I was born April 1, 1935. I was the oldest child. I have 2 sisters and a brother. They’re quite a bit younger than I am. What I remember most about my childhood was that my parents bought me a model train when I was 4 years old. It ran around the tracks around the tree. I still have the train today. I’ve been interested in trains all my life. When I was 21 years old, my wife threw me a birthday party, and everyone bought presents. I build an entire train layout in my house and took pictures of it. That was one of the things I remember.
The other thing I remember was that I had a portable stereo, and I had a lot of records, and my sister had a party and borrowed my stereo without my permission. She spilled pop on the records, and I was rather mad at her. My other sister and brother were a lot younger than us; like two different families. There is about a 10 year difference. We’re not real close, but we see each other occasionally. My youngest sister lives in Michigan, and my older sister lives in Ohio. My brother retired and lives in Florida.
When I was in high school, I had a class in machine shop. The teacher was a good teacher, and seemed to take an interest in me. He talked to Mr. Scott, who was the director of the band, and he said, “I have a student who would make a good drum major.” So I was drum major of the band. I didn’t play an instrument, but I toyed with percussion. He bought a uniform for me. It was just like the University of Michigan uniform; blue and gold with a big tall hat.
I was in a dance group, Sam Paul entertainers. We would dance for people in places like Wynwood, and the Veteran’s Hospital. My specialty was the Russian trepak. When I got into high school, I joined the modern dance group. What I really remember was the Christmas program: I was a jack-in-the-box. I would jump out, and there was a small girl dressed like a monkey, and I’d pull her up by her hair. It was a lot of fun. I remember I didn’t really want to graduate from high school, because I was just starting to get into my classes. I would take summer school so I could take special classes. I took play production, and I learned how to do scenery, lights, and sound. I worked on the all-school play and that kind of stuff. Then I graduated and the first job I was able to get was a job at Awrey Bakeries. I would take the spot of the guys that would go on break. I worked on all the machines: the bread slicers, the mixing machines, that sort of thing. We could go to the break room and eat anything we made — they had it all there for us!
Then I was trying to get into the factory, and I couldn’t get into the factory because of my eyes, but I finally got some glasses so I could see okay, so I came back to them and got hired. I got back, and they hired me at Ford. I started afternoon shifts, and I got hired as an apprentice machine repairman. I did four years of apprenticeship. I remember the guy I first worked with — his name was Barger, and he was about ready to retire, and he was eager to impart all his knowledge on me. When he retired, he died in two months, and at that time I thought if I retired around 65, the age he was, I’d die very shortly. Well, here I am at age 76, and I survived all this time! The plaque in the corner of my room was given to me by my family after I retired on December 31, 1994.
My interest in trains has been a big hobby of mine. My other hobby is photography. I did color slides for a long time, then I did regular photography. I have an album full of pictures that I took in Salt Lake City. I took a lot of pictures of the church, and the space where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings; it’s a space that’s acoustically perfect. I also have pictures of a train set that I built myself, it took a couple years to put together.
The drawing is of one of our houses; my buddy drew that for me. Those pictures on the wall are pictures that I took and processed myself. The photographs I processed are on special paper. Some of them are almost 40 years old. Photography has been a big hobby of mine. I processed the prints but not the negative, because I couldn’t process the color slides they were on.
I’ve been to Disney World about 12 times. I started going in 1986, and the last time I went was around 1995. There’s a box with all my cards and pins that I got from going there. We used to buy a yearly pass, and we’d go at the beginning of the year and the end of the year. I know a lot about Disney. I have a few special things from Disney. I have DVDs of all the old cartoons. When Disney World opened, they broadcast it over live television, and I have the tape of it. Art Linkletter and President Kennedy and all kinds of people were there. It was really cool. I love Disney. My favorite part of going was Splash Mountain. It wasn’t there when we first started, but they built it. I also liked Brer Rabbit. I have a couple of slideshows of the place and Epcot Center.
I developed my Parkinson’s the year I retired, and it was originally misdiagnosed. They thought I had some kind of brain tumors. My wife wouldn’t take no for an answer, so we went to U of M. We walked into the doctor’s office, and immediately he said, “You have Parkinson’s.” He just saw the way I walked in, and I had very small handwriting, and I had real bad memory loss, and my speech was getting really sloppy, and I was walking funny, so he gave me some medicines, and I took those medicines, and it was like a curtain went up. I was doing pretty good, then he said that there was a new process, where they installed two stimulators in my head, one on the right and the other on the left, and that has really been a lifesaver. I have been much better. But lately, I have developed a habit of falling, and that’s why I’m in here. My daughter and granddaughter just couldn’t take care of me anymore, so I came here. I also got a new walker, and since I’ve been here, I haven’t fallen once. It gives you a very good sense of balance; I’m really happy with it. I had a knee replaced, and that’s what’s been a big reason of why I use a walker.
One of the other things I did after graduation was that I was a member of the Dearborn Player’s Guild. I did set design, play design, and set construction. I never thought I could act. My two daughters were also in play groups. My oldest daughter, she was 25 when she died. She was a severe diabetic, and didn’t take care of herself, no matter what we did. It almost dissolved the marriage. When she died, there was a lot of tension between my wife and I. I was working afternoon shifts at the factory and she was working day shifts at the bank, and we sort of grew apart. We did get back together, though — it was after I got kicked out of the house, though. My granddaughter is going to U of M for college now. I put my wife and two daughters through college at U of M. My daughter actually went to school with my wife. It worked out real good. They were a year’s difference, so my wife graduated first, then my daughter graduated, then my other daughter graduated.
I worked at Ford’s all those years. I worked in every building at the Rouge Plant. I went from building to building as seniority dictated. I was one of the last machine repairmen hired, and I worked out at Monroe, in downtown, then I worked for Chrysler downriver, and I worked for GM. When I was laid off, I went there to get a job. The best job I ever had was the last one I worked at. I was a spindle repairman. The spindles I worked on were the ones that worked with the pistons, and they needed to have a lot of precision. Those spindles needed to run right. We did such a good job that when I retired, the first spindle I built was still running. We developed a system of repair that was superior to the way they were built.
