 |
 |
 |
03/10/10 |
|
|  |
|
It was pure happiness to be home again with Mom and Dad, my four brothers and three sisters. First thing I did was walk to the post office to claim my suitcase that I had sent from California. I spent the rest of that week visiting relatives and seeing my childhood friends. Borrowing eleven dollars from my cousin Patsy, I bought shirts, shoes, and shoe rubbers. I also had my suit pressed. |
|
We came from Rumford, Maine, my birthplace. I was only two and a half years old when my father died on February 5th 1916. Four months later, in June, my sister, Frances, was born. A year after my father's death, we took the train to Ohio, arriving in Bedford on the Fourth of July, 1917.
My mother had four older brothers in Ohio: Nick and Gregory in Bedford, and Attilio and Dominic in Cleveland. Her younger brother, Ben De Pompei, came with us when we departed from Rumford. We settled in Bedford, renting a yellow stucco house at 66 West Monroe St.
|
|
The two other streets in this small Italian neighborhood were named Willis and Brown Lane. There were ten houses on our street, four on our side of the street. The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad dissected the street on the East. The ten houses on Willis were all on the same side of the street. There were only five houses on Brown Lane, which dead ended into the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It had a rail siding that ran next to our home, continuing down to the Taylor Chair Company. It also serviced the B. L. Marble Chair Company on the north end of Willis. The Pennsylvania main line ran behind all the homes on Willis. Beyond the main line, there was Tinker's Creek, the woods of Metropolitan Park, and the Bedford Glens.
If you took a pathway at one end of Willis, you would come upon a large baseball diamond. At the opposite end of Willis, a second pathway brought you down to the Glens. From there you could enter a path that took you through the woods right back to the ball diamond. The Glens had a magnificent dance pavilion that was connected to a bowling annex at a slightly lower level. It also had tables for family picnics, and amusements for children. Like the ball diamond, it was in the middle of the woods, and both were high above the edge of the Tinkers' Creek ravine. It was near the center of town close to the Public Square. This was my playground where I learned to swim, play baseball, and dance. Also, this is where I learned about work. At 11 years of age, in 1924, I became a pinsetter in the bowling alley. It had four alleys, expanding to seven when Tommy Carillion sold his three to the Glens owner, Evan Day. In those early years the young pinsetters all came from West Monroe, Willis, and Brown Lane. Setting up pins by hand was hard and hazardous work. You jumped down into the pit, returned a sixteen-pound ball, and spotted the pins on your hands and knees. You had to be nimble and quick in and out of the pit to avoid the bowling ball and the flying pins.
Working every evening to midnight we earned about a dollar, on Sundays, we could make two dollars. Whatever we earned, my brother Vito and I turned over to our parents. The hardest part for me was getting up in the morning for school. The most fun part for me was the "free bowling." We pin boys bowled for free as long as we set up pins for each other. This was my introduction to bowling. Two years after our arrival in Bedford, my mother married Anthony Pallotta, my stepfather. On July 27th 1920, my brother Johnnie was born; then Rudolph in 1921, Elma in 1924, Lila in 1925, and Norman in 1927.
A year earlier, my parents bought a larger home two blocks away at 16 Franklin St. Instead of moving in, they rented it out for $40.00 per month. Since they were paying rent of only $20.00 per month, it was prudent to stay longer where we were. We finally did move to Franklin St. in October 1928. My youngest brother Victor was born there in 1930. My three passions were bowling, playing baseball, and going to the movies. I started to bowl in leagues in 1928; played baseball on the Cleveland sandlots and on the Bedford High School team; and went to the picture show whenever I had a night off.
My earliest heroes came from following these three passions: Joe Bodis the bowler, Charlie Jamieson the left fielder for the Cleveland Indians, and John Gilbert the actor. I bought a small, brown, 3 x 5 pocket notebook for a nickel. In it, I recorded my bowling scores along with those of Joe Bodis. Bodis, one of Cleveland's best, threw a roundhouse curve with a figure 8 style of delivery. In trying to emulate him I developed a sharp breaking "hook," my own unique style. Here is how I would describe it: Standing left of center and with my eyes focused about two-thirds down the lane; I took five steps to the foul line. As I made the first half step I lowered the ball into the backswing. Completing my figure 8 motion, and swiftly turning my wrist and fingers at the very last possible moment, I lofted the ball over the foul line. Spinning like a top on its very low axis, the ball began its path straight to the target spot where it would suddenly grab the shellac and charge into the head pin. Entering the one-three pocket my hook ball was explosive. With stuff on the ball, however, it merely had to touch the head pin to start the action of splattering pins against the side-boards and back again against each other. I had developed a strike ball par excellence. At age 15, I started to bowl in the Men's Monday night bowling league at the Glens. I finished with the second highest average at 179 for 57 games. The following year I moved to the new Gala Recreation Alleys that had 6 lanes. My bowling average went up to 188, and in the next year up to 195. In a regular size notebook, I recorded the score of every game in sanctioned league play. My peak years came in 1930 and 1931. I never bowled 300, but I came close. Twice, I started a game by bowling 9 consecutive strikes only to falter in the last frame. My highest game was 280. I bowled ten 3-game series over 700. All the other Bedford bowlers combined managed to achieve a 700 series only three times. The two achievements in bowling I cherished most were the evening I bowled 16 consecutive strikes without getting that 300 score. From the 5th frame of my second game through the 10th frame I bowled 7 strikes, and then continued with 9 more in the 3rdgame. That was the night I bowled my highest series (737) and got my name in the sports page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The other achievement was averaging 220 for 60 consecutive games in league play during the tail end of the 1930 season and the beginning of the 1931.season. In those two years, I bowled in two ABC Tournaments, the first in Cleveland and the second in Buffalo, New York. At Cleveland, in the Doubles event, my cousin, Al De Pompei and I won $25.00 with a 1183 score. At Buffalo, Al and I made $48.00 in Doubles and in Singles I bought a pocket notebook for baseball and another one for the movies. In High School I played left field, the same position as Charlie Jamieson, earning "B" letters in my Junior and Senior years. In both years our team won the Local Conference title, the District playoffs, and went to Columbus to compete for the State finals. In the final state championship game we lost 1 to 0. Our team returned to Columbus the following year, but we were eliminated one game short of the championship contest. I don't know what I enjoyed more, the excitement of playing ball, or eating in restaurants and staying in a plush Hotel in Columbus In my movie notebook, I recorded forty-two Lon Chaney pictures. Fourteen are checked, indicating that I saw them. His last movie, The Unholy Three was a talking picture. For John Gilbert, my hero, I recorded 38 films, and saw 25, of which 4 were with Renee Adoree, and 4 were with Greta Garbo. Rudolph Valentino died in 1926. I recorded 17 of his films but saw only three. Starting in August of 1927, I saw Ben Hur with Ramon Novarro; The Big Parade with John Gilbert; Resurrection with Rod La Rocque and Dolores Rio; Flesh and the Devil with John Gilbert and Greta Garbo; and Beau Gueste with Ronald Colman. These were the first five in a recorded list of 466 films. That last movie was Stand Up and Cheer, on September 9, 1934, the fateful day that I left home. In 1929, after the tenth grade, I wanted to get a factory job for the summer. Times were good and many of my friends had already quit school and were working. When I applied at the B. L. Marble Chair Company they inquired whether I would be returning to school in the fall. I told them that I was quitting school. I was hired on the spot. I worked in the wood shop department behind a large shearing machine. Ben Lupica, my friend, was in front of the machine. Even though the pay was very good; earning $5.00 per day, I quit in September to return to my eleventh grade. The next summer, in 1930, I worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Cleveland. My Uncle Dominic was a section foreman for a large extra gang of laborers. They were responsible for track maintenance, replacing railroad ties and rails. Tamping ties and handling steel rails was hard work, especially in the hot summer sun. I became their water boy. There was no faucet of running water along the rail line. I had to walk a good long way to a faucet at the maintenance shed, fill two pails with water and hurry back to the thirsty workers. Only two men could drink water at the same time since I carried only two water dippers. The men relished the cool water and their brief rest while drinking. I got my rest after returning to the watershed with empty pails. It was nice that I worked for my Uncle Dominic. Since he lived in Cleveland, we really got acquainted on that summer job. In September, I returned to Bedford High School.
After taking two years of Latin in my ninth and tenth grades, I decided to switch to Business courses, taking shorthand and typing. But I continued with Latin as an elective in my 3rd year in the hopes of attending college. But by my Senior year, college was more of a dream than a hope. So I dropped, Latin, for bookkeeping, and continued with shorthand and typing. Our Class of 1931 had 73 students. Graduation exercises took place on Thursday June 11th. I was happy that I made the Honor Society with 14 of my classmates. Hugo P. Cipriani |
