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A Story by David

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I don’t know how but I have memories that go very deep and way back. Back to a time that one should not be able to recollect. I remember a s**t covered wall in Collinsville. It was directly over the crib. I remember staring out into the living room from that crib. I must have been two . My mother was a hairdresser at the time, doing hair at the house to supplement the family income.

I was popular with the ladies . They gave me coins as I remember? I remember sunny days there , the sun pouring in the window and closing my eyes for me.

Dad was , at the time a tool maker , machinest, or maybe a painter/ wallpaper mechanic. Later to be a machinest. I guess grandfather Godlund gave them, mom and dad, the downpayment for the Collinsville house. It was not far from the river that several years later would flood the entire valley. The spectacle of which I will never erase from my mind. It was the flood of 1955 This was a huge flood for this area. Never again has this happened. This was a great confluence of two hurricaines within less than two weeks. The first was hurricaine Connie , August 11^th which dropped 6 inches of rain . This was followed less than a week later by hurricaine Diane which dumped 13 to 20 inches of additional rain over a two day period.

Neither of these hurricaines were a direct hit , thankfully but caused statewide devastation. There were eight thousand homes destroyed or damaged, thousands of business’ destroyed. Eighty seven deaths . Hundreds of farms destroyed and even coffins unearthed and floating. I was only four at the time but can see this as if I were standing there right now.

Grandfathers workplace, the Collins Company was directly on the river as were almost all factories at this time. There was a dam there and a bridge spanning the usually docile Farmington river positioned directly over the dam. Usually the river was far below the bridge but not at this time I can remember, it was so overwhelmed even weeks after the flood.

Saint Patricks Church was across the river from the Collins Company . St. Patricks was a small but beautifully constructed stone church. This little church had beautiful stained glass windows that seemed to soar to the very ceiling. In between each of these windows were hand carved stations of the cross . There were confessionals at both sides of the building behind the support columns. The door where the priest entered was heavy oak while thick velvet curtains were at either side of the door to allow for silent entrance and exit of the confessors.

Father Sullivan was the pastor there and was loved by everyone. I received my first Communion and Confirmation there. The children took summer preparation for confirmation. We would study in the basement of the church where different classes and ages were divided by sheets hanging on wires tied between structural supports. The nuns were always ready to close the curtains and make sure attention was paid .

So that we were not overwhelmed by sitting in a basement on a beautiful summer day we were given a recess break out on the lawn. The absolute best part of this was when the Good Humor truck would come up the street ringing his bell. The kids hearing this were given to losing their minds. Father Sullivan would pay for treats for every child .

My Grandfathers home was very high on a hill. There were two roads that led to it. In both directions we were shut off from the world at that time. The small brook at the end of Atwater road was swollen beyond capacity and impassible while the other end , Thayer Avenue was so flooded that it would be weeks before it would be passable. At the end of Atwater was a tiny dilapidated shack that was fifteen feet from the usually trickling brook.

A young girl named Star lived here. She was the only person I ever met with such a name. I never could understand why people would live in such a shabby place. The shack was very close to the road . There was absolutely no yard and bound by a dirt road a few feet from the door. Once the flood came no one lived there any longer. I remember standing at the base of the hill on Thayer Ave. watching the river flow by at a very rapid pace. I was fascinated. Of course at this age almost anything is fascinating.

Somehow I was able to leave there and go home to the Avon house with my parents. This was also flooded. It did not directly affect us as we were able to leave by one direction. The other was a swollen brook that had turned impassible.

Grandfather Godlund was an immigrant from Sweden. He came here in the times of the railroads. He found himself a job there at the age of 19 working on the great push west.

It was later in life that he found his calling at the Collins Company. They manufactured

Machetes and swords. He was a machinest for them . These items were used in the exploration of the jungles of Panama, Brazil, Equador and the like. They were necessary tools for such an adventure and undertaking.

Things then were so very different. Grandpa would walk to work back and forth every day . A journey of 8 miles roundtrip. He did drive his 1935 Chevy Coupe in fair weather but it was on blocks during bad weather. Walking was the journey then, weather be damned. People then were so self sufficient and oriented to being singularly tough.

Later in time this car was given to my almost teenage brother. We would sit , enclosed in this time capsule. Turn the wheel, switch the blinker , make motor sounds with our mouths and dream of the freedom in our heads.

The Avon property was fairly large. I want to say three acres but narrow and very deep. Once my brother got permission to try to drive this car , it was well behind the house. He made a kind of dirt track.

It turned out that my brother would let a neighbor drive this car. Henry Gamber was the end of this fine auto.

My Grandfather had a well that was around forty feet from the house and always had to be primed. Sometimes it took several cups of water and thirty or forty pumps of the handle to get the water flowing. There was a grape arbor just next to the well. During mid summer it produced very large and sweet concord grapes. There was an out house connected to the garage and barn. The barn used to house

chickens , apparently sometime before I was born . They had their own chicken door and chicken ramp. I think back then every one had their own chickens both for eggs and meat. At the edge of the road and two feet from the garage was a line of Lilacs. Both purple and white. The scent from these bushes I will never forget. There was such a sweet fragrance of summer and the colors were simply beautiful.

Gladys was my great aunt. Gladys never married. She loved me. She was Grandpas housekeeper as well as the sister in law of his daughter. Grandpas wife died early in life and he never remarried. My grandmother was an extremely cold and distant woman. I do not know how she got this way but I do know she passed it down to her daughter. I remember it as being next to an icicle. This was true in my grandfathers home as well as my own house.

Grandpas home was always extremely warm. It was fueled by coal. Every September the coal truck would show up with what then seemed like a mountain of huge coal chunks. There was a basement window that was taken out and the coal chute inserted and the coal delivered for the season. All this coal had its own room and was next to the furnace. Some of these chunks were over a foot in circumference. At the end of the night grandpa would head to the basement and shovel the required amount of coal into the furnace to keep us all warm and cozy for the overnight.

Aunt Gladys used to have pet Pekinese dogs. It was her comfort and companionship. She adored these dogs . The first was Penny. Penny was a copper color and notably bad tempered with young children. Apparently I had the experience needed to aggravate this dog.

The dining room was connected to the living room , connected to the hallway , connected to the kitchen and back to the dining room. This made a great track and that dog was pretty fast for a creature with such short legs! Every once in a while she would catch me and take a good nip at my heels. The only person that was able to handle or pet this dog was Gladys. They do live quite a long life and she must have bought this dog some time before I was born. When Penny passed on I was still very young .

Bonnie was next and much better tempered. Bonnie was tan in color .

My Grandfather was in his eighties and his legs and ankles were five times normal size from gout. He walked with two canes. His chair, a lazy boy recliner, was in one corner of the living room surrounded by a bookcase that held countless copies of Readers Digest. I will never forget the small lamp above the chair. It had a light green glass base . Inside that base was a picturesque village , all the buildings covered with snow. I would sometimes crawl on his lap after dinner and he would read to me. I don’t seem to recall any of the stories but I do remember melting into that village to the tone of his voice.

It was on Friday afternoons that Gladys would come to the Avon house and pick me up to spend the weekend at Grandfathers. On the way back to Collinsville we would always do grocery shopping at Fitzgeralds grocery store where I usually got to pick out some treats. I especially liked the Hood sherbert pop ups. Every few weeks I was lucky enough to also get a model from the variety store in the same plaza as Fitzgeralds. It was usually a model car but I do remember a Robin as well as a dog . I would sit at the dining table and lay out all the pieces and plan my strategy. The dining table was open territory until Sunday morning.

Every day except Sunday , meals were eaten in the kitchen. The kitchen was small as were most of the rooms, so grandpa made a wooden seat for me that was fit to the radiator . It was good that I was small since the area was tiny, the radiator usually very hot and the window behind always left my back cold. Fortunately this was only in the heating season. Friday nights after dinner were usually filled with the tv shows available at that time. I believe the were Alfred Hitchcock, Route 66, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone and if real lucky and the weather was good , we could get a show called the Outer Limits.

Sundays were always haircut day . On Sunday ,the noon meal was served in the dining room where even I had a chair. The bottle of Manishevitz burgundy wine was always on the table. Grandpa always had a glass of wine with his Sunday meal. I usually dreaded this meal for it always included turnips. Every Sunday was the same . The meal was served and there was always a scoop of turnip on my plate. Every one knew , just the smell of this stuff made me sick but I was always prodded to “ just try one bite”. Eventually it stopped.

It was always around one pm that Johnny the barber showed up . He came every week to cut Grandpas hair. This was the only visiting barber I have ever heard of then or now. It was probably due to Grandpas health and immobility. Grandpa had probably had his haircut for 50 years by this man and more than likely developed a good friendship.

I was always amazed at grandfathers will. All three bedrooms were on the second floor

And every night he would climb those stairs to his room. He had such a hard time walking just on level ground and at this time never left the house any longer. He would sit on the back porch in good weather and supervise my mowing activities.

I was paid three dollars a week around this time to mow the lawn. It would take me all weekend since it was around two and one half acres . I was just a bit taller than the handles of the mower. This is a wonderful thing about children. There was no connection to the amount of work to monies received , just simply the task . I am not sure this attitude is prevalent any longer. Something changed drastically since this time, I believe it was the sixties that were to blame for the decline of values and principals that I knew .

This was a time where I could disappear all day. I would visit neighbors at the top of the hill , half way down the hill, explore fields and woods, under the veranda, the deep recess’ of the barn. I would only come home when I got hungry and sometime not even then. Sometimes it had to be getting dark so that I was tempted to head home.