THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AUGIE BURGOON
CHAPTER 1, THE EARLY YEARS
I don't remember what year,
but this was in the 1940s;
probably '46 or '47. It is in the back yard of the family home
in New Bedford Pennsylvania. The typical Kraut kid is even wearing
Leader Hosen!
No shoes and a gun is almost a trade mark.
This was even earlier. I bet we were still fighting
WWII! This is with my "aunt" Nellie. (She was my Godmother
and a "Rosie the Riviter") That's her car in the
driveway. Still in New Bedford.
Here is the family in front of the house. It has to be
at least 1951 or '52. Betsy has the puppy, Judy is
trying to look older. We called our parents "Mama and Dada."
I didn't have any hair, even when I could grow it!
The Pennsylvania school system had grades 1 thru 8, then high
school. I never went to a "Junior High" but the family moved
to Sharon Pa. when I entered the 7th grade.
I still think they did it so that they could stick me in a Catholic school! St. Joseph's school, and I hated it! To this day, I have never use found for sentences having to diagram!
Anyway, we only stayed in Sharon for one year. For the 8th grade I was enrolled in St. Patrick's school in Hubbard Ohio. We moved to Hubbard in September of 1955, as I recall.
New Bedford, Sharon, and Hubbard are all in the same area. Look on a map. They are between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. If you were ambitious you could walk from one to another. Not me though; I had a bike.
When we moved to Hubbard I started taking trumpet lessons so, in high
school, I joined the band. I went to Ursuline High School in nearby
Youngstown Ohio. The next door neighbor, Mr. Truksis, dropped me off
at school on his way to work and I took the Greyhound home. It cost
15 cents.
The picture in the thumbnail now hangs in my living room in Salida Colorado. Click
the thumbnail and you will see the last picture, that I know of, of the
family together. This was 1960.
After high school I worked for a year for the J. B. Winkle Electric Co. in Youngstown Ohio, then went into the Army.
Betsy (now Betty), on the right, went to nursing school, then moved to St. Louis. Judy went to business school and started to work for Youngstown Sheet and Tube.
Our parents stayed in Hubbard.
I don't know what my dad found so funny while this picture was being taken. If he were alive, he would be 104 years old as of October 5, 2001. Maybe that's the joke.
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See ya!
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