Prisoner of the Truck
Chapter 1 : My Boyhood Prison (Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Order)
It was 1937. Her gentle hand touched my 11-year-old shoulder. “Get up, its 4 o’clock,” my mother whispered. I had to be quiet. There were six brothers and sisters still sleeping in two of the three small bedrooms on an upper flat in the inner city of Rochester, New York. Betty was 13, brother Joe was 8, Ann 6, Jim 4, Vicky 2 and my mother was pregnant, as it seemed she was throughout most of my boyhood memory.
These were sad times for my mother. My father had lost his confectionery store on Main Street in Rochester, NY in 1929, the start of the great depression. He became a “huckster,” starting with a horse and wagon in 1929 when I was three years old. He would rise at 4 AM, arrive at the public market at 5 AM, buy fruits and vegetables from farmers and sell them to regular customers in middle class neighborhoods that he established on the east and west side of Rochester. He would call on his regular customers every other day — the east side on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and the west side on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. If he lost a customer, he would knock on doors until he found a replacement.
His eight-year financial struggle as a huckster from 1929 to 1937 failed to save the home on 470 Driving Park Avenue in Rochester. Like so many others in the depression years, he was forced to surrender a spacious four-bedroom home in this attractive middle class neighborhood. The house furniture, purchased on an installment plan, was taken away for non-payment. A cousin, also named Fred Sarkis, helped us to move the remaining furniture to Ormond Street.
Our new home was cramped — about half the size of Driving Park Avenue. The furnished flat included three beds and mattresses. The flat was dirty and roach-infested. Bed bugs occupied the bedroom mattresses. My mother declared war on dirt, roaches and bed bugs. A powder was used for the roaches. The bed bugs were removed with a sticky mixture of flour and water. Several hand pads were made of this mixture. Under my mother’s direction, the older children would surround the mattress, front, back and sides. We would apply the sticky mixture to visible pockets of the bed bugs. They would be trapped and would wiggle themselves to death. This was done periodically, and with the regular washing of bed sheets, bed bug bites became infrequent, if at all. A fresh coat of paint on the walls and woodwork made our flat into a comfortable small home. My mother kept the flat spotlessly clean. She would have it no other way. NEXT PAGE
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