We lived on a fairly bleak suburban street, Girard Blvd in Kenmore, New York or, to be more accurate, The Township of Tonawanda. Girard was perpendicular to two larger streets, Elemwood Avenue on the one side and Military Road on the other.
Childhood consisted of going to Roosevelt Elementary School (about eight blocks away), playing outside after school until dinner, eating dinner and watching television. Did we have homework in those days? I don’t think so. I do remember spending a lot of time on hobbies. My brother, Ron, liked to work on model airplanes while I went in for science experiments and art work. Often we teamed up on the science "experiments."
From the left: Ronnie, Sidney, and Jerry
We had discovered gunpowder at an early age. Our introduction to this subject was blowing off "caps" which were little red dots on a page or roll that you could either load into your cap gun or hit with a hammer. They exploded with a small bang. Then we figured out how to make our own gunpowder with charcoal and salt peter. This "scientific work" culminated with our attempt to launch a small rocket which we fashioned in the garage out of tin cans. We packed the rocket's fuselage withour homemade gun powder. We set up a launch site in the abandoned lot next door and lit the fuse. Somehow the thing took off and flew away (somewhere? We never found it again). It is a miracle that we were not blown to bits.
“Growing up Absurd” – Jerry with Candy, vacant lot and distant
gas station. “Ice house” in distant right.
I have characterized my childhood as “growing up absurd.” Let me try to explain why:
As already mentioned our home was situated in an industrial suburbs. Try to picture the parents house in the movie "Buffalo 66" by Vincent Gallo, a really interesting movie that really characterizes Buffalo in many ways. Maybe our house was slightly a step up from what was depicted in the film. Although our immediate block looked suburban enough, we were just adjacent to an empty lot and Bonner’s Tavern and, in another direction, down our street to Military Avenue a street with plastics, chemical, and other plants.
One would encounter light industry plants like a small plastics company and, even further down, the Lucidal Chemical Company which at one point blew itself up with an explosive bang, lots of smoke and fire, and many fire engines rushing to the scene. So this was not your typically green suburbs by a long shot.
At one point my 3rd grade teacher got me onto a local television show called “Meet the Millers.” It was one of those cooking and housewife oriented shows on during the day. At that time I was sporting a head full of blond curls which made me stand out as “very cute.” I also had a slight speech impediment of not being able to pronounce my “R’s” which just added to my cuteness. I would pronounce the word “car” as “cow” etc.