Old Slides #1 - The Tricycle

Over the holidays our daughter was on a trip to Israel, and our son-in-law came to stay with us for a night. While he was here he took all 300 of my Dad’s old Kodachrome slides from the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s and scanned them into our computer; something I have wanted to do for several years but never gotten around to. He did it in just under 3 hours!

So now I have a boatload of photos which I had been looking at by squinting while holding them in front of a lamp for about 30 years. Occasionally I would have one made up at the camera store, but for the most part these photos were lost to me. Along with those photos, many memories were also a bit sketchy, and so they are a real “treasure” to mine for pieces of my past.

Here I am riding my first tricycle on Kings Highway and Bedford Avenue in 1957. We lived on the corner in apartment 4-A of 3619 Bedford Avenue, which is one of those pre-war buildings with huge rooms separated by long hallways. It was a rear apartment, facing the alleyway between our building and the Kingsway Hospital next door. I’m not sure what it was called back then. I do remember being awakened at night by the scary sound of the ambulance sirens as they brought in patients. These were frightening sounds to me mainly because I didn't know what had happened; only that someone was dying. I never parsed out the difference between an ambulance siren and death. For years they represented the same thing to me.

By day the building was a fascinating place to play. There was a series of ramps to get to the basement. They were for moving furniture in and out more easily. At one time; in the 1930’s when my mother first moved in there; the building had a concierge and all deliveries went through the basement.

The basement also contained 4 tremendous boilers, not unlike the ones found on the ships I would later serve aboard, and these boiler rooms; while “off limits” by paternal edict; drew me like a magnet. They had fires going all the time to heat the mammoth amounts of water required for the two separate halves of the building, which contained over 100 apartments.

On the corner of Kings Highway and Bedford Avenue the building had a separate apartment which was accessible only by the private entrance which stood about a half story above street level. This put that apartment on the same plane as the first floor, which was reached by going up several short steps from the lobby. I don’t recall ever having met the people who lived there; maybe they worked days; but they must have been home on weekends when we played on their “stoop.” They never said a word, though we must have been loud, and I assume they either liked kids, or they had the patience of Job.

The lobby opened up to two wings; left and right; with each side serviced by a separate elevator. Both sides had long rows of mailboxes, flush with the walls, and I looked forward every day to watching the mailman place the letters so deftly into each box. He was quite a marksman, never faltering or missing a single one. I always felt as if I were watching a magician at work; his sleight of hand seemed just as quick to my little eyes.

The roof was another magical place for me. Although I was too young to go up there alone, on Tuesday nights in the late 1950's we used to go up there with our parents to watch the fireworks from Coney Island, about a mile and a half away to the south west. I also remember going up there and "helping" my father install our first TV antenna, dropping the cable from the roof down to our window and then pointing the antenna towards the Empire State Building with its huge antenna in Manhattan; about 12 miles away to the north.

The stairs were the main mode of transportation for my brother and me whenever we went “out” to play. We lived on the 4^th floor, in apartment 4-A and so it was always a mad race down the stairs to the lobby, which seemed to take forever to get out of. If I remember correctly there was a suit of armor in the lobby that went with the Tudor looking beams which were the motif of the whole building. The exterior was still the same when I passed by in 2011, but I didn't go inside. I think I was afraid of spoiling the memories I have by seeing the place now that I’m older.

One time; this is back in the 1970’s; I went to look at the building before I left Brooklyn for the Navy. I remember thinking how small that front courtyard was compared to my memory of it. How much smaller it has gotten since that day, when I left to see the world, I cannot say, though I imagine it has shrunk even more.

Well, this is just a ramble prompted by an old photograph not seen clearly in decades. And just think; there are; potentially; 299 more to write about. Who said “you only get to live once?”

"The Color of War" by James Campbell (2012)

By May of 1944 the war in the Pacific had gone from the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor; in December of 1941; to a chain of island invasions, which forced the Japanese to adopt a defensive posture in the face of an ever tightening noose as our Navy and Marines advanced towards Japan itself. But, between that time, and our later victory, 2 events would occur; one, involving African-American sailors would be held up as an immediate example of the freedom lacking here at home, even as we fought for it overseas; while the other event, the explosion of several fully laden LST’s in the West Loch of Pearl Harbor, would be hushed up for 16 years.

On May 21^st, 1944 an explosion occurred aboard LST-353, igniting all of its cargo of ammunition, bombs and fuel. The burning shrapnel landed on other fully loaded LST’s causing them to explode as well. Hundreds of lives were lost, along with thousands of tons of supplies bound for Saipan. The continued spread of the disaster actually caused our Navy to sink some of the other vessels before those, too, caught fire.  The battle for Saipan, which would occur on July 18^th, was the last major stepping stone in our conquest of the Pacific. In fact, that battle was so decisive a victory for the United States that Tojo; and his entire cabinet; resigned the following day.
 
Against this backdrop, author James Campbell has juxtaposed the disaster which occurred at Port Chicago, located just 25 miles from San Francisco, as an example of how we were fighting not only Germany and Japan in this war; we were also fighting ourselves here at home. That disaster; on the same day as the Marines were taking Saipan; was the direct result of an Armed Forces which was still racially segregated even as we fought for freedom abroad. And, since the crews loading the ammunition ships were all African-American, someone was going to pay for the accident, even as the events in Hawaii just 8 weeks earlier were being hushed up.

The result of the Port Chicago disaster was the largest mutiny trial in the history of the Armed Forces, as the African-American sailors refused; rightfully so; to resume their work. As would be shown at their trial, these men had been working without any of the specified safety measures outlined in any of the manuals concerning the loading of explosives. Inert explosives are dangerous enough to handle; as are fuses; which are never to be stored in the same space as the explosives. That is, unless you were working at Port Chicago, where the rules simply didn’t apply.

The author follows the lives of several of the men charged with Mutiny; a crime punishable by death; from the days prior to their enlistments, and on through the events at Port Chicago. His coverage of the Court Martial; at which future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall would act as their Chief Counsel, having been supplied by the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund; is one of the most fascinating portions of the book. Charged with Mutiny and facing the Death Penalty, these 50 men, along with their Defense Team, would break new ground in the courtroom, and that victory would ultimately be a part of a greater one, when President Truman finally desegregated the military in 1947. That decision caused a rift in the Democratic Party which would never heal, and those repercussions still affect us today. The story of the Court of Inquiry is equally as fascinating, as its conclusions should have exonerated the men altogether.

All of this is played out against the Battle of Saipan, being fought by primarily white troops, who were winning the war by using the very supplies which were shipped to them via the men loading them at Port Chicago. The vast difference in their experiences, while ostensibly fighting for the same cause, makes for a remarkable contrast.

Backed up by 100 pages of notes arranged chapter by chapter; along with an extensive 20 page bibliography; the author has blown life into every page of this book. It will stand as a true and accurate account of not only the Port Chicago Incident, but also as a reminder of a time when fighting for freedom didn’t always guarantee freedom here at home. And, if the only thing new is the history you don’t know, then this book may also stand as a warning about repeating some of the mistakes of our past.


This Just In - Kings Highway and Hurricane Sandy

This is my old neighborhood in Brooklyn , New York yesterday, before the full force of Hurricane Sandy arrived. Through the magic of you tube I am able to go back and walk the streets, getting a bit of a feel for what is going on there. I'm hoping power stays on for everyone, but pulling especially hard for zip code 11229 where this video was shot. Located less than 1 mile from Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach, the area was on the lip of the mandatory evacuation zones. I hope everyone there is safe, dry and warm.