Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program Read Free Page A

also worked in the mines in their earlier times. My grandfather on my father’s side was always called Pop by everyone, and he lived with us occasionally. My maternal grandfather also worked in the mines but he had died six months before I was born. We believe that all of the generations of men in our family who came over from Ireland beginning in the mid-1800s worked in the mines at some point in their lives. It was the primary industry in the region and there was not much other work available.
    As a young boy, Dad started working in the breakers where the coal was separated from the slag by boys straddling the conveyor. He started this work when he was about twelve to fourteen years old, leaving school sometime in junior high. Being a coal miner was very difficult and dangerous work. It required the miner to quickly develop a wide range of skills. They had to be equipment operators, explosives experts, structural engineers, electricians, carpenters and safety experts who were always conscious of the environment around them. They also had to be pretty tough. No, very tough.
    These early years in the ‘30s before World War II were a time when people were not really recovered from the Great Depression. There were many aspects of life which were much more difficult than circumstances today. I never remember parents complaining about what had to be done. They simply did what was called for and conveyed those lessons to us by virtue of their example.
    Everything that was done took considerably more effort than it did later. For example, the simple act of heating the house required a regular routine of shoveling the ashes out of the stove, carrying the ashes to wherever we were dumping fill at the time, refilling the pails with coal from the garage and then replenishing the fire. In the Old Forge house on River Street, the coal stoves were on the first floor. One was for cooking and heat in the kitchen and another stove on the first floor added heat to the living area. This encouraged a very fast run downstairs in the morning to get near the stove. In the area of food, meals were pretty simple and basic. Meat and potatoes were a staple along with pasta and stews. I don’t remember eating out at a restaurant until perhaps I was in high school and that was only on special occasions.
    The River Street house was a family property on Mom’s side with a deed dating back to 1860. When we first moved into the home on River Street, it did not have an inside bathroom. This was one of Dad’s first major projects in the first home of which we were the owners and not renting. We were very willing and motivated workers on this project for obvious reasons. We had to add framing to create enough space for the extra room. And then Dad had to instruct us on lights and plumbing. Family transportation was never more than one car at a time and, at first, it was a 1930s something with a roll up front window for air conditioning. Later, Dad got a 1936 four-door Buick with a big straight eight engine and manual shift on the floor. This was the car I learned to drive on. Usually, there was no family ride available for us kids and the order of transportation was to walk, to bike or to hitchhike.
    When we did get that one car, it was generally in need of regular repair and maintenance. So, Dad was very sensitive to any driving faults causing a problem to his only car. And, God knows, we had them. Despite his caution, it seemed that we were always dealing with flat tires, failure to start or run and I even had a battery fall out of the car through a corroded case to the ground. Seeing it in the rear view mirror, I knew I was in trouble. A contributing factor to this failure was that I was driving through a field with lots of serious bumps; that fact was best left out of my accident report to Dad. Bill was pretty good about the driving. In addition to being a pretty good driver, my brother Bill became an expert on fixing cars. He usually had a carburetor