I remember the day when I and a couple of us kids picked up some cigarette butts from the street and went behind an old garage and started puffing on them. Peter, my brother, who is five years older then me, caught us in the act. He gave me a lecture and told me not to start smoking until I was 25 years old. Then if I wanted to smoke, I could. But chances were that by then I would realize how bad smoking is and would not start. I took his advice and now in my 70s I still do not smoke.

Peter came home one day holding a hanky to his mouth that was covered with blood. Apparently while driving he reached out and tried to clean a spot on the outside of the windshield. He hit a tree. My brother told me that if you get into a fender bender (a small accident) you would realize how easy it is to have an accident, so you would drive more carefully. Well, sure enough, when I got my drivers license, I loaded the car with a bunch of girls and drove into New York City. There I pulled out without looking and ran into a car. I think it was about $l50 worth of damage. That was big bucks at the time. And it worked; I have had a few accidents since . . .but none of them were my fault.

When I was in high school having a blue coat was the in thing. Peter brought me to Market Street in Newark and chewed the guy down for the cost of the coat.

I got my working papers and a job on the local farm pulling weeds between the crops in the hot sun. We got paid in cash, which was in a small brown envelope. They had a large machine that washed the crops. Whatever fell off the belt was ours to bring home, radishes or whatever.