Thomas Lewis and Richard Lewis

00:04 Hello. My name is Richard Lewis. I'm 67 years old. And today's date is Thursday, August 5th, 2021. I live in Hamden. Connecticut and my conversation partner is my brother Tom Lewis and

00:30 Oh, let you talk. Okay. I'm Tom Lewis. I'm 70 years old. Today's date is Thursday, August 5th. 2021. I'm an East Haven, Connecticut. And I'm doing a conversation with my brother rich.

00:46 Okay, so when we have talked to Tom about how to do this, you mean a we emailed and shared notes in Shoreline and we talked to this morning, a little more specifically but we agreed that we might start with giving the ultimate story. We might be sharing our thoughts about that. That we would give it a little bit of the setting of it. So I'll start off with a few things. I even wrote A Few details down and I like half an hour later. I said to me, I forgot this and I forgot that there's so much, but we are products of the Hill Neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven dates back to 16.

01:41 3038, 1630a. Thanks. And it was a fairly prosperous industrial Town up to a point by the time that we were born in the 1950s, that was changing, but we come from a neighborhood called the hill. It's I suppose, one of the older neighborhoods in the city and it was primarily working-class neighborhood. We lived on a street called Asylum Street, and it was one of three blocks. We lived in the first block of Asylum Street, which ran between Congress Avenue and Davenport Avenue. We're about halfway up the block. It was a fairly convenient neighborhood at their therapist. And a number of times. I was commenting time to you.

02:41 About how every once in awhile, if you're talking to someone from the old neighborhood, they might say, wasn't that a great place to live or I have so many great memories and and I do. I'm sure you do we've talked about that at times, but also, especially leading up to the interview. And I made a well, it's actually a shortlist, probably it, if I've left things out. I'll hand it over to you. But if you if you lived in the hill neighborhood in that time. Well, in anytime. It's a short walk to Downtown New Haven. If you choose to walk or there's buses that could take you downtown and back again. But if you stayed in the neighborhood to do your shopping, for example, there was at least that I know of at various times a bakery that

03:41 Drugstores small markets, including a very small a and pee at one time. Dry cleaners barber shops in movie, theater, some restaurants. The hospital was just a few blocks from where we grew up. There were schools churches down at the corner was the park. It was not exactly Park, like there was a tree, maybe a little bit of grass around the tree, but it's mostly a place for kids to run around and play. There was still holes Brewery not very far away. Just maybe three blocks. There are various churches in the neighborhood, occasionally a laundromat, these businesses would fill a space and then go and some other business deals with space. Think there may have been a dentist. There is the Jewish Home for the agent. There was a roller rink.

04:41 At times, I never went but I think you did your aunt and plus I got to mention one. Other thing, other Jewish Home for the agent was also a prominent location in our neighborhood. In fact, if there was a, if there was a missile attack by the Soviet Union, the the place to run to for shelter was the basement of the Jewish Home for the agent and said those those are in terms of conveniences. Those are some of the conveniences of living in the Hill Neighborhood, but it wasn't too fancy place so I can I don't imagine if some Pastor was hired at Yale and they they said, well, I'm looking for a place to live. I don't think the administrator said, do you want to live in the hill but they would direct them to some place. Considerably, fancier and and that's, you know, it sucks.

05:40 Who are Street, was mostly two and three family houses? That was one apartment building. Some of the homes, had driveways. Some of them didn't the homes, predated the automobile. I have a thing for the popularity of the automobile, but some homes had driveway. So they were some with yards. We had a nice yard. Nice good size yard and

06:04 It was pretty close quarters. You could talk with the neighbor across the alley.

06:10 And if you talked with them, they would, you know, you wouldn't have to shout back and forth. You could just talk in a normal voice. So, those were some thoughts that came to mind when I was thinking about the neighborhood itself. That would that we grow up and you were, you're a little bit older than me. You might have more memories of the neighborhood and it did not stay the same neighborhood for all our lives there. But kind of focus on this early part, you know, if you have any specific memories of that.

06:48 The house that we lived in did not have central heating. Originally was just a

06:57 Heater. That is a kerosene heater behind the stove.

07:02 So the bedrooms are cold in the winter, and it was a tank of kerosene in the cellar.

07:11 And dad would periodically have to.

07:14 Go downstairs, fill a container, and bring it up. And I think, I also remember one time.

07:23 There were blueprints from sometimes during World War II, when the house had been remodeled to.

07:32 Add bathrooms to it. Cuz all right bathrooms are kind of bad Hawk. The, the one downstairs was behind the kitchen 21.

07:42 On our second floor was what was originally a Stairway To The Attic?

07:49 Right. So the houses are even more humble when they were first built in when we were living it on growing up there. Yeah, and I I think

08:01 I mean, I would not be surprised to learn that. A number of the houses were one family houses originally, but I couldn't verify that. I'd I'd have to do a little research.

08:16 And,

08:19 Well, there was, there was a business on the street, to Norristown Roland Lewis & Son, Moving company, was started by our grandfather and our father worked at moving peoples furniture and moving voting machines and whatever along with his brother Chuck. And the the crew that worked for the moving company.

08:52 So that that's something you I doubt that you could just plant in the middle of a family neighborhood, but it was doable at some earlier time. So our father just had to walk two doors down to go to his workplace in a speaking of convenient. I was thinking about time I was thinking about how sometimes mommy would take us downtown for whatever reason for shopping of some kind. And then we walk back, you know, or we might take the bus back, or take the bus down to walk back. But I remember one time that we are walking back on a Saturday, Saturday afternoon and rather than go up Congress Avenue. We went kind of the way that took us to Davenport Avenue, which is where our church was located st. John, the Evangelist parish, and there was just green area in the middle of the medical school and you could

09:52 Rock music piano pedestrian way. You could walk up and you would come to the intersection where our church was located. It was a Saturday and you know how I said, oh, there's our church. I was very little. I don't know how old I was 45, and

10:11 I Alters our church and mommy said yeah we're going to go in and I said, but it's a Saturday. She said yeah, we'll still work. We're going to go in and her intention was for you and her to go to confession and beckons on Saturday afternoon.

10:30 And I I didn't know anything about confession or the various sacraments and so on. And so we went in there and we sat and you use melted prayed and she knelt in the two of you were doing your examination of conscience. And I prayed and then I sat down and and you had gotten up and gotten in line. And I saw that they were these lines and people were that they were, these booths little kind of like little rooms and people would stand and eventually someone would come out of a little room and someone else would go in. And, and so on, and this went on for a little bit and I guess he was waiting for you to come back before she got in line to keep an eye on and me. And as I'm watching this going on, I remember turning to her and say, how is it that all these people came here today? Just use the bathroom.

11:30 Because to me, it look like the right size for till I. Let it may be a little sick or something. And I had never paid much attention to those rooms and the church building. So, and I thought people, I saw people looking kind of distressed or unhappy when they were in line and when they came out the door, they look happy. So I figured they really needed to go to the bathroom and once once it was over at, they were kind of relieved and so they had happy Expressions on their face. So I, you know, the the, the neighborhood was closing it enough that unit for the following week. Probably every adult I bumped into had some little joke about needing to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the church or something. So clearly day at heard the story, you know, news would spread pretty quickly. Yeah.

12:30 People went out outside more, I guess. And the houses are close together and population was kind of dense, not like no New York City or anything like that, but no.

12:43 Who said?

12:46 With a nice place to grow up in. There is no shortage of kids to play with you.

12:55 And,

12:57 It's not like it was the Wide Open Spaces, but people had backyard. So you go over to someone, go over to the next street or whatever. They're worth everything. I could do. You could ride your bike.

13:11 It was it was not a bad, not a bad location to raise a family in an in a certain time and place was closed quarters. So I could remember one time. Mommy was I mean I wasn't there but she she talked about how she was. I don't know if fixing the beds or whatever and she sneezed and in the next house instead of our neck hurt her and said, God bless you. And like I said, you didn't have to shout to be heard, you know, and you mention New York City. Yeah, it wasn't densely populated like New York City, but in in a way you could step out your front door and you had a lot of options that you didn't have to hop into a car. If you wanted to wait around for the movie to come to the neighborhood theater. Fine. If you didn't want to, you could go

14:11 Downtown and see the movie at one of the first run movie theaters, but no need to get into a car necessarily.

14:24 Any other thoughts about this kind of setting up the story part of it?

14:30 I think that covers it pretty well.

14:38 So I kind of like the the story we wanted to concentrate on. Was the

14:50 The unusually extended story of my accident or the accident. We would always use that expression. The accident in the anniversary date is July 14th. The original year was 1960. We were talking about that this morning and

15:13 It was some.

15:16 It was a very, very rainy morning and I recall not being too thrilled about being dragged out of bed. It's kind of thing. We're at least as a kid. If it's a rainy day, you want to just guy to keep keep snoozing away, but you had an appointment at the dentist and we needed to to get going. I had braces and it was a recurring thing. Maybe every two weeks. At that time. Yeah.

15:47 And and when we got, it was raining when we left. But when we got there and you were in with the dentist, it started coming down, really hard. It's is my my memory of it then. So I guess mommy went to the woman who was the receptionist to say. I'm going to take, take my son home to get the raincoats and we'll be we'll be back very shortly and Anna. No doubt. We would have been back very shortly. If not, if not, some of the person had not been in a big hurry, which is getting a little closer to the story. But that's that was the start of it. That it was a very rainy morning in the summer and and was a trip to the dentist to take care of take care of you. And so while you are at the dentist, mommy and I are heading home and we were on the second block.

16:47 Asylum Street, where there was a traffic light and it was a red light and we were the first car. I don't know if there is a second car behind us. I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. There was a car that did not have seat belts. Your you're much more knowledgeable about that car than I am because you are always into cars. I recall a the purposes of the accident did not have seat belts in it, did not have locking.

17:20 Front seat-back backrest. So, and it was a two-door car. So when the car was struck,

17:29 Is she back with just flopped forward? If no one was seated, there was absolutely nothing to stop the backseat passenger from being ejected from the car. On the door. Popped open happened. Yeah, we were at the intersection to change to read. Excuse me. A change from red to Green. Mommy proceeded quite reasonably, but there was a driver coming from the right on Davenport Avenue, who was hoping to get through before the light changed to red. I mean, I don't, I don't tell it's not a person I ever spoke to, but it's the kind of thing people commonly do and spend. So specially on a day like that. Once you make your decision, it's hard to unmake it. And so I don't

18:18 Me and I don't know how much he was trying to slow down or not. But, but she ended up hitting the Studebaker 52. Studebaker 5151. Studebaker. She hit it on the driver's side. And as you say the door on the passenger side, popped open the seat had gone forward cuz there was no lock no seat belts and I went flying out. It was nothing at all to slow you down now.

18:53 Now, if, if there had been door locks on the inside that you could press down, maybe the door wouldn't have popped open, but then maybe my head would have hit the glass and that was that was before safety glass as far as I know. But even, if there were safety glass ahead impact, you know, I may have lucked out on Lucky though. It was. I may have lucked out in a way that the door would have popped open and tell him. So it just before the impact.

19:31 I had my baseball cards with me. Just you know, I don't know if I grab them.

19:38 Instinctively or if they were in my pocket or if you know, Mommy stuck them in my hand to keep me occupied when we are leaving the house cuz I was complaining so much, but I was walking to my baseball cards and it was Yankees. We were Yankees family. And I had a bunch of Yankees and I was the last thought before things went kind of swirly was, I am such a lucky kid, and then, next thing I knew I was in the rain. I was trying to push myself up because we're only half a block from home. I wanted to get up and walk home, but I wasn't walking anywhere.

20:22 I was told later by Mommy that that some men move me.

20:27 Ip2.

20:29 The Tom's Meat Market Timmy store because it was recessed a little bit on the corner the way you entered it. And they wanted to get me out of the rain. I don't imagine. It took too long to the ambulance to get there. We are only a few blocks from the hospital and just so you know, I do have let you know number of memories of being in the ambulance and you know, lying in the hallway of the hospital. There's a fellow in and around the neighborhood. We knew named Joe or Jojo. And I remember mommy saying this is Jojo's brother. There was a police officer. And as you said he picked up as many of your cards as he can get there. They're not in good shape, but we're going to get a will make sure to replace the cards and I thanked him for picking up the cards even though I was in a lot of

21:29 Pain, and then I was wheeled into the operating room. I remember them cutting the legs of my pants.

21:39 So they could get at me and, and then they, I guess they put the mask over my face. And next time I woke up. I had a cast from my just done my armpits down to my toes. On the right side. The left leg was free. He was a very

21:59 Well, a big casket was most of my body and I don't know and I don't recall. Did you get to visit me at the hospital? I don't think not, I don't think so.

22:15 And you know where we lived was comfortable enough, but it was not big. And the room we shared was not big but it could accommodate to normal single beds and Chester drawers for each of us and that kind of thing. But into that at some point came a big hospital bed. When I when I came home, what was that? You know, what was the experience? Like for you of me, you no coming back home.

22:51 Just remember you being home and need the bed was large, but

22:59 I was was there and I always noticed it, but it

23:04 Tibet itself didn't seem out of place. Given what the circumstances were that sure you're in a body cast and it had two cracks at the bottom to change, various angles to try to

23:18 Support you like to head, take meals, and things like that. Yeah, I do remember how long to bed was in their room. If, if it was there multiple times, maybe because you could a follow-up surgery. So I don't know if I ever needed it more than after the initial treatment.

23:36 Now, that's a good question. I hope I'm not sure myself in a because I missed all of 2nd grade as a result of the accident. And then to follow one of the follow-up surgery was when I was in fourth grade, I missed half the second half of fourth grade and maybe maybe there is a hospital bed that time to for a little while. I don't I don't remember specifically.

24:07 And dumb.

24:10 You know, that us being able to talk like this, you know, or planet and in the planning of it, you know, I've gone through life with pretty much. Only thoughts about myself in that time. And not so much for the person who is sharing the room with me at that time. So, you know, I'm glad we can in a talk a little bit. We had a 19 inch portable TV. Often often mentioned by Daddy to be as that was the first of the portable TV mod.

24:47 I guess you know like 1959 1960 they started making of

24:55 I think a 19 inch screen.

24:59 Fairly thin compared to a console thing with stevia. The heavy Beast. It was

25:08 Corner of the room, I think. And he had a tap, another antenna line down to that one. And our reception was

25:19 Not so good because the antenna was in the Attic rather than on the roof, right? Yeah, so quickly the New York channels. We're pretty snowy but you know the time we didn't care.

25:33 Yeah, if if we could see it well enough, you know, that's that's where we saw a cartoons, for example, on a Saturday morning. And you know, about the TV. I mean, you know, I was kind of on my own for a considerable amount of time. In a once, you went back to school and, you know, mommy had work to do, she was attending to me all day long, but but he was not sitting with me reading stories to me or something like that if he had her work to do so, you know that having the TV, there was a good thing. Why don't you in a couple of memories of things that I saw on TV?

26:18 Was the World Series that year? I remember. I think it was Bill mazeroski hitting a home, run in the bottom of the ninth and the Yankees lost to the Pirates as a result. And someone had to explain to me that the Yankees don't always win the World Series. That was like a revelation. They don't always win. And I remember the premiere of The Flintstones is on a Friday night. 7 p.m. I was so looking forward to it. They've been running the commercials for it and it did it lived up to the build-up. I was very happy with it and look forward to The Flintstones every Friday night, other things that kept me occupied included, maybe coloring coloring books, things like that. I used to make castles in with paper and tape and scissors.

27:14 I kind of liked being creative like that and Archie comic books you had Archie comic books. I would read your comic books. I became a better reader. I think as a result. I remember learning the word approximately from dilton doiley. The brainy character in The Archie Comics, a dead. Scratch was a life sent. I spent a lot of time making pictures with Etch A Sketch.

27:51 That the cast it in the summertime, the cast, sometimes became hot in inside and the daddy came up with an idea. That was very clever. Do you remember that? It would say? Yeah, I think maybe a metal tape rule, where the

28:09 The end was removed from it and kid crafts, and I think something else on to it, so you could extend something fairly straight down.

28:18 Yeah.

28:20 Let it let it be known. That means I showed something on the video to time. Go ahead, could surgical tape on the end. It might be. Yeah, it says, it has stayed on pretty securely overtime. It's only feeling a little bit. But yeah, there was a very clever idea and it worked. It was perfect. He was our father was

28:58 What would I say? He was a very ingenious clever person who I think could have been a very successful engineer. Perhaps if he ignored the college and studied engineering, he would have done very well in that field. Very, very smart man who you know.

29:20 Had a high school education, but did not go beyond high school and it's just one of, I'm sure many things. If we thought about it for a while, things that Solutions he came up to problems, came up with for problems. Yeah. He just got to do something. Basically figured out how to do it. I guess they. Yeah, and if you if you had bought something, it would always be what you do that for, right? You know, and then he kind of show you what he had. Those coffee cans with loads of different kinds of things. You know, he was always thinking about

30:03 I'm not going to throw this out now because I might be able to adapt it to something else later and he was really great about that. Okay, so the unit. So I was having bad experience about it. One of my memories of watching on the TV one. Other memory is, for some reason, the TV was on. And there was this movie, The Little foxes, a Betty Davis movie from the 1930s. And there was, I remember a scene where one of the characters drops his bottle of medicine and it spells and he says to Betty Davis.

30:43 There's another bottle upstairs, go up and get my medicine and she just sat on the couch and watch them collapse. And I remember is a six and a half year old say how come she isn't going upstairs to get his medicine. It was not the kind of movie for a six and a half year-old to be watching. Not that I'm blaming anyone for the fact that I was watching it. But yeah, so the cash went when the cast came off the I could remember at the hospital. It was a little scary but the disc didn't have a sharp edge. So, you know, once the technician showed me and ran it and it didn't break my skin. That I was okay with getting the cast off and that was that was a very happy day for me and I'm sure for mommy and daddy as well. And you the room rooms were not air-conditioned? So

31:42 And they were small. It was just the two windows. So there probably wasn't much ventilation now that the hospital bed corner of the room. Yeah, because you were against a solid wall with the window one and not really near you on the TV was in front of. I mean, there were two windows but the TV took up most of the space in front of the other window. So that was a big deal for me. Now, during the time that I was

32:12 Late up.

32:15 People used to come over with the unit to pay a visit and bring a gift. I could remember this couple of the sisters from St. John, the Evangelist came over with a children's Bible and was Illustrated and it had these kind of expression is stick drawings. We're like story of Moses. And Pharaoh, Moses is kind of a little, and Pharaoh is looming over him. Because Ferrell, as powerful as representative, but it didn't make sense to me as a little kid. I could remember commenting to you that whoever Drew this didn't know how to draw and that there was an inscription in it. One of the sisters had written to a brave little boy. I remember looking at that and say, what the heck are they talking about? You know, I like probably wandered to get a where they going to give this to some other kid, so I didn't really get the point Brave little boy, but one of the key thing

33:15 I look forward to getting wet after the first time. Was people coming over, especially the kids in the neighborhood with a pack of baseball cards and unopened pack of cards. So I can, I be in a basically replaced of the missing Yankee cards eventually and got a whole bunch of other cards. And you used to collect baseball cards to flipping the Cards Against The. And I guess the steps was a way to kill a little time with them between the spokes of the bicycle and whatever. But but there is, you know, there are other ways you had other ways to get cards. I understand if there was sad, JoJo's, brother of my class officer, who had retrieved your cards that day.

34:02 It was a young adult but he was impaired. His parents gave him money and he liked coming into the neighborhood. Pharmacy, mainly and buying packs of baseball cards. And he kept only the ones with the pictures of the teams on him. So he give away all the other ones and even the bubble gum. So I myself and some of the other kids often saw him coming out. He just gave us

34:30 Tons of baseball cards. This happened started in 1959 lot of it. 1960 also in 1961. So there were a lot of baseball cards after all of that between that and

34:47 What were given to you?

34:52 During your convalescence. And and once I got beyond that time, I never gave much thought to the baseball cards, but you came across them at some point, I guess, or became aware of of some options. I think in the night. You scan later 80s.

35:15 I became aware from a co-worker.

35:18 That there was a whole community of collecting and trading these things.

35:23 And they had some value. So about 1988 Maybe.

35:29 I put all the cards in order and nowhere.

35:35 I'm going to say maybe four thousand of them all together, maybe twenty-five hundred of them were from 1960 and I was here at Target. It's a complete, the collection. I was still missing more than 100 of the total of 572.

35:52 But with having so many access cards.

35:55 I was able to go to card shows and trade a lot of desirable extra cards.

36:05 For the ones that were missing. So during that. I did complete the collection and got it, appraised.

36:14 So, I still have it and

36:17 Kind of a fragile precious assets.

36:21 You can forget, sweat. It said Droid, but it's covered under a your What's called the Collectibles and Fine Arts Rider on the insurance policy. So it has some value, and it also has sentimental value. Cuz the. Of time it came from, we were, we were there at the time and on the cards originally.

36:46 It's not like I would suggest that it's the silver lining of the misery of being in that cash for the summer and whatever else but but it's kind of an unexpected and unexpected result in our that today. There's this complete collection 1960 baseball cards that has a value so far. In the thousands. Yeah. There was one on eBay earlier in the week. I don't know the condition of the Prime cars compared to ours, but this one was around 5,000 troops. Are looking for a while. If the Buy It Now price. So, for one that's has a lot of good cards in it. I guess that's some like that is reasonable at the time who would have thought, but

37:40 But that's 61 years ago to. Yeah. Yeah, but it's when did when did you get the last card that to your to your call? What year? Was that? Cubby? 8888 Soul. True. Going to card shows. Training crew, premium cards from

38:04 Not just 1964 from the other years that I had, and I knew the valley wants to bring it, just brought those in the

38:15 Attache case.

38:18 So it was possible to complete the collection without spending money. So don't got too cold and go with Matt, so great.

38:26 So that's that's the story.

38:30 And effect of the accident and the unexpected windfall of the accident with the baseball cards and we have, you know, a little bit of, you know, our personal history you have, I don't have children, but you have your daughters and you have your granddaughter and this could be a record for them a little bit of family history. Yes.

39:00 I think so. I can imagine, I'm enjoying listening back to this and if we do make it, any are then that would be great. That would be an additional and it just went. So, I guess that's about. That's about it. I thank you. You were the one who contacted me about doing this and I'm glad you did and it was very enjoyable experience all around it was I had no idea what to expect, but it was good. Yep. Okay, I guess that's it, right.