For no particular reason, with one month to go before I reach 79, I decided to hit up 'something-dot-gov' and look at my lifetime earnings. My first paying job, at age 15 in 1958 was working at the YMCA Day Camp and I made a total of $8.00 for the eight-week summer season - that worked out to a dollar a week, but I got to go to camp for free!

The next year I worked both at the YMCA and at the McDonald's 'On The Waterfront' in Beverly, Mass. My combined earnings in 1959 was $44.00.

The first McDonald's in Beverly, Mass - on the Waterfront at the end of Rantoul Street, which had a large population of Italian immigrants, including my family, during the 1940s through the 1960s.

In 1960, still working the two jobs plus still going to High School, I hit the big time, making $292.00.

In my last year of High School, 1961, I was really rollin' in the dough, raking in exactly $1,074 dollars! That big increase came from the YMCA Summer Camp and NOT McDonalds.

The pay at McDonalds was always 35 cents an hour. It did not go up during my time. The interesting thing about the 35 cents was - it was equal to the price of a McDonald's meal - 15 cents for the hamburger, ten cents for the fries, and one more dime for the soft drink!

Over the next few years, I continued to work part time while attending The Huntington School in Boston, followed by Grahm Jr. College, Kenmore Square, Boston, where Gary LaPierre of WBZ, and Andy Kaufman of Mars, were also students.

Bill Russo - 1961 - Beverly Mass. High School

Check out my YouTube Channel, or my books at Smashwords and Kindle and see my account of meeting a Little-Foot creature that might have been a Puckwudgie in the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary playing on Amazon, Apple, and several other major platforms including YouTube.

Bill Russo

- Born 1943

- Died: Not Yet, But I'm Workin' On IT!

My Friend Knotso Clanky went to the West Palm Beach Library in search of a book about a former president, here's what happened...

 

We lost Loretta Lynn on October 4, 2022, when she passed at the age of 90.  Along with Conway Twitty, and on her own, The Coal Miner's Daughter had about a million hits. Amont the top lady singers, only Dolly Parton was on an equal footing with Loretta.  
 

The American History They Do Not Teach

by Bill Russo

In 1620 the peaceful land of America was invaded by a ruthless band of interlopers led by a mercenary killer named Captain Stan Dish. The ruthless gunman quickly displayed his brutal nature shortly after the invaders arrived when he led unprovoked murderous attacks on two American Villages, Nemasket and Wessagusset. For his actions, the invaders elected him Commander of their military group.

Settling in an area now called Plymouth, the refugees from England soon found they were ill equipped to survive an American winter. In England in January, they were more likely to see a rainstorm than the snow that threatened them with starvation in their first winter.

Luckily for them, the greatest leader of the Americans, Massasoit, took pity and freely gave them food and survival skills.

Largely due to the grace of the fearless Wampanoag leader, the English refugees survived and multiplied as the years went on. By the time Massasoit died at the ripe old age of 80, in 1661, the refugees had lived mostly peacefully and harmoniously with the Americans for 41 years in what they called ‘The New World’.

The true nature of the immigrants came boiling to the surface. They forgot what Massasoit had taught them when he said: "What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?"

Shortly after the last spade of earth was shoveled onto the grave of The Great Chief, in what is now called Warren, Rhode Island, trouble began.

The invaders commenced raiding villages and murdering American citizens, and by 1676 a full-scale war on the Americans was declared. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Americans were nearly exterminated in the slaughter. Most of those who did not die were sold off as slaves!

And so it was, shortly afterwards, that America died, and “a new nation was brought forth, conceived in violence and dedicated to the proposition that Americans must perish, if this new nation is to stand. A brand-new nation now stands on the ruins of America – a nation called "New England”.

Some 100 years later, when the memory of Massasoit and his good deeds had faded, the country was re-named, The United States of America.

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The Red House, as seen on TCM - Great Print, excellent sound and picture.

High quality Print of this 1947 Classic Noir!

 Another Crack in the Wall -

Comin' Down by the 'Fall'

The Russian 'Madonna' is the latest to smash at the wall ....

Alla Pugacheva, one of Russia’s biggest pop stars has issued a scathing condemnation of the war in Ukraine and she reported that the government may ostracize her for doing it.

Pugacheva, who has been a huge star in Russia for decades, said in an Instagram post on Sunday that the invasion of Ukraine had made Russia a "pariah," and was making the lives of Russian citizens “extremely difficult.” Her post also followed the government's decision on Friday to classify her husband, the Russian celebrity Maxim Galkin, as a foreign agent after he publicly criticized the war.

The singer, whose celebrity in Russia is similar in many ways to Madonna in the U.S. for her multi-decade longevity and quasi-satirical critique of national culture, used the social media platform to declare that she and her husband wanted peace, prosperity and freedom of speech in Russia—as well as “an end to the death of our children for illusory aims.”

The New Adventures of China Smith - Dan Duryea - Premiere Episode - The ...

Notes by Bill Russo

This is the first episode of 26 produced for syndicated television in 1952, starring Dan Duryea as a vagabond conman and part time Private Eye in Southeast Asia. A bush pilot is hired to drop a leather bag stuffed with money onto a makeshift cross in a remote field. It is the payroll for a large plantation and the owner says the pilot failed to deliver it - but we see in scene one that the pilot dropped the lot exactly at the proper spot. China Smith (Dan Duryea) decides to investigate the situation.