Rosey Gerry

Christmas 1956: Rosey Gerry read this story at the Library's annual Christmas program, December 2018

Hurry up you'll miss the bus my mother hollered up the bare wood stairway of the old farm house known to us as the old George Cameron place on Youngtown road,.

It was the winter of 1956. We had moved in there several months ago , and felt as we had come up in the world cause it had two electric lights in the downstairs and none upstairs just kerosene lights , also had a couple outlets to plug appliance's into but we didn't have much of them at that time.

We had just heard the roar of Herb Thomas's old Walters V plow snow-fighter, and had ran quickly to the window as to not miss this spectacular scene with straight pipe poking outta the hood, flames shooting straight up as it threw back the snow that had fallen in the night before, making a high furrow as if it were a new plowed field.

We didn't have a television, but did have a radio that would plug into one of the outlets in the kitchen, it was not new, it had a wooden case and was about eighteen to twenty inches high and had an arching top like a cathedral roofed building.

Many a night we'd listen to the news and waited for Everett Basford to come on WRKD a local station with his Lone Ranger stories, which brings me to some highlights of 1956, "My Fair Lady" opens on Broadway, Woody Guthrie release's This Land is your land" Carl Perkins has a big hit with "Blue Suede Shoes" Unemployment is at 4.4%, a First class stamp rises to .03, NY Yankees beat Brooklyn Dodgers 4-3. Top Movie is "Around the World in Eighty Days" One of the top Books is John Kennedy's "Profile in Courage.

It's about at this time when my favorite movie of all time's and still is today, The Wizard of Oz is on TV for the first time ever, I remember us all packing up and heading to my Aunt and Uncle's and cousins on Gould Street in Camden cause they had a TV set and I thought they were rich. The screen was round and the reception was a little snowy but I was totally in awe that we were seeing the movie in their living room.

My sister who was four and my brother who was just three were horrified of the witch, but even more so of the monkey's. ( By the way FYI did you know that Ms. Hamilton who played the witch had a summer place on Mechanic Street in Camden!)

Again mother holler's git a move on as bus will be there shortly, yes no close of school today if the plow could get through, then the bus could get through.

Very soon either Burt Eugley or Cranston Dean would be out front blowing the horn and out the door I ran to jump on board as my brother and sister's little faces steamed up the house windows waving goodbye!

I can also remember the drivers face in the big mirror waiting till I was seated before the bus jerk forward next stop the Hart girls and then the Hardy boys.

It was an exciting beginning of year as this brown eye boy of six was about to turn seven come March.

I had just been allowed to join the Lincolnville School band after much apprehension on some of the adults parts that I was way too young, but I was determined to move ahead.

I had wanted to be in the horn section with the cool guy's like Terry Lamont, Snuffy Reed, and Dwight Patten, and Jimmy Munroe, and oh yea, there was a couple swell girls in the trumpet section also "Patty Miller" and "Sheila Hart," but there was no money for trumpets and so I was lent a used clarinet that Swiss Hardy had fixed up and put in the reed section, just me and one other boy "Danny Hardy" and all those girls, Yuck!

It would be the fifth grade before I could switch to trumpet and also be cool!

Spring time finally rolls around and I'm doing odd jobs around neighborhood helping Claude Heal, here and there, the Pinkham family next door, and doing a little on the Clyde Young farm up the street. These were unique people everybody seem to get a long and helped one another out.

I also remember helping my father, along with Leslie Hall, and Role Heal with burning the blueberry field across the street, It was for Fred Milliken who also owned the house we were living in.

And also our next door neighbor Stanley Pinkham would lend a hand. Now this was a great gentle man who was a retired missionary and had traveled the world over which at age seven I had very little idea of how big our world was.

On some Friday nights my mother, after supper, would make popcorn , we'd all go over to Mr. Pinkham's and he had this thing called a projector that showed pictures of all his world travels, I got to see places in Arizona, missions with real Indians, places in South America, the middle east and Africa, it was my first experience in the new world of culture.

So back to helping out in neighborhood, and making a little money which I saved up and convinced my mom and dad that a seven year old should have a BB gun. After a lot of talking it was off on a Sat. morning when we all went shopping in Camden for Groceries in the old 1947 Chrysler Windsor that held all our groceries two spare tires , three kids, our spaniel mix dog, and couple bottles of Narragansett!

So while mother was shopping at A&P father and I strolled down the street to JC Curtiss Hardware and there on the shelve is a lever action Daisy Scout BB rifle brand new in the box for about $7.00. and it comes with one roll of BB shot. We pay for it and it's back up to the old Chrysler and can't wait to get home. We get up by Mountain St. cemetery there's Newman Hardy with two full bags of Groceries walking to Lincolnville, Father stops and in he climbs and tells us all about how he's already planted his peas and tells of how his garden is doing this year compared to last and how cold the water is in the lake last time he went for a swim.

And then sometimes we get parts of the story of the time he and his family traveled to Fla. in the old Model T a story that I would later spend alot more time with!

Once back home gun out of box, BBs dropped into it, it's time to go shoot, now the old barn which was attached to farm house is getting pretty delapated and, well, still has some windows in it, or did!

Well! That's a loss of the gun for a week after having it for about fifteen mins.

Lesson well learnt!

Although there was one more time that it was hung up, I remember one time we kids were down in back field playing can't remember why but I set the gun down and my little brother pick it up and pulled trigger the BB left the gun with a pop and struck me in the temple and broke the skin. After that it was under controlled conditions that the gun was used.

I don't know what ever happen to it, but years later it was replaced with a single shot 22. I learned a lot in short time about guns.

Summer rolls around and I have no bicycle but other kids in area do, but wait I don't even know how to ride. I'm not making enough odd jobbing to even come close, and a new bike is way out of reach.

A new Schwinn bike at Haskell/ Corthells in Camden, just the inexpensive model boy's bike runs about $35.00. Why my father didn't pay that much for any of his old cars that we used to ride around in.

I see this add in a magazine for an English Bicycle where you sell enough All Occasions cards and add a little cash with it, and you get this great three speed English bike mail order, either black, or blue or Red.

Every night as I climb the stairs it's not long before I'm fast asleep dreaming of this Red Bike! Now there other things to help take up time like swimming or fishing in Hardy brook. But I need to get hustling if I want that bike.

So in a few days the cards arrive, and to sweet'n the deal we've added the Grit Newspaper and Cloverine Salve to my bag of goodies to sell. Off I go up and down the Youngtown road knocking on doors peddling my wares. I met some pretty interesting people who took pity on this poor boy with no bike and skinny as a rail, needless to say I got to hear lot's of stories about the history of families and old roads and I learned where the best cookies were along my route.

About that route, I would some days walk down Youngtown Rd. to Stevens corner, which at that time turned left at bottom of hill came over a little bridge and through where Rose Thomas Garage is now to 173. It was the old Feener place at that time.

Depending on time of day I would sometimes make it to Thurlow Rd and up what they called Horseback to Home. Sometimes I only made it as far as Thayer lane now known today as Calderwood road walk up past the old Thayer Farm which was abandoned but the stories of old Nellie who some claimed to be a witch of sorts kept your heels touching the seat of your pants till you came out in Clyde Young’s field and lots of times this would seem to fall at about dusk.

I don't ever remember my folks worrying to much about what time I got home back then seems like life was a little more laid back and people were more trusting.

So by end of summer I had enough to send away for that much sort after bike,

I couldn't wait!

And then the magic night came, father went to Dean and Eugley's after gas, and they said we have a box dropped off here by Fox & Ginn Co.

He came home with the box,... oh the excitement my brother and sister were making a fuss , Princess our dog was barking up a storm and then there was excited me, eye's as big as saucers, open the box and yes, Red bike! ...Girls red bike, oh my world, my world, my beautiful world, the words of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz came running through my head, as tears came running down my cheeks.

What's the problem, it has two wheels, and it's red my Dad speaks as to give me support! But Dad, it's a girls bike! So! It's new, But it's a girls bike! ...Oh, Didn't the Co. see the check mark for a boy's bike, Ohhh, No, I bet they just read the name Rosendel! And said "This is gotta be a girl," they've ordered the wrong bike, must have checked the wrong box. We'll fix this and send them the right bike.

So with broken heart we packed up the bike, took it back to Dean & Eugley's and shipped it back, about a month later, it arrived, Boy's Red, Royal Crown 3 speed bike. Wow was it cool!

So now it's fall, and I'm just learning to ride, at the foot of the hill down from Cameron place lived these two good looking gals by the name of Carolyn and She She Hart. Then just down the road a bit from there was the Hardy place a dairy farm and also a place for some of the characters on the road to gatherer after milking was done, they hung out to discuss world situations, but I think it was more - let's do a tasting of Swiss's homebrew. So there was Swiss, my Father, Bob Rollerson, Pete Carver, and this one evening they just happen to be up the street a little, all talking to the girls father, Doc Hart.

Now Doc had a chicken barn across the street from his house and there was this big mud puddle between the road and the barn and it was black puddle and I'll let you figure out why it was black!

Well it just so happens that the girls and their mother were out there also, this fine fall evening with this group all talking, I'm at the top of the hill with this new bike and I think I'll just cruise down and impress these cute girls, off I start very unsure of myself bike is wobbling hard, and I'm going faster and faster, My father starts hollering saying slow down, everyone but God himself is standing there and the bike decides to wobble so bad that when I get to the big black puddle over I go, ... I'm gasping, I'm covered in poo water, when I gather my sense's everyone is laughing,

I pick up my wet ball cap and pull it down over my drenched puppy head and stomp off for home leaving the bike in the puddle totally embarrassed, dripping of poo water.

Needless to say, It was a while before I went in that direction again.

Late fall finds us banking the house and trying to settle in for winter. One day this guy knocks on the door he introduces himself as Ken Weymouth Electrolux vacuum salesman needless to say my mother is super impressed and they wind up buying one for payments of $3.00 a week it's about that time that Prudential life insurance man Bob Crabtree shows up and sign's my father up, it's like a dollar a week or something like that.

Oh, about that Vacuum cleaner, we moved again sometime the next year to a house that had no electricity and it was several years before she (my mother) had a chance to use it again , but I do remember it was still in use in the 70s.

December rolls around we're back to cold weather and snow, we're drawing names at school for Christmas and we've got slabs piled up out front to saw up and burn.

It's just before Christmas my Grandfather Rose for whom I'm named after, sends a post card saying he's coming for Christmas, he lives up in Troy, Maine about 50 miles away, the town he was born in, in 1887. We're all excited and look forward to seeing him.

Now he's a little different does not drive a car, walks about everywhere he goes. We don't know when he's coming but we keep a watch out.

I get us a tree and we make some decorations, we have one set of lights that make three little faces glow in the dark. We have presents under the tree this year, and have to keep an eye on my brother as he loves to tear the paper off .

It's been several days now since we got the post card but still no gramp.

We have no phone! Where is he?

It's Christmas eve, we've hung the stocking behind the parlor stove, it's cold and light snow is falling we kids keep going to the widow and keep peeking up and down the road, still no gramp.

Is he coming we keep asking, and my parents try to answer and know nothing more than we do.

Soon we're off up the stairs to watch the shadows bounce off the walls and ceiling from the kerosene lights waiting for the sound of Santa's reindeer hoofs on the roof and maybe Gramp's arrival.

Then there's a banging at the door and Princess our dog is on it, like Ol' Yellow attacking the bear in the book "The Yearling".

The noise sounds like a herd of ducks as our little bare feet slap against the wooden stairs scampering downward to seek out this commotion, and then, with anxious eyes we peek around the corner, there's Gramp Rose with a cloth sack over his shoulder, the flaps of his red plaid hat pulled down over his ears and his beard covered with snow, and if it wasn't for the dried tobacco stains in the corner's of his mouth and his slim trimmed body, you could have past him off for Santa.

After the barking stopped and we kids had settled down my father said where you been old man? Sitting by the fire he began telling his journey of walking the whole way, no rides, and how he'd spent the night before in a barn in Waldo burying himself deep in the hay to keep warm.

We kids were curious as to what he had in the bag, a quick peek exposed some clothes, before it was snatched away quickly, and the next day under the tree revealed a carved wooden whistle for my brother, out of an old alder stick, a carved wooden doll for my sister. and a wooden car for me, all hand carved by him, as he did no Christmas shopping ever that I can recall.

I do remember as the shadows did their nightly dance that night from the kerosene lights, reflecting in a way like Mr. Pinkham's projector of all the events of the year and having the family together for Christmas was the greatest of all!

Merry Christmas to you all and to all a good night!