Posts tagged ‘life’
NEWARK RIOTS
A scar on my memory
It was a summer morning in 1967. The buses were running late, and I soon found out why. I think it was the lack of knowledge I had that morning that, helped in part, to make me the news junkie I am today.
I was in college now, and had two summer jobs, I still had my job at the newsstand working my usual Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, and I had started a new job. With a strong interest in science, I am studying biochemistry in college and wanted to find a job where I could gain some kind of practical laboratory training. I wrote to all the hospitals I could think of in the Newark area and asked if there was a lab job available. To my great surprise I got a positive reply from Presbyterian Hospital and an offer to work in their hospital laboratory. I found out after I had started the job that most of the summer positions went to doctor’s children and at the last moment someone decided that the job was not for them, and I guess my letter must have shown up at just the right time.
When I reported for work at Presbyterian Hospital to begin my summer job, I was shown into one of many small rooms that made up the hospital laboratory and was giver the job of dipping urinalysis sticks into urine samples and told that someday I might be able to spin down the urine and look at it under the microscope. This was not the exciting summer job that would bring me the lab experience that I had hoped to gain. But beggars can’t be choosers, so I decided to stick it out for the summer. After a few days of dipping into urine, someone came around the lab and asked for volunteers to go across the street and work in the Children’s Hospital that was affiliated with Presbyterian. I figured that the job could not get more boring than what I was doing now so off I went.
After I had volunteered, people around me told me that I had made a major mistake and that soon I would see the error of my ways. So, the next day I showed up for work at Children’s Hospital and asked for directions to the lab. When I found it, I was greeted not by a huge anonymous operation, but a rather small room with just a bench for each area such as urinalysis, hematology and blood chemistry. The hospital was fairly small so I should have anticipated this but, of course, I didn’t. But I did find out why I had been discouraged from coming to this lab. For there was no place to hide and you really had to work.
With a little training, I went from dipping urinalysis sticks to doing all the complete urinalysis for the hospital every day, making out the reports and initialing them. If the doctors only knew who W.T. was would they have been surprised. After I was done with the urine, I would drift over to blood chemistry and with some training was soon reporting results from that bench. I was having a ball. And as the summer progressed and some of the technicians went on vacation, I was covering all the urinalysis and blood chemistry. This was also before the days of strict laboratory practices when dealing with human samples. I was mouth pipetting human serum and plasma with what are now old-fashioned glass pipettes and of course wore no gloves but I had a great time and felt I really contributed something because they were so short-staffed.
I began my workday at the hospital laboratory at 8 o’clock in the morning, worked till about four then went home, had something to eat and worked at the newsstand from 6 to 11 P.M. I awoke one morning when I knew I would be working both jobs and got ready to go to work at the hospital. My main task was to have some breakfast and get to the bus stop on time; I seldom had time for the news. The buses usually ran fairly regularly, but for some reason today the bus was late – very late. Finally, when I did see the bus coming, my bus was part of a convoy of about four buses. So I got on, found a seat and was ready for the usual thirty-to-forty-minute ride to work, but this ride would be different than any ride to work that I had had before.
As I rode past the intersection of Broad & Market Streets, and past the newsstand where I was to work that night, I could see flames rolling out of the storefronts of some of the nearby businesses. The streets were crowded with fire engines and police cars. There also seemed to be more activity than normal on the streets.
Once I made it to the hospital, I found out what was going on, riots had broken out in Newark, starting the night before in the downtown area. All that day I could look down on the street from the lab window and see convoys of state police cars and jeeps with mounted and manned machine guns, a truly eerie sight to witness in your hometown. During the workday, I called my boss at the newsstand and asked if he was going to stay open that night. At first he said he would but later changed his mind, much to my relief. I think that in all the years I worked there, this was the first time the newsstand had been closed without there being a major snowstorm.
That afternoon, instead of catching the bus home, my cousins called and asked if I would want to be picked up after work and that sounded pretty good to me. While riding home, you saw sandbag emplacements with machine guns in the middle of the downtown area. The city had changed – scarred forever. Anger that had long been buried rose into full view. I also found out the next day that a man had been shot and killed at my bus stop.
The nights in the Down Neck section were quiet for the next few days due to the curfew in effect for all of Newark. Our area of the city, being far from the riots, was like a ghost town. There was no activity on the streets at all.
I have not revisited the area of the riots for years, so I have no idea what the area looks like now. I do remember that for years after the riots, once the burned-out homes and stores were torn down, the lots remained vacant, whole city blocks where nothing existed, only the rubble of human folly, anger and injustice. One can only imagine how lives were changed forever on that day when the buses ran late.
NEWARK: SUNDAY DRIVES
A long gone tradition.
There existed a tradition back years ago that has not survived to the present, at least not to the extent that it existed back then – the Sunday drive. With today’s complex society and fast-paced lifestyles, to say nothing of gas prices, no one just drives for the sake of driving, unless you’re a teenager with a brand-new car. Every time you get in the car there is a definite destination at the end of the trip. But when I was a kid, many times the trip would start at home and finish at home with nothing in between except burning gas.
On Sunday afternoons my family would pile into the old Chevy and off we would go, unencumbered by seat belts, piled high with blankets if the drive was during the winter – which was rare. The blankets were necessary because, back then, heaters were an option and our Chevy was a bare-bones model. The route we took was more or less the same every week. It got to where I would know when my father would turn, when we would change lanes, never straying from the usual Sunday afternoon course.
We would leave our house in the city and venture out into the ‘country’. For me, the country was anywhere where the houses did not sit one beside the other, places with lawns and an occasional open field and a total lack of any kind of industry. On our journey we would go, past housing developments and until finally sighting an open field or pasture. We would journey down roads bordered by store after store, but being Sunday, many of the stores were closed. The only stores open for business were grocery and drug stores.
You see, these were the days of the ‘blue laws’ in New Jersey. On Sunday, there were certain items you could buy and certain items you couldn’t. For example, you could buy food but not any type of clothing. We had these huge Wal Mart type stores that sold everything, the section that sold food was open but there were ropes across the aisles that sold clothes. This could be the reason for Sunday drives! You see malls did not yet exist – and if they had most of the stores would be closed or at least partially roped off. We all know, especially those of us lucky enough to have teenagers, that the mall is The Destination. There were also small shore communities that would, on Sundays, put sawhorses across the streets leading into town. No cars are allowed on the streets on Sunday.
Our journey would last long, hours, but they were never far. My father was the opposite of a lead-footed driver. He was more of a feather foot. It was before the interstate highway system came into existence, so speedy travel did not exist as it does today and my father was not a fast driver. There were times we would take a ride ‘down the shore’ towards Asbury Park. My mother would pack lunch and halfway there we would pull over onto the shoulder and eat, then continue on our trip. When I was older, and started to drive, I would retrace this journey, and it would take me less than an hour.
There was, however, one detour that we kids loved. On our Sunday drives, we would occasionally make a stop at the doughnut man’s bus. This was before there were any doughnut store chains. This made the outing a great joy for everyone. The man had bought a school bus and converted it into a mobile doughnut shop – complete with cooking facilities. He parked his brown and white school bus on the shoulder of a four-lane highway – always the same place of course – and sell doughnuts, either plain or powdered sugar. How we kids loved those doughnuts, most of the time it was still warm. One of the kids would get out with mom to go up to the window to make the doughnut purchase. If he saw a kid, he would present the buyer with a bag of doughnut pieces – mistakes that occurred during the doughnut making. And of course, the bag of doughnut pieces was free. I know people like that still exist. Businesspeople whose bottom line is to see a child’s eyes light up, but they are few and far between.
The other destination that might be visited was the driving range. This stop I could never figure out – not to this day. Here was my father, a toggler in a tannery, who to the best of my knowledge, had never even been on a golf course, stopping to hit some golf balls. I never even saw my father play miniature golf, but there were the Triznas at the driving range hitting buckets of balls. I of course would aim for the jeep driving around with its protective cage gathering the golf balls, later on I actually would hit for distance. I can’t remember how long our driving range phase lasted, a few months, maybe a year, but it soon slipped into the past. As we got older we kids played miniature golf. But after our driving range phase was over, my father did not pick up a golf club again.
WALT TRIZNA: A NEWARK MEMORY
GRANDPARENTS
My grandparents, my father’s mother and father lived only a few miles outside Newark in Hillside, New Jersey, but they lived in a different world. They came to this country from Czechoslovakia, although my father’s birth certificate listed his parent’s home country as Hungary. The boarders changed in the beginning of the twentieth century thanks to World War I and this might explain discrepancy. They brought with them one daughter and first settled in Newark and then moved to Hillside, which was where my father was raised.
Hillside is a quiet community composed of mostly one- and two-family houses giving it a less dense population than my area of Newark. It had some industry, Bristol Myers had a plant located along the main street of this small community, but for the most part it was a quiet place to live. And even though my grandparents’ street ran perpendicular to the Bristol Myers location, there was very little through traffic. It was a quiet street where you could always find a parking place.
My grandparents owned a double lot with a small house on one side and a garden and lawn on the other. My grandmother loved flowers, especially roses. I remember two long rows of flowers with space between for tending and weeding. The garden area nearest the street was where the rose bushes grew. She had a large assortment of types and whenever we visited we usually came away with a bouquet of roses.
We would usually visit my grandparents on summer evenings after we were finished with supper. We would climb into the car and in ten or fifteen minutes we would be parked in front of their house. Now, in reality, we would be visiting only my grandmother for my grandfather would be fast asleep. Every day of the year, for as long as I could remember he would be in bed by five o’clock. He would have an early dinner then go into the cellar for his one cigarette and his one bottle of beer for the day, then off to bed. So we would arrive at their house in Hillside, pull out the chairs stored under the back stairs and talk with my grandmother, watching the evening come on and looking out at the lightning bugs.
Life seemed to be slow-paced there. You didn’t feel the underlying tenseness that you felt many times while walking Newark’s streets. Even as a young boy I could feel the relaxation coming on as we entered Hillside.
When I was perhaps ten years old, I started going to my grandparents for summer vacation. I was the only child in my family that did this. I would pack my things and spend a week in Hillside, which seemed like an oasis to me, a change of pace from the city life in Newark.
There were a few boys my age that lived on my grandparents’ street. During my first few summers there I spent in the garden catching butterflies by day and lightning bugs at night. During the summer, even in Newark, the bathroom window would be crammed with jars full of various insects and spiders – all for the study of a pre teenage boy. But after a couple of years catching insects in my grandparents’ yard, I ventured out onto their street and made friends with a couple of the other kids in the neighborhood. Then one summer I spent most of my week on the other kid’s front porches, just hanging out, talking and spitting. For some reason they all spit a lot and I acquired the habit.
Another favorite pastime of my vacation on Hillside was walks with my grandfather. We would set out for long walks in the neighborhood or sometimes we would walk to Weequahic Park, which was more than a mile away, so this was a real adventure. He must have been in his 70’s by then. He always seemed to be rather formally dressed for walks with dark pants and a dress shirt, no shorts and tee shirts for grandpa. And he always wore high-topped shoes that would crunch small stones on the sidewalk, for some reason that crunching sound has stayed with me all these years, the confident step of an elderly man who knew the way and allowed me to follow. His eyesight was poor, the result of his profession, an engraver. You could always tell when grandpa was about to say something, which wasn’t often. He had this habit of clearing his throat before he spoke and his voice always sounded a little forced.
On our long walks we would talk, but I really didn’t get to know my grandfather, not really know him, for he never talked about what was important to him. This was long before men were supposed to bear their souls, beat drums and hug. The same was true of my father, never really talked much about what was important to him in his own life, and to some extent the same is true with me. Many times, when there is something really important to me I tend not to discuss it, although I’m sure my children would agree that I can beat a subject to death over dinner. But sometimes the overwhelming daily grind and my personality get in the way of really communicating. So, looking back on those walks, and my life with my father, I am truly their grandson and son.
THE DAY KENEDY DIED
This piece has appeared on my blog in the past but I thought it appropriate that it appears again today.
THE DAY KENNEDY DIED
November is the month of thanksgiving, when the weather no longer bounces between summer and winter, when the chill of fall sets in with a vengeance preparing us for the hard cold of winter. It is also the month Kennedy died.
During November 1963 I was a junior at East Side High School. I already had a deep interest in science and forfeited my study hall to work in the school biology lab. I designed an experiment to study Mendelian heredity. The experiment required two black and two white mice, which I purchased, and began mating the mice in all the various combinations possible, trying to predict the color of the littermates. I soon ran out of space in the cellar where I was keeping my mouse colony and asked permission to move my many mice to school. During the experiment, I took meticulous notes, recording much more than I really needed to. One quirk of the mice, which totally threw off my experimental results, was the fact that they sometimes eat their young. When nervous or upset, they would chew off the chord and wouldn’t know when to stop, leaving only the head and a small piece of protruding backbone. I pressed on, until I began seeing litters of mice with brown siblings, something I had not anticipated. This brought an end to my experiment and an introduction to the unpredictability of science.
It was while I was working in the school lab one November Friday afternoon that someone came in and said that the president had been shot. I recall reacting to the news with horror and disbelief. The emotions of that moment will always stay with me, the sense of experiencing a moment that defied all logic, the vitality of our president in jeopardy. I had the sense that the world had changed; this quiet November afternoon would become a milestone in history. All I knew was that the president had been shot; there was still hope of survival as I headed home from school that day. But as I walked the mile and a half home from school, I saw something I shall never forget, something that dimmed my hope. On my way I saw clusters of people standing on corners and most were crying. The residents of Newark are not known for their emotional displays, so this sight was disturbing. It was the first signal I had that the worst had occurred, that the country, the world had changed forever.
When I reached home, my father was already there, not unusual for he began work early in the morning and was home before me most of the time. I would find him sitting in the kitchen with his beer and paper, but today he was in the parlor watching the TV and he was crying too, something I recalled seeing only once before. The last time I saw my father cry was when my mother lost a baby girl shortly after birth. Ironically, my sister died almost the same time the Kennedy’s lost their child and also for the same reason, underdeveloped lungs. As my father sat weeping before the TV, he told me that the president had died.
The days that followed seemed unreal. Long before the age of cable and satellite dishes, there were just three major networks and a few independent New York stations broadcasting to Newark. All normal broadcasting ceased; TV carried nothing but news and insight into the assassination. On the radio, all normal programming ceased. The radio played nothing but somber music and news of the assassination. Everyone watched the news all weekend, watching history unfold before our eyes. Shortly after Kennedy died, Oswald was captured. The nation viewed live, the instrument of their sorrow. We watched Oswald’s murder at the hands of Jack Ruby, adding confusion on top of the misery. Everyone’s thoughts were in turmoil as these historic events concluded with JFK Jr. saluting his father’s casket.
The day Kennedy died, I learned something of the unpredictability of life.
WALT TRIZNA: PILOT TRAINING, PART I
I thought I would use the next series of posts to relate my experience while a member of the United States Air Force (1969-1973). I found my experience in the military to be rewarding. We will begin with my entering pilot training. For those who find these posts interesting you might want to read a past post about my time in college posted on 10/17/2025. This post leads into my time in the air force.
PILOT TRAINING, PART I
Not many days after graduation from Oklahoma State University I was instructed to report for pilot training at Craig AFB outside Selma, Alabama.
The class was made up of twenty to twenty-five, and the number steadily decreased as time went on. Most were air force second lieutenants with one Marine first lieutenant and three Iranian officers.
This was 1969 and this country was training Iranian pilots. There was one thing different with their future than with the Americans. They entered pilot training as officers with a career commitment. If they washed-out they still had a career commitment but as enlisted men.
The leader of the class was Captain Rotella. He had been a navigator and now wanted to be a pilot. I heard that after he graduated from pilot training he was assigned to C130 training. He was on an orientation ride on a C130 when an engine fell off the plane. The plane crashed and all aboard were killed.
The first plane we flew in pilot training was the T41 which was a Cessna 172. A four-seat plane slightly larger than the two-seat Cessna 150 on which I learned to fly. Interestingly, we went to a civilian airport where the planes were kept and were taught by civilian instructors. This makes a lot of sense because you wouldn’t want students flying prop planes while there were jets, also being flown by students, zooming around.
Since most of us already knew how to fly we were soloing in no time.
There is one incident I recall while flying solo in the T41 that was rather unusual. I was flying in the traffic pattern on the downwind leg when I received a radio call to exit the traffic pattern. Turns out there was an Iranian student also in the traffic pattern who was radioed to leave the pattern a couple of time and did not respond. They told me where he was, and I looked behind me to my left and a little below and there he was. We were flying in formation in the traffic pattern. With, of course, no knowledge of how to fly in formation. Things would have gotten very interesting when it came time to bank and enter the base leg. I exited the traffic pattern immediately.
Once we completed our T41 training it was on to the T37. This was a small twin engine straight-winged jet and flight training was now at the base. I found that flying a jet was much different than flying a propeller plane. More on that latter.
COLLEGE AND LEARNING TO FLY, CONTINUED
But after trials and tribulation and hour of flight training, I had learned how to fly.
A few days after graduation and being commissioned as a second lieutenant I went to Selm, Alabama and Air Force flight training. That was an interesting experience, while it lasted.
But an incident occurred before I entered the air force which was one of the first fork-in-the-road which could have changed my life. But fortunately, for me, the decision for my future had already been made. What follows is the possible detour which came into play.
It was at the end of my sophomore year at Oklahoma State University that I was seeking a summer job with a scientific connection. I wrote letters and one letter I wrote was to Presbyterian Hospital looking for a job in their lab. Much to my surprise, I got a job. Later I found out that the only reason I got the job was because a doctor’s son got it first but backed out.
When I arrived at work the first day I found the floor where the lab was located was a series of labs each on devoted to a different area of testing. I was assigned to the urinalysis lab where I was given the task of dropping a plastic strip with a variety of colored squares measuring a different characteristic of urine. Protein content, pH, conditions like that. The squares would change color indicating the value of the characteristic involved. That was it. That was all I was taught to do.
A few days after I began work I was told to go to a children’s hospital a block away associated with Presbyterian. A few workers told me how unlucky I was to be told to work there. My future seemed less than promising.
Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Instead of a series of labs the lab consisted of one room, and not a large room at that. There was another summer student working there. He was assigned to run the tests for microbiology. I was assigned to run tests for everything else.
I was in charge of urinalysis. The complete test which involved the same plastic strips but also the macroscopic portion of the test. I was taught to recognize the various crystals and other characteristics found in urine.
I also learned to do chemistries on blood serum. This was in the mid 1960’s, long before safety was a concern. No gloves in use and the serum was pipetted by mouth.
Blood counts were also part of my load. But here, I was not doing the microscopic part of the test. I also determined the sodium/potassium values for the blood.
I was busy and felt that I was making a contribution. I also kept in mind that I was not licensed or formally trained to do any of this work. But it was summer, and they were short-staffed and the only one who seemed to have these concerns was me.
The director of this small lab was a pathologist, so as a bonus, I got to witness autopsies.
I worked in the lab for the summers before my junior year and senior year in college. When I was at work the summer before my senior year I was told that the director of all the labs wanted to see me. I could not imagine what this was about.
Now remember, I was in Air Force ROTC. If you continued in ROTC beyond your sophomore year, at the beginning of your junior year you raised your hand and were sworn into the air force. So, when I went to see the lab director I was already committed to entering the air force upon graduation.
Well, when I met with the director I realized the work I had been doing had been recognized and appreciated. The reason he wanted to see me was to ask me if he could write a letter of recommendation for me to medical school. Usually, it was the other way around. I told him that I was committed to enter the air force after graduation and there was no turning back from that obligation. Also, I was going to be entering pilot training.
That was the first possible detour in my future. It was also a good thing for medicine for I am not a people person.
Next, pilot training.
WALT TRIZNA: COLLEGE AND LEARNING TO FLY
Recently I’ve been posting chapters of my memoir started 25 years ago remembering my childhood in Newark, New Jersey. Now I’m going to share some memories of when I was much older.
COLLEGE AND LEARNING TO FLY
Previously, I listed my two dream professions, science and writing, and along the way you will see how things worked out.
One benefit I see in old slowly becomes apparent as the years progress. oh, there are all the aches and pains. Not being able to do the things you once did or want to do. But now you have time to think and reflect on your life. Looking at what you accomplished and failed to accomplish.
Let me say now that there is nothing I wanted to do in life that I did not do. My disappointment is not achieving the level in my accomplishments that I had hoped for.
One dream, which I mentioned earlier was learning how to fly.
Upon entering Oklahoma State University I enrolled in Air Force ROTC. One of the enlisted men working in the unit said those initials stood for ‘rapers of tiny children’ demonstrating a certain lack of his respect for future officers and probably what most enlisted men thought of second lieutenants. After taking a written test and having a physical, I found that I had qualified for pilot training. When you qualify the government pays for 36 and ½ hours of flight training during your senior year.
I was going to learn how to fly.
Now, Oklahoma can be rather windy at times. I flew twice a week. Once in the early morning and once in the afternoon. In the morning the air was like silk. The afternoons were another story. At times I felt as if I were one with the little two-seat Cessna 150 I was flying during those morning flights.
After about six hours of instructions, I was flying with my instructor shooting touch-and -goes when he had me stop on the runway got out of the plane and I was on my own flying the traffic pattern. Now, my instructor was not a big guy, but as soon as I took off I notice how different the little plane handled.
Now, about flying in the afternoon, conditions were quite different than my morning flying. In the afternoon thermals were beginning to develop. You would be flying over land and then over a lake and you and your plane got quite a jolt because of the thermals developed over both types of surfaces.
And the wind!
One windy day I came in for a landing. Tried as I might, I could not keep the plane over the runway. It was that windy. Finally, I had to go around, enter the traffic pattern, and try again. I might mention that on the runway where I was trying to land I had seen a Boeing 707 land.
There was another incident worth mentioning. I have no sense of direction. My family kids me about that. I was flying solo cross-country. Just a short flight of maybe a hundred miles or so. Shortly after taking off, I felt my instrument I was using for direction was wrong and decided to depend on my instincts. Big mistake. I had my map on my knee and soon there were lakes on the ground which weren’t on the map. Something told me those lakes were not formed since the map was published. I was lost. I saw a small town with a water tower. These towers usually have the name of the town on them. Not this tower. Finally, I saw a small airport. Looking at my map and the configuration of the runways I was able to identify the airport and now knew my location. I also noticed that railroad tracks ran from the tow to the route I was supposed to be on. So flying over the tracks I was back in business.
WALT TRIZNA: THE DAY KENNEDY DIED
THE DAY KENNEDY DIED
November is the month of thanksgiving, when the weather no longer bounces between summer and winter, when the chill of fall sets in with a vengeance preparing us for the hard cold of winter. It is also the month Kennedy died.
During November 1963 I was a junior at East Side High School. I already had a deep interest in science and forfeited my study hall to work in the school biology lab. I designed an experiment to study Mendelian heredity. The experiment required two black and two white mice, which I purchased, and began mating the mice in all the various combinations possible, trying to predict the color of the littermates. I soon ran out of space in the cellar where I was keeping my mouse colony and asked permission to move my many mice to school. During the experiment, I took meticulous notes, recording much more than I really needed to. One quirk of the mice, which totally threw off my experimental results, was the fact that they sometimes eat their young. When nervous or upset, they would chew off the chord and wouldn’t know when to stop, leaving only the head and a small piece of protruding backbone. I pressed on, until I began seeing litters of mice with brown siblings, something I had not anticipated. This brought an end to my experiment and an introduction to the unpredictability of science.
It was while I was working in the school lab one November Friday afternoon that someone came in and said that the president had been shot. I recall reacting to the news with horror and disbelief. The emotions of that moment will always stay with me, the sense of experiencing a moment that defied all logic, the vitality of our president in jeopardy. I had the sense that the world had changed; this quiet November afternoon would become a milestone in history. All I knew was that the president had been shot; there was still hope of survival as I headed home from school that day. But as I walked the mile and a half home from school, I saw something I shall never forget, something that dimmed my hope. On my way I saw clusters of people standing on corners and most were crying. The residents of Newark are not known for their emotional displays, so this sight was disturbing. It was the first signal I had that the worst had occurred, that the country, the world had changed forever.
When I reached home, my father was already there, not unusual for he began work early in the morning and was home before me most of the time. I would find him sitting in the kitchen with his beer and paper, but today he was in the parlor watching the TV and he was crying too, something I recalled seeing only once before. The last time I saw my father cry was when my mother lost a baby girl shortly after birth. Ironically, my sister died almost the same time the Kennedy’s lost their child and also for the same reason, underdeveloped lungs. As my father sat weeping before the TV, he told me that the president had died.
The days that followed seemed unreal. Long before the age of cable and satellite dishes, there were just three major networks and a few independent New York stations broadcasting to Newark. All normal broadcasting ceased; TV carried nothing but news and insight into the assassination. On the radio, all normal programming ceased. The radio played nothing but somber music and news of the assassination. Everyone watched the news all weekend, watching history unfold before our eyes. Shortly after Kennedy died, Oswald was captured. The nation viewed live, the instrument of their sorrow. We watched Oswald’s murder at the hands of Jack Ruby, adding confusion on top of the misery. Everyone’s thoughts were in turmoil as these historic events concluded with JFK Jr. saluting his father’s casket.
The day Kennedy died, I learned something of the unpredictability of life.
WALT TRIZNA: DOWNNECK NEWARK
DOWNNECK
I began my life on August 1947 in Newark, New Jersey, the Down Neck section, and lived in that city, in the same house, the same cold water flat for nearly twenty years. This section of Newark is still known by this name for a few years ago, on a train to New York with my wife and two daughters, we passed a sign for a pizza place that stated, ‘ A DOWN NECK TRADITION’. My hometown is along the eastern edge of the city, not far from Newark Bay and the bridges leading into Jersey City. It is also referred to, as the Ironbound Section, gaining its name from the railroad tracks that ring the area and known for the light and heavy industry. Small factories existed amongst the two and four family homes and tenements that predominated the area. The mingling of homes and factories was a mixture ready for disaster. Even the Passaic River, flowing through the area was known to catch fire.
One Good Friday afternoon, during my teenage years, while getting ready for church I noticed the sky turning black. At first I thought a storm was approaching but soon realized that somewhere a huge fire was burning. I went outside to see what was going up in flames. Immediately, I was being joined by scores of people seeking the same exciting rush of a fire. Walking up Ferry Street, one of the major streets of the area, I could see that the coke trestle was on fire. As I approached to within a couple of blocks of the source of all the smoke, fifty-five-gallon drums full of God knows what began to explode. The situation went from the usual spectacle of a fire to people running for their lives as the drums shot flames into the air and rained debris – smoking pieces of trestle – down around the scattering people who had moments before been spectators. Needless to say, everyone got out of there fast. Some had to go home and wet down their roofs because some of the debris and embers were falling and starting other houses on fire. This made for a memorable afternoon; ten to fifteen houses along with the trestle were lost.
Our house was lucky, because we stood literally in the shadows of Balentine Brewery. Across the street from our house was a four-story building, which was part office building, part garage and truck wash located on the lower level. This structure, along with many others on the surrounding city blocks, owned by Balentine, created Newark’s life’s blood, Balentine beer and ale. This building stood between the fire and us, so it bore the brunt of the embers and debris raining down on the houses on my block.
The reason I mention this event is to lend a flavor to what life was like back then, and what life was like in Newark. Life happened and the consequences accepted – right or wrong – that’s how it was and when life went less than perfectly, you just moved on. Life did not always treat people well, but they endured, didn’t whine about their state in life. They took responsibility for their actions. They all didn’t prosper, yet people didn’t step on one another to get ahead.
Things were not always politically correct either. In fact, I cannot recall anything about my time as a youth in Newark that was politically correct. For example, I once had a math teacher toward the end of my high school career with a bit of a temper. One day during class, there were a few guys talking in the rear of the classroom. My teacher blew up. He yelled at the class, “Do you know what is wrong with you guys? Not enough of you drop out of school. If you don’t want to learn, you’re wasting everyone’s time by staying in school. You’re just holding people who want to learn back.” I do not think there exists the honesty today to say that before a class of unruly students.
People were once able to observe the world, analyze their surroundings, draw on their common sense and speak their mind. That age is long gone, but it still echoes Down Neck’s past. The talking heads of today say we all have the same potential if only given the right circumstances or drug therapy. Nonsense! Twelve years or more of education are given free to each member of our society. Granted, the conditions under which the education is applied varies along a wide spectrum. And when there is a breakdown in the educational goals meant to be accomplished, as happens all to often, it is always the fault of the system and never the individual. The usual solution is to throw more money at the problem, but until the real problem is addressed, this will never help. The individual student along with their parents carries the burden of responsibility and the older the student the more directly responsible for their education. These seem to be times of a total lack of responsibility of the individual. Whenever someone makes a really boneheaded move, there is always something that happened to him either done by his family or society that was the cause of that action. We live in a time of not guilty because of whatever reason other than my own actions. Of course, in some cases a person’s life gets completely out of control, but the excuses people create these days for their actions is sometimes unbelievable.
The theory that we all have the same potential also totally negates that one thing that has, in my eyes, an influence equal to education in persons potential, the influence of personality. Those who succeed are those who realize they must seize the opportunity, the knowledge and go forward. It takes personal drive, ambition and purpose along with a strong education. This is the combination that makes a successful individual.
And what is success? This can mean so many different quantities, depending on an individual. Does success mean money, fame, family, a life free of conflict or a life full of conflict and challenge? The levels, the goals we attain, depend to a large extent on education. But what we do when we arrive at our goals and the life we mold around those accomplishments depends on personality.
I know I digress, but the purpose of this effort is to point out my view of the mindset of today and how my upbringing, my environment has formed my mindset. So we’ll return now to my past, to Newark’s past, and see this mindset take form.
Balentine brewery ruled the Down Neck section of Newark, with a major factory and office complex that stretched for blocks. Across from our house was the office and garage. Next to that building was a parking lot that stretched to the next parallel street, and taking up the last third of the block was the catholic school, which was part of Saint Aloysius parish. The brewery’s lot was a remarkable sight when a storm was approaching, with workers just standing there waiting, leaning on their snow shovels looking toward the sky. God help the first snowflake that fell and all its partners for they were gone in an instant. Our street was never clogged with snow; the beer trucks had to roll out of the parking lot unhampered. They did not move the snow they removed the snow, taking and dumping it in the Passaic River. At times, long after the parking lot was cleared of snow, the city streets were opened. The beer was delivered but the city government took a while to get going.
As I mentioned earlier, the building across from our house housed the truck wash for cleaning the beer trucks and the tractor trailer cabs, an endless procession of dark blue trucks sporting three golden rings. Our street was a narrow street with parking on both sides, and the locals knew not to park their cars directly across from the truck wash exit. Now the reason lies in the fact that they knew that instead of coffee breaks some of the drivers took beer breaks. Once the truck was washed, they would have to exit the building and make a sharp left, and sometimes the left was not quite sharp enough, as the unsuspecting person who found a good parking spot and could not figure out why it was vacant found out when they returned to their slightly bent automobiles.
Some of the trucks used for the brewery were themselves interesting. They were old trucks with hard rubber tires and driven by a chain drive connected to the rear axle. But somehow these trucks did not look out of place going down my street because for much of my early youth my street was paved with cobblestone. So, these trucks would rattle down my street carrying their loads of used grain from the brewery, stubbornly resisting progress.
Change seemed to come slowly to Newark in its vehicles and its people. We lived just four blocks from Hawkins Street School. Hawkins Street was a typical ‘Down Neck’ street with parking on both sides and just enough room for two-way traffic. It was the same elementary school my mother attended. In fact, her family once lived across the street from the school. While I was attending elementary school, two of her sisters and a brother, all of whom were unmarried, continued to live in the same two-family house rented by their parents.
While attending Hawkins Street School, I had the same first grade teacher my mother had and after that another two or three teachers that taught her. When we had an open house, and my mother would walk with me through the corridors of the school she once attended, she would point out changes in the school that had been made since she attended. The gym in use while I was there was new, however, the faded markings of the basketball court from the old gym were still on the floor of some of the nearby classrooms.
I have not returned to my grammar school since I graduated, with the exception of one of my sister’s graduations, but I have heard reports of the changes that have taken place from my nieces who also attended Hawking Street School. The changes were not for the best, gone is the library – classrooms, the cafeteria – is being used for classrooms. Changes happen to old cities and schools, and they are not always for the better. But people endure. People who want to learn, who want to succeed, seem to be able to do so in spite of the circumstances, in spite of what life has dealt with them. That is why, to this day, and it seems to increase with age, I have little sympathy for those who complain that everything is not going as it should for them to reach their full potential. I honestly feel that there is something inside us all – call it a spark – call it will or destiny – call it a road we start at birth and end at death, but we must be more than just a traveler, we must take control. Too many times, we look around and see what the world seems to offer and settle for the inevitable. Our future is in our hands if we only have the courage to grasp our potential and pursue our goals.
My mother’s fate was tied to Newark and so was that of some of her friends. I became friends with two boys who were the sons of friends my mother had in school. With one of these friends, I completed twelve years of school. I chanced to meet this friend after I had attended an out-of-state college and spent four years in the military, he had not left home. We no longer had anything in common. It was not the fact that I had left, and he had stayed, people just change.
The old neighborhood seemed to resist change. It was small, compact, and is to some extent to this day. You walked to church, you walked to school, and even downtown Newark was a short bus ride or a healthy walk away from my home. Nowadays, my kids have to be driven everywhere. They make no decision about whether or not to attend mass; I the driver have that power. When I was a kid, you looked out the parlor window and saw the church steeple two blocks away and heaven help you – literally – if you missed church. When you could walk, you were in control.
These are some of the memories, the feelings that remain with me of ‘Down Neck’ Newark, New Jersey. Time tends to erase the harsh memories; time and distance tend to smooth the rough edges. What I wanted to show here was that my hometown was not perfect, it was real. I know that there were better neighborhoods than mine, many not too far away, but I look at where I have come from and what I am and see the mark my youth has left. The past I carry within me, for better or worse, has made me the person that I am. And sometimes, in the situations that life presents, I am glad I carry within me a small part of ‘Down Neck’ Newark, and approach life not to grieve for what I don’t have but rejoicing for what I possess.
UNHOLY GROUND, A HORROR SHORT STORY, CHAPTER VI
UNHOLY GROUND
Chris Walters, fourteen, was a recent arrival to the rural town of Pinebrook. His dad, Bob, and mom, Rachel, were originally from the area. Shortly after they were married, they decided to move to Philadelphia and start a new life. They created a new life; his name was Chris. In the meantime, their dreams of life in the city were in shambles. They both had high school degrees but found their education lacking and the city unforgiving. Bob stumbled from one job to another. And being the most recent hire, whenever there was a layoff, he was the first to go.
Rachel found work as a secretary, until Chris came along, then the cost of daycare was more than she earned, so she quit her job and became a stay-at-home mom.
Then Bob’s father died unexpectedly.
After Bob received the news, he sat with Rachel in their tiny kitchen and discussed their future. “You know, Rach,” Bob said as he put down his coffee cup, “we’re not living the life I thought we would. I’ve got to be honest. We’re not making it here.”
Rachel responded, “You are your dad’s only living relative. His farm will go to you. With the money we should get for it, we could build that better life.”
“Rachel, the money won’t last long. Then we’d be back to where we are now. I don’t want to sell the farm. I want to work on. The land is good, and I helped my dad enough years that I could manage it and make it pay.”
There were many more discussions about their future, and gradually Rachel weakened. In reality, she was not all that fond of Philadelphia. And Bob was right. The money would not mean much of a change to their long-term future in the city. The more they talked, the more she discovered how much she missed her family and friends. One night, as they lay next to each other, Rachel said, “It’s hard to admit defeat, but maybe we should move back to Pinebrook. I think the move would do us good and it would be good for Chris too. He’s been spending time with some bad company lately and I don’t like the direction he’s heading.”
Bob smiled at his wife and then caressed her. “We’ll tell Chris in the morning,” Bob said.
They made love as a full moon illuminated the bedroom.
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