James Youth

Here are a few early photos from school and Revere Rd in late 1958-59. I was ten or eleven years old.

This picture was Christmas Eve. I was dressed to go to church for midnight mass at Church of Our Savior Episcopal Church. I was probably singing in the choir that night. We were allowed to open one present before going to church. I remember opening the box that had the cross that I am wearing in the picture. It had my name engraved on the back. I thought that was so cool. I am trying on a new bathrobe in this picture as well. I think I protested that the one gift rule didn’t apply if it was something I was supposed to open for the purpose of wearing to church. I remember wearing that cross outside my cassock.

You can see the tea cart under the window with the crocheted cloth my mother made from nylon tire cord. The mahogany beams in the ceiling were part of the house renovations completed for Mom & Pop’s twenty-fifth anniversary and sister Molly’s wedding.

Grade 1
Grade 2

Grade 6

 

Grade 7

 

Grade 8

 

Grade 12

 

Kickn’ John’s Butt

 

1958

 

 

 

 

The Purpose of Forgiveness

It was 1965, I was seventeen. I had begun working as an orderly at the St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. I started working at seventeen and under the age required by law. I was not asked to validate my birthdate when I completed the application and I figured I was in my eighteenth year, which was close enough.

I was living with Mom & Pop at the Merriman Rd house. I was working evenings and nights on a swing shift while going to Firestone High School. I was driving my Plymouth Satalite and dating Sandy Dako.

Pop was complaining about his feet hurting. I had seen patients in the hospital soak their sore feet after surgery and suggested we set him in a chair with his feet in a basin of hot water. I remember being on my knees, washing his feet, and thinking how vulnerable he must have felt. I became conscious of a level of understanding and forgiveness for all the pain and suffering he had caused me. I remember thinking, that if I were to meet this person on the street, I would walk on the other side because I would find him so distasteful. While at the same time thinking, he is my father, and in order to let these angry feelings go, all I had to do was make a decision to let go. I felt a profound feeling of release and relief, a sense of freedom, and a lift of pain off my shoulders. It was a serendipitous moment of reflection, resolve, and contentment in one moment of time.

Since that time I have repeatedly read and heard forgiveness is for the benefit of the victim, not the abuser. First the exam and then the lesson.

Soap Box Derby

When I was 11 years old I somehow talked my dad into helping me build a Soap Box Derby to race in the Akron Soap Box Derby.

My mom worked for Motor Cargo at the time, so she got me the sponsorship to pay for regulation wheels and axles along with some of the components. I was working at a record store at Fairlawn Plaza and contributed days of time and effort.  It was a blast and dad and I got to spend quality time together getting parts. I learned how to put soap on screws to help them thread into Oak Wood, which is very hard. I built two more. The last one I finished in 7th-grade shop class at Litchfield Jr. High.

Here are some pictures of construction and finished derby`s This one actually won one heat. Awesome.

A Miracle Baby Is Born

Sometime in the months before I was born, my mom was told that she had a tumor on her ovary and would require surgery to remove it. They conducted what was called then, the rabbit test for pregnancy. It came back negative in that the rabbit lived – how archaic. When they opened my mom up, they found along with a tumor, a baby. No one can explain the negative pregnancy test, but I was determined to arrive in my own time.

My sister wanted a baby sister so much that they had named me Peggy Anne in expectation. Fooled them even then. When one of my parents called my sister, Molly to tell her that I was a boy, she sobbed. To console her, I imagine, mom asked her to name her baby brother. She had a friend from school, or church named James, so that became my name. Sister Molly tells the story much better than I do.

Here is what was going on in 1948;

The pictures of me as a model in a high chair that changed into a rocker and small desk has always brought back one of my first memories. Mom and Dad had a friend that had invented this chair that could convert without taking the child out. I remember having had just about enough of being juggled as they changed the positions and began to cry.  The picture of me reaching out was when they held my green frog, that would stick it’s tongue out when squeezed always brought a belly laugh out of me. To get me to stop crying, they held that frog out in front of me and I reached for it. My sister always says that I was a “pretty baby”. I maintained blond hair until about four years old – the curls lasted until late in life.

I remember having the shoes in my possession until a teenager. I guess I thought I would bronze them some day.