Jerry sat on a kitchen chair drinking a brandy manhatten. Five feet away, his brother Buddy laid on the tiny couch in a fitful sleep. Dying from his throat cancer for all Jerry knew. Over the couch a window air conditioner vibrated the wall and discharged a stream of cold air, with the acrid smell of stale cigarette smoke. They were in a small dilapidated mobile home in the Pink Flamingo Trailer Park in Tampa, Florida. Jerry knew this might be the last time he’d see his brother. His mind wandered back to recent visits and conversations then further back to the earliest memories of their childhood.
The two brothers couldn’t have been more different. Gerald, the older, was thin—almost frail, serious, shy, and read Popular Mechanics. George Jr., fifteen months younger, was carefree, loved sports, gregarious, and read comic books.
Gerald was doted over by his paternal grandmother May, who was a successful, independent woman, decades before this was a common accomplishment. George Jr., was favored by his father, George Sr., an only child, was also carefree, gregarious, and loved sports.
They were the children of George and Florence Paulsen. The two boys, were born in Chicago in 1941 and 1943, respectively. George Sr. and Florence met while working in an alcoholic beverage bottling plant in Chicago. George Sr. was also a catcher on a semipro team and Florence played outfield in a fast-pitch women’s softball league.
At the time the boys were born, George Sr. and Florence lived with May and Bruno Baumgart. May, born Mary Ann McGown, was his mother. Bruno was his stepfather.
They lived in a three bedroom Cape Cod house, in unincorporated Franklin Park, Illinois, on the northeast corner of Alta Street and Grand Avenue, in what is now Melrose Park. The house had a recreation room where May and Bruno frequently hosted parties for troops. As a salesman for the Monarch Brewery in Chicago Bruno financed the parties as a business expense. During the parties, the two boys would creep down the stairs from their bedroom and sit on the steps to watch and listen.
George Sr.’s job qualified him for a draft deferment since he worked at the Douglas Aircraft factory at nearby Orchard Field, what is today called O’Hare International Airport. The airport code, ORD, is a throwback to the earlier name.
When Gerald and Geoge Jr’s sister, Patricia, was born in 1944 May and Bruno bought a small house a couple of blocks south near Diversey Avenue. George, Florence, and the kids lived there. There was water from a well but no sewage system. When George Sr. returned home after work, he would have a few beers and then, after repeated reminders from Florence, would grudgingly empty the contents of the portable toilet into a covered pit in the back yard. The end of the war brought the closing of the Douglas Factory and George Sr. became unemployed. He tried a few other trades and eventually ended up driving bus for Chicago and West Towns.
In 1945, there was a housing shortage throughout the country. May and Bruno decided to take advantage of it and build some investment property. They bought a half-acre lot at the intersection of Forest Preserve Drive and Pontiac Avenue, in Chicago. The choice of this lot may have been influenced by Bruno’s love of Pontiac cars, more on that later. On the lot, they built two small bungalows and a duplex. May and Bruno lived in one of the bungalows, George Sr. and his family lived in half of the duplex.
By this time, the differences between the boys were becoming more apparent. George Jr. loved to roughhouse with his father; Gerald would retreat to the bedroom from these activities or sometimes go to May’s bungalow where she would read to him or teach him to play cards. To May’s chagrin, Gerald was now called Jerry. George Jr. escaped being called “Junior” for the rest of his life and was known as Buddy. For the rest of this narrative George Sr. will be called George, and the two boys will be called Jerry and Buddy.
May and Bruno took lengthy auto trips every summer and started taking Jerry with them when he was six. In the next few years, he visited forty states and enjoyed many experiences never offered to his younger brother or sister. Whether this left him feeling entitled or guilty is hard to say, but there’s no denying he enjoyed himself and learned a lot.
The families didn’t stay on Pontiac Avenue very long and by 1947 they moved into a two flat at 219 Circle Avenue in Forest Park. May and Bruno lived on the second floor while George and his family lived on the first. The house had two coal fired furnaces that required constant attention. Once the fires were started in the fall, everyone hoped they would continue burning until spring. Every night, George would go to the basement, bank the fires, and adjust the damper on the downstairs furnace. In the morning, Florence would go to the basement, shovel out the ashes and clinkers, and open the damper on the downstairs furnace. Jerry would accompany both of his parents on these chores, and although not much physical help, he enjoyed learning about the process, especially the automatic damper control on the second floor furnace.
The house was older than either Alta Street or Pontiac Avenue but the location offered advantages to all three generations. Bruno was much closer to work, the Jewel, and A&P supermarkets were just a couple of blocks down the street and Florence could do most of her shopping with a two-wheel shopping cart. But the kids had the most advantages. The house’s front porch was four feet above ground creating a perfect play area beneath, it was less than a block to the school and the playground, and it was a block away from “the hills.”
The hills was a vacant tract of land a block west of their house. Through the years contractors had deposited scores of truckloads of fill dirt on the property. It was never graded and the resulting topography was perfect for cowboys and indians, war games, and baja bike races. George allowed the boys to venture as far as they wanted as long as they could hear him and come home when he blew his police whistle. When it was time to come home he’d blow the whistle twice, once from the front porch and once from the back porch. If the boys didn’t come running he’d find them and smack them with his belt all the way home. This only happened a couple of times before both boys learned to listen for the whistle.
George left his job driving bus for Chicago and West Towns and took a job as a delivery driver for the Warner Paint Company.
Jerry would occasionally accompany George to work and enjoyed riding in the Chevy panel truck, but he didn’t like carrying gallons of paint up two or three floors. As a Teamster Union member George made a livable wage but a lot of his money never made it home because he would leave it in neighborhood taverns along the way.
Bruno started his work day by going to the office in the morning to process his orders from the previous day. He then schmoozed with the brewers and the drivers, before leaving for home. At noon he and May would have dinner, then he’d take a nap while she cleaned up, and get dressed up for the afternoon calls. About three o’clock they’d start visiting bars where he’d buy Monarch beer for all the customers. By seven, they’d be back home and eat supper.
In 1952 Bruno retired from his job and he and May moved to Saint Petersburg, Florida. They bought a two story single family house at 750 Thirty-fifth Avenue South, that had been converted to a two family. George left his job as a teamster driver and moved his family to Florida where he received a rude awakening . . . the wages were about half of what he was earning in Chicago.
George bounced between several jobs trying to improve his situation and Florence took a job as a clerk in a small bakery. This left the boys with perhaps the best of all possible childhoods. Thirty-fifth Avenue was about three blocks long and ran between Lake Maggorie and Big Bayou. While May and Bruno kept Patricia safely close to home the boys were free to roam the neighborhood. One day they’d be fishing in Big Bayou, and the next looking for turtles in the marshy fringes of Lake Maggorie.
Next: “Looks like a stingray to me . . .”
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