Chapter 3 - Bridgeport, CT

In the fall of 1960, we moved to Bridgeport, CT. Dad had lost his business, gone to work for a friend, Al Booth, at a factory in Willington, CT (156 River Road, Willington). Al sold the business to Stewart Die Casting and they shut down the business. Dad had a job with them in Bridgeport. We eventually moved to a house on Harvey Street, almost across the street from my new school, Edison Elementary School (115 Boston Terrace, Bridgeport). It was a traumatic time. I had started 6^th grade in Coventry with my friends and now I was in an inner city school.

We lived in a house like this on Harvey Street.

During the winter of '60-'61 the snow was almost up to the roof of the one story part of the school.

Edison Elementary School. To me it seemed like a prison.

School was terrible. I was the new kid. At least a quarter of the kids in the class were black. I didn’t consider myself a racist but I didn’t know any blacks in Coventry. One kid was 15, almost 16 (I was 11). He was waiting to turn 16 so he could quit school. I remember he had a hole in his forehead (covered with flesh, just a hole in the skull) that pulsed when he got angry. Scared the hell out of me. The rumor was he'd knifed another kid for making fun of him.

This was the first school I'd attended that had a strict dress code. I had to wear a dress shirt and tie. The girls had to wear either a dress, or skirt and blouse. No jeans. 

It was a terrible winter, cold and a lot of snow. If you look up Edison Elementary School on Google maps you see that it is a two-story building. But on the Birdsley Street side there is a one story addition; the snow was almost up to the roof of that addition. 

I was a crossing-monitor while at school. I got to wear a vest and sash. 

My sister, Sandy, went to Harding High School. It must have been weird for her there too. It was overcrowded, so overcrowded they had to have a split schedule, morning and afternoon schedules. My only memory of the school was of going to a football game, it must have been Homecoming or Thanksgiving because it was a big deal.

The house we lived in was okay. It was probably built in the 1940s. Bridgeport was an industrial town so it, like all the others in the area, were probably built to house defense industry workers. We never knew for sure but based on the small vineyard in the backyard, and the wine press in the basement, our house most likely was originally owned by Italians.

The worst part of Bridgeport was that my parents’ marriage disintegrated there. I’m sure their marriage was not in great shape before but it ended in Bridgeport. Before we moved to Bridgeport my dad lived there during the week and I guess he met someone. Dad moved out in November but he moved back in for Christmas. I remember hearing my mom and dad, not fighting but talking in their bedroom (my room, that I shared with my brother Doug was next to theirs). Mom cried a lot. Dad moved out for good after Christmas.

It wasn't that long after dad moved out that we moved back to Coventry.