JOE'S SPA EMPLOYMENT

Recently a friend posted a question asking what your first job was as a teenager. My response was “Worked a soda fountain making "frappes" milk shakes and dishing out ice cream sundaes and ice cream cones.” That was over 60 years ago. Since the restaurant was owned by Father and Uncle both families were employed there. The Restaurant was Joe’s Spa on West Broadway.

I worked full time during the summers but only on weekends when I was going to school. Today there are many fine restaurants in Southie and the choices quite varied. For those of you who lived in Southie in the Fifties your choices were limited. The only restaurant of considerable size was Joe’s Spa.

Back then the Blue Laws were in effect. That meant the bars were closed at 1:00 AM on Fridays and 12:00 AM on Saturday. A half hour after they closed all of the bar occupants ended up at Spa. It was the only time the reserve room in the back was open. It was utter chaos. Many nights all of the booths were occupied and there was standing room only. Our kitchen was closed but our sandwich station was open. That was where I ended up working.

Over the years when I mentioned I worked at the Spa people would tell me “that’s where I met my Spouse.” I am sure it was during those post bar meetings when everyone in Southie was gathered. I have fond memories of that time although I was working too hard to appreciate the social activities happening all around me.

BABE RUTH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

As a youngster growing up on West Fifth Street in Southie I was subjected to a lot of stories about our neighborhood by the older boys. One story in particular stuck with me even as an adult. The story involved Babe Ruth. He supposedly once lived in our neighborhood and that his wife was buried in the cemetery surrounding the St. Augustine Chapel on West Sixth Street. Babe Ruth was the most revered baseball player of his era and because I thought I could play professional baseball, he was a major idol in my young life.

When I retired some 22 years ago I had time on my hands so I thought I would chase down this story. Many books have been written about the Babe, some factual, others were fiction. One book confirmed that his wife was buried in the Chapel cemetery. Had the Author done some serious research he would have learned that it was not true. Here are the facts.

Babe Ruth did live in our neighborhood. When he played for the Red Sox he fell in

love with Helen Woodford from West Fourth St. He moved to Silver St. to be near her. They married and lived for a while above Joes Spa on West Broadway and then later to the Eaton Hotel on Emerson St. When he played for the Yankees he became “the toast of the town” and their marriage unraveled. Helen moved back to Southie with their daughter Dorothy. Although separated, they never divorced.

Helen eventually moved in with a dentist in Watertown and tragically died there in a fire caused by frayed electrical wiring. She was waked out of her home on West Fourth St. Babe Ruth attended the wake and the funeral at Mount Cavalry Cemetery in Roslindale where she was buried. So at least part of the story was true. Babe at the Cemetery. Helen's Tombstone. With Helen and Dorothy

CAR PAINT JOB

I mentioned in my last post that I learned a lot about fixing cars when I lived in Southie. After I got married I continued to service my cars and tried to get as many years out of them as I could. After all having two small children, a house mortgage and such was quite a drain on my salary. One car I may have kept a little too long. It was a Ford wagon that was beginning to show its age especially where the rust was more predominate than the original paint job.

I decided I would paint it myself. After all it had to look better than its present condition. So off to Sears I went to buy an electric air gun and paint that was specifically designed for “metallic” surfaces. I went back to my Father’s garage in Southie filled up the container with paint and let it rip. I said that it had to look better than its present condition. WRONG. Actually, from 100 feet it didn’t look too bad. Unfortunately the closer you came the worst its appearance. The end result was a finish that looked like some of the refrigerators had in its day. The ones that advertised that fingerprints would never be seen because of the undulations in the paint.

My young neighbor who pumped gas at the local gas station shook his head in disbelief when he saw what I had done. I may have saved money but even to this day I still have to endure the ridicule of my friends.

1939 OLDSMOBILE

I learned a lot about fixing cars when I lived in Southie. My friend from my old neighborhood, Bob Bumstead, (he lived on West 6th St and I lived on West 5th ) owned a 1939 Oldsmobile. We used his car to commute to MIT from Southie every day for 4 years. Although mostly reliable there were times when the car broke down. On Saturday we would trek down to Quincy to Goldie’s where cars were heaped one on top of others. We had to bring our own tools and disassemble the needed part, pay the fee for the used part then back to Southie to make the repairs. Cars were simpler then and DYI selfers could actually manage to make the repairs.

After graduation we lost touch with one another. He ended up at Cape Canaveral in Florida and worked on the Space Program and I ended up in Colorado with the Bureau of Reclamation. A couple of years ago I thought of Bob and looked him up in the Alumni Directory. We went to lunch and spent a good part of the afternoon reminiscing about our daily commute and the fun we had figuring how to keep his old rust bucket going for 4 years.

I thought it would be good to have lunch again but when I checked our Monthly Alumni Magazine I discovered he had passed. I am so glad I had a chance to see him one more time. If you have a friend you haven’t seen for a while now would be good time to touch base again.

BOSTON GARDEN

Back in the 1950’s a group of us had season tickets to the Boston Bruins in the old Boston Garden. Our seats were high in the rafters in a Section known as “Nig….rs Heaven” I know it is a terrible name but that is what it was called. We eventually lost those seats when the section was converted to luxury suites.

At the time I was single so my attendance at the games caused no particular problem at home. That wasn’t the case with some of my married friends. One in particular, Louis Shkliew (pronounced Sklow) had a problem. Some of you may have known him since he ran a successful barbershop on E. Broadway on Pill Hill, called that because most of Southie’s doctors were located there at the time.

During the game we often heard over the public address system “Would Louis ‘ Shik-a-loo’ please call home” Louis often ignored the call. Unfortunately, he later told us when he returned home after the game he found his apartment completely empty. Not a stick of furniture was left. His wife had backed up a moving van and removed the entire contents of the apartment and returned to her mother in Worcester.

The moral of the story is that if your wife calls during a sporting event do NOT ignore the call. Better still, give up your season’s ticket.

New EPA Administor

Yesterday’s News Conference in Houston:

Reporter: EPA Administrator—“Do you believe Co2 is a contributor to global warming”

Pruitt "I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. ... But we don't know that yet. ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis."

Fact: 97 percent of Scientists say it is a major factor. There is no dispute except among the Climate deniers.

Reporter: As a follow up question do you believe an apple falling from a tree is due to the Laws of gravity?

Pruitt: “No, there is a dispute among Scientists and more study is needed”

Fact : in 1687 Newton stated “Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.” No one has disputed that in over 300 plus years
.
Pruitt Should stick to lawyering and leave Science to the Scientists

SCOTT PRUITT NEW EPA ADMINISTRATOR

Those of us who were EPA employers in the 1980’s remember Ann Gorsuch. She was appointed the Administrator of the Agency by President Ronald Reagan with the sole purpose of dismantling EPA. Ann Gorsuch slashed EPA’s budget by 22 percent and aggressively rolled back clean air and clean water rules and other protections. In the first year of the Reagan administration, there was a 79 percent decline in the number of enforcement cases filed from regional offices to EPA headquarters, and a 69 percent decline in the number of cases filed from the EPA to the Department of Justice. She cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating.

In 1982, Congress charged that the EPA had mishandled the $1.6 billion toxic waste Superfund and demanded records from Gorsuch. She refused and became the first agency director in U.S. history to be cited for contempt of Congress. In those days Congress had a backbone and had the courage to face down the President who claimed she need not turn over the documents citing Executive Privilege. In the end she had to resign her position after 22 months as Administrator.

Today Scott Pruitt was confirmed by the Senate to become EPA’s Administrator. He has the same mandate from President Trump as Anne Gorsuch had from President Reagan. This Congress has no backbone so I fear the worst for our Environment.

BOSTON HARBOR 1969

Boston Harbor before the Cleanup

https://vimeo.com/174398217e

JAPANESE TOILETS

Someone asked me the other day whether I had encountered any Japanese toilets when I was in Japan. In the Hotels I stayed in Tokyo and Osaka we had western style toilets. However in the offices were we met our Japanese Engineer counterparts, there were only Eastern style toilets. Was there privacy? did you manage?, was there toilet paper?--- these were some of the  questions that were thrown my way. Fortunately I never had to use these in the way that would require that I needed to squat.

On the bullet trains between Tokyo and Osaka most of the Toilets were of the Eastern variety. There was one car that had a Western style privy. The Japanese never felt privacy was an issue when it came to nudity or toileting. The baths are coed and whole families engage in the enjoyment of the hot tubs.

See picture attached

50TH ANNIVERSARY

50 years ago today I made the best decision of my life when I married my sweetheart Jane-- then and now.