THE FOOTNOTES

UNRELATED---LIKE THE NOONANS
A BUNCH OF ANECDOTES
FEBRUARY 2004

. I had my first job on my 16th birthday, delivering Western Union telegrams by bicycle all over New Britain and sometimes as far as Berlin or Plainville—A
and in all kinds of weather—and for 25 cents an hour. This is how I sneak up on a topic I intended to talk about all along.
“I’ve Got A Secret” was the name of a television show where a panel of celebrities would guess a contestant’s secret. One guy’s secret was that he had had 40 part time jobs in his life. Big deal! I would have been a more worthy candidate because by the time I saw that show I had just as many part-time jobs, or at least it seemed like it. I was also more personable, intelligent, articulate and modest.
One memorable part-time job I had as a college student was at the American Paper Goods Company in Kensington This was a firm which manufactured paper cups (the company is now defunct, but not my fault—I did point out to management wherein the company was headed for collapse).
After WWII, veterans who went to college got stipends of 65 dollars a month from the government.. It was necessary to supplement that pittance, especially if one had an old ’36 Ford with no windows in the front, no heater and a promising social life. My friend, John Ryan, and I applied for part-time jobs at American Paper Goods in Kensington. We applied and waited for a call. One noontime, the phone rang and a voice asked, “Is this Mr. Robert Noonan?” Thinking it was my friend John, I replied, “This is Mr. Robert J. Noonan.” The voice then said, “Oh, this is Mr. Bomba at American Paper Goods.” It turned out Mr. Bomba had a sense of humor and hired both of us.
One of my jobs there was to haul huge carts of cup blanks, or forms ,which had been cut out by one kind of machine to another room where the forms were transformed into paper cups. From there, the newly created cups had to be hauled to a room where hot wax was applied to make the cups waterproof.
. The carts were enormous, and held thousands of paper cups/or forms, depending on what had to be done. Sometimes the trips to the waxing room became adventures, like the times I accidentally spilled a few thousand cups and had to pick them up.
. The people tending the waxing machines, all older women, seemed tense all the time because the hot wax being applied was highly flammable. I think the ladies feared they were destined to be incinerated, and for low wages on top of it. So they were nervous. The floor of that room was polished hard wood which was perfect for generating static electricity, and that is important to this story. Quick to recognize the possibilities, I would, upon entering the room , keep my feet flat on the floor knees close together and make rapid shuffling steps, which when combined with my corduroy pants which were rubbing together generated static electricity which was strong enough to leap from my fingertips. I would single out one of the unsuspecting women machine tenders, stealthily sneak up on her and reach for her arm. What a response! YEEOWW! I guess she thought her worst fears had been realized and the end had come, the machine had blown up, and now that I think of it, I was lucky it didn’t
Always wanting to leave a situation better than I found it, I submitted a four page suggestion to the management detailing what had to be done to prevent the waste of cup forms which seemed to be in excess of what got shipped out. My suggestion was ignored, and as I pointed out, above, American Paper Goods finally went out of business. It wasn’t my fault!
I didn’t make a lot of money, but I got a good lesson in time management. While working, which was from around 5 P.M. until 10 P.M., I carried class notes around in my pockets, and I studied whenever I had a slow time. That semester was one of the few times I got on the Dean’s List. When I had too much time off, I often found things I would rather do than study.


THE YARD GANG

I guess I had a knack for putting my employers out of business, if not always right away. I had two different part-time jobs at two different times at New Britain Machine Company which was a large manufacturing plant (also now defunct—sort of the way I am) The first job was as a member of the Yard Gang.
The Machine Shop, as it was known locally, produced hardware items, such as wrenches which were sold at Sears, I think. Now and then the New Britain Police would arrest some employee who was pocketing the wrenches. The cops caught one guy who had a garage-full of wrenches he had stolen from his work place.
The company also produced huge machines which could perform multiple operations on metal stock which rotated from one cutter to the next until the completed piece dropped into a waiting receptacle.. These machines were known as automatic chucking machines. . If you have ever seen a picture of an early machine gun, the Gatling Gun, you will have a good idea of how it looked. The Gatling Gun had multiple gun barrels which rotated after each shot to put another bullet into firing position. This is what the chucking machine did to the parts it was producing— the machine performing an operation, rotating the piece to perform another operation, and so forth. Anyway, New Britain Machine was a major factor in the metal working industry.
The company had lots of employees and a very competitive fast pitch softball league. Our department had a team, and the boss, or foreman, of the macho Yard Gang, was not planning to lose to a bunch of cream puffs from the office or some other less virile department, so he sought out athletes to hire for the summer to work in the Yard Gang. This gang did all the dirty work around the factory and its grounds. I was hired to catch for the department team. In my most memorable game, the other team had the bases loaded with nobody out. I picked a guy off first base for the first out. We then walked the next guy to re-fill the bases, and I picked him off, too. We got the third out on a fly ball and they didn’t score.—Pretty good, I would have to admit.. Our boss didn’t hire us to get beat, and he took a dim view when we did.. Sometimes he would fire whoever he thought lost it for the department. Upon contemplation, however, he would later hire the guy back.
This was a group of young guys—most were teachers or college students—they were sharp and funny. But sometimes there just wasn’t enough work to do so the boss would hide the crew in a small building down in the back lots. We would
pretend to be chipping tar off the wooden blocks which were used to make the floors of the factory. We would be all cooped up there on some days playing 20 questions and looking out for our bosses’ boss who knew we weren’t doing anything, but never could catch us doing it. Our lookout would spot him—he was sort of conspicuous in a white shirt and tie.
One of my favorite assignments was to strip old wax off the floor in the office, reapply new wax and put a shine on it. We really put a shine on it—so much that a Vice President fell down. We then had to remove the shine.
The office had a very large room with dozens of desks. There was always somebody to distract from his work, and it was entertaining. Sometimes these people would become involved in our 20 questions game which we also played in the office. When you can hear people playing 20 questions, it is pretty difficult to stay out it, particularly if you are supposed to be carrying out some function for the company.
Part of our job was cleaning up the telephone operators’ room. We had a circus in there. It was a small room and a good place to hide out and tell jokes all day. People working in the building would tell us that sometimes they could hear laughter in the background when an operator was paging somebody. One of the operators was Terri Piazza who later lived on Old Stafford Road in Tolland—some of you might have known her kids. Marie Richardson, the daughter of my mother’s friend was the other.
There was one old guy who often appeared to be asleep at his desk in the office while everybody else was busy. One day I asked somebody why the old guy was allowed to sleep, the the reply was, “because when he wakes up, he makes money for us.” I have often wondered why companies don’t allow for a mid-day nap for employees—It certainly revives me and I can accomplish more as a result.
The office building was a modern two storied building of good size. It was unusual in that both ends of the building were sinking, and the building had literally cracked in half. I wonder it has sunk completely by now.
A favorite memory, one which I have often mentioned over the years, involved one of the Yard Gang college students and his father who was a dignitary at the factory. (See, there was some nepotism.) One day the old man was berating his son, telling him he considered the kid to be a stupid incompetent. The kid listened respectfully, and asked,” Do you attribute that to heredity or environment?” --I told you these guys were smart.
Among the athletes was Tom Driscoll, an outstanding basketball player, a big guy, and among the nicest. One day Tom asked me if I would mind giving him a ride to work the next day. I told him I would be glad to do it. I was at work the next day when Tom came straggling in about 9 o’clock. I had forgotten to pick him up. I apologized and promised to pick him up the next day. The next day, , I was at work again when he straggled in about 9 o’clock just like the day efore. I had forgotten him again. Tom was disgusted with me, and I was remorseful, so I bought him lunch that day. Lucky I did’t get killed.

MY OTHER JOB AT NEW BRITAIN MACHINE, NOT AT THE SAME TIME

New Britain Machine was a very busy place at that time. They ran two shifts and maybe a third, but I’m not sure of that. Guys working the second shift had to eat, and so the company cafeteria operated a food wagon which I pulled all over the shop and sold soup, sandwiches, coffeee, etc. I loved that job. I started work at 5 P.M. but went in early because I could eat all I wanted of whatever I wanted. So I had my supper there all the time I worked there. I always topped off a nice supper with several cups of coffee and a large sundae. I would load up the cart and start on my rounds. I enjoyed joking around with the guys in the shop, and the time went fast. Sometimes I would meet my uncle, Jim Maher, whom I rarely saw other wise. Jim was a member of the industrial aristocracy, a tool and die maker, which is what I aspired to be when I got out of the service, but everybody else who lived in New Britain wanted to be apprenticed as a tool maker, too, so by the time I got home, the factories were all booked up. In desperation, I went to college, instead.
But I do digress. Back to my job. There was one guy who always ordered a bowl of soup. He invariably specified that he wanted only the broth, and not the chicken, vegetables, or what ever was in the soup. I thought he was nuts until I realized in recent years that I prefer to drink, not chew soup, so I go heavy on the broth, too.
New Britain Machine is no more. I think it was merged or sold since I left, and it too has left.

HOLD THE NOODLES

Somewhere in my Junior High or early high school time, my mother no longer lived with us. We kids had some discretion as to meals. My sister, Rita, seemed to have a specialty which was to boil up some noodles and throw a can of tomatoes on top of them. I still have a strong aversion to noodles, particularly if served with canned tomatoes. On the occasion of one of my protests to her at the kitchen table, she broke a plate over my head which might account for any eccentricities I might exhibit today.
We had a charge account at the grocery store next door which enabled us to get food without having any money. Our purchase was simply written into a booklet—and the grocer hoped to get paid for it sometime. I want to digress again: This writing it in the book practice went way back. My first recollection of it was when we lived on Smith Street—I was around 5 years old—I thought that no money was needed, only a book to write in. That was in the early thirties (1930’s). I know it continued at least into the mid fifties when I was a salesman. On one occasion, one of my dealers— a grocery store owner—not a druggie—in telling me why he had no money to buy from me, pulled open a drawer under the counter which was filled with books similar to the ones I remembered way back then. He pointed to the books and said,” The Books of Bastards.” There was a store on Oak Street near our house on Wilcox where the owner didn’t horse around with people who failed to pay up. If you owed him money, he would write, in big letters on a paper bag, , “so and so—(real name)-owes me ten bucks. He would post the bag over the counter for all the world to see—I think this expedited the collection process. This is a little off the subject, but here’s a good joke. A guy went into a restaurant and had a good meal. When it came time to pay, he announced that he had no money. The restaurant owner said the deadbeat should simply write his name on the wall under a coat hook. The deadbeat protested saying he didn’t want everybody to see his name on the wall. The owner told him nobody would see it because the guy’s overcoat would be hanging over it until he paid up.
Back to the salt mines: My brother had a special dish, too. He would get a pint of ice cream and a Frisbie Pie and put it on the cuff, I believe was the expression-- (the Frisbie Toy developed from The Frisbie Pie plate.) He also would charge a pint of ice cream to go with it.
. The pie was ten cents. If only the two of us were “dining” at that time, he would divide the pie in half, and the ice cream, too. Trouble was he had no understanding of fractions, and his half of the pie was about two thirds, as I recall.
This all started when I said :”No noodles for me!”
A MISTAKE? WHO, ME?

Dot Wilson was the secretary in the Guidance Office at Ellington High. One day I said,”Hey, Dot. I made a mistake. Remember I made one once before?”
Dot, who was very sharp replied, “ No, I wasn’t here then.”
Last year when I was in Rockville Hospital for my first operation, I encountered a woman
who was a volunteer at the hospital. She was from Ellington, and I knew she was a friend of Dot’s. I asked the woman to give my regards to Dot, and the lady told me that because of privacy regulations, she was forbidden to tell anybody about who was in the hospital. So I told her to tell Dot that she had met a patient who made a mistake once. Dot showed up to visit the next day.

THE GAS STOVE CAPER
We had a gas stove at ole 558 Church Street. We also had a gas hot water heater. The gas which fueled these things came to the stove from a meter in the pantry through which the gas from the gas main outside had to pass to get to the gas stove, or the water heater.
. The meter meted out 25 cents worth of gas at a time. To activate the machine, you had to insert a quarter, sort of like a vending machine. . If you ran out of gas, and quarters, you out of gas. So, we always seemed to have planned to have a quarter available. I guess a gas man came around to collect the quarters now and then, but I don’t recall that. What I do recall was that there was always the fear that leaking gas could blow up, and once in while in New Britain it happened. So we were conscious of the possibility. So when my father sent me to the drug store one Sunday morning to buy him a cigar, the possibility of exploding gas became part of the story.. In addition to the cigar, I bought a package of cigar “loaders” which were small, pointed pieces of wood to which a small amount of something had been applied. The load was not visible when inserted into the end of the cigar which would be lighted. When the flame reached the “load” it would cause it to explode, like a small firecracker. By some coincidence, when I got home with the cigar, my father was cooking something in the oven. Whatever he was cooking required basting, so in order to baste it, you would have to have your head in or almost in the oven. He was basting when the cigar exploded. He thought the stove had exploded, and could have had a heart attack, like the ladies I mentioned at the waxing machines.. Lucky for me, he saw the humor, but I never did that again, at least to him.

HOW OLD BOB GOT OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL
World War II was a popular war. Everybody wanted to take part, and those who didn’t took part anyway by being drafted for service. The net result was that there was a shortage of people to do the work of the community. The answer lay in hiring high school students. I was all for doing my part, and making money, and when I got my chance, I took a part-time job at General Laundry Service. I have written about that elsewhere. My school day ended at 11:30 A.M. and I would walk down South Main Street to get to work On the way there was a Bar and Grill which had great lunches—no drinking by me, a minor. But, I got to like my new life better than studying, and when I heard that anybody who was going into the service would get a diploma regardless of school performance, that was the end of overstudying.
Good thing I got into the Navy. My teachers didn’t feel that a diploma was for nothing, and a favorite English teacher flunked me at half year. This meant that I had to pick up another English class, which really was a double-English deal, to make up for the flunk, and pass the second half. In addition, I was required to take a General Biology class which was for low achievers. The biology turned out to be the most favorite thing I did in high school. Every fun kid in the place was in that class, and nothing very much was required to pass. A high point for me was when the teacher got to the point where we had to dissect frogs, I could tell he found it distasteful, so when he dished out my frog, I was compelled to tell him that I wanted an order of fries with that. He failed to see the humor.
It was ironic that my approach to academics was to simply get by, even in college. This blew up in my face when I was a new teacher. I was a finalist for a teaching fellowship at Columbia which included a free Master’s Degree. Because the other guy had better grades, he got the assignment, and I went on to teach school for the next 35 years. I might have missed out on all this!