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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781469907369 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Publishing |
| Publication date: | 02/11/2012 |
| Pages: | 348 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d) |
About the Author
Upon graduating from high school in Laconia, New Hampshire, he enlisted in the United States Air Force, where he proudly served his country for the next 23 years. While in the Air Force, he attended college at night and eventually earned dual degrees in Business Administration and Economics. He graduated magna-cum-laude from Park College in 1970 and earned his Master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma in 1977. Among his military accomplishments, he graduated 3rd in a class of 1,200 from Officer Training School and was selected as the Air Training Command "Outstanding Procurement Officer of the Year" - not once, but twice.
After retiring from the military, he held several management positions with the Lockheed Corporation. He has traveled extensively all over the world and currently resides with his wife in Bluffton, South Carolina.
Read an Excerpt
ORA'S BOY
By JAMES NOVAK
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 James NovakAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-0698-3
Chapter One
GOD BLESS MRS. CAMIRE
On a cold, dreary November day back in 1939, I entered the world, the third child of Charles Arthur Virgin and Ora Marie Rose Virgin, so said my birth certificate. They were divorced one month later. That opened the floodgates for a life of shame, gossip, and misery, in the French Catholic immigrant neighborhood where I was born.
If you were downtrodden, an uneducated immigrant, spoke only French or broken English, and worked in the sweat shops of New England in the 1930s, gossip was your principal form of entertainment. To those poor souls whose everyday existence was relegated to rising at early dawn, working in the drudgery of the mills six and a half days a week, and honoring the traditions of their religion, Ora provided the fodder they sought after to delight their scornful tongues.
In the late 1930s, you were looked down upon if you married outside of your religion. Marriage vows were taken very seriously and divorce was extremely uncommon and disgraceful. It was understood that Catholics only married Catholics, Protestants only married Protestants, and Jews only married Jews. Whether you were happy or miserable was immaterial. You stood firmly by your marriage vows and stayed married for life ... "til death do us part."
God forbid if you were Catholic and married someone from another religion or, worse yet, terminated your marriage by divorce. That would obviously indicate you were disrespectful of the tenets of your religion and were disavowed from ever receiving the sacraments. As a further consequence, you became the center of gossip and were disgraced by your very own family and neighbors. In many families, women had no rights. They were expected to do as their husbands demanded.
If a woman divorced her husband, she was thought to be weak of character, mentally unstable, possibly promiscuous, and deemed to be an utter failure. Now, if you happen to be a Catholic and married outside of the church and got divorced, you were doomed to go to hell and be forever chastised by the church! Divorce is a mortal sin. You disgraced yourself in the eyes of the church.
It was even more difficult to bear if you lived in a French Catholic community in a small New England town in the late 1930s. Back then, you were really ostracized and scorned in your community. You were particularly scorned by those self-righteous neighbors who exalted themselves by preying on your failure.
How do I know that? Well, you see, my mother, Ora, a Catholic, married my Episcopalian father, Charles, outside of the Catholic Church and divorced him in December 1939. Shame on Ora.
From birth, I was burdened with the name, Lucien Roger Virgin. The most unfitting name imaginable. I was given a name that subjected me to derisive chiding and made me the butt of cruel and insensitive jokes.
Back where I was born, in the small New England mill town of Laconia, New Hampshire, I was embarrassed by my name and was reluctant to introduce myself to people for fear of their anticipated smirks. If I was embarrassed, I can only imagine the ridicule my mother sustained from her pious neighbors, whose daily prayers were addressed to the Blessed Virgin, Mary. In their minds, Ora was anything but a Virgin, and would have been more appropriately named, Ora Harlot. I was stuck with the last name of my father, who I only saw once in my life when I was six years old.
As for my first name, Lucien, my mother confessed to me that my grandmother begged her to name me Lucien after her son, Lucien, who died at an early age. That was not the name my mother would have chosen for me. My mother reluctantly acceded to my grandmother's desire. She always yearned for her mother's acceptance and approval and that was just another way of submitting to her wishes.
The name Roger derived from my uncle Roger, my grandmother's little pet son who beat his wife and spent all her hard-earned money on liquor, while his wife and children lived in squalor. That was my beginning. That's how I was branded with my unwanted name.
Why were my parents divorced just one month after I was born? The question begs an answer. Well, it seems their marriage disintegrated before I was born. According to my older sisters, Charlie wasn't a bad father. He appeared to love his two daughters and never struck his wife. However, the story has it that he was a womanizer and carouser, which left very little money for the family to live by on a painter's salary.
One evening, before I was born, my mother, father, five-year-old sister Lorraine, and two-year-old sister Claudie, gathered in the living room. Right then and there, those two little girls were asked to decide which parent they wanted to live with. No explanation given.
Instinctively, Claudie went to her crying mother's side. Perhaps out of sympathy, for she saw the tear running down the side of her mother's face. Lorraine began to walk toward her father, but, suddenly turned, and went to stand beside her little sister. Her move to Ora's side was done to unify with her little sister; not because she favored her mother over her father. What a terrible decision to force upon two little girls.
It was a bitter divorce. In court, Charlie claimed that Ora was an unfit mother. He fought to gain custody of the girls, even took them away from their mother and brought them to stay with his parents, Grandma Bessie and Grandpa Jim, in Tilton, New Hampshire. Charlie was so spiteful and so determined to bring pain and suffering to Ora, he did everything he could to hurt her. One day, he took the girls to a park to play. After they laughed and played on the swings, he pointed to a building and asked them, "Do you girls want to live in that building over there so you can be right next to the park?"
At their tender young age, they sensed there was something peculiar about the ominous looking building where Daddy pointed his finger.
Lorraine responded, "No, Daddy, that's a scary building. We don't like it."
As simply as that, they rejected his offer. They had no idea that building happened to be the Daniel Webster home in Franklin, New Hampshire, where children without parents were placed for adoption.
He selfishly chose to abandon his two lovely daughters, simply to inflict pain on his wife. That may have well happened had not Grandma Bessie intervened. Grandma Bessie, in her infinite wisdom, knew the girls would be better off living with their mother. She became exasperated with her son, booted him out of her house, and testified in court on Ora's behalf so she could gain full custody of her children. With the divorce out of the way, Ora was entrusted with three young children to support, without any financial help from Charlie or any other source.
In recounting those early years, we initially lived in an apartment on Church Street in Laconia. In the 1940s, Laconia was a mill town, like many of the other town's in the state. Unique to Laconia, was the large influx of French Canadians who migrated there to work in the mills. My mother was a proud, feisty, hard working, frail French Canadian who was forced to quit school after the eighth grade to work in the mills and pay room and board to my Grandmother. To say she had a difficult childhood would be an understatement.
Soon after I was born, she was down to her last five dollars, with no food in the house to feed her three children. One cold winter day, she took Lorraine by the hand and walked to the nearby market. She ordered hamburger meat and put her five-dollar bill on the meat counter. While the butcher ground the meat, she went to pick up a loaf of bread. When she returned to pick up the ground meat, he asked her for her money.
"Ora, I've got your meat ready here. That comes to $1.79," he told her.
She was dumbfounded. Her five dollar bill was not on the counter. She distinctly remembered leaving the five dollar bill there.
Her argument was futile. "I know I left it ... right there," she pleaded, as she pointed at the exact spot where she left the money.
He simply denied he ever saw it. There she stood, Lorraine in hand, tears streaming down her face, totally defenseless. She couldn't prove he took the money. However, out of the "graciousness of his heart," he extended her credit so she could feed her children. That was a turning point in my mother's life. As they made their way through the snow covered sidewalk, she revealed to my big sister that from that day on, she would never, ever, be broke again.
In recalling my early years, I've relied a great deal on my sisters' recollections since they have a better recall of events that took place when I was an infant. Through our conversations, I discovered a whole new life I didn't even know existed. For instance, I didn't know I was boarded out most of the time when we lived off and on in Laconia the first four years of my life. What a revelation!
* * *
While she worked in the factories somewhere, she boarded us out to live full time with the Camire family. I swear Mrs. Camire was sent by God to look out after me. In my world, she was the most loving, caring surrogate mother I could have asked for. On the other hand, this blessed, kind woman bore the cross of being married to the meanest, most evil man the devil ever put on the face of this earth. There wasn't one ounce of goodness in that man.
The Camire's had six children who lived in constant fear of the next outburst and beating by their father. When he was drunk, which was often, everyone stayed as far away from him as possible. Without provocation, he would go after his children with a leather strap. The oldest, Theresa, was the main focus of his wrath. Everyone lived in fear of this lunatic. For the most part, he didn't have much to do with my sisters or me; however, we were nevertheless exposed to his insane rages and were scared to death of that despicable man.
Poor Mrs. Camire, she lived a life of hell on earth. She was a devout Catholic and would suffer at his hands rather than divorce him or even disclose the punishment she endured to a priest.
I am told, Mrs. Camire, whom my sisters called "Matante," which is a loving colloquial term meaning "my aunt," absolutely loved me. She was paid some pittance by my mother to take care of the three of us. The woman was a saint. She was a loving soul, and as good a mother as she could be to her six children and the three little Virgin toddlers she had in her stead. She would do everything in her power to protect us.
My mother dropped by occasionally to pay Mrs. Camire for sheltering us. However, she always had something to do and didn't stay around very long. Lorraine recalls Matante scolding my mother for not coming by to visit her children more often. I am sure my sisters felt abandoned and neglected during this time. Fortunately, I was too young to know.
One time, in a drunken stupor, Mr. Camire picked up my sister Claudie by the neck and raised her off the floor. Mrs. Camire was out of the room at the time. Big sister Lorraine, who was all of five or six, walked right up to that filthy slob, looked him right in the eye, and demanded he put Claudie down immediately. Lorraine was our guardian and wasn't afraid of anything.
Staring right into his eyes, in her cool, calm manner, she sternly told him; "Put ... Her ... Down .. Now."
They stared at each other for a moment, which may have seemed like an eternity, and then he cowered and let Claudie drop to the floor. He never laid a hand on her again.
Not the case with me. He resented me because Mrs. Camire showered me with affection. I was her baby. There were several times when he lifted me from the floor by my right ear and dangled me in the air, much like holding a dead rabbit. While still dangling by my ear, he would threaten to put me in the burning wood stove in the kitchen. I cried and screamed while he laughed aloud and rejoiced in the attention he commanded.
As a consequence of his cruelty, my right ear was larger than my left ear and was so noticeable, my classmates called me "Dumbo" or "Elephant Ears" when I was old enough to go to school. I had horrible earaches and was hospitalized a few times, which I am sure was a result of his brutality. Ironically, my sisters never ever saw him pick me up by my ear. He was a coward. He wouldn't dare do that to me in front of Lorraine.
Some people never learn from their mistakes. My mother belonged in that category. She desperately craved male attention. Now, to my way of thinking, it would seem quite difficult for a divorcee with three children to find a man willing to marry her. Apparently that wasn't a problem for Ora. Somewhere along the line, and none of us three kids know when, she managed to snatch up and marry her second husband. She may have shed the name, Virgin, but a second marriage to a non-Catholic, only fueled the flames of gossip.
We never went to her wedding. All we know is that she married Harold Manson while we were living at the Camire's and they went to the St. Regis hotel in New York for their honeymoon. Later, Lorraine learned Harold's uncle was the Manager at the St. Regis.
Soon after they were married, we moved to East Hartford, Connecticut. As far as we could determine, they planned their moves around Lorraine's school schedule. The same day Lorraine finished the first grade at Saint Joseph's school, we were on our way to Hartford. If Ora and Harold had a plan for us, we were never told.
Chapter Two
World War II
We moved to East Hartford in 1942, smack dab in the middle of World War II. Aircraft companies couldn't build planes fast enough to support the war effort. Furthermore, the pay for aerospace workers was far better than the pay for factory workers in Laconia. Since many of the young men were drafted or volunteered to join the service, Harold had no problem landing a good paying job at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company in Hartford.
The draft was enacted by President Roosevelt in 1940 and all men between the ages of 18 to 65 had to register for the draft. From 1940 to 1947, over 10,000,000 men were inducted into the military. However, not all men whose number was called had to serve. Thirty percent of the draftees were rejected for physical reasons and were classified 4-F. The 4-F classification was given primarily for muscular and bone malformations, hearing or circulatory ailments, mental deficiency or disease, or even syphilis. There were ramifications when a man got that classification. You might as well have been classified as a leper. Nobody wanted to date those boys who didn't pass their physicals.
Dad #2 was a 4-Fer. We don't know what physical disability plagued Harold, but he certainly had to live with the contempt and animosity of his neighbors whose loved ones were killed or away in a foreign land fighting for their country. We suspect he was classified 4-F because of back problems. He stood very rigid and stiff, and although he never complained to us, he lacked flexibility of motion because of the stiffness in his back.
Our recently remarried mother constantly belittled and badgered Harold. The euphoria of their recent wedding soon disintegrated. The only common threads in their marriage were work, drink, and fight. Looking back on it, our mother was definitely bipolar. She had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. One minute she was loving and sweet and the next she demonstrated her violent temper and went into fits of rage, screaming and throwing whatever was in her path.
We learned at a very early age to stay away from her when she was angry. When Harold came home late, usually after drinking, there would always be a bitter quarrel. Mom would completely lose it. Instead of going into another room to calm down, she chose to immediately attack and belittle him, which often escalated into a fist fight, with the two of them throwing punches at one another. In a rage, she often picked up a pan of food from the stove and threw it at Harold. Lorraine and Claudie would run to their room and I would join them and hide in the closet. I sat in the corner of the closet, my hands shaking nervously, tears running down my face, until a door was slammed and silence returned to the house. Sometimes, I stayed in the solitude of the closet for hours. Oh, how we feared those encounters. My sisters would even pray to God that it would end. And it did ... until the next time.
Looking back on it, Harold was a pretty good guy. He would have made a better father had my mother given him half a chance. Ora was extremely controlling. In her mind, it was her and her three children pitted against the world. In her subconscious, she believed she was protecting her children, when in reality she was letting Harold know she wore the pants in our family. She would only allow him to act like our father when it was convenient for her to do so.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from ORA'S BOY by JAMES NOVAK Copyright © 2011 by James Novak. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
1. God Bless Mrs. Camire....................12. World War II....................8
3. End Of The War....................14
4. 46 Winter Street....................22
5. St. Vincent De Paul....................31
6. Laconia....................42
7. Return To Laconia....................49
8. Goodbye Harold....................64
9. Perceptions....................77
10. Paper Boy....................92
11. Do A Good Turn Daily....................119
12. Lakeport....................132
13. Soapbox Racing....................151
14. Merry Christmas, Mama....................169
15. Some You Win, Some You Lose....................182
16. What I Learned, I Didn't Learn In School....................193
17. Busy Corner....................213
18. Trouble, Trouble, Trouble....................228
19. These Times They Are A Changin'....................243
20. My First Love....................261
21. Summer In The Weirs....................275
22. My Senior Year....................288
23. The Final Season....................307
Epilogue....................327