Saying goodbye. Perhaps a hard winter in 63 coupled with less work, smaller commissions and a growing family was the breaking point for Mom and Dad. The Valley didn’t seem as green to them that February, nor the future as promising as were those early post WWII years when they began their life together. A boy from Bridgeport and a Martins Ferry girl never imagined leaving their home and large families—roots were dug deeply and here they planned to raise their family, dote on their grandchildren and grow old together. Life, however, is never that simple. As a mechanic at Hopkins Motor Company in nearby Wheeling, Dad had some good weeks and some bad weeks, when reduced work in the winter meant meager paychecks requiring some fancy accounting by Mom to pay the bills. Luckily we lived in a small home owned by my grandmother, who lived next door. She would kindly carry us some months when money was tight. It was one night at the dinner table that my brother and I learned about George Oliver–– a Wheeling native who would change our lives forever. George and Dad had worked together as mechanics at Hopkins in the late 50s, before George decided to move to South Florida. He kept in touch and in 63 came the offer of a good job at a new Dodge dealership opening in Hollywood, Florida—no snow days and new customers pouring in every week. Not counting three years of Dad island hopping in the South Pacific during the war, my parents had never ventured far from The Valley. Florida I thought was a place for the wealthy to vacation, not a home for blue-collar families like us to begin life anew. I didn’t want to leave my safe little world, though brother Jim was more adventurous and less attached and little sister Debbie, well at 2, she hadn’t formed an opinion as yet. I remember counting the days until the end of school, saying goodbye to teachers and friends, the last family get together at my grandmother’s house, and walking the streets and alleys trying to burn images into my brain as I didn’t know that I’d see them again. We didn’t have much to fill that little house on North Third Street so it was only a few items of furniture, clothing and memories that we boxed and organized for the move. I remember my baseball card and comic book collection didn’t make the cut, which was a costly decision considering I had both the first and second issues of Spiderman—worth a small fortune today. Our lives were stashed in a U-Haul trailer, pulled by a well-worn Dodge as Dad started the car and we waived goodbye. I remember seeing my grandmother collapse in tears into my Aunt’s arms as we turned the corner and headed down the alley to Hanover Street and we were gone.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 00:21:16 +0000
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