Father’s Day 2014
FL Gramps and the Chicken Coop
Navy story - losing the anchor fluke in the fjords of Norway
Navy story - reporting for duty
Dad - having the time of his life
20 years of family vacations (note the bird in the background at 1:11)
Winnie Chapter 1
Winnie Chapter 2
Winnie Chapter 3
Formative years 1 JTRS
Formative years 2 JTRS
Formative years 3 JTRS
Formative years 4 JTRS
Formative years 5 JTRS
Friday, March 10, 2023
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Growing up
Reflections
This album contains pictures of most of the houses in which I lived as I was growing up. This album is dedicated to My mom who made each of the houses a "Home“ filled with fun, Love and excitement. There is no way I can ever tell you How much I appreciated your giving, caring, consoling and sharing over the years.
2653 North 54th street, Milwaukee 10, Wisconsin
I remember 54th street. The house was a cape with a red roof with a reasonable sized yard front and back. Fifty fourth street has lined on both sides with huge elm trees that were typically three feet in diameter. The trees formed a canopy over everything in the summer months.
The Satoris were the next door neighbors on the center street side.
They were important because their yard had the apple trees. One of my earliest memories is getting a "Licking" for pilfering little green apples in the springtime. I also remember dozens of fantastic apple pies made by grandma and olive. They always made them two at a time...“one for grandpa and one for the rest of us“
The Heddichs lived on the Lisbon street side. He was a graphic artist and tried to interest me in painting. They here a very reserved couple and I don't remember much about them other than their beautiful white poodle Lisa.
It's hard to believe, but I also remember horse drawn milk wagons (borders) and horse drawn garbage wagons that would ply the alley behind the house on 54th street.
I can remember leading my youthful cohorts (5 and 6 year olds) on daily excursions to the Lisbon street playground....Forbidden to cross Lisbon street which always made it more of an adventure. I remember games of hide and seek in the old st. Catherine's church basement and getting caught by the nuns. As a penance he had to pray with them. The only prayer I knew at the time really seemed to crack them up..."How I lay myself down to sleep and pray the lord my soda to keep...."
I can even remember sitting on my fathers shoulder and watching a parade of thousands of soldiers. Could this have been returning war veterans? But most of all I remember the times on 54th street as warm and friendly times with no concerns other than what to do today.
28 Choate road, Park Forest Illinois
We moved to park forest when I was in second grade. That would make me 7 or 8 30 I guess it must have been 1950. We moved to park forest from Riverdale, Illinois where I attended st. Mary's grade school...My best friend was "Big mike“. (don't think he had a last name}
Park forest was an adventure. We were the first occupants in one of the first planned communities in the us. Park forest was created from scratch to provide housing for more than 10,000 families with moderate incomes. Sort of like a Levittown today. I guess many of the park forest residents were returning WW2 veterans buying their first houses or renting until they could afford to buy.
I remember the landscaping behind our house on Choate road. Huge tractors and earth moving equipment were daily reshaping our environment. They created hills where they didn't exist before and they moved those that did exist to satisfy someone's whims. We boys created "Ports" after the workers had left and played war games. It was great!
I remember this weird 20 year old living next door whose name has Rowe. He once took me into the basement to show me his collection of guns. He told me how he has going to arm us kids to fend off the Chinese communists who would one day soon be trying to conquer park forest. Those were terrifying times, weren't they.
Our phone number has skyline 5-6117. My best friend has Sheilah Cadd whose family lived across the circle. You can't tell from this picture what park forest looked like in those days. There has little landscaping and the biggest trees were only 2 inches in diameter. Choate road forms a circle looping back on itself. Next door we had the Wilson family. One boy...Tommy....And two girls that I remember...Betsy and Cathy. I remember getting caught “playing doctor" with the Wilson girls...Real trauma.
Park Forest was on the fringe of civilization. My summer days were spent hiking and exploring in the adjoining forest preserve. I was a budding scientist in those days and I collected dozens of snakes and hundreds of frogs which I kept in the "Window wells" formed at the base of the house where the basement windows were below ground level.
I can remember riding my bike....26'' JC Higgins (Sears) with special locking compartment built into the cross bar ..... Across huge empty fields which were probably recently drained swamps. The hot sun heating down on these fields had evaporated the water and created a crisscross pattern of cracks and crevices. One of those crevices caught my bike wheel and resulted in a tremendous spill. No injury but a new wheel has required. Dad has not thrilled.
He were the first in the neighborhood to have a TV. I remember everyone coming to our house on Friday night and your making popcorn and kool aid for the hordes.
Park forest has a great place to live.
RR3 box 154 Chicago Heights, Illinois
We were moving up in the world. We vacated the rented duplex in park forest and moved to a brand new single family house in Chicago Heights, the adjoining town. I remember the first trip from Park Forest to see the new house in Chicago Heights. He here in the new car (1950 ford) the 1938 Buick having died the previous yeah. Drove past the Saulk reservoir where we used to fish.
Occasionally, through the town of Chicago Heights and then out to 196th and Halsted Street and our new house.
Phil Apohe, an Italian carpenter was our new landlord. He had apparently built this house for himself but decided to rent for a time for rental income purposes. We were lucky. It was a neat house that was so much larger than Park Forest and it was brand new. I'll never forget the enormous basement which even had its own fireplace. Mom, I remember you teaching me how to play ping pong in the basement. We even had a fire going. Dad had built me a train table out of a 4x8 sheet of plywood and then built a ping pong table top that nested on top of the train table. Dad also made a shoebox and a bookcase out of Apohe's wood. I remember that being a bone of contention when it came time to move.
We had a large tomato/corn field directly behind the house with enormous onion fields a little further back. We here surrounded by farm country. The 1955 equivalent of 7-11 has 3 blocks away across the cornfield. How well I remember hiking across that field one muddy spring day and losing my boots in that clinging morass....And then you went out and rescued the boots. We were always charging food at the store. Remember the receipt...."The boy in the coonskin cap $2.50 for xyz". That was the Davy Crockett era.
Fat Freddy Sinew was my best friend. He lived on the end of our street next to the Tivoli restaurant. His family had a barn and raised hogs and chickens.
I can remember riding the pigs in their sty and hoping against hope that we would't fall off but of course we did. I guess you remember those days too maybe from a laundry perspective. Sammy Matz, a couple blocks away on Glenview ave, was also a good friend. Johnny at the Tivoli told me during my Marquette years that Sammy was gardener at a golf course.
Across the street there was this nut who raised pheasants, quail and who knows what else. I can remember him busting eggs against the cyclone fence surrounding his property and the birds inside going wild. I recall him being in the linoleum and floor covering business.
Remember the winters. Continuous winds forming huge snow drifts. Forays to the abandoned huts of the Mexican migrant farm workers. Milk freezing in the bottle. Remember dropping us at the Nortown theater on Sunday afternoon for such treats as “the beast from twenty thousand fathoms" and “the creature from the black lagoon". I remember spending the money for return bus fare (8 cents) and having to walk back. Our cat was named "Pepper". Mike's dog has "Lassie." Mr Haskell, our next door neighbor, once gave us some rabbits and squirrels that he had shot. I remember the trauma of having to sell my hens when we moved to Pittsburgh and the absolute disaster when we chopped off the heads of the roosters and had them for thanksgiving dinner. That was the house of miracles....Watermelons that grew from 2 inches to 2 feet in one night under a full moon.
I remember the strings of blue morning glories that you arranged off the back porch and baby Cathy sitting under the clothesline waiting for her “blankie” to dry. Chicago heights was a great place to live.
37 California Avenue, Bethel Park Pennsylvania
We moved to Pennsylvania in 1957 when I was in the seventh grade. I attended st. Bernard's school in Mount Lebanon. St. Bernard's has an enormous parochial school. We had 5 seventh grade homerooms and the school had 3 fully equipped football teams competing in different leagues. I can remember vividly commuting by trolley car via Castle Shannon.
I don't remember how we got to Pennsylvania. We must have driven there but there are no memories of the trip itself. I do remember that the first day we were there, mike and I took off on one bike (mine) and drove to south park where he got lost for hours. When we returned we had tales of mile long hills and herds of buffalo which here naturally disbelieved. But they here true weren't they?
Again we were the first occupants of a newly constructed colonial. Our house has halfway down the hill on Pennsylvania Avenue. At the bottom of the hill was ah enormous woods as I remember. Tremendous sledding in the winter through the backyards. Behind us was Coverdale...I remember this as being a lower class neighborhood and having to avoid the tough gangs when taking the shortcut to Oppenheimer's store.
How thrilled I was, when you told me to take brush and paint and put our name on the mailbox at the foot of California avenue. For some reason or other, that made he feel like an adult.
Remember Mike throwing a tantrum at a picnic in south park because you had forgotten to pack the mustard and that has a necessity for hot dogs. Someone went back to Versharons and bought some. Me? I'll never forget mike realizing one day that he couldn't find his bike and then remembering that he had left it at the drug store ..... A week previously. No more bike.
I remember weekend trips exploring the woodsy environs of Pennsylvania and neighboring West Virginia. I remember dad taking me to south park to caddy for him and to play golf for the first time.
Mike, James Verostek and I once went Christmas caroling and we were amazed at how much honey he accumulated. We mutually decided to buy Christmas presents for fr. John and fr. Paul.... Personalized stationary as I recall. Served mass daily in those days. The time mike was serving bell and the bell fell apart at the consecration. The time we had a procession which went left while mike continued going straight and fr. John got bent out of shape. Serving mass in the school when fr. John who had forgotten the hosts sent me back to the sacristy to obtain same. I was amazed that people didn't genuflect as I swept past them in my cassock while carrying a chalice of hosts (in a tissue of course...Human hands weren't allowed to touch a chalice).
Babysitting for the Brights across the street and the Williamsons next door at the exorbitant rate of 25 cents per hour. Playing firebug (and getting caught when the neighbors turned us in) when we burned the trash nightly after having done the dishes. Yes I remember Bethel borough very fondly too.
236 Nassau Avenue, Freeport, New York
Our first plane ride on a Friday from Pittsburgh to New York. They ran out of fish and a priest on the plane wouldn't give me permission to eat meat. Then dad picks us up at LaGuardia and he drive 130 miles to eastern long island. Boy has I ever hungry by the time he finally ate. Swordfish steak?
We arrived a week or two before school started. Was it ever fun exploring the waterfront and watching the fishing boats come in. He fished off Eddie's dock at the end of Woodcleft canal almost every day catching lots of baby blues and later in the year flounder and fluke.
Then we met Dickie Fisher and got introduced to boating and water skiing in a big way. You didn't believe us when he said we had met Guy Lombardo and that he only lived a couple blocks away. Was dad ever thrilled the first time he took him out in the fishers boat. I think he made up his mind that day that he was getting his own boat.
New York was strange at first. I remember it being harder to adjust and make friends at Holy Redeemer that it had been in Pennsylvania or Chicago. Had to learn new games too. Handball and stickball were mainstays in Freeport and I had never heard of these games before.
As I recall, we were a little cramped in that 3 bedroom tri-level. Where did you put us all when your parents game to visit. I remember grandma and grandpa Heisdorf visiting us in that house. I remember the Fisher's giving us the use of their speed boat and I took grandpa for a tear across the water at high speed bouncing off the waves. He was clutching the side of the boat with one hand and his chest with the other. I was afraid he was having a heart attack so I slowed down.
Then the discussions started re purchasing the house across the street that had been empty for more than a year. As I recall the price was $16.5k which is about the price of a car today. He spent weeks and weeks in that house getting ready for the move. Sanding all the metal door frames. Redoing the doors and floors and of course painting all the rooms.
We moved on a Saturday. We managed to move everything in the house at 236 to the new house at 219 before dad ever got up that morning. Bet he was pleased. We left a big hole in the kitchen wall at 236 that was skillfully camouflaged with scotch tape and apparently escaped detection. Mike and I had been wrestling in the kitchen and I literally thew him through the wall into the garage.
Ford memories of our year at 236 Nassau.
219 Nassau Avenue, Freeport, New York
Of all the places I lived, 219 is the best remembered. Guess that's reasonable seeing as we were there for my 4 years in high school and my 4 college years. Our previous houses seemed much more transient in retrospect.
I remember so many positive things about those years. It seemed like every weekend he were out in the boat, over to Jones or Short Beach and then a mad dash home passing all the other boats followed by the scramble for the shower and then out in the backyard for a bar-b-que. I shouldn't brush over the days at Jones or Short beach too quickly. Remember the time we hiked all the way to the point off Jones inlet. I carried a huge ice chest with 2 cases of beer/soda. Everyone else loaded down with groceries, books, lawn chairs etc. We must have hiked 2 miles. Dad carried his "Bikini spotters". Or how about the time, we had carried everything over to the ocean side, had the chairs all arranged and even had a nice fire blazing. But when you arrived, dad decided that we should relocate about 100 yards....Fire et al. He did call the shots didn't he?
A great deal of our life revolved around that boat. That reminds me, I paid 50% of the $650 purchase price on the runabout and never got compensated. You owe me. That was a great rig with the Evinrude electric starting engine. He seldom had problems. It was easy to maneuver, it required very little water and you could go just about anywhere. I can remember taking turns with Freddie Frey water skiing in November from Freeport to Massapequa. One day you ski non stop for 70 minutes. The next day its my turn.
Remember the Easter Sunday trip to Jones beach where we ended up carting firewood back to the house and in the process ruined everyone's Easter finery? As we prowled the beach that day and examined the jetsam and flotsam we found debris from more than a dozen countries. And of course there was the occasional carcass of a seal or a shark or a dolphin.
My first car. The '51 blue Chevy convertible. My first real job working for Herb Cohen as delivery boy at the drug store. My first girl friend, little Annie Poses across the street. Claire Steiner and the crowd from Rockville center.
I only got to see those canine misfits Sam and Sean when I came to visit. But I surely do remember their predecessor, sandy, who followed you home one night when you went for a walk. Very unusual dog. Sandy could smile, she really could. She also had overly developed maternal instincts and once nursed a litter of pups and a litter of kittens simultaneously when the mother cat decided motherhood wasn't her cup of tea.
I remember the summers that grandma Coleman would spend with us in Freeport. She could be a tough taskmaster and insisted that the "Curlicues" be removed from under the beds. She would check too. She could touch her toes without bending her knees with ease at age 65 as portly as she was. I still remember "Tommy get me a glass of ice water will you". Grandma liked to tipple.
The last year at 219 is kind of blurry. I remember driving down after dad had died, the funeral and then fixing the house up for resale. Will you ever forget the "Scissors incident" and crazy Carol and Tom Estella next door. I don't think you got out of there any too soon at the end.
But most of all I remember 219 as a house full of people, lots going on, many friends over at the house and a place where all of us were very, very happy. Freeport may have been the best of all the wonderful places we lived and you made everyone of them a loving, caring home. Thank you.
This album contains pictures of most of the houses in which I lived as I was growing up. This album is dedicated to My mom who made each of the houses a "Home“ filled with fun, Love and excitement. There is no way I can ever tell you How much I appreciated your giving, caring, consoling and sharing over the years.
2653 North 54th street, Milwaukee 10, Wisconsin
I remember 54th street. The house was a cape with a red roof with a reasonable sized yard front and back. Fifty fourth street has lined on both sides with huge elm trees that were typically three feet in diameter. The trees formed a canopy over everything in the summer months.
The Satoris were the next door neighbors on the center street side.
They were important because their yard had the apple trees. One of my earliest memories is getting a "Licking" for pilfering little green apples in the springtime. I also remember dozens of fantastic apple pies made by grandma and olive. They always made them two at a time...“one for grandpa and one for the rest of us“
The Heddichs lived on the Lisbon street side. He was a graphic artist and tried to interest me in painting. They here a very reserved couple and I don't remember much about them other than their beautiful white poodle Lisa.
It's hard to believe, but I also remember horse drawn milk wagons (borders) and horse drawn garbage wagons that would ply the alley behind the house on 54th street.
I can remember leading my youthful cohorts (5 and 6 year olds) on daily excursions to the Lisbon street playground....Forbidden to cross Lisbon street which always made it more of an adventure. I remember games of hide and seek in the old st. Catherine's church basement and getting caught by the nuns. As a penance he had to pray with them. The only prayer I knew at the time really seemed to crack them up..."How I lay myself down to sleep and pray the lord my soda to keep...."
I can even remember sitting on my fathers shoulder and watching a parade of thousands of soldiers. Could this have been returning war veterans? But most of all I remember the times on 54th street as warm and friendly times with no concerns other than what to do today.
28 Choate road, Park Forest Illinois
We moved to park forest when I was in second grade. That would make me 7 or 8 30 I guess it must have been 1950. We moved to park forest from Riverdale, Illinois where I attended st. Mary's grade school...My best friend was "Big mike“. (don't think he had a last name}
Park forest was an adventure. We were the first occupants in one of the first planned communities in the us. Park forest was created from scratch to provide housing for more than 10,000 families with moderate incomes. Sort of like a Levittown today. I guess many of the park forest residents were returning WW2 veterans buying their first houses or renting until they could afford to buy.
I remember the landscaping behind our house on Choate road. Huge tractors and earth moving equipment were daily reshaping our environment. They created hills where they didn't exist before and they moved those that did exist to satisfy someone's whims. We boys created "Ports" after the workers had left and played war games. It was great!
I remember this weird 20 year old living next door whose name has Rowe. He once took me into the basement to show me his collection of guns. He told me how he has going to arm us kids to fend off the Chinese communists who would one day soon be trying to conquer park forest. Those were terrifying times, weren't they.
Our phone number has skyline 5-6117. My best friend has Sheilah Cadd whose family lived across the circle. You can't tell from this picture what park forest looked like in those days. There has little landscaping and the biggest trees were only 2 inches in diameter. Choate road forms a circle looping back on itself. Next door we had the Wilson family. One boy...Tommy....And two girls that I remember...Betsy and Cathy. I remember getting caught “playing doctor" with the Wilson girls...Real trauma.
Park Forest was on the fringe of civilization. My summer days were spent hiking and exploring in the adjoining forest preserve. I was a budding scientist in those days and I collected dozens of snakes and hundreds of frogs which I kept in the "Window wells" formed at the base of the house where the basement windows were below ground level.
I can remember riding my bike....26'' JC Higgins (Sears) with special locking compartment built into the cross bar ..... Across huge empty fields which were probably recently drained swamps. The hot sun heating down on these fields had evaporated the water and created a crisscross pattern of cracks and crevices. One of those crevices caught my bike wheel and resulted in a tremendous spill. No injury but a new wheel has required. Dad has not thrilled.
He were the first in the neighborhood to have a TV. I remember everyone coming to our house on Friday night and your making popcorn and kool aid for the hordes.
Park forest has a great place to live.
RR3 box 154 Chicago Heights, Illinois
We were moving up in the world. We vacated the rented duplex in park forest and moved to a brand new single family house in Chicago Heights, the adjoining town. I remember the first trip from Park Forest to see the new house in Chicago Heights. He here in the new car (1950 ford) the 1938 Buick having died the previous yeah. Drove past the Saulk reservoir where we used to fish.
Occasionally, through the town of Chicago Heights and then out to 196th and Halsted Street and our new house.
Phil Apohe, an Italian carpenter was our new landlord. He had apparently built this house for himself but decided to rent for a time for rental income purposes. We were lucky. It was a neat house that was so much larger than Park Forest and it was brand new. I'll never forget the enormous basement which even had its own fireplace. Mom, I remember you teaching me how to play ping pong in the basement. We even had a fire going. Dad had built me a train table out of a 4x8 sheet of plywood and then built a ping pong table top that nested on top of the train table. Dad also made a shoebox and a bookcase out of Apohe's wood. I remember that being a bone of contention when it came time to move.
We had a large tomato/corn field directly behind the house with enormous onion fields a little further back. We here surrounded by farm country. The 1955 equivalent of 7-11 has 3 blocks away across the cornfield. How well I remember hiking across that field one muddy spring day and losing my boots in that clinging morass....And then you went out and rescued the boots. We were always charging food at the store. Remember the receipt...."The boy in the coonskin cap $2.50 for xyz". That was the Davy Crockett era.
Fat Freddy Sinew was my best friend. He lived on the end of our street next to the Tivoli restaurant. His family had a barn and raised hogs and chickens.
I can remember riding the pigs in their sty and hoping against hope that we would't fall off but of course we did. I guess you remember those days too maybe from a laundry perspective. Sammy Matz, a couple blocks away on Glenview ave, was also a good friend. Johnny at the Tivoli told me during my Marquette years that Sammy was gardener at a golf course.
Across the street there was this nut who raised pheasants, quail and who knows what else. I can remember him busting eggs against the cyclone fence surrounding his property and the birds inside going wild. I recall him being in the linoleum and floor covering business.
Remember the winters. Continuous winds forming huge snow drifts. Forays to the abandoned huts of the Mexican migrant farm workers. Milk freezing in the bottle. Remember dropping us at the Nortown theater on Sunday afternoon for such treats as “the beast from twenty thousand fathoms" and “the creature from the black lagoon". I remember spending the money for return bus fare (8 cents) and having to walk back. Our cat was named "Pepper". Mike's dog has "Lassie." Mr Haskell, our next door neighbor, once gave us some rabbits and squirrels that he had shot. I remember the trauma of having to sell my hens when we moved to Pittsburgh and the absolute disaster when we chopped off the heads of the roosters and had them for thanksgiving dinner. That was the house of miracles....Watermelons that grew from 2 inches to 2 feet in one night under a full moon.
I remember the strings of blue morning glories that you arranged off the back porch and baby Cathy sitting under the clothesline waiting for her “blankie” to dry. Chicago heights was a great place to live.
37 California Avenue, Bethel Park Pennsylvania
We moved to Pennsylvania in 1957 when I was in the seventh grade. I attended st. Bernard's school in Mount Lebanon. St. Bernard's has an enormous parochial school. We had 5 seventh grade homerooms and the school had 3 fully equipped football teams competing in different leagues. I can remember vividly commuting by trolley car via Castle Shannon.
I don't remember how we got to Pennsylvania. We must have driven there but there are no memories of the trip itself. I do remember that the first day we were there, mike and I took off on one bike (mine) and drove to south park where he got lost for hours. When we returned we had tales of mile long hills and herds of buffalo which here naturally disbelieved. But they here true weren't they?
Again we were the first occupants of a newly constructed colonial. Our house has halfway down the hill on Pennsylvania Avenue. At the bottom of the hill was ah enormous woods as I remember. Tremendous sledding in the winter through the backyards. Behind us was Coverdale...I remember this as being a lower class neighborhood and having to avoid the tough gangs when taking the shortcut to Oppenheimer's store.
How thrilled I was, when you told me to take brush and paint and put our name on the mailbox at the foot of California avenue. For some reason or other, that made he feel like an adult.
Remember Mike throwing a tantrum at a picnic in south park because you had forgotten to pack the mustard and that has a necessity for hot dogs. Someone went back to Versharons and bought some. Me? I'll never forget mike realizing one day that he couldn't find his bike and then remembering that he had left it at the drug store ..... A week previously. No more bike.
I remember weekend trips exploring the woodsy environs of Pennsylvania and neighboring West Virginia. I remember dad taking me to south park to caddy for him and to play golf for the first time.
Mike, James Verostek and I once went Christmas caroling and we were amazed at how much honey he accumulated. We mutually decided to buy Christmas presents for fr. John and fr. Paul.... Personalized stationary as I recall. Served mass daily in those days. The time mike was serving bell and the bell fell apart at the consecration. The time we had a procession which went left while mike continued going straight and fr. John got bent out of shape. Serving mass in the school when fr. John who had forgotten the hosts sent me back to the sacristy to obtain same. I was amazed that people didn't genuflect as I swept past them in my cassock while carrying a chalice of hosts (in a tissue of course...Human hands weren't allowed to touch a chalice).
Babysitting for the Brights across the street and the Williamsons next door at the exorbitant rate of 25 cents per hour. Playing firebug (and getting caught when the neighbors turned us in) when we burned the trash nightly after having done the dishes. Yes I remember Bethel borough very fondly too.
236 Nassau Avenue, Freeport, New York
Our first plane ride on a Friday from Pittsburgh to New York. They ran out of fish and a priest on the plane wouldn't give me permission to eat meat. Then dad picks us up at LaGuardia and he drive 130 miles to eastern long island. Boy has I ever hungry by the time he finally ate. Swordfish steak?
We arrived a week or two before school started. Was it ever fun exploring the waterfront and watching the fishing boats come in. He fished off Eddie's dock at the end of Woodcleft canal almost every day catching lots of baby blues and later in the year flounder and fluke.
Then we met Dickie Fisher and got introduced to boating and water skiing in a big way. You didn't believe us when he said we had met Guy Lombardo and that he only lived a couple blocks away. Was dad ever thrilled the first time he took him out in the fishers boat. I think he made up his mind that day that he was getting his own boat.
New York was strange at first. I remember it being harder to adjust and make friends at Holy Redeemer that it had been in Pennsylvania or Chicago. Had to learn new games too. Handball and stickball were mainstays in Freeport and I had never heard of these games before.
As I recall, we were a little cramped in that 3 bedroom tri-level. Where did you put us all when your parents game to visit. I remember grandma and grandpa Heisdorf visiting us in that house. I remember the Fisher's giving us the use of their speed boat and I took grandpa for a tear across the water at high speed bouncing off the waves. He was clutching the side of the boat with one hand and his chest with the other. I was afraid he was having a heart attack so I slowed down.
Then the discussions started re purchasing the house across the street that had been empty for more than a year. As I recall the price was $16.5k which is about the price of a car today. He spent weeks and weeks in that house getting ready for the move. Sanding all the metal door frames. Redoing the doors and floors and of course painting all the rooms.
We moved on a Saturday. We managed to move everything in the house at 236 to the new house at 219 before dad ever got up that morning. Bet he was pleased. We left a big hole in the kitchen wall at 236 that was skillfully camouflaged with scotch tape and apparently escaped detection. Mike and I had been wrestling in the kitchen and I literally thew him through the wall into the garage.
Ford memories of our year at 236 Nassau.
219 Nassau Avenue, Freeport, New York
Of all the places I lived, 219 is the best remembered. Guess that's reasonable seeing as we were there for my 4 years in high school and my 4 college years. Our previous houses seemed much more transient in retrospect.
I remember so many positive things about those years. It seemed like every weekend he were out in the boat, over to Jones or Short Beach and then a mad dash home passing all the other boats followed by the scramble for the shower and then out in the backyard for a bar-b-que. I shouldn't brush over the days at Jones or Short beach too quickly. Remember the time we hiked all the way to the point off Jones inlet. I carried a huge ice chest with 2 cases of beer/soda. Everyone else loaded down with groceries, books, lawn chairs etc. We must have hiked 2 miles. Dad carried his "Bikini spotters". Or how about the time, we had carried everything over to the ocean side, had the chairs all arranged and even had a nice fire blazing. But when you arrived, dad decided that we should relocate about 100 yards....Fire et al. He did call the shots didn't he?
A great deal of our life revolved around that boat. That reminds me, I paid 50% of the $650 purchase price on the runabout and never got compensated. You owe me. That was a great rig with the Evinrude electric starting engine. He seldom had problems. It was easy to maneuver, it required very little water and you could go just about anywhere. I can remember taking turns with Freddie Frey water skiing in November from Freeport to Massapequa. One day you ski non stop for 70 minutes. The next day its my turn.
Remember the Easter Sunday trip to Jones beach where we ended up carting firewood back to the house and in the process ruined everyone's Easter finery? As we prowled the beach that day and examined the jetsam and flotsam we found debris from more than a dozen countries. And of course there was the occasional carcass of a seal or a shark or a dolphin.
My first car. The '51 blue Chevy convertible. My first real job working for Herb Cohen as delivery boy at the drug store. My first girl friend, little Annie Poses across the street. Claire Steiner and the crowd from Rockville center.
I only got to see those canine misfits Sam and Sean when I came to visit. But I surely do remember their predecessor, sandy, who followed you home one night when you went for a walk. Very unusual dog. Sandy could smile, she really could. She also had overly developed maternal instincts and once nursed a litter of pups and a litter of kittens simultaneously when the mother cat decided motherhood wasn't her cup of tea.
I remember the summers that grandma Coleman would spend with us in Freeport. She could be a tough taskmaster and insisted that the "Curlicues" be removed from under the beds. She would check too. She could touch her toes without bending her knees with ease at age 65 as portly as she was. I still remember "Tommy get me a glass of ice water will you". Grandma liked to tipple.
The last year at 219 is kind of blurry. I remember driving down after dad had died, the funeral and then fixing the house up for resale. Will you ever forget the "Scissors incident" and crazy Carol and Tom Estella next door. I don't think you got out of there any too soon at the end.
But most of all I remember 219 as a house full of people, lots going on, many friends over at the house and a place where all of us were very, very happy. Freeport may have been the best of all the wonderful places we lived and you made everyone of them a loving, caring home. Thank you.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Chickens for an Angry Bird
My hubby and I are not what anyone might call outdoorsy folks. We like it out there, but don't necessarily bring vast knowledge to the land, if you will. So, funny situation we have found ourselves in since this summer when we purchased a chunk of land in the Los Gatos mountains of California. Since moving from the flats, we have quickly come to distinguish the cedars from the redwoods, gopher snakes from the rattlers and soon, it seems, Ameraucana from Aracauna.
I didn't know I ever wanted to live in the mountains, and I didn't know I ever wanted chickens.But suddenly, both of these are now true about me.
Lucky for me, I have a Dad with a huge passion for building things and an even greater ability not to see any obstacles in his way. After his first visit just before Thanksgiving (during which he gutted our garage, made workbenches, shelving and storage options galore) he returned before Christmas with a renewed zeal for raising a roof for our future hens.
If getting chickens were just up to me, I might be buying eggs at Trader Joe's well into my old age. If it were up to my husband, we'd have found a dandy coop on freecycle.com over a weekend and thrown the chickens in. But, since we left it up to my Dad, in the space of 2 weeks he built a royal palace for our ladies.
The following is our journey from dirt to gables. The black print is the touchy feeley narrative from me, BigCyg and the red is FloridaGramps, for those of you who need to know what really happened out there at the "job site", as we have affectionately come to call it.
This 8x10 coop and attached 10x16 A-frame run is a family project, start to finish in 2 weeks, no plans and cost approximately $2500 in material. All screws, no nails, except for roof shingles
The foundation consists of a 2x6 frame sitting on solid 8x16x4 concrete blocks that were first levelled on a 6 inch gravel base. Floor joists are 12 inches on center and the floor is 3/4 tongue and groove plwood.
The coop is stick built with 2x4 studs 16 inches on center
We built the roof using pre built roof trusses that we built ourselves. We decided on a 6 inch rise per 12 linear inches of roof run. We laid out that pattern on the coop deck before building the walls and screwed the first set of roof rafters to that deck to be used as a pattern for 7 additional trusses
We built the exterior nesting boxes as follows. Built 2 rectangualr frames 89x15 with 2x4s and screwed them to side wall of shed slightly above floor level on roost side of coop. Sheathed 3 sides of box w L10-ll cut to 22 inch width. The box top consists of 2 lids 47x22 also made from L10-11 and hinged to side of coop........added notched braces to keep little fingers safe while gathering eggs
The window is 30x36 with a decorative window box made from 1x8 that contains a 30 inch plastic planter. The shutters are functional and sit in grooves made from 1x4 and 1x2 with a half inch shim. When the wind roars which is seldom, we can easily close these shutters.
Roofing is asphalt shingle purchased at Home Depot. First we decked the roof with half inch OSB which we then coverered w 15# felt. We then added drip edge on all 4 sides and followed the directions on shingle package
We built an 10x16 A-frame run with 2x4's as follows. We ballparked the desired angles by trial and error method.........when we had a pattern that looked good to us, we screwed doubled 2x4s to coop wall leaving an inch and a half gap at apex for 2x4 ridge pole. We made gussets from a 2x8 to support that ridge pole which is (2) 16 foot long 2x4s on edge. We also used 1/2 inch plywood scraps for gussets to secure the doubled 16 foot ridge 2x4s to each other. We gang sawed notches using a circular saw in all A-frame side members at their mid point and then chiselled out the wood remnants. We then inserted 16 foot 2x4s into precut notches in each A-frame member. The A-frames were positioned 48 inches on center to facilitate attaching 2x4 welded wire fencing vertically between A-frames. The wire fencing is held in place temporarily w screws and fender washers and then permamanently attached w 7 foot long firring strips 1 1/2 inches wide. The A-frames sit atop a run foundation made from 8 foot 4x6s sitting in a bed of gravel. As a final step we cut 2x4s to fit between the A-frame trusses and lagged these into the 4x6 foundation w 3 inch galvanized lag bolts
The roosts are 2x4 on edge. Top roost is 4 feet off the floor. We made a rectangular frame 40 x 36 using 2x4s and screwed it to wall at 48 inch height and then added a vertical support to ceiling rafter using a 2x2. This rectangular top has 2 roosting bars........2x4 w thin edge up.......12 inches apart. The ladder is also 2x4 roosts thin edge up 12 inches apart........hinged to rectangualr top roost to facilitate clean up. We are adding 3 poop trays using 29x48 sheets of pressure treated 1/2 inch plywood with a 2x4 frame which we will fill with sand to make it easy to clean and maintain as has been suggested by many BYC members
I insisted on a dutch door and my dad made it as follows. Built a door opening that is 79x36. Cut a piece of L10-11 to 78x35 1/2. Attached 1x4 pre painted trim. Cut in half w a circular saw insuring that bottom half is 6 inches taller than top half of door. Attached HW and hung door. Lesson learned........attach HW to door and test fit to coop before cutting door in half.....the 2 door halves will swing much easier as a single unit when connected with barrel bolts
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