Don't Hold the Mayo - Spread it on these Ten things!

Don’t Hold the Mayo,  Spread it

on these 10 Things

1. Your plants!

Here’s a professional florist’s secret for making the green leaves, greener and shinier. Dab a bit of mayonnaise on a paper towel and rub it on the leaves, keeping them shiny and bright for a month or more.

2. Are you plagued by the remains of a Hillary (or Trump) for President sticker?

Don’t spend four dollars for expensive goo removers. Never scrape at it with a knife, razor blade, or a chisel. Simply rub the entire surface of the sticker with mayo and let it work for seven to ten minutes to dissolve the glue, after which you’ll easily be able to rub out Trump (or Hillary).

3. Spread it on your Head!

Pretend your hair is a forest of plants and do the same thing to your hair as you can do to your plants – make it shinier and greener (if you have green hair). But seriously folks, you can use Mayo as you would a fine and expensive hair conditioner. Load up your hand with a tablespoon full of mayo and massage it in to your hair. Cover your head, a towel will do, and wait a few minutes. After shampooing, your hair will be moisturized and have a lustrous sheen.

4. Beat that sap!

Is your car suffering from drops of sap, pine pitch and other unwanted droppings from trees? Do the birds make your car a target gallery for their disgusting little bombs? Grab the mayo and spread it on the affected areas. After a few minutes you can take a soft cloth and wipe away all the poop and goop!

5. Shed the Dead!

Tip Number Five: Remove dead skin from elbows and feet. I knew a person who used to take a sharp kitchen knife and hack away at the dead patches. Often as not she cut off the dead patches along with some live patches. This is not only painful but dangerous. Use mayo instead! Rub it on. Leave it on for ten minutes and then rub away the dead areas with a face cloth or a loofah sponge.

6.Tickle the Ivories!

If the piano keys on your piano or the one at the club, are yellow, put mayo on a cloth and tickle those ivories. Tickling sounds good, but actually you need to apply the mayo, let it sit for several minutes and then wipe off and buff the keys to make them look brand, spanking new!

7.Spurn the Burn!

Sunburn bothering you? Mayo to the rescue. Rub in the mayo on the affected areas and leave it on. You will be moisturized and the pain will be lessened.

8. Strong Nails!

Yes mayo can make your fingernails stronger. Put about an inch of mayo in a dish or a cup and tell your fingers to dive in. Keep them in for five minutes. Wash with warm water and repeat the process every week or two.

9. Remove crayon marks.

Did your kids, Picasso and Michealangelo, decorate your wooden furniture with crayons? Is it a mess? Mayo to the rescue. Slather it on, leave it for several minutes and rub it off!

10. The Top Tip!

Take it back a notch. You’ve done enough work. Time for a break. Take one teaspoon of mayo, two slices of bread, three strips of bacon, and four slices of tomato and make a great BLT!

The Lost Cities of "Pile-of-Bones" and Hot Springs

Pile-of-Bones (The City) - It went missing in 1900

Actually it was the names of Pile-of-Bones and Hot Springs that were lost, not the communities themselves. They were among a number of places in North America with names that were not considered proper. In the case of Pile-of-Bones, a group of citizens threatened to leave town if the name was not changed. In Hot Springs, the townspeople decided on a new name because of a radio broadcast. Get the story behind the story in this second installment of Bill Russo's series of tales of Lost Cities - it's the followup to the short book "Getting Rid of Swillings Mills", also available for free.        

Here's a sample from the chapter......

     

Pile of Bones

Though some communities may have acquired a genteel name through debate and perhaps voting, there was no choice for the residents of Pile-Of-Bones, Canada. The name was quickly and summarily changed shortly before the year 1900.

Pile-Of-Bones literally sprouted up from an 1882 map.  It showed that the route of the great and powerful Canadian Pacific Railroad would pass by a certain parcel of arid and featureless grassland; which had but one distinguishing characteristic - a mountain of buffalo bones that glistened when the sun shined.

The Lieutenant Governor of Canada's North-West territories just happened to own that land which quickly birthed a sleepy village. In a national scandal, the collection of shacks and shanties therein, were designated as the seat of territorial government. By the middle of the 20th century, the ragged little village of Pile-of=Bones mushroomed into a major city.

      The first 'house' built in the city of Pile-of-Bones

Today it is a capital city and the seventh largest metropolitan area in Canada. What about the name Pile-of-Bones? Apparently that handle didn’t sit well with Princess Louise, the Dutchess of Argyll. She told her hubby, the Governor General of Canada, that she wanted to name the community after her Mother, Queen Victoria of England. And thus was born the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

In 1900 the town had about a thousand residents.  By 1916, some 30,000 people called it home, and a hundred years later in 2016 Pile-o-Bones/Regina had a population of over 216,000 making it the second largest city in Saskatchewan.

What’s in a name?  I think the good people of Regina would say, ‘a lot’ - for it is hard to imagine that Pile-of-Bones would have grown so big without its new name.

***

The community of Hot Springs didn't lose its name because folks hated it, in fact most townspeople loved the name.  Why did they change it?  Radio.  They did it because of a radio program.  It happened at a time when radio was so powerful that one program - Orson Welles 'War of the Worlds' - caused widespread panic.  But it was not an Orson Welles show that caused the name switch: it was a comedy/quiz show.  To get the rest of the story for free, follow this link...  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/742885

Think the Red Sox Started the Jimmy Fund? Guess again. It was the Boston Braves!

Everybody knows that the favorite charity of the Red Sox is the Jimmy Fund, but few people realize that the Fenway Park crowd had absolutely no involvement with the charity’s beginnings.

That honor goes to Boston’s other major league baseball team, the Braves. 

Flashback to 1948: the most exciting season in baseball history. The Boston Braves won the National League Pennant with a record of 91 and 62.  The Boston Red Sox finished the regular season with 96 victories and only 58 losses. The New York Yankees only won 94 games so the Fenway nine should have been the American League Champs; but Cleveland, led by 19 game winner ‘Bullet’ Bob Feller also won 96 games.

The fans’ hopes of a subway series between Boston’s two Major League ball-clubs were dashed when the Red Sox lost the ‘winner take all’ playoff game 8 to 3 despite Bobby Doerr’s 27^th home run of the season.

What has all this to do with the start of the Jimmy Fund?  Plenty - all season long a 12 year old boy named Einar ‘Jimmy’ Gustafson had been tuning his radio to WNAC to listen to Jim Britt call the play by play for both teams, the Braves and the Sox.  At the time only home games were broadcast, so Britt did the Sox while the Braves were away and vice versa.

Also, starting that year (1948) some games were televised on WBZ TV, Channel Four.  Jim Britt also announced those broadcasts.

Young Jimmy liked both teams at first, but there was something about the Braves.  True the Red Sox had Ted Williams, the last four hundred hitter. 

But the Braves behind Spahn and Sain, managed to beat the odds and win their first pennant since the Miracle of 1914 when they went from eighth place in mid season to first place and won their only World Series in Boston.  The team would win only two more…..one when they were the Milwaukee Braves and one more as the Atlanta Braves. 

Between them, Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn won 39 games. As for the rest of the pitching staff, all of Boston said, “Use Spahn and Sain and then pray for rain!”

Warren Spahn of the Boston Braves had 363 wins - the most of any left hander in the nearly 150 years of pro baseball.

More than anything Jimmy wanted to go to the ballpark to see his favorite team in action.

There was no chance of this because he was undergoing pioneer treatments for his cancer, under the direction of Doctor Sidney Farber (founder of the Dana-Farber Institute)

Enter Ralph Edwards, host of the wildly popular radio (and later TV) show “Truth or Consequences”.  On May 22, 1948 Ralph broadcast his show live from Jimmy’s hospital room in Boston.

Edwards spoke to Jimmy before the national radio audience of perhaps 20 million listeners.  As the 12 year old spoke with the host of the show, one after another the entire Braves team crowded into Jimmy’s room. 

“What would you like Jim?” asked Ralph Edwards.

“Since I can’t go to the ball park to watch them play, I’d really love to have a television set so I could see the Braves from my hospital bed.”

Ralph Edwards concluded the show with a plea to listeners to help Jimmy get his wish and to help Doctor Farber with his research on the new ‘chemotherapy’ treatments.

Ralph, Jimmy, and the Braves spoke, and the people listened and responded with not only enough donations to get Jimmy a television set; but they also poured in more than $200,000 to start the “Jimmy Fund”.

The Boston Braves adopted Jimmy and his fund and helped it grow bigger every year.  The Braves drew 1.5 million fans in 1948 but it was their last hurrah.  In less than a decade they would move on to Milwaukee and later Atlanta….but before he left, owner Lou Perini made a call to Tom Yawkey, owner of the Red Sox and asked him to adopt the Jimmy Fund.

Yawkey happily agreed to do so and today, about seven decades later, the Jimmy Fund can lay claim to helping save many thousands of lives as well as advancing cancer research.

What about the original Jimmy?  He had a rare form of cancer with a very low cure rate in the 1940s.  But he survived and lived quietly running his own trucking company.  He was out of the spotlight for many years. But in 1998 Jimmy threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game to a standing ovation.

Longtime Jimmy Fund supporter Ted Williams was at the game that day and met ‘Jimmy’ for the first time.

“I’m your biggest fan” were the words spoken by one of the men.  No, it was not Jimmy speaking to Ted Williams.  It was the hall of famer himself, talking to the person who was the inspiration of the Jimmy fund.

Ted Williams - the last 400 hitter

Later at the Dana Farber Institute, Ted Williams spoke about his recent fund raising activities and said that meeting ‘Jimmy was by far the biggest thrill of my trip.”

To make a donation to the Jimmy Fund, visit the website:

http://www.jimmyfund.org/ways-to-give/

Here's the Dog You Should Get!

That's a question asked a million times a week and there are almost as many answers as there are inquiries!

Here's the advice the wiley old storekeeper Anse Peckins gives to Cisco DaSilva in the book, Jimmy Catfish:

"What kind of dog should I get to help me on my cranberry farm?"

"Well Cisco, it needs to be a working dog. There are two kinds of working dogs.  You got your herders and you got your guarders.  Obviously the guarders live in the house with you and protect you and your family.  Those are dogs like the Rottweilers, German Shepherds and Dobermans. They are loveable, big, strong and will die for you but they are not very smart.

The herders: They're the most intelligent of canines.  They will boss your herd; watch over your sheep, your mules, your cows, your horses and even your chickens.  To anybody who knows anything about herding dogs, it begins and it ends with Border Collies. They’re acrobatic, faithful, obedient, and the most intelligent and rational dogs in nature.” 

"Listen  Anse, I think I need me a pretty big dog.  What kind of size do they have?"

"You know very well that it is not the size of the dog in the fight.  It's the size of the fight in the dog that counts.  They are about half as big as a Rottweiler.  They are actually the perfect size, about 40 pounds for the male and a little less for the girls."

Anse Peckins took da Silva to a breeder in 'old' Orleans, on the outer tip of Cape Cod where they found a spectacular pup just over a year old, who had a thick coat that was almost all black, with a large splash of white at the throat.  The most striking feature of the energetic youngster was his big blue eyes that shined like blazing opals.    

Cisco immediately fell in love with the blue-eyed ball of energy who reached his full growth rapidly and became a valuable asset to the farm.  He'd move the chickens where ever Cisco wanted them.  Bouncing like a prize fighter, he'd scamper to and fro and round up the horses, mules, and cows that comprised the growing herd. 

 The young collie could even open the barn door when it was time to let the animals out to graze, and then close it later after he had wrangled them back inside. 

By actual count, Cisco said that "Blue" as he now called his collie, understood over 1,000 English words and responded correctly to them every single time.

In the bogs, Blue flooded or drained the cranberry vines by grasping the handles of the dam valves with his mouth and opening or closing them as needed.

The dog was even able to save the cost of a hired man at harvest time. Cisco brought a long, thick rope to the back end of the bog and ran it from one side to the other.  Blue grabbed one end of the rope in his mouth while Cisco tied his section to his wheel-chair.  Placing the rope on the surface of the water, they dragged it to the opposite end of the flooded bog, capturing the floating cranberries as they went along.  Blue scampered up and down as if on springs as he pulled his side, and Cisco's muscled arms easily moved the wheel chair and his end of the rope.  They wrestled the ripe, floating berries to a corner for easy retrieval.  The work went so well and swiftly that the unlikely pair finished far ahead of schedule.  

***

Excerpt from Jimmy Catfish, available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, Smashwords and all other major online retailers worldwide. https://www.amazon.com/Jimmy-Catfish-Beginning-Bill-Russo-ebook/dp/B00XH8XY9Q/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Jimmy-Catfish-Beginning-Bill-Russo-ebook/dp/B00XH8XY9Q/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Another Pile of Bones For the Valley of Death

HEADLINE, AUGUST 3, 2017:

BODY OF TEXAS DOCTOR FOUND AT THE BASE OF CANYON IN NATIONAL PARK

Doctor Sarah Beadle, 38, of Texas is the latest victim of the Valley of Death.  She was hiking at the bottom of a canyon with two youngsters, aged 10 and 11 when their water ran out.  She left the children at a 'safe place' while she went in search of life giving water.  She found none, and authorities found her body this week.  Luckily the children were rescued before they too succumbed to the unforgiving heat of summer.

"3.4 million acres - a massive swath of the hottest, lowest, driest, and most barren landscape on Earth. It's a place so desolate and forlorn that the first people to venture into it, called it 'The Valley of Death'. And yet it has an unmatched, mystical beauty that tempts even the meek to set aside their fear and walk upon the sun baked trails leading to ever more danger and intrigue. Join me now for a virtual tour of The Valley of Death."

Get the full story of the Valley of Death in the book by Bill Russo for FREE!  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/726636

Here are a few photos from the book, each picture has hundreds of fascinating stories to tell and many of them are featured in the book.

Frozen in time - one of the mammoth wagons of Death Valley. 

Eighteen mules and two rugged horses dragged the wagons to market, each loaded with more than 20 tons of Borax.

MMA fighter and Actor David Legeno lost his battle with the Valley of Death

 Zabriskie Point, where the legendary director Michelangelo Antonioni wanted to make the 'Great American Film'....instead he made a cult classic universally derided by critics and ignored by the 1970s audiences.

Swilling's Mills - To Live or Die?

William Shakespeare was one of the first to wonder why some names are much more powerful than others - why some could generate magic while others built only apathy or disgust.

"A rose by any other color would still smell as sweet," he said; but an actor by the name of Marion Morrison might argue that he never would have become a Hollywood legend if he hadn't changed his handle to John "Duke" Wayne.

The entertainment industry was quick to catch on to the power of names; which is why Archibald Leach became Cary Grant, Frances Gumm morphed into Judy Garland, Issur Demsky became Kirk Douglas, and Steveland Judkins was transformed into Stevie Wonder.

What follows though, is not about people: but of towns and cities so horribly named that the citizens decided their very survival depended on getting rid of their names. 

Here then is chapter one of my forthcoming book, Getting Rid of Swilling's Mills.

Getting Rid of Swilling’s Mills

By Bill Russo

In the mid to late 1800s as the nation pushed its way to the Pacific Ocean, Swilling’s Mills was one of hundreds of tiny communities sprouting up in the scorched soil of the American West.  Most of those rowdy, untamed towns died off quickly.

The citizens of Swilling’s Mills wanted their town to endure and prosper, but how could a town with such an inelegant name ever expect to attract new settlers and become a real city?

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, the name of this village should be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on the back of a mule,” said Grover Jeffries, the owner of the mercantile store.

He urged of all his customers to join forces with him in demanding that the horrible name be changed to anything but Swilling’s Mills.

“There’s nothing wrong with our town’s name said one of the men at a meeting called for the purpose of instituting a more fitting and proper appellation for the community. “Our village was not named for the four dance halls and 16 saloons on Main Street, or for the drunken swilling of cheap whiskey - but for Major Jack Swilling, hero of the Indian Wars, the Civil War, and the great canal builder who founded this town.”

“He’s right,” added a rancher, “Jack Swilling was a stalwart of the first rank. He was our first postmaster and justice of the peace. And even if he was one of the most eager patrons of the 16 saloons and four dance halls, he should never be dishonored by disowning ‘Swilling’ as our name.”

 

Jack Swilling in the 1880s

The town’s sheriff was not so sure. “I know that Swilling was a visionary. When he saw this area he felt that it would be the center of a booming farming community except that it lacked water. His canal building is what made our town wet and prosperous - but what about his involvement in the infamous “Favorite Killing?”

A few newcomers to the West were unfamiliar with the story, so he explained…..

“A few years after Major Swilling started the town in 1871, President U.S. Grant gave him a land patent for the area and it was decided to hold an election for the first sheriff. Jack Swilling did not run and may not have been involved – but the race was tainted. There were three candidates; Jim Favorite, Tom Barnum, and John A. Chenworth.

Favorite and Chenworth were the leading contenders for the job. One of the two heard that the other was saying that if he lost, he had been guaranteed the job of deputy. This led to a falling out and a sunlit gunfight at dawn between them. Favorite fell dead and Chenworth fell out of the race. His withdrawal left Tom Barnum as the only candidate and the first sheriff of our town.”

Storekeeper Grover Jeffries got up from his seat in the audience and walked to the front of the hall, dragging his chair along behind him.  Trying to look as ‘official’ as possible he took his apron off, straightened his string tie and put on a black suit jacket of the latest back-east style. 

Jeffries was a large man for the times, close to five foot nine inches tall. His legendary appetite had pushed his weight somewhere north of 250.  Seeing him climb clumsily upon his chair and stand up so that everybody in the hall could see him, reminded some people of watching a burly grizzly bear attempting to climb a cottonwood to make lunch of a treed dog.

“Citizens of Swilling’s Mills - Godfrey Daniels how I hate that name!” he swore. “I stand before you today to implore you to vote to give our town new life with a new name.” After brushing aside a wave of coarse black hair that had partially covered his eyes, he stroked his long beard for a moment while he made sure he had the attention of every man in the room.

From high atop his chair that groaned audibly from his bulk, the storekeeper continued…

“I don’t want to speak badly of our founder.  The sheriff has already told you that Jack Swilling may have been involved in the killing of Jim Favorite.  It is my duty now to tell you of another incident; another blot upon the name of Jack Swilling!  And remember my friends a blot upon the name of Swilling is equally a reproach to our town, Swilling’s Mills.”

Jeffries reached in his jacket and withdrew a newspaper clipping from an interior pocket. 

“As I have stated I personally do not wish to say anything negative about Swilling, but I shall quote the following story from our town’s newspaper, “   

Putting on his spectacles, Jeffries read the article: "The day passed off quietly to the relief of all; but after dark, Jack Swilling allowed his angry feelings, at the result of the election, to get the best of him, and narrowly escaped a lynching. He had left the polls, and was up at the old house of­ Dennis & Murphy, when a Mexican who had not voted to suit Jack came along on horseback. The Mexican dismounted, when Jack, who was standing a little distance from him, deliberately pulled a double barreled shot gun on him, and lodged the contents in his stomach. The gun was fortunately loaded with small bird shot, and they did not penetrate the vital parts.

"Andrew and Jake Starar, who were still at the polls, heard the shot, and suspecting some foul play immediately spurred their horses to that direction. Just as they reached the outskirts of town, they saw in the moonlight on the left hand side of the road the gleam of a gun barrel pointed towards them. After some parleying they found it to be the Mexican who had just been shot and he told them he was 'laying for Jack Swilling.' Jake Starar, fearing more trouble took the Mexican down to his house, and told him to lock himself in and shoot the first man who came to the door. A committee of citizens headed by Jake and Andy Starar, immediately waited on Jack Swilling, and quietly told him that at the very next lawless act he would die like a dog, without judge or jury.”

“That is the end of the story as printed many years ago in our local newspaper gentlemen.  There can be no doubt about the veracity of the story.  I hope that you will join me now in crafting a more fitting title for our municipality.”

The men agreed generally that they didn’t like “Swilling’s Mills” but they were unable to come up with an alternative. The debate of the fate of the town’s moniker continued for some years. The village finally got a change of name and grew quickly into a city and the city bloomed into a megalopolis – today it is one of the largest in the United States.

It’s new name? Many sources say that one of Jack Swilling’s old pals, ‘Lord’ Darrell Dupa came up with it. He suggested the name “Phoenix”

Phoenix, Arizona today is the sixth largest city in all of the 48 contiguous states. It is also the largest U.S. state capital, and with 1.4 million people it is the only one with a population over a million.

'Lord' Dupa's house, built in 1871 and still standing today in the re-named Swilling's Mills. Photo by Marine 69-71 Wikipedia

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The Revenge of the E-I-E-I-Ohs - What's an E-I-E-I-Oh?

Get your Free Copy at Smashwords - follow the link

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/729669

Set near the deceptively serene 150 year old Pleasant Lake General Store on Cape Cod and the bike trail that runs by it, this story is a tale of two young immigrant boys growing up the best they can in an area that has little use for them. Eighty years later, one of the boys tells his great grandsons his true story – a tale of the E-I-E-I-Ohs and their great struggles.

Excerpt from Chapter One:

An old man tells his two great grandsons a story from back in the day:

“The tale starts back there on the porch of the Pleasant Lake General Store.  It hasn’t changed much since that morning some 80 years ago when my pal Rocco Accomando and I were sitting on the benches just like the three of us were today.  And just like we did today, Rock and I were drinking birch beer.

I guess the only real difference between now and that day back in 1935 is the trains.  The bike trail that we ride on used to be the home of the Cape Cod Central Railroad.  Every town in Cape Cod had a railroad station and the trains ran every hour all day long and most of the night.  You could get a train in Harwich and ride the rails all the way to California.  Course you’d have to change trains at Bourne, then again at Boston or New York before you finally got to Los Angeles.

Pleasant Lake/Harwich, Cape Cod RR Crossing in 1935

Rock and I had the bad luck to be kids during the ‘Great Depression’, a period of widespread poverty in the United States. We had it double tough because we were the children of immigrants.  My folks, and Rock’s too, came from Italy around1910 and even during good times we weren’t popular with some of the native Cape Codders.

Rock and I were the regular targets of the other kids at school.  They called us ‘Brillo heads’ because of our dark curly hair.  You guys probably don’t know what ‘Brillo’ is.  It’s a scouring pad for cleaning pots and pans, made from curly strings of shaved steel wool.

We didn’t much like being called Brillo heads, but we really hated it when they called us the ‘Ohs’ or when they starting singing the   “E – I – E – I – O” song.

Every day was pretty much the same.  When we walked in the school yard they’d start on us….

“Look here come the ‘Ohs’ - Accomando and Fortunato.  Hey “Ohs, where are the E boys and the I boys? “

They called us the E – I – E – I - Os and made up a song about it using the melody of ‘Old McDonald had a Farm’.  They changed the words to……

“All Italians should go home

E – I – E – I – O

Cause they smell like fish and garlic

E – I – E – I – O

All Italians please go back to Rome

E – I – E – I – O

And get out of Cape Cod real quick!

E - I - E – I – O!”

They called us the E – I – E – I – Os because almost all Italian names end in E, I, O, or sometimes A; like Amare, Gallanti, Russo, or Coppola.  The native Cape Codders all had names like Crosby, Nickerson, Hatch, or Standish.

Because of this situation the Italian people lived in separate neighborhoods from the Cape Codders.  Most everybody was a fisherman or earned their living selling things to fishermen.  On the boats, our people had the lowest jobs.  There were no rich sea captains among us.  Our dads had to take the riskiest and worst paying jobs on the ships.

In Harwich we didn’t have it quite as bad as people in some of the other towns, but still it was pretty rough.  My only friend was Rock. He and I were the only Italians in our grade.  We were best friends all through school.

Mr. Josiah Nickerson owned the Pleasant Lake General Store at the time and he was always good to Rock and me.  He gave us jobs to do for him and he paid us fair wages for ten year old boys.  We’d stack wood, help him unload stock, and sometimes make deliveries.  He also helped us start a little business that allowed both of us keep our families fed after our fathers were lost at sea during a fierce storm.

We assembled a little stock of novelties and fruit from Mr. Nickerson and sold the items to the passengers on the train.   Boarding at Pleasant Lake, we walked through the passenger cars selling apples, pears, newspapers, and even decks of cards and such.  Luckily for us some of the train conductors were related to the legendary Italian boxing champ Primo Carnera and they allowed us to conduct our business.

At a time when the average man was five foot five inches tall and about 140 pounds, Primo was six foot seven and weighed almost three hundred!  He was one of the most feared boxing champs in history.  Primo spent much of the summer of 1935 rejuvenating himself on Cape Cod after losing a title fight to Joe Louis in June.  During that season when Primo was in mid Cape Cod, there was a lot less ‘E – I – E – I – O bashing’ than usual; and Rock and I did pretty well with our little train vending enterprise.

Like I said, Rock and I were making out pretty good that season, what with all the goodwill created by having the great boxing king staying in our town.   One Friday in July we loaded up our packs with extra supplies because we were pretty sure the Provincetown run was going to be jammed full of tourists.  The train pulled into the Pleasant Lake Station at exactly 4:15 p.m. for a one minute stop. 

“Hey Meo, nobody’s getting off,” worried Rock. He always called me Meo (pronounced Mayo) cause my real name’s a mouthful to say – it’s Bartolomeo.

“Don’t worry Rock.  The train is full of tourists going to Provincetown.  There are some big art shows and such this weekend.  They probably haven’t had anything to eat or drink since leaving Boston.  When we get on the train and tell ‘em there’s 13 more stops and 45 minutes to go before Provincetown, we’ll most likely sell everything we’ve got.”

We boarded Cape Cod Combination One and opened up our packs. I started off our spiel as soon as the train began moving on towards Brewster, the next station…..

“Hey folks try some of our wares, we got apples, bananas and pears. For two cents you can get a pickle, or try a slice of pie for a nickel?”    

Well Carmine and Lucca, let me tell you those tourists couldn’t reach in their pockets fast enough.  They were buying up our stock of goods so fast it looked like we’d be sold out before we got halfway to the end of the line. As the combination steamed into Wellfleet we had no idea that things were about to turn much worse.

Stationmaster Zip Willard was waiting on the platform.  He greeted the conductor who quickly tossed him a few bundles of newspapers.  The conductor hopped down the three steps from the train to the platform.

“Hello Zip, here’s the mail,” he said, handing the station-master a sack full of letters and postcards.”

“Thanks and here’s the Wellfleet outgoing mail,” Zip said, tossing a small parcel to the conductor. “Have you got any seats left on the train?”

“It’s standing room only.  All three passenger cars are fully occupied this run Zip.”

“Well there’s only seven more stops to the end of the line, so I guess the young fella waiting for the train won’t mind standing up for a half hour or so.”

As the conductor yelled “All Aboard. Next stop, South Truro”, a tall, rugged looking teenager emerged from the Wellfleet waiting room and walked casually up the stairs and into the passenger car where Rock and I were selling our goods.

“Look who’s getting on the train Meo!”

“I see him.  It’s Reggie Nickerson, the nephew of the owner of the Pleasant Lake General Store.”

“Just ignore him,” Rock said.  “Business as usual.  There’s only a handful of stops left to Provincetown.”

“Just to be safe,” I suggested, “Let’s go to another car.”

“But we haven’t finished working this one yet Meo.  Let’s do the last few rows.”

We started walking to the half dozen sets of seats at the end of the first passenger car when Nickerson came at us.  We were ten years old with a combined weight of about 150 pounds.  He was 18 and already over five ten and probably 180.  Even Rock, as tough as he was for a ten year old, was intimidated.

“Gimme some of my uncle’s food,” said Nickerson, reaching into my pack and grabbing handfuls of candy and fruit, which he stuffed into his pockets. 

“The price for what you just took is one dollar,” I told him. “Pay up now or I’ll go to the conductor.”

In answer the tall, sandy haired Nickerson unleashed his right hand and smashed a backhander across my face.  I saw stars and barely heard Rock let out a war cry as he leaped on the bigger boy’s back.  Rock managed to get a choke hold on Nickerson.

When my head cleared I realized that Nickerson had bunched his fists together and was smashing them behind him trying to break Rock’s ribs.  Rock was bravely hanging on despite the pounding he was taking.

Dropping my pack, I dove for Nickerson’s ankles.  When I connected he fell forward like a sack of potatoes and both Rock and I started boxing his ears.  We raged on, totally out of control, beating him senseless.  We probably would have killed him if the passengers hadn’t dragged us off.

The conductor soon arrived and questioned us and the passengers.  Everyone who saw what happened agreed that Nickerson started the trouble.  We figured we were in the clear, but when Nickerson got off the train a few stops later, through bloody lips he vowed that he’d pay us back a hundred times over for what we did to him."

Sample from Chapter One of the Revenge of the E-I-E-I-Ohs

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