the day-to-day dangers. Our home had a safe aura that never left it. I was secure, and I think that’s why I have so many good memories. There were some bad ones, of course, but I tend to minimize them in the little memory cells of my brain. No one I knew in Middletown built a bomb or fallout shelter—unless its existence was kept quiet. We had no Middletown example of a “Blast From the Past.” It would have made a great place to visit, though.

I remember Ed and Jack observing the skies on that Ground Observer’s wooded hillside for a while until the site was changed to the roof of the State Armory, on the top of the hill on Wickham Avenue. They grew away from observing by then. Ed had gone off to the Air Force and Jack left for the Navy a year or two later. And the Ground Observer Corps died a quiet death---not because of their departure, but of natural cause and technological advances, such as the expanded DEW Line.

People are quick to criticize government and social activity of the 1950s, especially about the atomic bomb scares. Maybe if they had lived through them as a child or young adult, their perceptions and criticisms would be different. Nuclear knowledge was what it was in the period---not as extensive or detailed as it is now. Too many current historians, pundits, and observers make the mistake of putting today’s knowledge and social structure into the past and making skewed judgments. Hindsight from a future society is the standard weapon of these people---and something we didn’t have at the time…

From.....Be a Sticky Good Sport

...In late 1954 we moved down the street to across from the School and Church. A whole new world of play areas opened up to us. We had the huge School yard/parking lot to the side and behind the School, the playing field beyond that, and the cemetery to the side of that and behind the Church. It was our destination in all types of weather. We played baseball on the field. We played wiffle ball, tag, jump rope, red rover, and other running games on the School yard. And the cemetery was great fun for chasing and hiding, go-karting, bivouacking under the numerous trees, winter sledding and snowball fights.

When the sledding wasn’t good on the School yard or cemetery, or there was no one else around who wanted to sled (I didn’t like to go sledding alone,) we’d play among the stones and trees of the cemetery. This was also a summer activity. There were plenty of trees all around the cemetery, usually pine oriented. In the winter, we’d push snow away and use the bases of the trees for forts. In the summer, there was no snow to move. The lower branches reached the ground and made good hiding places. There was enough room under some of the big ones to replicate Fort Apache. We’d play up through the darkness without any fear of our surroundings.

We could also use the unmowed school field portion going down hill in right field for our summer bivouacs. Crawling along fearlessly in the tall grass, mindless of bugs and snakes, we’d try to find each other and win the round of whatever we were playing. It was often me and Bill Feeney against Pat and Vince Smith. Feeney was a little big and reticent to crawl in the grass, but we enjoyed what we could do. He was hardly invisible in the brush, and we both ended up with grassy mouths. Dry grass in the mouth was a sign of manliness, especially if you chewed it. Since that part of the field was treeless, we had to crawl around to make anything interesting.

“Okay, Feeney. You crawl towards Eldred Street in a flanking movement. I’ll sneak around toward the cemetery and up the hill. Pat and Vince will see you and start moving down the hill….uh…Then I don’t know what we’ll do. We have no weapons, and they have nothing worth capturing. Let’s think this whole thing all over again.”

The big trees were down at the bottom by the cyclone fence. They were probably placed there originally to block the pedestrian view of the railroad property right behind the field and cemetery. But the bottoms were too open to provide any cover or interesting places to play.

On warm weather evenings, our neighbors, the Smith’s, often came out with their go-kart. Pat and Vince did most of the driving, but I got a chance on occasion. We’d drive it on the cemetery roads around the stones in relative safety and unburdened with religious misgivings about our location and without priestly interference. We were generally the only kids around the neighborhood most of the time, and they let us be. Any noise we made certainly wasn’t going to annoy the residents. Vince Smith, the father, would do the maintenance and fueling. Dad sometimes stood around to kibitz. Except for bumper cars, that was my racing career. The go-kart wasn’t fancy, just a frame with wheels, a seat, and a motor---probably from a lawn mower. The “gas pedal” was rudimentary as was the braking lever. The steering was done by with a small wheel and worked well. There were no safety features that I remember except for the parental “Be careful!”...

Bicycling is sometimes better than walking...

I remember buying my first bike when I was about 10 or 11 years old. My Uncle Bill sold me his son’s old bike. It was little more than a chain and a frame, but he charged me 40 cents for it and roared with laughter when I asked about a guarantee. He gave me one: it was unconditional and would last for one hour after purchase. At the same time, he sold his daughter’s old bike (complete and in operating condition) for 10 cents to my little sister, even though she was several years away from being able to ride it. Dad paid, and Mary Anne loved the idea. She didn’t know what guarantee meant, and apparently, I didn’t know what color coordination meant. My finished bike was painted with yellow and orange stripes. After a few weeks of riding an embarrassed zebra, I was eager to save for a new one. I guess repainting it never crossed my mind.

My second bike was a new, red Columbia with basket, enclosed horn, and heavy fenders. It weighed nearly as much as a horse. Dad co-signed for me; Suresky’s Tire Center gave me credit; and I pedaled to the showroom every week to pay $2 (Mom claims it was $1.25) until I completely owned my bike. As expected, immediately after the final payment, it began to fall apart, starting with the horn.

But it did help me in delivering the afternoon newspaper. Most of the time I relied upon it. It helped me move from the Times-Herald to my customers, Saturday was best, as it was usually a thin paper. That was best. Easy to fold and easy to deliver. I hated the thick editions. They were heavy and impossible to fold for throwing.