Chapter Three: Now the fun begins
1959 - 1962
We started in the new school just after Labor Day 1959 so for all intents and purposes 1960. The Freshman year was getting used to silence in the corridors when moving from class to class, square corners and the maroon and mostly gray uniforms and sport jackets, white shirt, plaid ties for the boys and the pants that seemed to disintergrate especially on the guys as the school year progressed no matter how careful you were. To this day I think it was pre-planned by the contractor, some firm in New York, as I recall. We devloped the usual acquaintences
and friendships in the first year. One of the biggest agenda items, I think for everyone was to meet, greet and size up the teachers. They were all from the order of nuns known as Notre Dame de Namur. Sister Winifred, definitely my favorite, kind of like your mom and your best friend all rolled into one. When she spoke you listened intently and never wanted to be anything but polite around her. It was like an aura around her, you just knew what was expected, what you had to do and you did it and she didn't have to say a word. Sister Bernadette Louise was homeroom. When she spoke you listened as well knowing that she would not hesitate to get your attention by whatever means necessary if you didn't. Sister Anne Monica, taught Latin and she could smile and scare you to death at the same time. Then there was Sister Paula Julie. She was from Madrid and taught Spanish. She used to give spelling tests of twenty words worth five points each. I'd get all the words right but missed the accent marks on many if not most and that was as good as a wrong answer.
She took me aside one day and told me it was literally impossible to flunk Spanish. In year two, I proved her wrong. The principal, Sister Anne Denise, I think the youngest of them all, a nice enough person but her presence was such that if you screwed up on her watch, your life could become an instant living nightmare for quite sometime.
Classes in English, math and science, geography and history and of course a mandatory class in Latin and religion were also on tap for all of us. I got heavy I would say into science and participated in pretty much every science fair held at the school, in the city and even a state science fair held at MIT in Boston. My best friend in high school was a fellow named Peter. I'll only use first names of those still with us. At any rate, he and I were really into science and took our fair share of local first places in whatever science fair we entered.
My last entry, was in the State Science Fair at MIT in Boston. You had to earn a place there by winning at the lower level science fairs, like in your school or city. The project was the Origin and Detection of Hurricanes and absolutely fascinating subject in these days, because absent back then was all the satellite and other technology available today. It is still a fascinating science and subject, certainly for me.
Little was known about hurricanes on the grand scale of today's science other than basics. I observed time and again when they would usually form from June through October at least. The official hurricane season was June 1st through November 30th. Perhaps the most humorous moment of my meteorlogical fascination was in tracking these storms from formation to dissipation.
Fair to say I was hooked big time looking at patterns, sea temperatures where the storms were forming which seemed to have a pattern. Then there was prevailing wind patterns from the surface to sixty thousand plus feet and on and on.
Well, I knew that a company called Travelers Insurance
(I guess they are still around) was offering FREE Hurricane Tracking charts. All you had to do was make a written request. I had an idea I'd get a few for me, a few for Peter and enough for my entire homeroom class. I just knew that they would all need them and want them if a storm decided to come close to New England. So I sent a letter to the Traveler's Insurance company, explaining my interest in hurricanes, severe weather and of course tracking them.
In the letter I asked for at least 50 or possibly as many as 100 charts if that were possible. I thought maybe I might get a response with one or two charts maybe a few more but I had to ask and try not to be greedy.
I got a response sure enough about two weeks later. One afternoon a delivery truck showed up at 54 Oak Hill Lane and proceeded to off-load a PALLET of tracking charts, believe it, 5,000 in all and placed them all, neatly bundled in the family garage. I was stunned and as you might imagine my dad was not exactly thrilled when there now was no place to put the car. To this day I don't know how they interpreted my letter.
I asked for 50 or possibly 100 and if you multiply the two numbers you have the only answer I have been able to fathom so far. I called the company and they confirmed in the delivery paperwork the request was for 50 to 100 not 5,000, but they said I could keep them. Good Lord !
Of course girls, girls, girls played a big role in all our early and mid teenage years and a few of us had little or no idea why, well, early on anyway.
We had our school dances where parents and the nuns supervised, chaperoned, and drove most of us now very knowledgeable sophomore men a little crazy with their insight and orders. We were always told that when slow dancing with a girl to make sure there was room for your guardian angel between you and the girl. I did mention to one of my teachers once, that guardian angels were spirits and as such took up no room, I thought it was not only a brilliant statement, but very funny. She didn't think so, well at least around me and at the dances I always felt a pair of eyes in my direction were watching me closely.
We started a football team in year two as well. Just a game or two that first year as I recall but later on, in the senior year, we had an undefeated championship team. School rally's in last period on Friday's, the game on Saturday afternoon were the norm for the entire however long season. I went to most all the home and a few of the away games but my interests were clearly elsewhere.
At 16 years of age, a young man's thoughts turn to getting a driver's license, which back then was an essential in a young life because it meant a greater ability to "pick up chicks" as they used to say. Naturally to get the best break from any insurance company for a newly licensed driver, one must take a driver's education course by a certified school and teacher. So that was essential and I found a locallty owned school I had heard about that had a six week course of mostly private lessons.
We went through the entire course, well most of it before yet another unusual event happened one morning.
As I was proceeding around the streets of New Bedford, I was in a relatively crowded with parked cars on both sides doing my best to avoid drivers moving in the other direction and staying away from any parked vehicles. I clearly remember it as a laser focused number of moments.
Suddenly, the instructor who actually happened to own the company, started gasping for air and clutching his chest I heard gasping for breath and clutching his chest. I slowed almost to a stop right in the street and he said take me to St. Luke's hospital, I think I am having a heart attack. All in the same instant I understood that this was not a part of the course. All I thought of was keep your head on straight and get moving. As it turned out I was only perhaps a mile or so from the hospital at the time. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that something very serious was going on here. I honestly don't know how but my brain suddenly became like a GPS unit, weaving between the cars, the oncoming drivers and I found the hospital parking lot which in this case was also an entrance to the emergency room. I stopped the car right in the parking lot in an open section, undid thre seatbelt and jumped out running for the emergency entrance. I got the attention of two males, dressed in white, I assume some sort of emergency technicians but I really didn't care. They grabbed a gurney and ran with me to the car. He was placed on the gurney and taken away as I sat pretty much out of breath in the lot. I pulled in to a safe parking area after several minutes and went into the emergency room and told the attendents there who I was and what had happened. They called the man's home as all I had was basically his name and the name of the driving school.
The wife came to the hospital, talked with the attendents and a nurse I guess and then turned to me and asked if I was alright.
She thanked me for my quick thinking and for bringing him to the hospital. It turned out it was NOT a heart attack, at least in the strictest sense but all the very same symptoms were present. I never really found out the whole story to be honest but as long as he was OK, that's all that really mattered. I did get a nice letter about three weeks later that the course was paid in full.
I was now turning my attention to radio, becoming a celebrity was moving rapidly to the top of my agenda for life. I spent a fair amount of my free time either in a record shop in downtown New Bedford or being a groupie, fascinated by the people that were newsmen or DJ's at the local radio station WNBH-AM on County Street in New Bedford. My parking place many afternoons was at the radio station. I got to know all the staff from management to sales to on air people. It was a good relationship.
One thing led to another and before long I was basically allowed to be in the broadcast studio, or the newsroom, pretty much anytime I wanted to be with the approval of the on air or on duty news person.
The year was 1961. John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States and spent quite a few week-ends in Hyannisport at the compound there. My interest in news was apparent and the News Director at the time, a fellow named Jack Delaney noticed and offered me a position as an intern at $1.25 an hour. I was basically over the moon with the offer. Jack was a rough and tumble, his way or the highway kind of person. There were two gentlemen on the radio news staff named Cliff and Bob or Robert.
They both had a very healthy respect for Jack the news director that I would say bordered on a fear of him as their continued employment depended on it. You want to learn; you learn from me was his mantra.
He demanded that every story they aired had to have be confirmed by two reliable and credible sources.
He'd turn over in his grave if he watched the major networks and how they go about news today. Of course, initially at the age of 16 at the time, what was there to learn? I mean after a few weeks in he newsroom, I knew everything I needed or there was to know, but of course I would NEVER let him know that. So yes, I was in awe basically, but kept it tempered and today I can look in a mirror and say, thanks Jack.
Our relationship was excellent and he set up a trip for me with Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod where I would get to go on a mission with the crew, a full 8-10 hours on an
EC-121 aircraft known as the triple tail constellation.
He said I'd write a report on returning and if he liked it, I could tell the story on air. That was all I needed to hear.
I was absolutely hooked, yet again. The flight was a route up and down the east coast from like Massachusetts down to like Deleware and back and forth all day. Unfortunately, the weather that day cooperated and no story other than the experience really happened. So I made one up like what it would be like to do this mission in bad weather or even with a northeaster or hurricane in the vicinity. He liked the way the facts and the speculation made a good story, particularly from interviewing the crew aboard the aircraft as to how they would react in all sorts of scenarios and situations.
We aired it. I was now a newsman. First story down, thousands to go. One day, I was in the studio and was summoned to the station lobby. It was there I met Joey Dee, lead singer from a group back then called the Starlighters You remember the song Peppermint Twist. It was on it's way to the top of the pop charts as they were known then. Now, I just knew, I absolutely had to have a career as a DJ.
I got permission to spend evenings in the control room at the station with the DJ (Ed) who had the show called the "Triple "T" club every weeknight. Triple "T" stood for, Teens, Topics and Tunes, definitely 60's stuff. Can you imagine that title in today's world? I think not. Well one night a remote broadcast was scheduled at a place just across the harbor in Fairhaven, Massachusetts at a fast food place called Mr. Twenty. Everything was 20 cents, hamburgers, hot dogs, something that looked like salted seaweed on a bun, fries, cokes, everything.
We broadcast there for nearly two hours and had a few hundred members of the "club" Triple "T" in attendance. Great for business there as you might imagine. Also good for my delveloping ego as now everybody knew who this guy Bob was they heard about from Ed on the radio occassionally. As it turned out, I would guess that would be the start or my radio career, a sophomore in high school.
The next two years as it turned out would be the ride of a lifetime. Things really took off and that is next so "buckle up" and come along for the ride.