Chapter 4 - South Street, Coventry, CT

I don’t remember exactly when we moved back to Coventry but it wasn’t that long after mom and dad split, probably late winter or early spring of 1961.

We moved into a 3-story house on South Street. It was kind of diagonally across the street from Hank Keane’s burned out house that sat on the corner of South Street and Judd Road. That 3-story house is gone now; I think it burned down. We lived on the second floor. It was a shit hole. It had two separate bedrooms (my mom's was at the front, Sandy's was in the rear next to the kitchen, and my brother and I shared a room that may have originally been a parlor or dining room (two doors, one into the kitchen the other into the front hall), living room, kitchen/dining room and bathroom. I think there was a rear staircase but I don't remember ever using it.

Mom was a school teacher but she couldn’t get into a school that late into the year. She got a job at some company in Willimantic working for peanuts. She definitely wasn’t happy. I think all three of us kids started acting up when we lived on South Street. I started smoking.

A few memories of South Street - Sandy met Billy Powell when we lived there. Billy was from Rockville, his sister and her two (I think) daughters lived on the ground floor. I only have a vague memory of the couple that lived on the top floor. I do remember that they set up a tent during the summer probably because it was so hot on the third floor. I remember exploring the ruins of Hank Keane's house with Bud Hansen. Bud found a copy of a newspaper from September 1, 1939 with the headline Hitler Invades Poland. I wonder if Burt still has it?

School was terrible when I returned to Coventry. Instead of being in the class I had been in, the class with my friends, I was in with kids I didn’t hang out with. I felt stigmatized by my parents split and the fact that we were now poor.  But I guess I did okay grade wise in school that year.

One event sticks in my mind that exemplifies our poverty and my mom’s mindset. The company she worked for had a company picnic at Ocean Beach Park, New London. Everyone had to bring their own food. Mom dug some hot dogs out of the freezer and barbecued them. They were bad. I told mom that I couldn’t eat them. She was so horrified that someone might see that she only had rotten hot dogs she told me to eat them anyway. They made me sick.

Mom started teaching in Marlborough, Connecticut, at the start of the 1962 school year. It was about a thirty mile drive but she was happy to be back teaching.

Our stay on South Street was thankfully short.