There will be no new posts untill Tue. Feb. 17

Hi Folks,
I am going to be away a few days and I am having computer problems that need to be fixed. I'll be back on Tue. Feb. 17. Thanks for joining me here. Below is a little info on my Book Of mooncursers and other spun yarns.
"Mooncursers" takes place near "Baltimore Maryland," during the early part of WWII. A story of two boys, each battling his own devils. Both are strengthened through adventure and the overcoming of self imposed guilt. They decipher a cryptic note and right an old wrong. All this in order to give new meaning to the life of an elderly lady living in an old Baltimore slum and to return to her what is rightfully hers. This is a story of boys who find young manhood and lifelong confidence through adversity, adventure and intrigue. Between these covers are other short stories for old boys and young men. Some will delight, drawing a chuckle and others to inspire thought. A few will leave an introspective question or two to ponder. One story is pure piffle. See if you recognize which one. Doug

To Buy or not to Buy

My father, Charles Fredrick Pollard, known to all as Fred, had in the late fall of 1947gone down to the Local Chrysler- Plymouth dealer to find out why he had not received his new Plymouth. He had placed his name on a list for a new car, which was what had to be done at the time. After waiting almost a year for a car that was to be delivered with temporary wooden bumpers, as there was no chrome anywhere to be had, he had grown tired of seeing other names move ahead of his on the list.
We stood admiring the brand new Plymouth that set in the middle of the show room floor.
“Sure is shiny,” I said.
This was the second year that they built automobiles after World War Two. The previous year they were the same as the 1942 models which were the last ones built at the start of the war. These new models were radical in design and seen by all as the way of the future and they really were shiny.
When, after a lot of laughing back patting and two handed hand shaking a very happy customer left the sales desk, my father and I walked over and sat down across the desk from the dealerships owner.
“Hello, Mr. Eiler,” my father said somewhat stiffly.
“Hi, Fred. Still working on the house?” he asked as the two men shook hands.
“No, it’s about finished unless Ruby comes up with something she wants to change. But I’m not here to talk about my house, or my wife. I’m here about that new car I ordered nearly a year ago now.”
Mr. Eiler, owner of the dealership and friend of many years, sat across his desk with a white handkerchief clenched between his teeth. The man suffered from hay fever and used the handkerchief as a filter to breath through. With watery eyes, he studied my father intently.
Finally he said, almost under his breath, “Fred, I know that you don’t work in the automobile industry so I’m sure you don’t know. It’s not good enough to just put your name on a list and put up a little money. That’s just not the way automobiles are bought today. With the war over and everyone wanting a new car there aren’t enough to go around. The government sets the price on the new cars, as I’m sure you know. The trouble is, the price is so low it’s hard to make any money. So everybody in the business is taking a few hundred dollars as incentive to expedite your new vehicle’s delivery. For three hundred dollars I can get your name to the head of the list.”
I sat in awe, studying the glistening highlights on that shiny showroom model between myself and the huge front window.
My father stood up silently, with a look of complete disbelief.
“Are you telling me, Chris, that the good faith money I put up and the order I placed only entitles me to stand at the back of the line indefinitely? I shove three hundred dollars under the table you’ll move my name up on the list and then order a car for me? I’ll then have the privilege of waiting for it to come in? Seems kind of like paying ten cents to stand in line at a nickel crapper house. Now I see why you breath through that handkerchief. The air you do business in could leave a bad taste in your mouth. Couldn’t it?”
I suppose the sun went behind a cloud because I was sure the glistening highlights had disappeared off that new Plymouth’s sheen.
“Well, Fred, I’m sorry you feel that way, but that’s just the way things are done now that the war’s over,” he said shaking his head side to side as though denying his own words.
“Ok, Chris. The war’s over all right and that’s not all that’s over. I’ve bought near about all my gas from you and you’ve done all my automobile work that I didn’t do myself from the day you opened your doors here. Don’t ever expect to see me come through those doors again,” he said, holding his hand out for the return of his money.
“Fred, wait a minute. Don’t be that way. This is the only way I can make any money on these cars. Set your self down and lets talk about this,” he said. He was visibly shaken, he surly did not want to make an enemy of a man so well thought of in the community.
“My money,” Fred Pollard demanded, his eyes steady on the other man unblinking. The two men, now standing, glared at each other as though each expected the other to back down.
I sure hoped it would be my father.
I knew him as a man who was kind and considerate of others feelings and whole-heartedly lived his life by the golden rule. I had never seen this hard angry side of him.
I wondered if paint had chrome in it. Maybe that’s why that new showroom model didn’t have any shine they probably didn’t have any chromium to put in the paint.
In a moment Mr.Eiler took his handkerchief out of his mouth as he returned with my dad’s money and said, “Fred, I feel bad about all this and I want to make it right. Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll let you have my show room model , that gray one right there. It has a couple things on it you didn’t order but I’ll throw them in anyway. It won’t cost you a cent more just so there won’t be any hard feelings. Now how’s that.”
Suddenly that car glistened like a diamond star in the black of night.. I started for our new car but was grabbed by the shoulder and and held still.
Chris,” Fred said, ”I would sorely hate to see you loose money by selling me that car. Besides that it wouldn’t hardly be fair to move my name to the front of the list after all those folks paid three hundred dollars to be first. With fifty people all first, you shouldn’t have any problem finding someone to buy that pretty new car. I’ll take my money now.”
“Will a check be all right?” Mr. Eiler asked.
“Did I give you a Check?” Fred asked. “No,” he said answering his own question
“Cash will be fine.”
I sat slouched in my seat staring past the automobile at the rivulets of rain running down the showroom window. Surly so close after the war they didn’t have any paint either; because that new rattletrap was coated in the dullest of gray primer. Who would want such an ugly thing?
Fred Pollard never owned a new car that I remember, although my mother said he had a new model T Ford when they were young.
“ I’ll beat your brown if that isn’t a shame. He wants one, too,” my mother said, "and he ought to have it.”
I sure can’t understand any of this. Dad wants a car, Mr. Eiler wants him to have one, that’s for sure, and mom wants him to have one too. And there’s nobody wants him to have one more’n me. Shoot, I’ll bet everybody in the family wants him to have one. Why not?

Of Chainsaws and little women: read the oldest posts first

Needed a little break from Dundalkers so here's a little story to reveal my weakness where the manly power of noise gasoline and smoke are concerned

    In my yard stands a majestic old pecan tree. She , and I say she
because she bears pecans and I'm told the male tree doesn't, spreads out
over a large part of our yard. Much taller than our two story house her
branches a foot in diameter extend 50 feet, each weighing a least ton when
laden with leaves and even more when bearing nuts.
  The other night a storm came through and one of those branches
broke at the trunk and hung there right over top my pickup truck.
  I moved the truck holding my breath and then made a trip to Walmart
to buy a chainsaw figuring this will not be the last branch to come
down and the wood needs to be cut up and the mess cleared away.
  I was standing in the store studying the different chainsaws.
  A little old lady with a blue vest on walked over and said,
"That's the one you ought to have," pointing to an electric chainsaw.
  "My husband has one and he loves it," she said.  "Starts every time,
doesn't stink, its quiet and so light you can attach it to a pole and reach
way up in the tree to prune it, and Cheap too!" Thinking all this
certainly sounded reasonable.  I picked up the little electric chainsaw
and put it in my shopping cart.
Just then a manager type walked up and said, "This sir is what you need,big,
engine long blade anti kick back feature. Now that saw will do a mans
work." I looked at the little lady she turned her head to side and winked
at me.
Then I drew myself up to the full length of my suspenders and said,
“I think not sir," my heart sinking, as I shook the little plastic saw
with my hand.  "This one will do just fine.  It's quiet, starts every time
and it won't smell up the place."
  The man studied me a few seconds and said, "OK but when you chamge
your mind just bring it back and get this one." He looked at me, made a
face and his glasses slid down his nose. Looking over them he turned and
walked away.
I had been dismissed.  
   I couldn't help feeling a little remorse as I looked longingly at a the
18 inch gasoline saw all painted in camouflage.  I would never hear its
angry roar as it tore into the white virgin pecan wood ripping it into pieces
The little old lady, very pretty by the way, Stood watching me and asked, "
You going home and work on that tree young man?"
  Young man being the magic word here, at age seventy it does the trick
every time.
    "Yes mam”, I answered, perhaps a little dejected and still eyeing the saw
with its powerful gasoline engine.
  "I know something about you," she said softly.
  " What's that mam?" I questioned, studying this tiny figure standing
squarely in front of me, with increasing dread.
   You've got confidence.
    "I do?" I asked , now beginning to recognize the  true
wisdom confronting me.
      "Any man that is willing to use an electric chainsaw in broad
daylight is truly a big man.
      I took my  saw home and whacked the branches up into fire wood and
the little saw was truly a magical thing. It quietly and efficiently made
short work of the job at hand.
      This morning I got up and made my morning walk to the local
restaurant for coffee.  I dreaded the howls of laughter and jokes that were
soon to be hurled at me from the somewhat red necky sorts that are my
friends and neighbors I could already hear it.
      I Walked in and sat down. The waitress had brought my coffee as I
came in the door. "Good morning honey', " she cooed as she did to
everyone.
       "Been running," someone asked me.
       "Nope! why?"
       "Your face is red."
        We sat pretty much in silence, as is our way. Only an occasional
comment and short answer here and there.
  Slowly having finished their coffee each  got up and left me setting
alone. I was feeling a little disappointed now. The saw is so quiet
no one had even heard it running. They didn't even know I had a chainsaw.
    Then immortal big box words echoed in my ears "If not satisfied
with your purchase for any reason return it for an exchange or your money
back.
  I cleaned up and returned the wonderfully quiet and efficient little
saw and bought the heavy, noisy, clumsy and foul smelling, gasoline saw.
 I walked proudly toward the cash registers then I saw her, standing in
the isle, that formidable little old sales lady. I slipped down a side isle.
In the most cowardly manner I slinked through ladies longerie and past
the lunch counter heading for the check out counter.  All this while
looking over my shoulder half expecting to see a smidgen of a woman come
charging out from behind some display. She would surely 
drag me and my beloved prize back to the tool department.
After paying what was due  at the check out I emerged
from the swinging doors to safty, freedom and glee at having escaped.
 

A Funeral in Dundalk Of Sorts

I was planning on starting a story here but realized I had not told these little pieces of history so I'll get these out of the way first. Picture this as you read it.

Don't know the years for sure but I think it was 1942. There was an article in The Baltimore news post that there would be a train coming through Baltimore to Sparrows point. There would be a brand new diesel locomotive pulling a line of old steam engines to be scrapped for the war effort. They were to be cut apart and melted down. The implication was that it was the end of the era of steam. There was a lot of sentiment attached to these old engines. The numbers of each was listed in the article and one of them was an engine that had run down Dundalk avenue early on an had run the line through Fort Holabird, Dundalk ,across Sollers Point Road and down across the Railroad bridge on Bear creek to Bethlehem Steel Co. for many years.

My father said, “That must be old number 404 (I think that was the number) You could tell her apart from the other engines from the sound of her driving rods clanking. That's a shame she has been running these lines for 30 years. they only built a few of those engines so she is almost one of a kind. We have to go and watch tomorrow. When those old engines all are gone there won't be any more because they will never build them again.

The Next day we went to the rail crossing at Sollers point road to wait.. Almost everyone in our neighborhood was there. A hundred more stood on the other side of the tracks. Most lived along Dunmanway, Yorkway and Admiral boulevard I suspect . We all stood and waited and in about an hour we saw the trains headlight way off in the distance coming slowly about 15 miles per hour as befitted a funeral prepossession. By the time it got to the intersection there was probably 500 people standing and watching. Cars were backed up in all directions and people got out and walked to the tracks.

When the procession got close, it was plain to see the numbers , bells and all the brass gear had been removed and the windows, number boards and across the cow catchers was covered with Black crepe.. The driving rods had been removed so the engines rolled along in complete silence except for the noisy clatter of the diesel Engine.

The whole crowd stood in silence, and no one and I mean no one speaking at all. There was very few dry eyes in the bunch. At the time it all seemed quite natural that people would feel that way. Today it seems strange, we are now in a time when the only thing we have that lasts long enough to become attached to is buildings and Aircraft carriers. Maybe a little bit the family car.

The newspapers said that, “Thousands had gathered along the route to watch the procession.”

I guess for years after I heard and said myself, “I sure do miss the sound of those old steam locomotives.” I also remember some women saying, “Well I don't miss'em with all that soot they belched out all over my clean cloths.”

About two years later there was a similar kind of thing on the number twenty six street car line up on Dundalk Ave.. It again, was in the newspapers that the Black Maria would be coming through Dundalk The Black Maria was a black streetcar that belonged to Bethlehem Steel co. I was a funeral streetcar that hadn't been used in a lot of years. It was a funeral hearse used by Sparrows Point residents to carry the funeral with coffin and corpse to the grave yard. Way back the family rode with the coffin and then returned to Sparrows point after the funeral. I guess there was no Graveyard in Sparrows Point. The old streetcar had been sold to the Baltimore Transit co and was on it's way to the cow barn as it was called in Highland town. The cow barn was where they worked on the cars when they broke down.

My sister and I and a lot of other people who had the same morbid curiosity had, stood waiting for the streetcar. When it came up the tracks there was a sudden murmur among the crowd. My sister broke out crying. One lady screamed out,”Oh My god Jesus,” spun on one heel and ran away. The black car was again dressed in black crepe. I don't remember being frightened of it and I sure did think it was neat.

Billy Mitchell: Read oldest posts first

Hey folks here's a twist, I got an e-mail from a fellow that says that the picture of the guy standing beside the By Plane is the World War I Hero and father of the air force, Billy Mitchell. That's the picture on the post " Goin' over Dundalk posted December 5th. He said Mitchell landed at Logan field in Dundalk back in the 30's. I went to the web site below where there is a picture and I guess It could be the same Person. I doubt though the timing and the age of the guy in the picture is right to have been Billy Mitchell. Who Knows? Go take a look.


thttp://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/mitch.html

Some Dundalk Happenings

There were some things that occurred around Dundalk and east Baltimore when I was growing up. I'll talk about them a little and then Tuesday or Wednesday we will start a book. I have about one Paragraph written and we'll make up the rest from there. I have no Idea what I'll write after that paragraph. Thats the way I usually write. Some say it takes courage to do that well maybe but all thats lost is a little time if nothing comes of it. Besides I have put away the start of a story and the story came to me a year later, funny thing is these are some of the better things I've written.

One year Standard Oil company burned down. There was a huge column of smoke and it headed to Dundalk. Every one sat out on their porches, people wondered all over town and watched. There were some who stayed out most of the night. We were all to far away from the fire for there to be but so much excitement, but every now and then one of those huge storage tanks would go off and flames would shoot high in the sky and you could hear and feel the explosion. One fellow in Dundalk decided to drive in town to see the fire. That was a mistake the because fire department for one reason or another commandeered his car. They used it for whatever purpose and parked it on Conklin Street in Highland town.. He couldn't find it for several days and the fire department didn't know anything about it. Boy O Boy did he take a kidding.

My Brother took a young lady out on a date and they were riding along when they started listening to War of the Worlds on the radio. It Scared the daylights out of both of them and he headed for her house. When they got there he shoved her through the front door and took off for home. He had run his model A ford coupe so hard the engine wouldn't shut off and it set in the driveway with the exhaust pipe glowing the engine popping and crackling but running.. We were listening to Charlie Mc Carthy on the radio and my brother burst through the front door and started telling my father about it. Dad said to my mother grab us some cloths where going to new Jersey to see this. Charlie and my father headed for the car and my mother caught them as they were getting ready to pull out of the Driveway and told them there was announcement on the radio that it was a fiction story. Well the story got out around Dundalk and my brother was Nick named Buck Rodgers and was forever after called Buck.

Wally Stevens beat up five Scottish seamen one night in the middle of the streetcar tracks on Dundalk avenue and the Red rocket had to wait until he finished.

Otts Mc Clelland built a 42 ft cabin cruiser in his back yard and hauled it to Owens yacht company and they put it in the water for him.

My father built an Air breathing jet engine in 1940 when there weren't any, he hung it under the floor timbers of the house aimed it out an open basement window and fired it up. It made such a racket the neighbors all came running and they had to stamp the burning grass out. They liked it so much they asked him to do it again and he did. They all walked away shaking their heads and one said that Fred Pollard is crazy, What the heck good is a thing like that? Fred took his drawings to Washington to show to the Government. They told him what he was messing with was a secret. They took his drawings and his working model and then investigated him. The neighbors probably told them he was a crackpot.

At the End of the war Otts Mc Clelland got a set of plans out of a popular Mechanics magazined, built a little camping trailer and the whole family went to Alaska by way of the Alcan highway. Otts said it was a terrible trip most of the road was gravel and they blew up the engine in their 1939 Hudson and nine tires in all..

Owens yacht company built landing Barges.

Some of us boys went to shoot sparrows with our BB rifles behind the brewery in the poplar trees growing next to it. We shot out a window by accident and then sucked some liqueur out of a keg. Some how we wound up at Jimmy Marks Bowling Alley and I made a pass or a crack, not sure which, at a pretty good sized Italian boys girlfriend. Well I got beat all around the lobby and the front side walk the only thing after that I remember was walking down Dunmanway. Learned a thing or two about getting drunk and being mouthy. Never did find the BB gun.

Caught a good friend sneaking down a half dark alley one night with the ugliest girl I ever saw. I teased him regularly until he threatened to beat the tar out of me.

We'll start a story tomorrow.

Doug

A Nation Of Trees: read the older posts first

This speech was given in the park in front of the school about 1949 This fellow was a card carrying communist. He was supported by a number of Dundalk and Highland town people.
I knew several people who thought he would save the country by the fact that he was a communist. He would end hostility between the United States and Russia. He claimed he would would run for President and be elected by the end of the 1960's. The following are many of his words, though I don't remember all he said so what is written below is not his exact words but but close and very much the flavor of what he said.
Beside every shinning river, along highways, across vast plains and meadows a forest of trees will stand proud and tall. Lit in the glory of crisp clean sunlight shining through pristine oxygen rich air will sooth the eye of the traveler. Majestic conifers, oak, birch and all the other trees of the forest to provide cover and sustenance to a myriad of wildlife, birds and buzzing insects. A place where things may live in natural safety was intended. Free from death by gun, bulldozer and the staccato rattle of chain saws.
A garden of Eden you say? Yes my friends! That is what our nation will be in the eyes of all mankind. Free from the need to manufacture, Free from the need to devastate our forests and lands for metals and fuels, Free from the pillaging industrialists greed and need to pollute.
We will be the first nation on earth that will have no need to import raw materials. Impossible will say pillaging conservatives of the opposition party, nay sayers of the negative republican and Democratic party that has held our nation in the dark past for so many years.
Let me tell you it is possible and not only is it possible but a sure thing that some western country will follow this path if we prove to weak to take this step into the future.
That was the gist of the thing and now days I wonder how in the heck anyone could have been taken in by anything so silly.
This guy was well educated and was an excellent speaker and he had attracted a lot of listeners. He spoke for nearly an hour according to some, but I left in the middle, being a kid I was not all that interested in what he was saying. I remember thinking it sure sounded nice. But then I was fifteen or sixteen years old.
About a week later my mother was asked to sign a ban the bomb partition that a neighbor lady was passing around. She claimed it was promoted by her church. My mother refused to sign as she did not believe that was the thing to do considering what was going on the world.
A couple days later it came out in the Baltimore News post that it was the Communist Party that was passing those papers around. My mother was mad as a wet setting hen as was her way of describing her anger. She called the FBI and the next day they were at our house. My mother told them her story.
The FBI agents very gently questioned me about anything I might know and of course I told them everything I knew and some I probably didn't.
The woman who passed the paper around was the wife of a man my father worked with and who was also a union organizer. His brother was arrested a few months later for being involved in a plot to Sabatoge Bethlehem Steel Co.
Dundalk people were very patriotic and they were mad as they could be when the word got around. What had happened and that communists had been speaking right there in Dundalk really angered many. What was unbelievable to many, was that some local people were involved. I remember hearing, that there could be a lynching right here in Dundalk if that fellow with all that Lot of of mouth, came back

Sailboats Fair and Fine: Read the oldest blogs first.

For all you folks out there that have found themselves married to a sailboat I have to feel sorry for you and at the same time feel a certain amount of envy for the joy she must certainly bring to you. The hours spent in hard but pleasurable labor keeping her in a state of repair and polish are without a doubt worth it. Now there's a labor of love known mostly to sailboat sailors, kayakers, and canoe paddlers and everybody else that has a thing they care for. Unless maybe it's a rock. These kinds of people by way of their disdain for motors and most things technical plus their love of misery and beauty that nears that of falling in love, do somehow find happiness. By sailing or peddling or paddling in a cold rain with a strong sharp wind trying to cut into face, fingers and slipping up your sleeves to create a shiver that drives you to a quiet anchorage or maybe a tent on shore. It's to me the sip of hot coffee, warm food and the smell of fresh salt air that adds to the delight of a radio broadcast of a warm and breezy tomorrow.

After a cold and challenging day, a day to appreciate the eighty degree day when there is a light breeze a warm sun over cool waters. A day when the tiller or paddle seems to rest in and and just go along with the water, silent and soothing. This day that will be tomorrow. Hmm, seems I like anchoring and drinking coffee more than sailing. Maybe I like house boats?

On the Blog, Sailboats Fair and Fine, we talk and write of boat stuff. I'll show some pictures, at times a video. I hope I can be of help to some who may need a little help with boats of all kinds. With over sixty years of playing with boats both big and small I ought to be of at least some help to any who feel they need it.. If not, I'm sure I can send you to someone that can help you.
If you care a whit about sailboats or messing around in the Bahamas, Chesapeake bay, Florida keys, Inland waterway or even building boats Join me by clicking the, Sailboats fair and fine, URL on the left side of this blog.

Doug

Happenings

Thinking back I have been remembering a few happenings that I thought I had forgotten. I think there kind of neat and I hope you will too.

In, I believe the year was 1939 and I think it may have been summer or a really warm day in the spring or fall. Otts Mc Clelland came running to our back door and pounded on it yelling “Fred, Fred.”
. We had just pulled up in the driveway in our newly bought used 1937 Chevrolet. Dad hearing the ruckus and thinking something terrible had happened, ran around to the back of the house. “What's the matter Otts whats the wrong.”

“Oh nothing” he said. We just heard on the radio that the German Zeppelin will fly over Dundalk It left Washington and is headed this way.

We had been shopping so we all set our packages down on the ground and Mrs,. Mc Clelland came and joined the crowd. Otts and Fred stood talking about the coming of the Zeppelin. They thought the name of it was the Graff Zeppelin. I didn't know what they were talking about( didn't know what a Zeppelin was) but I was soon to learn. Kimmels mountain though having had it's top removed was till fairly high in front of the house and blocked some of the horizon. We herd it before we saw it. It was loud with it's three or four engines unlike airplanes of the time that seldom had more than two engines. The engines got louder, then we saw the front end of it coming over the edge of our roof with the rest of it hidden by our house. It was flying very low. We often saw big airplanes flying low taking off and landing at Logan's filed, coming over the house often, but they were small. This thing was huge overpoweringly big. It took up a giant section of the sky. There was a kind of threatening beauty about and at the same time an over powering ugliness. It was a passenger vessel supposedly but there was a military look about it. She was like a thing from another world. The square windows and shape of her fins the huge black crosses on her. I think her main purpose was to intimidate. She could have been beautiful just as easy. There was nothing about her that reminded a person of the streamlined look that was popular in every product we were used to using at the time. I would like to call it a her as is proper for any kind of a ship which is what Hindenburg was supposed to be. Her is not the correct term it was strictly masculine if any gender him, conquerer, warrior the destroyer would have been more apt. My sister cried out of fear and maybe hopelessness. Bombs dropping out of her would have been no surprise. The more of it that was viable the bigger it got and the flowerer he seemed to be. It was so low that it seemed it invaded the safety and privacy of our home. There was arrogance in flying that low as if to dare someone to shoot at it. All of a sudden there was an outburst of cursing from my father and followed by Otts curse words I had not heard before. I was accustomed to the usual hell, or damn. My father shook his fist at the thing. My mother said “Fred don't,” they can see you from that thing. I hope to hell they do he shouted. Otts said “I'd go get my gun but buy the time I get it they'll be gone.” He had to shout to be heard. I hope someone shoots it down. My father shouted back , you can bet they are taking pictures of Bethlehem steel and every other factory along the East coast.

When we heard that the Hindenburg had exploded my father's only reply was good they didn't get the pictures back to Germany and all they got for there money was to make Americans mad. We don't intimidate that easy. They brought their attempt at fright to the wrong country. I for one are ready to go to war any time President Roosevelt says sick'em boys. My father as long as he lived never acknowledged that the Hindenburg was a passenger plane. The most he ever said was, there may have been a few passengers on board but they weren't smart enough to know they were being used. I feel sorry for them but good ridence. The whole thing was a military show of force to let us know we weren't free of danger from the German Air force.

If we had attacked Germany right then when England wanted to, the war would have been over in two years, saving millions of lives. Pacifism causes and looses wars. We were only six months from loosing the war. They almost had the bomb. Had we attacked in 1939 they would not have even gotten a start on the bomb.

Just for Me-Mooncursers

Of Mooncursers and other spun yarns, is a book like few others or maybe none other. I didn't write this book for you . I didn't write it to be marketable, not to sell and not to set on a bookstore shelf.

I didn't write it for my children, friends or relatives. I wrote it for, and too myself. For a long time it never occurred to me that anyone else would care about it. Like a dog on a hill barking just for the joy of being alive, I wrote, and wrote and continue to write. Like this blog which I write and send out from my computer for any or none to see I wrote a book to myself.

No matter what you or I like there is in someplace another who will enjoy as we do, our thoughts. If we build a boat , a car or a house, somewhere there is another who will like the product of our labor, I am sure. There is not one person on earth that is unlike every other person sharing this planet.

Why then, should I have thoughts, experiences, the joys of an exciting life to be enjoyed only in my own mind. Surely out there somewhere is a kindred spirit that will get the same kick as I from what I have thought and done. It could be you... Doug

A Look at my Latest Book

Of Mooncursers and other SpunYarns
"Mooncursers" takes place near "Baltimore Maryland," during the early part of WWII. A story of two boys, each battling his own devils. Both are strengthened through adventure and the overcoming of self imposed guilt. They decipher a cryptic note and right an old wrong. All this in order to give new meaning to the life of an elderly lady living in an old Baltimore slum and to return to her what is rightfully hers. This is a story of boys who find young manhood and lifelong confidence through adversity. Between these covers are other short stories for old boys and young men. Some will delight, drawing a chuckle and others to inspire thought. A few will leave an introspective question or two to ponder. One story is pure piffle. See if you recognise which one.

Dundalk 1950's

In 1949 I went to the draft board in (I believe it was the Dunlear building) and told a bald face lie. I was fifteen years old and I told them I was seventeen. The next year I quite school and went to Bethlehem Steel co. and then told another one, saying I was eighteen. They wanted to see my birth certificate. In the best southern hillbilly accent I could muster out of my combination Georgia and Baltimore eze"I told them I was from so far back in the hills there was no record of when I was born. There weren't no doctor and there sure weren't no postman to bring it even if they know'd I was born. I said, “ there ain't gonna be no certificate never. But I got my draft card and you can't get one of them less ya'll is eighteen. I got the job. I don't think I fooled anybody because the guys in the mill knew right away I was too young to be in there.

Some job it was I worked in the 42 inch cold strip in the washers where they cleaned the rolls of sheet metal before heat treating it in the ovens. You worked in caustic fumes for eight hours a day, on a swing shift. There was a month lay of and afterward I was sent to the 56 inch rolling mill and galvanize department. There was so much acid in the air all the old timers had black teeth. What a place for a kid to be.

As a young teenager I had worked for two weeks over two summers at Fisher Body so I knew the ropes there a little. They would pretend they believed you were eighteen for two weeks and let you work. That was just before the model year change when the lines were running faster. All of us kids in the galvanize and the washers would leave early on the graveyard shift and pay someone to do our job and punch us out. Then we all went to Fisher body and worked all day. I was moved back to the washers at Sparrows Point one night where I couldn't catch any sleep. I had only had about 15 hours sleep the whole week so I fell asleep on the job. My job that night was to test the tanks and keep the caustic and soap levels correct. The tanks got out of balance and about a thousand tons of of, paper thin, steel stuck together and had to be rewashed. Why they didn't fire me I wonder to this day..

During those years I hung around the Stansbury shopping center with a bunch of other boys. Some worked there in the grocery store. Mr. Eiler that owned the Eiler Crysler Plymouth dealer ship usually found some work for all of us, anything from digging ditches to taring the roof. All of us boys had dropped out of school. Not for the reasons kids drop out today but because you could get a job that required a high school diploma just by saying you had one. Factories were so busy they would hire any one at any age and with any degree of education and they were pretty good jobs.

The late 40's and fifties were the blue bus years. We who lived in the eastern part of Dundalk rode the blue bus and those in St Helina road the Red Rocket to work So you could ask someone how they got to work and kind of new where they lived.

All of us boys worked part time at Eilers pumping gas. He had a glass enclosed island for the pumps and stayed open 24 hours a day. We gassed up the Dundalk Cabs and the Veterns cabs and I think something like Bartons cab's maybe. You filled them and then rocked the cabs back and forth to let the air out of the tank so they would fill all the way to the top. Each driver was required to pass on a cab to the next shift driver with a full tank.

We sold white lightning to any and all that wanted to buy it. I don't remember for sure whether I knew it was illegal or not. We got half for selling it. Either Mr Eyler didn't know we were selling it or didn't care. There were some locals that were going to Virginia to get it and they sold it out of their home as well I think.

All those folks except us kids have passed on so I don't think I am embarrassing any one.

All us boys by 1950 or 51 had nice automobiles and and all the really neat places to go were in Baltimore. We used to go to Baltimore street though it wasn't neat, or cool, but the Burlesque was fun it wasn't just strippers it was Vaudeville as well IT was cheap. And a trip to Harley's about one in the morning was wonderful. We never took the girls there, and if we didn't have to work the next day we would sit in the ally and talk till 3 am.

It is surprising to me that all of us kids that were running the streets and portrayed as hoodlums stayed pretty much out of trouble. My mother worked at O' Donnels Bakery. A little white headed Lady who was another who knew everyone, would chew some of the boys out until they squirmed. Those boys always said, “Yes mam, Mzzz. Pollard no mam. Mzzz Pollard.” One fellow told me, “My God, Doug, your mother's mean.” She liked all of us boys.

Some better than me I think.

We boys were doing what all gangs of boys do. We were falling in love with girls from all over the county. It has always amazed me how boys will go twenty miles or a thousand to find a girl, with a beautiful and sweet girl living right across the street that they are prone to ignore.

By 1955 we were all about gone from Dundalk The town was changing. Many people moved away as their homes brought good prices and People from Baltimore moved into the suburbs. A lot of people by then who had come from Virginia the Carolina's and all over the south began going home. Many were middle aged when they came to Dundalk during the War and they went home with good retirement checks in their pockets.

Boy the 1950's were a time to remember for us who lived them everyone made plenty of money and was almost never out of work. Except when they got huffy with the company, and went on strike.

As any who have read all this can see, I am an old man still thinking of my self as a kid in 1950.

Child hood is when you define yourself. Your failings are so horrible you can never live them down in your own mind. But it's also when you find out what you respect in others. I have often thought that casual friends are people you like and lifelong friends are the ones you would also trust with your life.

To fail is regrettable and forgettable. To fail a friend is regrettable.

This is the end of this portion of blogging here. I would like to say that there were many in Dundalk that I didn't talk about, they were my closest friends in many cases. To talk about them would be even more about myself and this has turned into much more about me than was intendid. I have gone back and added in a little note on an event in 1939 that was left out. It's really cool to be able to publish and go back in and add something.

After Christmas I will try to start a story to live on these pages. I don't know what about for sure, but knowing me, it will be fiction, it will be about Dundalk people and it will be about messing around on the Chesapeake bay from Dundalk and an occasional adventure in Baltimore. It will be about, young to older teenage Boys. I concider the teen years the big years of ones life. A persons whole life is built on top of them. Later years are great too, but life becomes more about the lives of children, great grand children and wives . It's about duty to country and mankind. About where we come from and what we'll leave behind and how we will be judged.

A saying by a good online friend of mine( though he may deny he knows me) is: One wise man once said, "If you seek to gain your life by being selfish you loose it but if you loose it by sharing it you gain it." This a quote from Chief Redelk of Many Nations.

After the War

The war ended with two explosions of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From time to time some people talk about what a terrible thing it was. Well back then we were all some kind of glad of it. Our brothers, older teenage friends and some of our playmates fathers came home from Europe instead of having to go to the Pacific to fight. We all thought they would fight on Japanese soil. All of us were glade it was over no matter who had to die to get it behind us.

While I'm at it here is what I think about Irac. If we don't win there and the middle east builds an arsenal of A- bombs we will have to, God forbid, use our weapons on them to save ourselves. As one who has lived through four wars I can guarantee we will do it if we have to. If we don't we will all be carrying our prayer rugs with us and facing Mecca every day. It is either win now or win later the question is how many are we going to have kill to win? A few now or many later.

Every family had money at the end of the war. People had worked long hours all through the war and there was nothing to spend the money on. You couldn't but appliances, cars or hardly anything else. Butter was rationed , gasoline , coal, chocolate and nylon hose.

When the boys got home they married the girls they had been writing to for four years. Their parents had money in the bank to help them build a house. The GI bill loaned them cheap money so Dundalk kept growing at the same war time pace. There was no feared depression at the end of the war.

A lot of those fellows went to college on the GI bill a thing they never dreamed they would be able to do.

Not long after the war I was canoing. I had bought and old canoe and was using it. All us boys were in the boy scouts. We could buy army surplus gear for almost nothing it was everywhere. We had all the first class camping gear anyone could want. I paid $2.00 for a one man inflatable life raft. We all had one and we all rafted down the Potapsico in Patapsico state forest. We were kids that grew up with tools, house building and fathers that worked on their own cars. We knew how to fix things, build our own bikes and rebuild a canoe. My best friend and I recked in a cable car we built to run between two trees. We built boats, duck boats as we called them and we built canvas covered kayaks. Girls had begun to come into our lives at about age twelve in a minor way. At age thirteen we were going to dances at the school and YMCA. We who had older sisters were lucky, they taught us to dance. At age thirteen there is nothing better than being one of the few boys that could dance.

While in the seventh grade a young lady that I was sweet on said Doug, ( and I can't remember the girls name) will you take my friend to the senior prom. Her boy friend has come down with measles and she already has her prom dress and she won't be able to go. I first said no. But on going home my sisters talked me into going. I didn't have a suit but my older brother loaned me one of his. My father instructed me on how to treat a lady at a dance. My job was entirely to show her a good time. A task that I took to heart. I was about four inches shorter than her but we were both good sports. We danced and both had a good time. It turned out that I danced with many of the senior girls and they all got a kick out of dancing with me. The whole affair was one of the highlights of my life. But the real high light was the goodnight kiss she gave me.

In the late 1940's there were a few characters around Dundalk that stick in my mind. One was named Roy. He was a captain on an old yacht that never left the dock. It was kept in Turners Station at the old ferry dock there. Roy was a big fellow that looked a little like the cartoon charecter Wimpy. Roy wore a full captains uniform in dark blue with all the appropriate gold braid and his world war two metals. He also wore a captains hat. I never saw him dressed different. He drove a 1941 Crossly Automobile. It looked a little like a small version of a VW beetle. It was tiny. It was also a bright green convertible. It had a little two cylinder air cooled engine that sounded like a lawn mower. He always had his girlfriend with him who was drop dead gorgeous. Roy never had a battery that was any good and her being the good sport she was would get out and push. Roy would set in the car and wave her on. Roy always had an old boat to play with and some times went with him at my own peril. He had a lot to do with my messing with boats all my life. Every body in Dundalk knew Roy and he knew them. Roy I think liked me because I could fix anything.

Another older friend of mine was about forty years old when I was still in my early teens. Sam I think was Native American. He was tall and robust in figure with some belly. He had an old Navy boat that he was rebuilding and he lived aboard it at Corinthian Yacht club next to Owens Yacht company. Sam was the most strinking looking fellow I ever saw. He had jet black hair with a jar head haircut. His handlebar mustache was three inches long on each side and coal black. Sam's skin was dark but colored strongly with red. I don't know were he got his cloths but I suspect he had them made. He often wore a blue and white striped Jersey type shirt with stripes three inches wide going around him and around his arms. He wore a red bandanna on his head and a red sash about six inches wide around his waste. Dark blue pants torn off below the knee. Sam wore canvas strapped sandals. In the winter the shirt was covered by a blue P coat. Sam walked everywhere around Dundalk but road the street car into Baltimore every night. Every one recognized him though he was to odd to have but a few friends. At the age of about twenty I saw him on Baltimore street with two really good looking gals one on each arm.

The name of his boat was the Three Wise Men, and he carved the three figures and mounted them under the bow sprit.. They were blue, red and gold leaf.

Then there was Blimp. Seems like most I new were over weight. Blimp as we called him was named Norman. He always had a truck that he delivered groceries to the mostly elderly ladies around town with. Norman though older hung around with us teenagers when we in our mid teens. The first I remember of him was that he had a car that had been wrecked. He took all four of the doors off and all the seats and upholstery out. Then he sat on a milk crate to drive it. You might see him anywhere in Baltimore. It's a wonder the police didn't stop him. I guess they figured it was his business and he wasn't hurting any one. We kids pitched in and bailed him out of jail in Glenburnie Md. where they arrested for driving that car. He was charged with driving without a windshield I guess it was alright that there were no doors.

I guess back then to be known all over Dundalk you needed to be big and over weight and wear funny cloths?

Growing up in Dundalk During the War

In 1940 I started to school and hated it. I went to School at Dundalk Elementary School on Playfield Street. George Schlutaburg was Principal and my first Grade teacher was Mrs Merritt I'm not sure But I would think she was one of the Merritt Family that farmed the land along Merritt Boulevard. Mrs. Tinley taught me in the second and third grade. I had a Mrs Riley in the fourth and again a second time in the fourth. Mrs Tinley taught her class and the second grade with the help of a substitute teacher. She sent me home in the fourth grade for breaking wind and blaming it on the girl setting across the isle from me. Actually I think I must have been sweet on the girl. She was so cute I can't imagine I wasn't. When the class looked around to see who did it I pointed to that girl and all eyes fell on her. She was embarrassed and she cried. Big tears that streamed down her cheeks and I felt sorry for her. God only knows why but I did it again and this time the teacher was standing behind me. She said I was naughty and I said don't call me that I'm bad. Why in the world would a boy say that.

Mrs Couch taught me the fifth and sixth grades and she was my favorite, She was tough and fair and she liked boys and especially if they were a little honery. The boys all liked her as well..

There was a Mr. Bozley that had lost a leg in WWI he used a cane and everyone was afraid of him but his students . None of the rest of us could figure it out. If you ran in the hall he would hook you around the neck with the cane. Oddly it didn't hurt I guess he let the cane slide through his hand so that it didn't jerk you up short.

Old Mr Foust was the Janitor and what a job that was The building was heated with steam heat and the furnaces were hand fired with coal. He had to shovel the coal in and the ashes out. He collected the trash and burned what he could and carried out the rest. He kept the whole building clean and I think there was 32 class rooms. I think there was an older lady that cleaned the windows and there was a jillion of them. When th war started we had air raid drills where we all sat on the floor. The principal who was German and spoke broken English would tell us stories about WW!. He spared us the gory details so it was pretty interesting for us boys and girls alike.

In the winter of early1942 they fenced off the now flat top of Kemmels mountain and stored Army trucks and tanks there. The place was fascinating as a flat sandy plateau where they flew model airplanes and we boys hated to see that go, but the adults did to. Many people in town walked up there on Sundays to watch the models fly.

For us boys the place was even more exciting filled up with tanks, jeeps and trucks. We would go up there and talk to the army guards that patrolled the place. And later we talked to the German prisoners that were repairing fences and doing other jobs around the motor pool. Many were in there mid teens and were very likable. It was hard to remember they had been trying to kill our older brothers and fathers.

We knew the Germans were locking up the Jewish people in Europe. We thought that was a terrible thing for the Jews but we just assumed that was what was done when you had enemies in your country during a war. Nobody was surprised. I don't think anyone new they were gassing the people. We kids played Army. We had wooden guns and odds and ends of military uniforms. Metal toys were hard to come by but kids could get metal BB rifles all through the war. I guess the Government thought it was a good thing for kids to learn how to shoot.

Building a House the Hard Way Part 2

In Colgate Creek at St, Helena was a sailing ship’s graveyard. The rotted hulls are now under the Shipping terminal. Mr Pollard and his oldest son Charlie who was now old enough to work as a young teenager, went out onto those ships and removed planks and beams from them and carried them a shore in a row boat. The two of them loaded timbers and tongue and grove siding onto a push wagon and then hauled them by hand two miles to the building site. Huge beams were removed from under the decks to be used as framing for the house. Fred, a little later bought a car and often put a circle saw onto the back axle of the family model A Ford and he sawed them into usable sizes. No house was ever built out of better materials. The ships had been built of heart Georgia pine, cypress and oak. All the nails had to be removed and then straightened to be used again. The sheathing for the house was four inch wide tongue and groove cypress. The wood had paint on it one eighth of an inch thick. Before the lumber could be used the paint had to be scraped out of the tongue and groves. Mr Pollard made a metal scraper, nailed it to the frame of the house and pulled the wood through it to remove the hardened paint.

The family moved in the house with only sub floors and enough sheet rock walls installed for privacy. The house had four rooms a pot bellied stove and an outhouse. Living in saw dust was a way of life for them..

There was a shallow hand driven well.

This was the year I was born, 1934 the first of about 3 very bad winters. By the end of that year I had come down with Asthma and must have been a real worry for my parents. I saw the old Doctor Toland Whose office was in Edgemere. when I was about thirty years old and he said he remembered trudging up our road to see me with a couple of foot of snow on the ground. I thanked him, and he asked me if I was worth it. I told him, I, arguably, was. He chuckled and said “I’m glad I did it then”.

Charlie worked hard during his teenage years. And became an accomplished carpenter capable of doing fine finishing work as well as pure mule labor. He was very smart and carried excellent grades in school. They added two more rooms and a bathroom onto the house and Charlie began making cement blocks for basement walls. Dad bought two wooden block molds from Sears& Roebuck. My brother spent the summer mixing concrete with a hoe in a mortar box and pouring it into the molds he let them set a while and took the blocks out and stacked them to cure. It had to be back breaking work because while the blocks were hardening in the molds he went under the house to dig the basement with Ruby's brother, Talmage. They dug with pick and shovel and brought the dirt out in a wheelbarrow. My father worked evenings and weekends as well, but he was now working four days a week at his job. Somehow Fred managed to raise a garden every year and the summer diet was speckled butter beans on rice with Green fried tomatoes and all the corn on the cob you could eat. There was pork chops and chicken some meals but steak dinners was few and far between.

Fred liked to pick berries and across the Robinwood road in front of the house and on up across Otto Walters field was Kimmel's Mountain though it defiantly was not a mountain. At most it was 200 hundred feet high The whole family often went onto would go up the hill to pick berries. It was an all day trip and we were all expected to pick blackberries. Later in the after noon Ruby would take a bucket of berries, her boys and girls and head home. Fred usually stayed as long as he could see. By the time he got home there was a big summer dinner cooked and a blackberry cake. These three layer yellow cakes had the blackberries stirred in before baking. Some of the juice would migrate through the cake turning it purple and then the family ate it with milk on it like a pudding. As a matter of fact Ruby called them a blackberry pudding sometimes.

On Pollard's little acre were fruit trees, apples, pears, peaches and cherries. Good sized beds of blackberries and strawberries. were harvested A long arbor of sweet yellow grapes were turned into wine some years and sometimes mixed with a neighbors purple ones for a really good red wine.

When the hill was cut away and the trees gone off the top there was nothing to hold water and stop it from running off when it rained. The neighbors wells began drying up all over the area.

Otts Mc McClellan the Pollard's next door neighbor was building a house at the same time. Otts's father George was getting up in years and had little use for his old chain drive Ford Stake body truck. Otts and Fred more or less took turns working on it to keep it running. There was money coming in now from them having worked a longer week. With a truck they could buy used building materials in Baltimore and haul them to the houses. They could also afford new materials like finish flooring hand rails for stairways and appliances. At some point a gas stove and refrigerator showed up at the houses.

It finally happened the shallow well dried up, so Mr Pollard built a derrick at the back of the house Charlie climbed on top of it and began driving a pipe into the ground with a maul and then pulling it out with a block and tackle. Fred beat the dirt out of it with a hammer. They took turns at driving and hauling untill the well was sixty feet deep. One of the neighbors standing alongside the rig yelled up and asked in typical Balimereze “Hey Fred what’ll yous do if yous strikes a rock?” Without hesitation Fred replied, “I’ll move over six feet and start over.”

I have no doubt that he would have done just that.

Recently when I considered driving a well I was informed that you cannot drive a well more than 25 ft. I just looked at the man and smiled.

Fred and Ruby had water about five more years . Their well must have been in an underground stream. The county put city water in and the well was still working but there was no telling for how long. We all in the neighborhood, hated the new city water. Some called it man made water. Well when a man makes water we all know what he is doing.

Building Houses the Hard Way

This is the story of one family that came to Dundalk in 1932 To me it seems inconceivable that they would undertake building a home with Mr. Pollard only having two days a week of work at his regular job. He was able to pay the rent for the house they lived in by doing carpentry work on the houses in the group of houses where they lived on Parnell ave.. They were not the only ones that built homes around Dundalk under these circumstances. There are many families that could tell the same story. I guess if you have five days a week off from work you might as well build a house especially if you can find free materials and your willing to learn how.

Fred took his family to Baltimore from Waycross Ga. where he went to work for Bethlehem Steel Co. at Sparrows Point. He was a machinist and he worked at maintaining rail cars and steam locomotives for the steel co. They lived in a company house close to blast furnaces and railroad tracks running in every direction. Soot settled onto and into every thing they owned cloths soon took on a rusty look. There was constant noise day and night.

The company paid off in chits that had to be spent in the company store or cashed in at the company bank for less than face value. The rent was deducted from his pay. They could hardly wait to get away from there and in less than a year he landed a very good job with Western Electric in Baltimore.

They rented a house in a little Italian immigrant neighbor hood on the edge of Baltimore named St. Helena. The rent was cheap and they were able to save a little money. The depression struck and Fred lived in fear of loosing his job. With a little savings and by cashing in an insurance policy, they bought an acre of land near the little town of Dudalk across the streetcar tracks on Robinwood Rd. Dad was one of the lucky ones he was able to work one or two days a week during the worst of it.

There was a grocery store near that was owned by a Jewish couple by the name of Karsh. Fred said they would not have been nearly so well of had Mr. Karsh not extended him credit. Fred told me once when he worried over the amount of money he was beginning to owe he went to talk to the man. and He said, Mr. Karsh told him not to worry that the depression would not last forever. Dad said he paid interest on the money but not an unreasonable amount and that had it been double he would have had to pay it. The Pollards had a lot of respect for the Karshes and they bought groceries from them until long after the war when the couple retired and move away. They were a very small store and Mrs Pollard could have bought groceries a lot cheaper at the A&P store, but they stayed loyal.

Dundalk parachutist dies 1939

Dundalk aside for a moment: I got a chimney on the wood stove in my boat shed yesterday. So when there is six inches of snow on the ground I will be snug and warm as I skive shavings off of one boat part or another. Come spring I hope to be able to go for a sail in my 20 ft canoe yawl, Kate II on the bay. I started building her over a year ago and she now looks like a boat. If there is anything better than the smell of fresh cut boat frames and the scrap wood burning in a stove, its the smell of salt air blowing off a Chesapeake salt marsh. Heaven's Ta Betsy living is sweet.

Now; Back to Dundalk.

Sometime in the late 30's they moved the parade to Liberty Parkway and the parade became a huge production. People came from Baltimore to come to the event. It was a big thing and a lot of it was because of how the people felt about their country back then . They were patriotic, the stars and stripes were truly sacred. A flag burning?

Now that would have been something to see. A guy dumb enough to do that would have found himself bounced all the way to Eastern avenue.

After the parade there was a big time to be had. There was marching competition on the school grounds by bands from all over the state. All day long there were double header baseball games, tennis tournaments and jump rope contests. Fire works and hot dog stands all over the place. We all wanted firecrackers but it was hard to decide on them above ice cream. Hendlers must have had a dozen Pink ice cream trucks in Dundalk each with its cherubs setting on it's corners.

Seems like everyone joined into the festivities. Three legged races by married couples, sisters and brothers girlfriends and boyfriends. There were fifty yard dashes and mile runs around the 1/8 mile clay track that was on the school grounds. At about age eight I won a bronze metal for the fifty yard dash. Must have meant a lot to me, sixty four years later I still have it. Lost about everything else from back then but hung onto that metal.

A big wood pavilion was set up and a band played dance music all afternoon and evening until midnight and on some years way beyond. People danced their legs off.

There were always stunt planes over the grounds and we all stood looking up ooh, and awing. One year there was to be a parachutist jump from a plane. He jumped with fan fare and grand announcements and fell straight to the ground. He hit the ground flat, with a sickening bounce. He hit right in the middle of hundreds of people who rushed their children away..

Now here is the odd thing about this happening, our next door neighbor was telling me about it years later when I was still a kid. Since then I have been told it never happened. So, now days, I'm not so sure I didn't picture it happening when I was told about it and all these years later, that is what I remember. Up until about twenty years ago I would have argued all day long that it happened. If any one knows, let me know.

One year the boys scouts had their jamboree there on the grounds. There was the usual bond fire only this year the logs were piled thirty feet high. There were hundreds of boys scouts and maybe two thousand spectators and we all joined into a sing along We sang patriotic songs and some sentimental old favorites. My mother pointed out that the fire light was reflecting off of many tear filled eyes across the fire light.

The fire works started and that was the last event of the evening except for the dancing and that went on till way late at night.

The summer of 1942 the forth was mixed with sadness and a huge patriotism. Our older brothers had gone into the service. Some were in training and many were on their way across oceans. High school kids were chomping at the bit to join up and parents knew it. No person there that year wasn't sure that we weren't standing in the next years battle ground. People were scared but they were also made as hell and spoiling for a fight.

Our German neighbors were afraid to attend. Some were certain that they would be thrown into concentration camps.

Unlike today and the last few wars when we are fighting people we who were not our traditional enemies there was a lot of old hatred for Germany and it wasn't that old. We fought Prussian troops in 1776. World war one had only been over twenty years. We hated the Germans. Baltimore was full of Amputees, blind and gassed veterans. They set on every street corner with their hats out for money. I don't know about others but my parents seldom passed one with out leaving at least some money. My father cursed the Germans every time and I'm sure the feelings were the same in Germany. Oddly he did not blame the German immigrants that we knew and was very good friends with some and considered them highly honorable people.

One good friend, a German either signed over his property to my father or he wanted to. My father was to hold it until after the war. Either way it was drastic That's how sure he was that he would be sent to a concentration camp and his property confiscated. Considering what happened to the Japanese it could have happened.

A 1930's Skydiver Dies

This is a somewhat strange tale in that I can't say that I truly remember it. I'm not sure I don't either. It may have been told to me or I may truly remember it. It's a odd thing what happens to memory over long periods of time. The 4th of July,I remember. The parachutist as they were called then, I can't say for sure but I'll tell it anyway.

Every year we went to the 4^th of July parades. In the earliest years the parade was on Shipping Place in front of all the stores. Crowds of people gathered along the sidewalks and on the park across the street. There was no post office there, only winding sidewalks grass and a few trees. The parade started on Dundalk avenue came across to right in front of the Strand theater and down Shipping place it turned onto Dunmanway and stopped there. It wasn't very long march but the parade lasted a long time. There were the usual firetrucks, marching bands and of course the army and Navy drill teams. There was no air force as such, it was part of the Army. The Marine core was represented by the navy.

Two teenage marching bands represented Dundalk The Saint James Band and the American Legion Band. They were also drill teams that competed in competitions around the state. A big part of the parade were the World War One veterans. Believe it or not they received the most applause from the crowd. All day long your ears rang from the explosions of fire crackers. People were not shy about spanking other peoples kids. If a kid got careless with his firecrackers and threw one among small children a father among the bunch was likely to run out of the crowd grab him and give him a good spanking. Got one of them myself one time. In spite of what everyone says I don't remember any person I was acquainted with growing up that had blown any fingers off. There were a lot of bruises and powder burns but they healed in a day or two.

We'll go on tomorrow with some more forth of July. I have to put a smoke stack on the shed I am building a boat in.

Adolf Hitler 1939

In 1939 many in the neighbor hood had gathered on th Mc Clelland front porch there on Robinwood Road. There was a conversation going on about whether there would be layoffs or not in local industry. One young couple were really concerned. He had recently gone to work at Owens Yacht co. down at the end of Stansbury road . Being a new employee he would be among the first to go if there was a layoff.
“What you doing down there Roy,” my father asked
“Well I run a wood shaper most of the time. But sometimes I drill holes in plywood. You stack up about 10 sheets of plywood and then you take this fixture they supply and you put it on top. It's got holes every inch in both directions and them holes have steel bushings in'em. You take an electric drill and you drill holes all over them sheets of wood. They make the boat ceilings out of them.”
“Well if they lay you off let me know we have a wood shop over at the Western Electric. They might take you on there, seems like business is picking up there.”
“That won't happen Mr. Harman injected. The hole countries going right back into another depression. Yep it's going to be even worse this time. Roosevelt ain't going to be so lucky this time.” he said hand on knee his head shaking side to side. “Gonna be bad.”
“I think this is not so....”Mr. Derr said.
"Otto!" Mrs Derr said, "You don't talk so much,” she said, wide eyed.
“Ya Paula I tell.” War is comingk, war in Europe and we will be in it.” There will be no.. how you say layoff. Every factory will work seven days every week all night and all day..”
“ Otto you mean that crazy little paper hanger Hitler, in Germany, no that won't happen the German people remember the first war. They won't go to war against the world,”my father said with conviction.
"Yaa I think they do. But not just Germany, but Russia,Italy, Spain, Argentina and Japan. They will take Europe and England fast that will only leave America andTurkey to fight the axis power. It could be bad for America. They would invade the east coast and the west coast and we would be fighting on two fronts. The American people have many guns and maybe they could slow things down until an Army is raised. I think many will die.
“ Fred, I tell you tonight, turn on your radio to Berlin Radio and listen to Adolf Hitler's speech, tomorrow you tell me there will be no war.”
“Otto I won't know what he is saying what good will it do to listen,” my father replied.
“You don't have to understand you will know,”Otto said, as him an Paula arose to leave.
Before sundown my father went out and checked the antenna that was strung from the top of the house out fifty feet to a pole on the old now unused out house That night we all sat down in the living room and my father turned on that big floor model Air king radio he had recently bought from Sears Roebuck. After it warmed up my father turned the knob to short wave and began slowly to turn the tuning dial to the station. There was a lot of squeaking and squawking and finally a vice came in in German, then French and then English Radio Berlin. There was music in a moment the radio jumped into action with yelling and shouting Sig Hiel was screamed by thousands over an over in a chanting mindless rhythm. Hitler spoke loud and fast, shouting in a frenzied, maniacal series of near screams. At every pause in his speech was applause and wild screaming and shouts of Hiel Hitler. Music was played and thousands joined in singing. Then thousands more came in with triumphal shouts. At every pause there was thunderous applause and screaming. We didn't understand a word but even I at my age knew. My father got up turned off the radio. His face was white and he was visibly shaken.
"My God Ruby, Otto is right, we are going to have to fight them Germans and it will be worse than world War one. We will have to fight them! Many tuned into that speech and from that moment on in the minds of Dundalkers we were at war with Germany even though no shots were fired for a couple more year's.

History books say America was surprised by Dec 7,1941. The saying goes, little pitchers have big ears, well this little pitcher remembers a lot of war talk among adults in Dundalk.

A Look at a Future

I thought I'd take a little step to the side and go to the future here. I'm not getting away from the intent of this Blog but I've written this as something extra because I can't stand not to. Here's a blog about a small town in America a small working class community, a beautiful little town with narrow streets and wide side walks, made for walking.. Homes close together all in walking distance to stores Churches, schools and parks. Sounds different already doesn't it. Well the truth is it was designed that way back in 1919 nearly one hundred years before this idea has begun to be modern. Houses are quaint and tucked back along the streets partially hidden by trees that shade house, sidewalks and streets a like. Sounds like a community of the future where America gets back to being a community for people, not designed around automobiles. Dundalk is truly the city of the future.

In my blog about Dundalk farms I write about a time after the depression. If You think things looked bleak for Dundalk now, just look back to 1932. It's surprising how much steel mill workers and foundry men and todays well educated society of executives were and are after the same thing. The goals are the same, the means of getting there a little different.

Dundalk has fallen on hard times and disfavor because much of local industry has been lost. WOW! What a bunch of baloney that is. Here we are in the age of the computer, when people can work at home out of an office a thousand miles away from their jobs. What difference does it make that the steel mills aren't what they were that General Motors is gone. Steel jobs were dangerous and Fisher body was mind numbing drudgery and the only thing they supplied was a pay check. There wasn't an ounce of satisfaction in any of it. I know because I did both, that's the kind of work that ran me away from Baltimore. In the mid 19030's your grandfather had two days a week of work if he was lucky and there was no job for your mother. Today you can both work, granted you aren't getting rich but your living. It will get better.

The only thing I know of that Dundalk needs is a Hela Port or a reasonably fast rail system or a high speed ferry boat to get people downtown and the airport so that these modern men and women can get to the airport in 30 minutes. What a wonderful way to get to work. These executive types can live in apartments or houses with small yards and little or no maintenance.They are buying rundown old shacks in town and spending a fortune to fix them up Dundalk is a hundred times better place to live. For Saturdays or Sundays there are tennis courts on the school grounds ball diamonds soccer fields and football. The park has a band pavilion there are ice cream stores. People congregate on Shipping Place to set on the walls to talk. Hot dog and sandwich vender's peddle food from bright stainless steel push carts. This future paradise is not in the future but is here and now and it is not some greatly admired European city It is Dundalk. If you live in Dundalk take a walk around an look. I think you will see I'm right. It's a little rundown but it's mostly cosmetic, a little paint and plaster and your up and running.. You people are setting on some of the most high priced property in Maryland. You just haven't been discovered yet. Make a lot of noise folks it's coming and it'll come faster if you make a racket about it.

Douglas Pollard

Crazy Harry

Crazy harry wasn't crazy was he. Nope. Crazy wondered around town and could be found anywhere in the city. Now and then he would wind up in night clubs bars and restaurants around Dundalk. He was an amiable fellow with a knack for the theatrical and an impossible talent with a pair of scissors. He was a comedic showman in the best Vaudeville style.

The first time I ever saw him was at my home. In my growing up years and as a young adult I caught his act at a lot of Baltimore establishments. We had a house full of company from Georgia, aunts, uncles and my grandparents as well as friends..

My Brother Charlie had gone to Dundalk for some reason and stopped by Dovies Night Club and Harry was performing on stage. He finished up his act and my brother asked him to come with him to our house that we had a crowd there that would be a good audience and when finished he would drive him to the Hollywood Inn. Harry walked everywhere or road the streetcar in which case he always performed while riding. People threw money at him. It was always believed, by almost everyone, that he had a bundle of money socked away someplace.

Harry came in sat down and began telling jokes and said he'd like a drink. My mother went through the usual list of things to drink. Ain't ya got no liquor he wanted to know? Mom remembered the fruit cake. She had some that my father had soaked with rum. Crazy, stuffed the cake in his mouth and swallowed it making us all fear he would choke to death. He told more jokes and mimicked perfectly anybody that said anything Then he went around the room and roasted everybody. We all found it amazing how he hit the character of each person in the room. He didn't know any of us. Then it started, a sound cam out of him a little like a mouth organ crossed with bagpipes. Started off low and got louder WER-EEE-EROL-WER-EEE-EROL-WER-EEE-EROL-----I DON'T WEAR NO UNDERWEAR AND I DON'T WEAR NO WOMENS DRAWERS----WER-EEE-EROL-WER-EEE-EROL--- AROUND AND AROUND AND A WAGON WHEEL, WER-EEE-ERO-WER-EEE-EROL

Slowly he reached down in his carpet bag and pulled out a pair of scissors and paper. He held the paper behind his head cutting out the profiles of every on in the room some of them were folded several times and were three profiles. The whole time he was doing his singsong, song. He stopped his song and said Now I'll sing you a real song and cut loose with WER-EEE-EROL and we laughed going through that song a couple of times he then broke out with a beautiful rendition in true Irish tenor style of Danny Boy.

He finished, with tears in his eyes stood up and bowed, In the time honerd fashion of this show we threw money at him. He picked up the coins and put them in his coat pocket. We all clapped and cheered. He started for the door and my mother offered food and he refused. Just as he started out the door he reached in his pock pulled out some coins and said pennies with disdain, I don't take pennies. He tossed them on the carpet and went on out, my brother behind him

After he was gone I scrambled to get the pennies, to my surprise they were corks out of bottle caps. Every one got one last laugh, it was on me. My brother returned home and told us that Harry had questioned him about every person that would be there. So there was the answer to Harry having such an uncanny insight into the personalityof each person. It seems no less amazing that he could draw conclusions about our personalities from such a brief discussion about the people. That required a great amount of insight into people to do that. Crazy Harry wasn't crazy was'e.

New German Immagrants to Dundalk

Six or eight neighbors sat on the front porch of our home one summer evening as often happened on warm evenings and this story was told by A German couple in the neighborhood.
Having recently arrived In Baltimore and spending the night at her Brothers house they walked a couple of blocks to Patterson Park.

It was Saturday and a lot of people were in the park, many were laying on blankets sunning them selves. A few were playing with dogs or kids. Most were just walking. These were the same things you might see anywhere in Europe, but there was a small differnece some how. These people seemed more at ease, maybe less formal. Otto thought about the park in his home town and the many hours he spent there as a child. He had pleasant memories of the puppet shows, organ grinders and jugglers. Parks in Germany were somewhat like amusement parks. hildren did not go there alone to play they were always supervised by adults. There was a deep seated fear that they would be stolen by Gypsies and taken to the black forest or some where beyond. Otto new of no one, this had happened to. These tales must have been past down from a time when the country was wild and untamed, when wondering tribes crossed the land and raided small villages. In Europe a park is a place that you get dressed to go to. These American children were poorly dressed and they played rough. He told Paula as wild as they are they may have been well dressed when they left home this morning. She laughed, They walked to the north side of the park were there was a base ball game going on. The couple climbed into the bleachers and watched. Otto could not figure out what was going on. A curious game he thought. Sometimes the man in the middle threw the ball and the other man swung at it and some times he didn't. Some times the people yelled and sometimes they didn't. One man squatting down caught the ball when the other man didn't hit it. Then he would do a funny thing, he'd lift up the padding he had on his belly and putting his hand under it he'd point three fingers at the ground, sometimes two, some times only one. What ever it meant he must have gotten it wrong sometimes because the one throwing the ball shook his head no and sometimes yes, then he'd throw. When all the players changed places all the men in the stands stood up and clapped. There was one man out there every one hated he was dressed like an undertaker. He didn't do much of anything except watch the one man throw the ball. Sometimes he let out an awful grunt. The guy swinging at the ball didn't like it, he got his face right in the undertakers face and he cursed and hollered. The ball was thrown and the black suited fellow said "baa" the man with the stick walked over and stood on a pillow. One of the players came up to Otto and said "hey buddy you want to play base ball we're short a man!" Otto told him he could play soccer but he'd never played base ball. The fellow told him that didn't matter they were short a man and any way he could play right field and he wouldn't have to do nothing nohow. Paula said "go ahead Otto play, if nothing else you can always kick the ball." Otto shrugged his shoulders and said "OK." The guy was right the ball didn't come to him and he was glad. Otto got up to bat and the man in the middle threw the ball right at him, he jumped back, it curved and went across the plate. The next throw the same thing happened. The crowed booed. Otto could not believe anybody could throw a ball like that, curving as it did. You just can't throw a ball in a circle, but this guy could. Otto had a sudden new respect for baseball. The guy that ask him to play yelled something to the guy in black, then walked over and told Otto to stay in there and swing. "He won't hit you" he said, "swing and swing hard." Otto stepped up to the plate, the ball came at him so fast he could hardly see it, he swung as hard as he could he heard a loud crack and the ball went somewhere, he didn't know where. He didn't have any idea what to do next. Somebody yelled "run." He ran to the bag he saw everybody else run to. Somebody was hollering "go to second, go to second run to second base." The only base he saw was one on the other side of the pitcher. Otto ran as hard as he could go, right straight across the middle of the diamond. Every one was yelling at him, he didn't know what to do. A guy ran up to him and yelled in his face. "go to second you dumb ..." Nobody's talks like that to me, he thought. Otto came up with a right square under the mans chin jacking him up off his feet. Otto caught a glimpse of Someone coming at him. He turned bring his guard up to late. He was hit right on the nose blood flew, Otto went down like a pile of bricks. He got up shaking his head to clear his vision, he saw people fighting every where. They were running down out of the stands onto the ball field fighting all the way. Suddenly Otto remembered Paula alone in the stands. He ran for the stands. Then he saw Paula standing off to the side waving at him. He ran to her, "are you all right he asked."
"Oh I'm fine" she said, "you don't look so good though." As they hurried along they heard the wail of a police siren and then another and another. The police were coming straight at them. Otto turned his face away from them pretending to talk to Paula so they couldn't see his battered face. The officers went right on by. As they hurried out of the park Paula asked "what did that man say to you that made you so mad?" "He called me a dumb Pollock," he mumbled through swollen lips. Paula laughed so hard she had to sit down on the curb. She had tears running down her cheeks. Otto looked around people were watching. He was standing there with blood on his face and she was crying. He took her by the arm helping her up he said “lets get back to your brothers before we get ourselves arrested. Her brother took them out to dinner. They had a fine German meal, the restaurant was a beautiful place. This restaurant was obviously very popular with Americans and Germans alike and all were well dressed. The whole place was like a museum with many antique relics of Germany's past. There were beautiful alabaster statues on display in every corner and alcove. On the walls were paintings of the country side in Germany and Austria. They brought back memories to all three of them. Hausners was a beautiful place to eat and the food was good. Paula looked longingly at a lovely little picture of a street in an old Austrian village, a bakery on the corner reminded her of her families bake shop at home. She wondered if she would ever be rid of her home sickness. She missed her mother, the friends she grew up with and most of all she missed Germany, the look of it, the feel, and the smell of it. She had seen no countryside here that looked like it. She wondered, why? In her young life had the changes come about that had destroyed a comfortable way of life and forced them to leave. For a moment she hated the allies that had defeated Germany in world war one. It was their fault, they had compelled Germany to adopt a strong Military government to regain the lands and manufacturing markets stolen from it. Stolen at the armistice ,they were the spoils of war. She worried about the safety of her family in a second war. "The next day was Sunday and we went for a ride with my brother and we found the plot of land we would later buy. It was on Robin wood road on the left side backing up to a hill Kimmels mountain. It was planted in fruit trees, mostly apple and it reminded me of my home land," Paula said. Everyone stood up and clapped. Otto and Paula sat smiling and looking very pleased.