Lost New London

They had me setting things up like the table, keeping other things clean like the windows and floor, opening and closing curtains, polishing silverware, glasses… and everything in the right place or it was the devil for me. When something didn‘t go right, the Missus boxed my ears til they rang, then sent me out to the stable where I learned from ol‘ Tom how to care for horses. Actually I got to like the horses, and I got to like ol‘ Tom who‘d been there forever. Well, he started showing me how to feed them, brush them, exercise them, clean up after them, and most important how to walk around them so as not to catch a hoof in the head. The Missus would‘ve liked that.

As the ear boxing got worse, I spent more time in the stables. My father was gone, but there was ol‘ Tom.

This picture shows a hostler with the horse he was caring for.

courtesy Library of Congress

Then one day something bad happened in the family. I was busy in the parlor attempting to organize the silverware, when the Missus flew into the room and saw me. She came at me. I got up, backed away bumping a tray table piled with china. They nearly all smashed hitting the hardwood floor. I could feel the blood drain from my face and the blackness she so hated radiating from my cheeks.

The boxing match got started in earnest. Back and forth til I near lost consciousness. Drawn by his wife’s screaming, Master Seton rushed in to find me on the floor, bleeding from my nose and ears.

That saved me. Despite her hollering, Master sold me to a kindly old man nearby in need of an attendant for getting around. I was perhaps thirteen by then. After a year or two the man whose name I‘ve sadly forgotten, made me his coachman. There was no more boxing.

In the meantime, I saw my father again! for the first time in years. He‘d become a successful carpenter working for the English customers under the supervision of his owner. A divine hand was again making a play. My father had been in touch with my mother. When my owner died later that year, father made arrangements to buy the freedom of all three of us.

But the devil was not yet done with us. The three of us had just been granted our pais-for freedom, and with my younger sister, were about to depart for the coast when a group of slave traders tried to resell us back into slavery. Their trickery and influence over some local people were no match for the Angels guiding our path.

It was close. Thanks to a warning of these men‘s intentions, from the very people who knew them, we made a quick escape under cover of darkness to the Florida coast just above Jacksonville at a place called Fernandina. There we booked passage on the schooner Emma under the command of Captain Flood,

Another schooner by the name Emma. This example hails from Noank in Groton, Connecticut.

Courtesy the Noank Historical Society

The hand of the Lord continued to stay with us.

During those days at sea, I watched and listened… what else was there for me to do? I learned seaman‘s knots, how to use a compass and, eventually a sextant, read the wind and water surface, the many lines of a sailing ship and how to set them to the wind. Captain Flood had a terrier that chased the newbies and me around the deck as he barked out the names of the lines we were sent to attend. Yes, it was a drill, but I enjoyed the game, the threat of a beating or worse entirely absent. I started feeling whole and free.

After a week or so, the Emma brought us up the east coast toward Virginia, Hampton Roads. I volunteered to stand watch while the others (not our family) went ashore. I sited the stars as they made their way across the endless sky. Over the following two weeks, I never tired of looking up at night. Many times on shore, there was not a civilized light to be seen.

How raw and beautiful, I thought.

We all noticed the weather gradually getting colder. We continued to make stops along the way, taking on and setting off a few passengers and freight.

Can you guess, shipmates, where we got off?

New London was to be the last port call before heading back south. Captain Flood had pre-arranged some time off for the Emma and her crew so that sails could be mended or replaced, worn lines replaced, stores of fresh water and food renewed, the boat hauled and recaulked. They would leave in three weeks time. I knew I‘d miss some of the crew, Captain Flood and his terrier Flash.

Through my father‘s skill as a carpenter, and his drive to make the best of a new start, we settled in on a small house on Bayonet Street near Briggs Pond, used in the winter months for ice harvesting. For myself, I did some coachman work and helped on masonry jobs building stone foundations nearby.

All the while, the sea was pulling at me like a magnet. I made a few long distance sails down the Caribbean way stopping in Barbados and Nevis. After my third such voyage, I met Martha at a church social with her father and mother, this being 1830 or so. Her father, Boston, a freeman himself, with skills from working a farm, had built their house on Hill Street.

Boston Freeman was born into slavery in 1776. At 27 he was released from the Miller Farm in Quaker Hill and, given his birth year and knowledge of the Boston Massacre, took the name Boston Freeman. He found work around town as an expressman or trucker. His marriage later to Betsy Avery of Block Island prompted him to buy a plot of land on Hill Street from William Eldridge in 1812. Below is the recorded deed. By 1819 a completion of mortgage filing showed a house had been built on the property during the previous 7 years. Boston must have been proud to give his wife and daughter a small, but love-filled home that was debt-free.

26 Hill Street in 1961, courtesy George Oldershaw

In the fall of 1834, Boston Freeman passed on at the age of 58, leaving his wife Betsy and daughter Martha the house. I tried to fill his shoes and be around so I sailed only on coastal vessels staying in the Sound, not going any further east than Fall River. or New Bedford. Yes, we had a lovely household… always food on the table, a dry roof overhead, wood burning in the stove, chewing tobacco, tea and coffee. We went to service weekly, together when possible, at the Methodist Episcopal Church on Federal Street.

That was our social life. When it was Betsy‘s turn to pass in ˋ48, the service was beautiful. How much our lives had changed, all in the hands of the Lord.

Now down to two, we decided to take in another couple, a freeman and a freewoman from Pennsylvania, Aaron and Fanny Newby. Ah, but the children that came from this union! After a couple of years, they left for larger quarters.

In the absence of their household contributions, I worked again with horses, the agility in my limbs gone, and so my days at sea. I went back to my old occupation as a hostler and worked at that inn on State Street, the City Hotel.

I also did the odd job of being a coachman which paid better and got me out and about on my own. I liked that. I like people… well, most of them.

a coachman posing for the photographer -

both unknown

‍ ‍City Hotel photograph courtesy New London Landmarks

‍ ‍Coachman photograph courtesy The Museum of African-American History, Philadelphia

‍ ‍Of course, in those days, I had my own horse, Wild Bill. Bill wasn‘t really wild, he was getting older like me. He lived in a stable nearby on School House lane, just across the street. Ocassionally, when we were both up for it, I took Bill out for a slow ride over to my sister‘s on Bayonet Street. She became a Purdy. My father Robert, God rest his soul, passed at a ripe old age for which there were no records. I used to read him accounts from the newspaper on the greys and the blues. My father at least departed after the war was over.

At one point, and this again was in the 1870s, a church friend from Huntington Street talked me into raising pigs… his and mine in the back yard. Martha did not like the idea and thought little of my church friend. As the months went by her garden out back got smaller and smaller while the number of pigs grew and grew. Some 28 hogs called 14 Hill Street their home, and I had to keep a near constant eye on them cuz we had a gang of pig poachers operating out of the Neck. I have good neighbors , but there was always someone lounging nearby with the notion that a sailor can‘t count.

In the end though, it didn‘t matter. Cholera came by instead and took them all away… even poor old Bill. My faith in the Lord had saved me more times than I can count, but this was a curve ball.

The second hit came later in 1898. Martha Freeman Hull, my dear wife for close to 60 years, passed over to the other side where her parents, dear Boston and Betty, my dear father Robert, were waiting. She reached 92. We‘re all fighters, you see. We always aimed to live life on our own terms and take face front whatever came our way.

My niece, Mary Benjamin, came to live with me. When not at her job, she kept me and the house tidy and in working order. Old Bill, not the horse, but my terrier, also kept me company during my walks with a cane down to Union Station and the pier behind.

photo courtesy of

Ron DeFilippo

‍ ‍Often during these walks, I‘d go into the station to see my sister Emma who‘d found work there cleaning and waiting on tables. I enjoyed our visits, catching up on family and local gossip.

During those last years as we ended one century and started another, my health continued to beat the odds placed against it. When I reached 100, The Day made a kind mention of the fact, though for me, it was just a matter of getting out of bed more often than others. The paper brought up my faith in the Lord and my easy-going nature. I hold hatred for nobody, even that Missus Seton, now gone to her reward. I feel nothing towards her… well, perhaps sorrow that she was such a bitter and angry person, not knowing of the Lord.

And New London has treated me well. One of my former employers gives me a small monthly pension on which to live. A local political club gives me a gift every time I put another year behind me. Updates get printed in the paper each time I have a birthday. In 1906 as I felt the ending come near, I quit-claimed our home to my niece and caregiver Mary Benjamin.

A friend made a model of our house. In the front, that‘s me sitting by the front porch steps talking with a young man who‘s looking for work. Mrs. Greene is walking up the sidewalk with an overnight bag. Looks like she‘s been visiting with her daughter in New Haven again. In back Mary Benjamin is enjoying the flowers. Like my Martha, she likes to garden too.

The year was 1908. I‘d reached 109 years old, a state record at the time. When spring arrived in April, I took up my walks again along Main Street and down State with a cane on one side and Bill on the other. I stopped along the way to chat, but somehow it all felt different like a fading dream. I paused at the station but could not talk with Emma. We just looked at each other with a kind of silent understanding. Even the sun on the pier seemed off… all light, but no warmth.

A month later a rainstorm caught me outside. I got sick and stopped eating. A day later I stopped speaking. That night, I waited til Mary Benjamin was quietly asleep in the other room, As the sun broke over the eastern horizon, I found myself along a beautiful garden path… flowers, fruit trees, birds flitting back and forth as if in song. And there standing before the Father’s mansion was my family, my friends and shipmates who’d gone on before me. Here was peace. Here was love. Here was now.

Amen

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‍ ‍Story 2 - the Celestials move in on Bradley Street

Greetings, honorable young American travellers!

You may call me Hong Wah. I am writing you this letter from the celestial home of my honorable ancestors whose spirits live along the great river Yangtze in the place you call China.

Before my departure from your honorable city of New London, I was an old and sick laundryman living above my shop on Bradley Street.

my honorable younger brother at work in his studio

My time had come. I was sad and lonely for my family. Would you care to meet them?

my honorable Father

my honorable Mother

my honorable nephew, son of my honorable younger brother, who is learning to draw and read

and finally the honorable John Thomson from England, the photographer… two palace guards are standing on the right

We lived with other Celestials in this large house on the great river Yangtze.

‍ ‍What is a Celestial? you may ask. It is the name your people give us for we are all subjects or followers of the one Emperor in the sky, the One who rules the planets, the stars… the universe. This our home, the sky and beyond.

Let me tell you, dear travellers, what happened on a summer day in the year 1881. It was a Sunday, so my shop was closed. The night before, I‘d written a note to my faithful servant Sam Wing Sing. We just call him Sam. In the note I left instructions on what to do with the shop and my wishes for my earthly remains to be send home to our home on the Yangzte in five years time. You see, dear ones, Sam was like the son I never had.

That next morning, I woke knowing that this was the day. With my walking stick, taking short careful steps, I came down the stairs one last time, went out onto the sidewalk, turned and took one final look at the space that had absorbed so much of my life like a dry sponge. I looked into the dark store front and said a silent farewell.

The dock is at the bottom of the hill, where Atlantic and Water Streets meet. As I approached the railroad tracks I said a prayer of humble thanks that no one was around. I crossed the tracks and a vacant lot strewn with the unneeded possessions of your honorable American ancestors. Finally I found myself standing on the edge of a deserted, abandoned dock.

photo courtesy of The Day

I looked south at the warming sun, listening to the gentle, reassuring lap-lap of the water coming in with the tide, later to start ebbing.

Your Thames River, my great river Yangtze. A brief, glorious moment.

There was a small splash as my body quickly slipped into the water, my hands clasped over my chest and that down, down weightless movement, my heart crossing the countless miles of water on my way home. My body glowed like the embers in a fire, eager to cook some-thing delicious.

A week later two startled fishermen witnessed my body as it popped up out of the water, hands still over my chest, eyes gazing upward, as if some invisible hand from down under had finally released it. The two honorable gentlemen sought out an honorable police constable who sought out Sam.

‍ ‍Sam acted in the most honorable way. Please allow me to explain.

Through his contacts, Sam was able to arrange the burial of my body on top of the hill whereby all the founding honorable fathers of New London and their honorable families were resting. It was an honor as a Celestial to be granted a temporary resting spot among them in a most beautiful location overlooking the fair city and its magnificent harbor. A dozen of our humble people, men that is, carried my earthly remains up the hill to a leafy spot, pausing often along the way to take refreshment. Remember, dear ones, it can get hot in the summer and like wood, my body had become waterlogged marinating in the pristine waters of your great and noble Thames River.

Well, all finally arrived and settled into silent communal prayer, my escorts standing six on each side of the earthly enclosure that was to harbor me. They sang, raising their arms to the sky. They laid face down on the noble soil of your founding ancestors, arose, and in a final swaying motion sang a love song to the celestial spirits for my honorable departure. All that for a sick and old laundryman, dear travelers!

As a final sign of communion, each man passed along a shovel and, taking turns covered my silk-wrapped remains with earth until the enclosure was full.

As I said, it was hot. Sam had hired a porter who carried on a horse two small barrels of beer. This is what the Celestials drank in tall glasses, pouring the top half onto my buried remains, insuring my comfort over the many months ahead.

Five years later, as per my instructions, the same group returned and repeated the process in reverse. My bones they washed and bundled into a shipping crate that left New London by steamer eventually to arrive by horse at our noble ancestral home on the Yangtze.

And so this cycle in the life of your humble servant, Hong Wah, has been honorably completed.

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Story 3 - beating the odds

‍ ‍Hail up! now where should me start?

Well, me was born and raised in Trelawny Parish on the northwest coast of the Island country of Jamaica in the Caribbean. Der dey grow sugar cane and it‘s a good business if yuh de owner or someone who never had to handle a machete, let me tell yuh. Very good fi cutting things.

both photos courtesy Trelawny Parish

Me grandfather and grandmum cut sugar cane as slaves. At the time dey was more dan 30,000 slaves in Trelawny parish alone. Den finally de British abolished dis abomination in 1838.

Fi me Dad and Mum, God and education was very important. Was because of dem I stayed out of trouble, never took no rum or went around with strange lads. Me study hard, learn to love books and become teacher‘s assistant. Me dreamed of becoming a teacher with me own classroom, me own students. Me was always dreaming…

…until 1927 when me parents took me on a long boat trip to Panama where the canal is dat brings yuh to the Pacific. And dat is where Adrian Boone and me we met.

Adrian looked so proud in his uniform. Even though he could only serve as a mess attendant or kitchen help on board a submarine, dis man knew he was part of something that would take him places, would open up doors that otherwise‘d be shut. Adrian was polite and well spoken, yet yuh could sense der was fire and restless in his belly. Ask? No, he would take what owed him..

Both me Dad and Mum took to him. Especially me Dad. (marching photo courtesy U.S. Navy)

both photos courtesy the U.S. Navy, 1925, 1927

me sorry… better I continue with American English.

When we returned to Trelawny, the letters between us rode back and forth on the same boat we took, always arriving a week later. This lasted for two years. You see, Adrian rode his submarine, the 0-9, out on deployments or missions. Thank the Lord, he was never out to sea for more than two months… and then a batch of his letters would arrive all at once. It was Christmas in July!

Then the day finally arrived. My father had given his blessing and it was time for the three of us to make that final sea crossing together. The night before, my friends from school threw me a bon voyage party in the school cafeteria near the town square in Falmouth. That was it. The Lord had a second chapter in store for me, that was for sure. Would I ever see the wind swept beaches and jungle swamps of my beloved Trelawny again? My soul would twist between heartache and joy all throughout this journey.

Adrian and I were married in a Cristobal church not far from the Coco Solo base that spring of 1927. It was to be a busy year. The Navy always has the last word in a family‘s decisions and so when the crew of 0-9 got orders for the base in New London, it dawned on me that all my eggs… or cocos, were now in one basket… Adrian‘s.

The first weeks in this place were bewildering. I missed me Dad and Mum, felt adrift at sea, Adrian me lifeboat. He encouraged me to join a group and make friends. And so I started going to services at Shiloh Baptist Church just over the hill, not too far away. And the Reverend Grimstead reminded me of my father.

It took us a few years to really settle in. Adrian finished his time with the Navy and was on his own. Correction. We were on our own. That following year, he worked as a laborer and we rented a room at 17 Hill Street., not far from where we‘d eventually wind up. Two years later we moved to bigger space at 306 Main Street, but still had money trouble like so many others. We were living along the bottom during the early days of the Depression and work opportunities were sometimes few and far between. Should Adrian have stayed with the Navy?

In 1932 the depression hit us especially hard and so we stayed at 20 High Street for a year or so… yes, my friends, the address of Shiloh Baptist Church.

The following year things got better. We found a temporary place to live at 115 Main Street and in ˋ34, Adrian got rehired as a laborer and we moved to a more permanent address at 15 North Bank Street, the second floor apartment above a billiards parlor run by Mr. Gonella. It was at this time that my husband‘s leaning toward games of profit came to the attention of the police.

‍ ‍

Courtesy City of New London 1964

Adrian ran what the newspaper called the Negro numbers, a lottery whereby runners would sell tickets at a nickel apiece. These days the State wants a dollar or more for its lottery.

Well… the police came to our apartment and arrested my husband. The next day he appeared in Police Court where the judge fined him $25 plus court costs.

Playing the lotto is fun, right, Mr. Governor? One way or another the State gets a cut.

So this was part of the learning curve for Adrian, the learning curve called life. And it went well for awhile til someone complained to the police. This time it was a running card game in our apartment with exactly $4.35 on the table. The door buzzer alarm didn‘t work and three policemen stormed in and stopped the game.

The next day Adrian stood before Judge Sullivan. Another $25 fine plus costs and a warning: get outta business or go to jail. The four neighbors playing were fined $5 each.

All the while, Adrian continued working in a government program called the W.P.A. or Works Progress Administration under President Roosevelt. That kept a lot of people busy working on projects like post offices, court houses, schools, roads, bridges, parks and such. This played out until 1942 when we realized it was time for a change… a chapter three in our lives. So we put our heads and money together and planned. We planned, worked and saved for almost two years and then in ˋ44, two things happened to fulfill our dreams.

So we fixed that. The next day we went to the City Clerk’s office and transferred restaurant ownership to my name and were more careful after that.

courtesy The Day, 6/6/44

Adrian and I opened the Harlem Restaurant at 320 Main Street (left photo courtesy New London Landmarks 1961) and bought our first home just around the corner at 7 Hill Street (right photo courtesy City of New London 1964). Aside from our wedding, it was perhaps the best event in our lives. We both got to work and live in our own space for our own good.

At the same time though, we knew that running a restaurant, day in, day out, on that stretch of Main Street was going to be hard work and headaches… a balancing act with targets on our backs. We had to be off the police radar and yet respectful to everyone, taking no sides.

Adrian was good at setting up and hosting games of chance for ordinary people without much money. He kept it honest and above board. My husband never cheated anyone and kept his distance from those who would. Never one to break the Lord‘s Commandments, though he sometimes got close.

Like the time he got caught by a nosy policeman peeking through the kitchen back window. It was a Sunday, and back then Connecticut was a Blue Law state… so no alcohol, dry. The policeman was patient and watching… as son as Adrian poured a drink for a friend… wham… in comes the law. For this the fine was $100. We had to act.

Later on in ˋ49, Adrian returned to the City Clerk‘s office and filed paperwork for the formation of the Atlas Social Club. John G. Morgan was a neighbor and bartender at Tiny‘s Heat Wave on Bank Street.

courtesy of The Day, 10/10/49

1952 was a rough year and the end of another chapter. We were tired and decided to sell the Harlem after an eight year run. We beat the odds most restaurants face.

The private sales continued in our Hill Street basement and, according to the police and our detractors, business was flourishing. So much so that 4 policeman came posing as customers. Adrian was soon back before a new judge who promised him jail time for any further appearances. Through some misunderstanding, the police later accused me of selling mixed refreshments on Easter Sunday… the Lord is risen! In honor of this celebration, they doubled the fine to a hundred dollars. Hallelujah!

‍ ‍At this point, my husband changed direction and bought a 15‘ aluminum skiff with a 25 horse outboard motor. This he kept at Charlie Herman‘s Marine Service on Pequot Avenue. Adrian painted the boat a flamingo pink that softened to a white towards the bottom. Oh, I wish I had a picture of him and Ellsworth to show you, running about in that boat doing figure eights… but, it was not to be. One morning, Mr. Herman came in to work and the boat was gone… and it never did resurface!

Adrian later went back to the numbers. In an operation the state and casinos would copy, he took in money from bets whereby the winnings were determined by the amount in the pool. What would players bet on? Sports, election results, the national debt, the number of pennies in a jar, and the like. Think of your church bazaar raffle.

From the winnings, Adrian and his partner from nearby Stony Hill, Ellsworth Bell, would take a small commission or management fee. Unlike the Governor, neither Adrian nor Ellsworth collect a tax on your prize money.

Anyway, they eventually got caught in a state and local police operation. My husband took full responsibility before the judge and got a 30 day paid vacation. He almost missed Christmas. That was in ˋ61.

Four years later in ˋ65, we had to sell to redevelopment. We didn‘t want to. We‘d put money into the house for repairs and updates. More importantly, our friends were all nearby and redevelopment was scattering them to the wind. In the end, we took $9,500 for the property, a bit more being holdouts. In a snowy picture taken in early ˋ66, you can see our house, the last one standing. courtesy of The Day

We bought a Victorian on Manwaring Hill. Unlike many of our neighbors, we now had the money for another house. We were not going back to being renters.

I played whist and pinochle in a group that met at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church every month. No money on the table. What you won was fun and local gossip. This helped me emotionally in having to leave our home, our memories.

As a sort of ten-year anniversary celebration, both Adrian, now 71, and Ellsworth, 52, got arrested for running a numbers game. The police held them when they couldn‘t make the $500 bond, but time and money have a way of working things out.

For awhile my husband worked as a school crossing guard. Adrian was always accessible, always tried to stay out and about. Dear Adrian passed to the Lord in 1987. He was 87 years old.

As for me, dear Friends, I stayed on Manwaring Street, active with the Shiloh choir and serving on the Missionary Board. It was a pleasure singing and working with such loving people and they helped me deal better with loneliness. My faith has never failed me and, looking back on my life with Adrian in New London, I wouldn‘t change a single blessed thing.

In 2003, at the age of 100 years, I rejoined Adrian, me Dad and me Mum, with the Father.

Amen.

photo courtesy of The Day

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‍ ‍. Story 4 - a warm welcome on John Street

‍ ‍Siema (shea-ma). That means hi in Polish. My name is Anton Witkofski, but everyone calls me Antje cuz I‘m small but strong, like my father who sometimes works on the boats. We moved to New London from Poznan when I was a baby and I almost didn‘t make it cuz I got sick and the trip was long… ten days of boredom and sudden terror from what my mother says. But like I said, I‘m small but strong.

Then it happens… BOOM.

The two men spring back from the little stove that is now a ball of fire with flames licking the nearby wall. The wind helps by blowing the flames into a pile of sheets and bed clothes. There‘s now maybe a dozen of us kids jumping up and down, whooping, hollering, clapping our hands.

The men stand frozen as if made from salt. The clothes pile now burns. Women start to scream.

From somewhere behind us Mr. Bukowski and Mr. Povchik rush forward, fly up the stairs and brush past the two men. Mr. Povchik throws himself on the bedclothes while Mr. Bukowski takes his hat for a glove, seizes the stove handle.

The crowd instinctively makes a hole into which this manmade meteor makes its blazing entrance crashing into the icy pavement. There is a flash, the flames scatter and die. Mr. Povchik gets up from a pair of men‘s singed pyjamas and claps Mr. Bukowski on the shoulder.

‍ ‍Today we watched a new family move in above the Soltz meat market on John Street. Two men, three women, a boy and a girl, maybe nine or ten, my age. While they bring in boxes and bags, the men are trying to light a stove just inside the doorway on the porch.

Oh… did I mention this is February with snow on the ground? It is.

The men are cursing and start yelling at the women who ignore them. The boy and girl stay glued to the sidewalk looking away.

Oh… John Street is great for sledding. It‘s wide and steep, not much traffic. We use pieces of cardboard with burlap. Slides good and keeps your bum warm.

The yelling bring neighbors walking by to a halt. A strong cold northerly wind brings them closer together. Some glance at each other and shrug. I start flapping my arms up and down, making seagull sounds.

The new family is standing together on the porch. They‘re looking down at the crowd of new neighbors and look frazzled and bewildered. Silence.

As if on cue, the neighbors start to clap and cheer. The two men, three women, the boy and thr girl look sheepishly at each other and walk slowly down from the porch into the street. The people surround them. To the amusement of all, children start to rub snow on each other and begin to sing. A couple of adults join in.

I step over to the boy, take my right hand out of my coat pocket.

‍ ‍Siema, I say, nodding, squeezing his hand. Antje.

‍ ‍Siema, Antje. Niko.

In the crowd there is talk of tea and cakes coming from next door.

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‍ ‍Story 5 - what a cab driver sees

photo credits to: George Oldershaw (color)ˋ61, New London Landmarks ˋ61, and the City of New London, ˋ64, both b&w… maps , Sanborn ˋ54 - Library of Congress, Blue Cab ad - The Day

Hello. My name is Jon, short for Jonathan. I was named for my grandfather who worked as a school custodian at Winthrop where I go. I think they named the school after the cove. From our front yard, if you look between the right houses you can see it. High tide is better.

Yep, he drives a checker, a Blue Cab.

We live at the bottom of Stony Hill near Main Street. It‘s a little house. I share a bedroom with my little brother who‘s three… and always asking me questions. My sister shares the other bedroom with our Mom. My Dad sleeps on the couch by the front door cuz of his crazy work schedule, twelve hours on, twelve off.

Today, my Dad‘s picking me up from school.

On days when I ride with him we stop at Maynard‘s Grocery on Main Street for two small regular grinders toasted with oil and a couple of Yoo-hoos. Sometimes, Mrs. Maynard has morning donuts left over and throws them in for free.

When we reach Union Station, my Dad backs his cab against the curb in front. A diesel horn means a train is coming in though by now he has the schedule burned into his head. Normally he walks around to the platform and yells checker cab as potential fares get off, some looking a bit disoriented. He says checker cab sounds better than saying just taxi cuz checkers have more space.

‍ ‍21, 21… pick-up Beit Brothers, Main Street.

Beit Brothers, roger. Finish eating, Jon, we gotta go.

Five bags sitting stooped over on the sidewalk by the corner entrance. Two of them are ripped despite double bagging. My father‘s face sets hard. He slowly gets out of the cab, walks to the corner, and nods at the little white-haired woman clutching a small cloth purse. They seem to know each other. I jump out and help load two of the bags besides the lady who‘s already seated in back. Thank you, young man.

Back behind the driver‘s wheel my father grabs the mike. 21, here. 26 Shapley. A tired voice breaks the static. Roger, 21. He double checks the side view mirror and pulls away from the curb. We ride in silence. I turn to look back. Our fare has put on her glasses and is reading a well-worn paperback novel by Louis L‘Amour. There‘s a tough-looking cowboy riding with a beautiful young woman in a blue dress through a desert valley… maybe in Arizona or Colorado.

We arrive before she‘s turned the page. I look to the left. There‘s an outside flight of stairs going straight up to the second floor apartment. ‍

Step by step the lady makes her way up the stairs clutching Louis L‘Amour and the cloth purse. Without looking at me, my father points to one of the unbroken bags. He manages the ripped ones, one at a time, as if in slow motion. On the way back down, I notice two guys sitting across the street watching our progress.

Ignore them, my father whispers.

By now the apartment door is open, the bags are in, and the purse is open. My father takes the two singles, stuffs them in his shirt pocket, waves good-bye on the landing and starts down. I want to turn and look across the street, but don‘t.

He releases the hand brake, shifts into drive and we start rolling down the hill. We pause at the bottom before turning right on Main Street. My father takes the bills from his pocket and hands them to me to be put in the coffee can stowed under the seat.

‍ ‍No tip?

No… last week some low-life pushed her against a wall and walked off with her purse… laughing. This sank in as I was trying to visualize the event.

‍ ‍She wasn‘t hurt…

‍ ‍Nah, my father said, waving the notion aside. She‘s a tough old bird, that one.

‍ ‍21… 21… pick-up 222 North Bank. The tired voice was back.

‍ ‍Someone you know, Dad?

He shakes his head, looks up through the windshield to the sky and frowns. Dark clouds have come in from the north. There‘s a breeze now blowing the trash around. Since we‘re back on The Parade, goes around the monument and takes a right onto North Bank, just behind the Neptune Building. We pass John, then Douglass Streets.

crossing John Street

crossing Atlantic Street behind the Neptune Building

crossing Douglass Street

We pass the big house on the corner and start reading the house numbers. When we hit 202, we slow down some more and see a couple on the left sidewalk at the end of the block. My father groans and starts tapping the steering wheel with his right hand, the same one he sometimes uses in correcting me.

‍ ‍Domestic dispute.

Uh?

You‘ll see.

There‘s this bear-like guy in a dirty T-shirt leaning into a skinny woman with wild blond tumble-weed hair and large sunglasses. Stuff is strewn all over the place, like after a cyclone has hit a trailer park… open bags of clothes, cardboard boxes with shoes, toys, dishes… piles of blankets and sheets, a damaged end table and bashed in lamp.

The woman screams something into the bear‘s face and by instinct I turn away. A door slams shut and I turn back to see her pick her sunglasses up off the sidewalk. The bear has gone back into the cave. She straightens up and watches us as we stop in front of 222 North Bank.

Drops of rain…

‍ ‍What took you so long? I called over an hour ago!

My father gestures at the stuff on the sidewalk, the front steps, in the gutter.

‍ ‍I‘m not a moving van, Miss.

We both turn and see a boy of three or four sitting behind a large bag, crying. He‘s in bathing trunks that he has clearly soiled from inattention, is missing a sneaker and a sock. We watch as the woman, now a mother, start to load the back of the cab. I start to get out. My father motions me to sit still.

‍ ‍Would you open the trunk?

As if by miracle or by practice, she gets nearly all of it into the cab. The stuff now gone, we spot a mattress propped against the wall, impossible to ignore.

‍ ‍Here it comes, my father says, lips puckered.

‍ ‍You got any rope?

‍ ‍Where to, Miss? He waits and repeats the question, holding the mike for the mother to see.

‍ ‍38 Hill.

‍ ‍My father nods. 21 to 38 Hill.

Roger, 21. Don‘t go nowhere after, got another job for you. Let me know when you‘re clear.

With the mother on one side, my father on the other, they waltz the mattress over to the cab and push it onto the roof where it covers the roof vacant sign. The rain is getting heavier.

My father must now perform magic with the mother as his able-bodied assistant. With his left arm holding one side of the mattress and the assistant holding the other, he not only steers, but fights gravity in starting to ascend the hill around the corner.

‍ ‍The kid! I yell, seeing him stand on the sidewalk and receding.

‍ ‍Miss… Miss? My father is staring at the mother in the rear view mirror.

There‘s a moment of silence. I shift on the seat. I can feel the mother‘s eyes boring holes in the back of my head. My father looks at me and nods. I quickly spring from the cab not looking at the kid‘s trunks, holding him at arm‘s length. I plop back in and hold him slightly above my lap. The kid is crying non-stop.

‍ ‍Feed him a donut, my father says, slowly.

Moment of truth. He‘s in my lap now as I feed him a donut. We finish rounding the corner onto Federal Street at a crawl. Not much traffic, the police are busy elsewhere. Wipers are going flop-flop. We hang a right on Main, pass B.P. Learned, Crown Cleaners, and the Whaling City used car lot.

The mattress is sliding to one side as we turn and start going up Hill Street.

Suddenly my father pulls the cab over to the curb and orders the mother out. They move the mattress forward so that it slumps over the windshield. He tells me to change places with the mother. The kid and I are in the back seat. He‘s eating the last donut. With one hand on the wheel, the other on the mattress, my father is craining his neck to see enough of the street to stay on. Mom does the same.

We reach the house at the top of the hill… 38 Hill Street.

The house is a two-decker, that is, there‘s a lower and an upper porch. The lower porch is alive with kids jumping up and down, bouncing off the wall and deck. The front door is missing. The landlord is enforcing an honor system.

As we prop the wet mattress against the wall, the boys and girls start, unbidden and enthusiastically, to unload the cab. Dogs from across the street walk over and begin sniffing the newcomers‘ belongings. The mother erupts, pointing at a boy opening one of the bags.

‍ ‍Hey! you think it‘s Christmas or something? Get outta that bag!

It‘s the second floor, not the first! she yells at the rest of them.

I hear them stomping up the stairs with the boxes and bags, whooping it up as they jump two at a time back down. The donut kid is standing in the rain, stranded and bewildered. He looks back and forth between his new playmates and the dogs, now looking at him.

My father is already back in the cab trying to stay dry for the next job. The mother has paid him in dimes, nickels and pennies.

The rain has stopped. It‘s getting dark, but the house lights aren‘t on. Dad picks up the mike, looks at me and shrugs.

21… 21, here. Clear at 38 Hill.

Roger, 21. Pick-up, Beit Brothers on Main.

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