When I was about three years old, my parents were lucky enough to get accepted at a community housing project, Marredo Village Community Housing Project. We were not exactly destitute, but I think we would have been classified as economically disadvantaged. As the years went by and my parents had three more sons and adopted a couple of my nieces whose parents had died. My parents income did not take any spectacular upward turn.
My Dad worked long hours in the mills, a dangerous and harsh environment, so that my Mother could stay home and take care of us kids. We lived in the projects until I was almost thirteen. I thought it was great. We lived close to the Beaver River and my brothers and friends used to hang out in the woods and swamps that bordered the river. I would say I had a happy and uneventful childhood.
I was not in to sports, although I did try out and played Little League baseball one year. I usually got stuck in right field and was not very good at the game. I preferred to hang out at the local library and read a lot of books. My Dad used to fuss at me to get my nose out of a book and go outside and play. We got a telephone when I was eight, a three party line; that was an event. We got our first TV in 1951 when I was eleven. I helped my Dad design and install a simple dipole antenna so that we could get Channel two in Pittsburgh, some 60 miles away.
I was always interested in science and electronics at that age. My best friend Henry Sheebish and I were interested in becoming Ham radio operators. My Dad took us to visit a friend of his that had a ham station and we really became hooked. My only Christmas present when I was twelve was a one-month rental on a machine that I could use to learn how to send and receive Morse code. It cost 29.95 a month to rent, and that was big money in 1952. When I was thirteen, Henry and I were allowed to take a bus trip by ourselves to Pittsburgh to take the FCC examination for our Novice Ham Radio licenses. We both passed - hooray and hurrah! I received my first license and was now able to sign on the air as WN3YOI. Neither Henry or I could afford to buy our own gear, but we were able to use the club station at the local High School, although we were only in seventh grade.
About this time, my parents were able to put together enough money to buy a car and their first house. We moved out of the projects and into town proper, Beaver Falls, PA. The only thing I really remember of that time is that in the summer Henry and I used to roam the streets at night looking for cars that were open that we might steal something from. We never got caught, but came close one night when we decided we wanted to steal a radio out of a car in one of the mill parking lots - great training for life. I had a paper route and sold papers on the street corner down town, bought my own bike and was pretty independent, also lonely at times. Girls were not in the picture at that time, except I had a crush on one at school. We had things like sock hops and I was just starting to get social trained, when BANG, my Dad decided to move to Texas to work for his brother. We left PA on the day after Christmas. There was twenty-six inches of snow on the ground. We drove to San Antonio, TX. It took three days. I got there and the grass was green. There were palm trees and flowers in bloom. I thought we had gone to heaven. I'll knew I would never go back to that cold, little, dirty town where I grew up.