As the outgrowth of a will left by Thomas Parkman Cushing, Cushing Academy was established. Cushing, a wealthy industrialist, began developing his concept for the future of his ample estate in Ashburnham MA as an educational institution in 1850. He proceeded by setting up a foundation with trustees who he worked with to develop a plan that could be implemented when appropriate (after his death). By 1864 when he died, the basic framework for the institution was in place. The Trustees followed through and Cushing Academy was chartered as a co-educational school in 1865. It is still going strong today (2017), with significant changes and improvements. Cushing Academy preceded the founding of Choate by some 30 years and was quite unique in its day for being formed as coeducational, considering women did not enjoy many rights at the time. (Women’s Suffrage was just warming up by the end of the century, and the 19th amendment to the US Constitution giving the right to women to even vote was not ratified until August of 1920). The school has flourished and is still considered as a prime secondary prep school for young men and women. Cushing was always known for its fine athletic program (they were never on the Choate football schedule while I was there). They did however play many teams Choate did including Deerfield, Mt. Herman and Tufts (DII-4).
Although not active in varsity sports, Joyce was involved in intramural activity including field hockey. In this she seemed to have played with great vigor. According to her Yearbook: “Joyce is quite adept with the hockey stick, and in the fall Joyce had more black and blue marks than any other team member”. Knowing her propensity for bruising, I believe she would have been walking around with many black and blues from just moving around in her dorm room. I mean, who needs hockey?
Joyce was also heavily involved in what was known as the “Expression Class”. This was Cushing’s version of a Drama Club. Here Joyce excelled not in front of the lights, but behind the scenes as part of the stage crew. This is the tough work of any theater production, and seldom recognized as such. Without them there would be no performances. Joyce matriculated well through Cushing and graduated in the spring of 1948. Her senior picture reflects a certain satisfaction over the accomplishment (DII-5).
Sometime between mid 1945 and early 1946 things started to get interesting, and I don’t mean academically (though that was given). What was interesting was Joyce was the first of the neighborhood kids to get a drivers license, as mentioned earlier. I know that all of us of the same basic age were chomping at the bit to get ours (mine was in the summer of 1946). That ride with Joyce seemed to be a real transition for me. I mean, we were 17 and growing for heaven sake. Life was changing and so were the hormones.
Except for a two or three week Christmas vacation and a shorter spring break, the academic calendar took up ¾ of a year. The remaining 3 months (June-August) was the normal summer break. At this point, a few reflections on those scant secondary adolescent years might be entertaining if not enlightening. Many of us worked during summer. Joyce worked in the office of her Dad’s Company, Harvey Hubbell, Inc. (he was the treasurer) for a couple of years and I worked at Edwin Moss and Son, Contractors (long since liquidated). Through the bank, my Dad did business with Ed Moss, and that of course helped land the job. I learned more on that job than the sum total of all my academic activity up to that time. My job was mainly a “go-fer” job (go fer this, go fer that) and my base of operation was the company yard. The yard occupied both sides of the main building that included vehicle bays for lube and repairs. In the yard, name it and we had it. Extra trucks, stake and dump body types, a gas and diesel pump, air hoses, cement tubs and mixers (stationary and on wheels) and most anything you can think of that a construction company might need. With such a potpourri of materials, it was essential that all things were organized and kept in the right place (part of my job). My job also involved running materials out to jobs, and to participate in other trucking oriented activities. The nature of the job provided many exciting if not terrifying experiences that added to my growing learning curve.
Lession #1. Always be aware of the size (dimensions) of what you are driving or hauling. I was driving a stake body truck (those with a wide bed and wooden slat sides) on Barnum Ave., a 4 lane urban thoroughfare with narrow lanes. As I passed a slow moving trailer truck, I heard a horrible crunch, which was my stake body wiping out his driver’s side rear mirror. After a lot of yelling, horn blowing and waving of arms, we both stopped and I got out to inspect the damage and to apologize to the guy, who was considerably older than I was (which would include almost everyone on the planet). Well I took the entire mirror cleanly leaving only three holes in his truck. Well we negotiated a reasonable price for a new mirror and I luckily had the money to pay for it. As I was about to leave, the truck driver suggested I take special care driving big rigs, and be aware of the dimensions. Not like a regular car.
Lession #2 The need to develop the art of backing or proceeding slowly. This was before the days of automatic transmissions, and to back or proceed slowly up or down an incline was indeed an art to be learned by trial and error. This ability came into real play when pulling a piece of equipment (cement mixer, air compressor, etc.). Here the issue was backing and maneuvering the piece of equipment into a tight space, and remember, you were always turning the opposite way than would seem normally logical (equipment to the right, vehicle to the left and vice versa). The real lesson here is: driving fast is easy, any idiot can do it, driving slowly is hard, and most idiots don’t have patience. Not a bad lesson for even today’s youth.
Lession #3 Whenever money is involved, make sure records are kept and receipts signed. While there are many well intentioned and honest folks around there are more than a fair amount that are not, and will pilfer or rob you blind if they find a way to do it. Due diligence will avoid much of this. One week my task was to monitor loads of sand and gravel removed from a gravel bank owned by the company. Several other contractors and users would avail themselves of that raw material, at a price of course. Up to then it was sort of an honor system procedure. We soon realized that was not going to work, so over the loud complaints of the truck drivers, each one had to check with me on the way in and get a number, with a duplicate copy for the crane (clam-shell) operator. The operator would note the number and tally the loads. The truck would pass me on the way out and I would record the trip. That way, everyone was covered, and while we had several accusations of adding loads or falsifying records, the fact that two of us were keeping track, ended those complaints rather quickly.
Lession #4. Never underestimate the power of battery acid. Every year, many manufacturing companies shut down for a couple of weeks for routine maintenance. One of the bigger plants in town was Remington Arms, Rim Fire. This plant manufactured ammunition (both rim and centerfire). Its main landmark was a tall “shot” tower. Within this tower various sized shot (lead) pellets were manufactured. The gauge of a shotgun is measured by the number of pellets in a pound. A 12 gauge held 12 uniform pellets per pound, whereas a 20 gauge held 20 uniform pellets per pound. The various sized pellets were produced by pouring hot lead from the top of the tower through screens, with varying mesh sizes corresponding with the gauge they were producing, into a vat of water at the bottom which cooled the molten lead into perfectly round pellets.
They also had acres of earthen bunkers where the ammunition was stored. One morning I was pulled up to one of these bunkers while my truck was being loaded with debris to be taken to the landfill. When I got in, to back out, the battery was as dead as a hammer. Fortunately there was another company pick-up on site. A truck battery is heavy, but I managed to grab it underneath and heave it out against my chest, and it leaked all down my shirt and the right side of my trouser leg. Oh boy, I thought I was about to burn up, but felt nothing but wet. I went ahead and put the battery in the pick-up and drove back to the yard for a replacement and went back to the job site, replaced the battery, went to the landfill and back to the yard. I was dry by then and everything looked okay. Next morning I put on the same duds after tugging at them to see if they were going to fall apart. Everything looked great, not even any stains. Well, about mid morning, I began to see deterioration in part of my trouser leg, and in horror I watched the whole leg begin to “melt” away along with my shirt front and tails. I ended up with only my left trouser leg, half of my shirt and belt loops intact, and my fancy red ant boxer shorts on conspicuous display. Leaving George the mechanic and Enzo my boss, rolling on the floor, I drove down to Barnum Av where I found a men’s clothing store. Fortunately it was at a time of day where I was the only customer. As I presented myself at the counter, a very serious looking clerk said “Okay, let me guess—you need maybe some pants, maybe a shirt…? I think I can help ” Then he just cracked up. Armed with new trousers and shirt, I went back to work as if nothing at all happened. At home, my boxers disintegrated in the washing machine and Ma wondered what in the world did I get into.
Lession #5. Whenever a witness to an event, especially if it is bad, be prepared to be accused of causing it, enabling it, enhancing it, or are somehow complicit with it. It seems when anyone has an accident or does something wrong, their first reaction is to find someone besides themselves to blame for it (especially true in politics but there the bureaucracy is so deep there is always a “fall guy” on which to pin it).The Ed Moss construction yard was located on the corner of Grant St. and we will call it X street (can’t remember the name). This street was the minor thoroughfare, and had a stop sign at the Grant St. intersection. Most construction company yards had either a tall privacy fence or hedge surrounding them that effectively kept hidden from sight all the “goodies” in the yard. As we used to say, “we like to keep honest people honest.” Our yard had an 8 to 10 foot hedge. The hedge became problematic at road intersections with a stop sign, since the hedge blocked the vision of the driver down the infecting street, in this case Grant St. Because of this, local law required hedge heights be lowered to 3 or 4 feet for several feet (12 to 18) along each intersecting right of way.
Being the resident “gofer” keeping the hedge trimmed was one of my jobs. One day while just finishing up this task on my ladder, I noticed a Southern Bell Telephone truck (an extended cab pick-up with all kinds of stuff in the back including a large roll of wire) proceeding up Grant St. (it was an upward grade), when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur on X street, which was a big car (Buick, Chrysler, etc.), blow right through the stop sign and smack into the front of the telephone truck with a huge “bang” (not a clang like you would expect metal on metal to have). Of course that almost knocked me off the ladder, but I regained enough to yell to Enzo to call it in, and I ran around and out our gate to see if I could help the truck driver, since the vehicle was upside down on its roof. I don’t know how many of my readers here have witnessed at first hand an accident like this, but the immediate aftermath is almost surreal. Dead silence with dust still settling, and the soft sound of the trucks wheels still turning, and the only other sound was a “whah, whah, whah……” That was the reel of telephone wire rolling down the hill. Then, from out of the cab, “Ahhhh, shit!!!”, and a leg came out of the window, then arm, shoulder and head, and the guy got out and up and watched his reel of wire roll down the hill and repeated his sentiment above, plus several added embellishments. The guy in the car just sat there without getting out or seeing what he could do to help. When the police showed up a short time later, the guy stormed out of his car with his arm extended and screaming that that kid (me) was the cause of the accident. That hedge, I couldn’t see anything!
I was standing there pretty shaken up when the cop’s partner came up to me and asked if I could fill him in on what exactly happened. I told him I was on the ladder over there trimming the hedge to well within what I thought the ordinance required, and noticed the telephone truck proceeding up Grant St. when I saw a blur as that car over there (other side of the street) blew right through the stop sign without any attempt to stop (I heard no skidding). At full speed he clipped the front of the telephone truck tipping it over. If he had hit a few feet back he would have nailed the driver, who instead looks shaken but basically uninjured.
I will leave the lessons learned at 5 for now, but believe me there are many more to learn, and from that standpoint, a most valuable summer job. I worked for Ed Moss each summer from 1947 through 1950. That was not my only job during those years. During winter (Christmas) break, I worked at the A.J. Spaulding Sport Shop set up in the D.M. Read Department store in downtown Bridgeport. While I did a little bit of everything in the store, my main responsibilities were in the ski equipment department, where I sold skis, boots and parka’s and also mounted steel edges on newly bought skis. Main lesson here was dealing with customers could only be done, not learned. Good disposition (not condescending), sense of humor, sincere and respectful are key attributes when dealing with the public. Next time, they will be asking for you.