We stopped late one night in Pennsylvania to put more oil on the car and it would not pour out of the can. We had intended to spend the night in a nearby town with Skip's brother so we just drove the rest of the way. When we arrived we found out that it was 15 degrees below zero and that was why the oil would not pour!
My mother died in 1938 and the following winter my dad and I went to Florida for two weeks. We stayed in a tourist home in Orlando and drove around the state to places of interest. I was in love with the girl next door at the time and couldn't wait to get home. I probably made my father come back sooner than he would have liked for that reason. However, when I got home, she had become engaged to someone else and they eventually married. Oh--such is life! We drove all the way to Florida and back and only made one wrong turn. That was in Dansville, New York and so close to home that it didn't make any difference.
When Gordon returned from Nebraska, he started painting by himself. I never knew why, but he always worked alone and had his own line of customers. When work was hard to get just after the depression in the early 1930's, Leon got a job as a painter at Brigham Hall. He worked all his years there, for low wages, just for job security. He built a house on Chapin Street just across from our house. We dug the foundation with a scoop pulled by Clarence's panel bodied truck and a chain. We also used a wheelbarrow and shovels. He put up a ready-cut house from Sears and Roebuck that cost $4,500. All the pieces came cut and numbered, with instructions to tell you how to put it together. He hired one carpenter and all of us boys to help him. This must have been in the early thirties and the house is still a nice looking one. Last year I noticed that they put on vinyl siding. Leon had to sell it years later for financial reasons and has had to rent since that time as he never made enough money to buy again.
Dad, Clarence and I painted together and my father arranged all the work and did the collecting. Clarence did most of the high work and Dad did the open places as he was a fast painter. I did the windows and became good at it. We worked together well by each doing what he could do best. That saved time and money. When my father was in his 70's he could spread more paint than the rest of us, although he began to miss spots when his eye sight was beginning to go. My uncles Jim and Ed were in the painting business also; Uncle Ed wore a tie and a celluloid collar all his life, even when painting in hot weather. His wife did all the book keeping for him.
In 1939 my father married my Aunt Constance and I guess he thought she was like my mother. She was just the opposite and I don't think my father enjoyed life as much after that. He worked right up until his death at age 75. He used to get up with the sun and work in the Garden or mow the lawn until it was time to go to work. He was a very good bowler and traveled to cities in the area to bowl for money. I recall one time when he won $100 in Auburn. One time he and Leon went with a team to bowl in the national tournament in Chicago. When he married again I moved out of the house and rented a room on South Main Street, staying there about a year before moving to another place just below Clark Street on Main. I also lived there about a year.
There was a diner next to where I was living--one of those diners made from an old trolley car--and I ate my meals there for two years. I got to know them so well that I would just walk in the diner, tell them I wanted dinner, and they would fix me a plate. I never did know what I would be getting until it was in front of me. On the nights I was going to square dances I would tell them to give me fried foods so the alcohol would not give me too much of a hangover. The food was good and they gave you a lot of it. In the winter I remember the windows being all frosted over and you couldn't see in or out.
I rented a garage just around the corner on Clark Street where I kept my car. One night after going to a Saturday night dance, I put the car in the garage. The next morning when I went to get it I noticed it had a flat tire. The garage floor was dirt and the wheels were down in hollows. The snow had melted off the car and all four wheels were frozen in the ice in the hollows. It was such a narrow garage I had to back the car out to change the tire. It was frozen so solid I had to get the jack out and put it from the bumper to the front of the garage and jack it backwards to get it loose. Not too easy when you have a hangover! Sundays I would get together with a couple of friends and we would ride to Bristol or around the lake and go to a movie in the evening. We were riding around the lake and parked somewhere up the East Lake Road on December 7, 1941 when we heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
Sometime during 1941 I went to Rochester to find another car and found a 1936 Pontiac that looked almost new for $450. My old car was using a lot of oil and I had it parked in front of the used car lot. When the dealer was checking out my car for trade in value, I was hoping he would not start it up because when you did so the smoke was so thick you'd hardly see the car! I was lucky and made a deal. I had to drive back to Canandaigua for the money and once again to Rochester to close the deal. Just on that one trip I had to add four quarts of oil. Good thing it lasted the trip as the Pontiac was a real nice car.
In the fall of 1941 we had very little work and it was time for me to find work somewhere else. I had been called by Uncle Sam, had my physical and reported to the draft board. I was classified 4-F due to flat feet and a hernia (which I still have and was never bothered by). I wanted to be in service somewhere and so I went to Rochester and tried to join the Marines or the Navy. I even tried to get into the ambulance corps. With my 4-F status I couldn't get into anything. I borrowed $10 from my father and applied at about ten places in Rochester. This was the only time in my life that I borrowed money except for when I bought a car or house.
During this time some of my friends were entering the service. This was between Pearl Harbor and April of 1942. Pete Lenzi decided to hitch-hike to California and, if he couldn't find work, to join the Marines. He took one suitcase and I gave him a ride as far as Avon, letting him out at the statue in the center of the village. I'll write more about Pete later. Ken Montanye entered the army and we had a big party for him at the camp in Berby Hollow. Len Pierce also joined up about a month before I did.