Murder in the North End - She testified against the Big Sabu, now she mu...

Notes by Bill Russo Murder in the North End is a short tale that came to me over a plate of lasagna and meatballs. The food and the places are real, but the 'hitman' is fictional.

Karma and the Little Girl from Provincetown - A Christmas Tale

Notes by Bill Russo

Here's the video version of my short story, Karma and the Little Girl from Provincetown.

It looked like another sad Christmas for an unlucky fisherman from Pronvincetown. Everything changed a short time before the holiday, when his daughter Maria managed to find a treasure on the beach. How to turn the 'treasure' into something that would change the family's fortune was something that only Maria knew.

Death On A Rope - Revenge served up in a most disturbing manner!

Notes by Bill Russo In this dramatized version of one of the short stories in my book 'Swamp Tales', a greedy landowner who cheated an old Native American is visited in the dark of night by three strange creatures.

Back in 1964 after graduation from Grahm Jr. College in Boston, I knew that I did not want to work 8 hours a day at any job.

Spinning records for four hours a day sounded much better, so decided to take a job in radio. I went to the very first station that responded to my audition tape, WSJR at the top of the United States in Madawaska, Maine.

It was a great gig, but after two years I accepted a job in the Boston metro area, at WOKW in Brockton. The Mutual Radio Network billed itself as the biggest network in radio - but in truth, although it had over 500 affiliates, most of its stations were small and they did not have a station in Boston.

So sometimes, when there was a national story about the Red Sox or something else, the network would call me in Brockton, and I would do an audio report for them.

They would announce it by saying, Now reporting from Boston, Bill Russo for Mutual News - but in truth it was Brockton, not Boston! I was making about 80 bucks a week at the time, and Mutual paid me $15.00 every time they used my story - so it was a pretty nice little extra piece of change!

(The photo is not from my WOKW - it is long gone -some other station is now using the call letters. (Our jingle, sung by a group of four ladies was - "In the Know, On the Go - It's OK Radio!")

Knotso Clanky Meets Bigfoot - from Bill Russo's Short Story Theater

Notes by Bill Russo

From Season 4 of my podcast, Short Story Theater, here is the video version of Knotso Clanky Meets Bigfoot.

 

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...