RAY DEAN JAMES - My Life chapter 6

When I was in fifth grade we moved to 1332 Main Street, just across the alley from the elementary school I attended. Schools I would attend later, Rothenberg Junior High was four blocks away and Woodward High School just one block. I always said I could wait until the first bell rang to even leave our apartment. Truth is I did that quite a few times. One of the things I remember most about junior high is the very special blind kids I met there. Their abilities and talents amaze me to this day. Mr. Sellars our science teacher taught us about the reproductive system and I would go home and discuss it with my Mom because she had never learned some of the technical stuff when she was in school. My classmate Eddie Easton had lived in Colorado and we all hated the way he pronounced it “Col-o-raydo”. Ed liked to brag about his prowess as a shoplifter. I once saw him push a bicycle from a store while on crutches. Now that takes a lot of balls. He actually got the rest of us started and we all became quite adept at acquiring pants, sweaters, and shirts, and other items without paying. We were the best dressed group in high school. I don’t know if we were lucky or good, but we never got caught. We spent most of our time at the Boys Club and thank God for it or most of us would probably have ended up in prison. The Olden Boys Club, in a converted church at Main & McMicken, had a huge gym, workshop, library and game room. We had some hellaceous basketball teams and we staged a few wrestling matches that it seemed like the whole neighborhood came out to see.

Across the street from Rothenberg was Jake’s Candy Store where we hung out before and after school for Cokes, candy, soup and sandwiches, and cigarettes for a penny apiece. Lots of kids smoked back then. Our schoolyard was concrete and we constantly tested our stupidity by playing tackle football on it. Inner city middle schools did not have football back then so this was the extent of our experience when we got to high school football a few years later. I played trombone in the Rothenberg band but gave it up to play football in high school. Now I wish I hadn’t. I can still see our little 25-member band marching in Nippert Stadium and no one could hear us. I suppose the highlight of my time at Rothenberg was making “end man” in the school’s annual show. As a 6th, 7th and 8th grader you watch the older guys make it each year and dream of the day when you get your shot at it. “Yes sir, Mr. Bones, did you put the cat out?” “Mr. Interlocutor, I didn’t know he was on fire!” This little glimpse of “showbiz” gave us kids from the other side of the tracks, from the cold water apartments, an opportunity to be different or better, or pretend we were someone else. After Rothenberg it was on to Woodward High, a short block away from where I lived. This is where I made the memories that meant the most and stayed with me through the years. My first head over heels in love with an older girl, a senior named Georgia Douglas, inspired some of my finest poetry. But I don't think she knew or cared that I even existed. I kind of coasted through high school. To begin with, I was allowed to pick my own courses with no input from my mom. So, naturally, I picked the easy ones. I fell right into the social thing. Football, Friday dances, hayrides. Sometime around 10th grade I was introduced to sex… but I didn't date very much in high school. I took Dolores Smith on a hayride or two. She was crazy about me but I was too dumb to take advantage. Some of my black friends watched her walk away from me one day and said, "James, you have got to have a vacuum for a mind. That's the finest woman in school." But she just wasn't my type. I dated Betty Venable a time or two. Including a very memorable prom night. But she was like a sister to me. A best friend all through high school. I never really had a steady girl and most dates, as such, consisted of dances at the YMCA on Friday nights, or an occasional double date to a movie downtown. All our social outings always ended up at Harry's Ice Cream Parlor at Liberty and Vine or Pohlar's Restaurant at Mercer and Vine. I usually had a job or was involved in sports. Speaking of sports, it's about time I introduced you to Feeney. Short for Seraphine John Montesi. Mom met Feeney and started dating him while I was still in junior high at Rothenburg. Feeney became and remained my father figure throughout my high school days. He was a class act. He lived with his family on Clay Street in Little Italy, worked as a custom tailor, was a World War II veteran, had been a minor league ball player until the war took four years out of his young life, had a great sense of humor, but was CATHOLIC. My Mom dated and loved this man for years but they never got married and eventually broke up because of religious differences. Feeney never got married. I loved Feeney too, and owe him so much. I'm a better person because he touched my life and it was because of him that I developed such a love for baseball. Feeney Montesi could hit a baseball as far as anyone I ever knew and would have been a major leaguer if not for the war, I'm certain of that. He taught me the game and came to all of my ball games. He gave me tailor made pants and taught me how to dress, how to act, and how to think. God bless Feeney Montesi wherever he is. Mom and Feeney broke up sometime during my junior year and Mom met and started going with Rufus Hicks. Rufus got me a job where he worked, the Adler Sock Company. I was able to get enough blue and white socks to outfit our entire football team, which briefly made me a hero when school started in the fall. After football season I went to work behind the meat counter at A&P market on Findlay Street. After several months I took a job ushering at one of the downtown movie houses of the day. Today we have cinemas which are small, boxy, and plain looking. Back then we had theaters, I mean GRAND THEATERS, with huge crystal chandeliers, polished brass rails, marble tables and wall fixtures, and carpet so thick you could get lost in it. And most of them had stages with velour curtains for live stage shows. Downtown Cincinnati had the Lyric, the Capital, the Grand, the Palace, the Keiths, the Strand, the Times, the Royal, and the grandest of all, the RKO Albee. It seated 3,000 people. It had two balconies, a stage that rose up from the floor, elaborate dressing rooms backstage, and a direct link to the Fountain Square hotel where the performers would stay. I saw numerous movies and live shows while working there with such people as Mickey Rooney, Bojangles Bill Robinson, Abbott and Costello, and I got to work backstage when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis did 21 shows in 3 days.