I was born healthy, not
wealthy, on July 31, 1943, the eldest son of Virgil V. McCall and
Luella May Heath. Virgil V. is the son of Clifford, who is the
son of Elmer Allen, who is the son of Allen, who is the son of
Samuel McCall and Else Davis. Sam and Else were born in the early
1770’s and settled in Butler County, Pennsylvania in 1802 along
the banks of Muddy Creek. Samuel was a Scot, whose parents likely
migrated via Ireland to the Colonies. Dad and Mom were born and
raised in Butler County. They married in 1940 at Cumberland,
Maryland. I was born just 30 days before my Dad left for Army
basic training. Dad completed training and returned on leave in
December 1943 to visit Mom, at which time my Brother, Denny, was
created. Then, my Dad departed for North Africa to join General
George Patton, whose outfit would battle the Desert Fox, German
General Rommel. Dad’s Thunderbirds would move on to Sicily and to
Italy. Dad returned to America in 1945, wounded and with undulant
fever, to join his family, now of three.
My Brother, Denny was born
September 22, 1944, while Dad was gone. Mom, Denny and I lived in
a little house on Third Avenue in Brackenridge, Pa. about 18 miles
NE of Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River in the mountains. Once
Dad returned, we moved into larger quarters at 301 Cherry Street
in Brackenridge. The two primary industries in our area were
steel making and coal mining.
From our births until 1949,
Denny and I were nearly inseparable. We shared dreams, ideas and
feelings the way that twins do, according to some. I do not
remember too many specifics about this time frame, but I do
remember having had my tonsils removed, an orange-handled Gene
Autry cap pistol with holster, the old steam locomotives, pulling
the long coal and steel trains through the valley, going to Sunday
School and church every Sunday, Easter egg hunts, Halloweening and
meager but wonderful Christmases. I first attended Brackenridge
Avenue School, which offered grades 1-4, in September 1949. Now
for the first time, Denny (The Toke) and I experienced separation,
and we didn’t like it at all.
On October 23, 1950, the bomb
bay door opened, and the bomb was dropped. None of our lives
would ever be the same. Toke and I had hoped for a sister, but a
big ol’ baby brother was born instead. We were never to have a
sister, as Brent would be Mom and Dad’s last child. I’m not sure
that Denny and I liked Brent or not, but I think not, at least in
the beginning.
Now, I was in second grade
and Denny in first. Dad was now a union worker at the local glass
works, known as Liberty Mirror. We would meet Dad at the plant
every Friday, and he would take us to Ray River’s Tavern for a 6
ounce coke and a Hershey or Clark bar. He was sharp in all that
he did though he only went to the sixth grade. He dropped out
then to help support the family, of which he was the eldest son
with eight siblings. Grandpap, Clifford, and Grandma, Dora, were
Presbyterians and so was Dad, but he hardly ever attended church.
He appeared twice to my recollection, when I was confirmed and
when Denny was. Mom was the driving force and example, and she is
Lutheran, so as such, Denny and I were baptized and confirmed.
Dad was hard, cold and stern and had difficulty expressing love.
He cared so much but didn’t know quite how to express it. Mom was
best at showing love, managing the household and making those
old-fashioned meals and home-made baked goods. Both parents
constantly schooled us on honesty, respect, manners and morals.
There was discipline at home, in the church, at school and by
relatives and neighbors.
Dad was a volunteer fireman.
He also belonged to the V.F.W., the American Legion, the Oregon
Club (private local club) and others. When Christmas came, we
attended many parties, and during the summer, we went to many
picnics. The church had picnics and parties too and so did the
factory, where Dad worked. There were fantastic family reunions
at Uncle Bub and Aunt Ruth’s place in the country near Meridian.
Endless, delicious food, games and non-stop laughter and smiles
were the order of the day. How fantastic life really was!
Now, I ramble a wee bit about
life in general in the 1950’s and about our lives as kids. To
tell it all would require hundreds of pages. Living was clean,
developmental and simple. Men worked at the factories, plants,
mills and mines. Women cleaned house, washed clothes, sewed,
cooked and cold-packed. My Grandpap Clifford in fact was a
railroad engineer. My picture with him was taken in the cab of a
steam locomotive, when I was about six years old.
There was no television in
our early years. My Dad got a deal from one of his brothers on a
Crosley T.V. with a 12 inch screen, which was only black and
white, so we first viewed T.V. in 1950. We only received one
station at first and only for several hours each evening. In the
1940’s we listened to “Lights Out”, “Hands of Mystery” and “The
Inner Sanctum” on the radio. Early T.V. shows enjoyed were
“Kookla, Fran and Ollie”, “Foudini and Pinhead”, “Captain Video”,
“The Lone Ranger”, “Flash Gordon”, “Buck Rogers” and “Arthur, buy-em’-by-the-carton,
Godfrey”. To supplement T.V., we attended the 7 cent Saturday
morning shows at the Valley Theater in Brackenridge and the Harris
and Manos Theaters in Tarentum, Pa. For 4 to 5 hours, it was
non-stop Little Rascals, Bowery Boys, Three Stooges, The Cisco
Kid, The Lone Ranger, Lash Laroo, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, cartoons
galore and news reels of the Korean War. Candy bars, popcorn, pop
and popsicles were each one nickel. We had a party-line phone, on
which there were 5 or 6 other families or parties. Mom and Dad
had old 78 rpm records of “She’s Too Fat for Me”, “The Blue Skirt
Waltz”, “Yes, We Have No Bananas” and “To Each His Own”.
There were no computers or
cell phones. Our entertainment was wholesome, free, easy and
self-created. We had cap pistols, bows and rubber-tipped arrows,
dart- guns, squirt pistols, sling-shots and rifles, which pumped
ping pong balls. It seems that we played cowboys and Indians,
cops and robbers or army soldiers most of the time. We also
played pick-up baseball, basketball and football, often with more
than normal team strengths, so everyone could play. We shot
marbles and collected stamps, coins and baseball (from packs of
bubblegum) cards. Mom had Denny and I enrolled in tap dancing
lessons for 3 or 4 years. We danced at various schools, hotels
and county fairs. Toke was rubber-legged and very good. I was
rigid or stiff and apparently stank, according to Mom.
We all had the measles, mumps
and chicken pox. I had pneumonia and was badly burned in a gas
furnace explosion in the church. Denny had a dozen, broken bones,
and I nearly lost him twice, once when he fell from a huge apple
tree, which ruptured his spleen, and once when his appendix
burst. Because of our ages, Denny and I were close, but in the
1950’s, we were not close to Brent, the little guy. Denny and I
hiked the mountains, camped and fished the Allegheny. Brent was
too little and basically a pain. Toke and I belonged to the Y.M.C.A., where we skated, played ping pong, dodge ball and
volleyball and swam. We rode together on our sled, down the steep
mountainsides and streets in winter. We were alter boys, then
ushers in the church. We sang in the church choir, played church
league softball, belonged to the church Boy Scout troop and went
to church summer camp. In those days, there were no drugs and no
school shootings, a fag was a partial cigarette, and gay meant
happy or joyful. We weren’t perfect angels. We squashed pumpkins
on porches and set bags of dog doo-doo outside front doors. We
would hammer on said door, run, wait and watch for the owner to
exit and tramp on the bag. We threw rotten tomatoes and eggs and
occasionally stoned a street light. We also occasionally swiped a
Chunky bar from the 5 & 10 cent store if super hungry. There were
no porn nor school shootings, and we didn’t use the F-word three
times in every sentence.
Denny and I played little
league baseball. I played a saxophone for 7 years, and Denny
played the trumpet. Most of my school summer vacations were spent
with relatives in Butler, Pa. We visited the farms often, where I
rode the ponies and picked fruits, vegetables and berries. I
helped Aunt Annie to make pies and to cold-pack. Uncle Louie
always took me to the Butler County Fair, where I’d watch and bet
on the harnessed pacers, and to the Saxonburg Carnival, where we
saw the horse-pulling contests. I crafted my very own soap box
racing car, but I completed it too late to enter the derby down
Main Street. Aunt Annie’s and Uncle Louie’s Lutheran Church made
apple butter each fall, and my job was to stir the huge copper
kettles. I helped Uncle Louie to clean the church every Saturday
morning by waxing floors, polishing the alter brass and vacuuming
the carpets, after which we went to town for a brew and a coke, a
couple chili dogs and a visit to Kemper’s Saddle Shop. I earned
money all summer in Butler by cutting grass, edging sidewalks,
trimming hedge, painting and helping the elderly by doing small
jobs. This enabled me to buy clothes for school. Mom made most
of our shirts, but we still needed pants, shoes and coats. Denny
always hated hand-me-downs. We wore spades, penny loafers and
saddle oxfords. Our pants had buckles on the backs. We wore
clam-diggers, sunglasses and white socks.
The rich kids, whose fathers
were doctors, lawyers, dentists and car dealership owners, lived
in the Heights. The blue collar families lived mostly in the
Valley. We were a mixed bag of Catholics and Protestants. Many
of the kids were Slavish or Polish, but there were Irish, German
and Italian kids too. The high school served several towns and
townships, and of course there were clicks, depending on
nationality, religion, previous school attended and location of
dwelling. Our high school had no swimming pool, had no tennis
courts, offered no golf, had no air-conditioning but did have
33-35 kids per classroom. There really were no school buses and
the teachers had no union, just dedication. We said the Lord’s
Prayer, and the God-word was still in the Pledge. The Jews and
non-believers never made a fuss. How remarkable!
I set up duckpins and tenpins
at a six lane bowling alley above the Manos Theater in Tarentum
from 14 to 16 years of age before the dawning of automatic
pinsetters. In the summer of 1960, I became a stock boy and
cashier at the Acme Super Market (Yes, there really was one),
where I worked until I graduated in May 1961. Also in that
fateful summer of 1960, I met my first true sweetheart, Emily, at
the Sunday night dance at the Heights Firemen’s Hall. Denny and I
shared girlfriends from time to time, when the pickin’s were slim,
but Emily was all mine. My relatives hated this relationship
because Emily was a Catholic. I was not.
I had enrolled in the
Distributive Education Program in my senior year. This enabled me
to have four, hour- long subjects, history, economics and business
related English and math, from 800 AM until noon. I’d lunch with
Mom and work 100 PM to 900 PM at the Acme. After work and on days
off, I often went to see Emily. Her Dad would pick me up, as I
had no vehicle. The times were absolutely great, but soon our
lives would change, especially mine. There would be no more
flying of remote-control model airplanes. Denny and I would no
longer hollow out the Buckeyes, fill them with salt, pack the
holes with mud and throw them into the fire to watch them
explode. There would be no more scaling the cliffs by rope along
the river, exploring the caves for old arrowheads. We would no
longer build rafts in an effort to reach the island in the middle
of the river. We would no longer sleep on the porch during the
thunderstorms. Denny and I fought each other nearly every day of
the week about something, but when anyone picked on one of us, the
other was always there to help. I would give anything, probably
even my soul, to return to those days. Fortunately, we were
raised with love. It saddens me that I never got close to Brent, while I lived at home, but today love still guides
each member of our family. Now, I am very close to Brent too.
This page is reserved for the
remainder of my autobiography, which is being developed.
This page will include
information regarding:
-
Ancestry
-
Heritage
-
Childhood
-
Primary school years
-
Higher Education
-
Military Service
-
Job History
-
My Two Families
-
Business Ownership
-
Pastimes & Hobbies
-
Clubs & Organizations
Thank You.
