~Monday~ We made the 1.5-hour drive to Fall River and back where Vivian and I showed Jeff and Bob many of the places we lived in that city.
Fall River is where both of our parents and their families are from, and we moved around a lot in that area as my dad did a one-year tour of duty in Vietnam and then was on “recruiting duty” (for the United States Marine Corp) and moved to wherever they needed a recruiter next.
Here are the houses we visited today:
914 Eastern Avenue | Fall River, MA | February 1961 – January 1963. While we lived here, John was 4-6 years old and Vivian was 1-3 years old. The street to the left side of the house (in the first picture) seemed like a very steep hill at the time, and John rode his new bike down it one time, gaining so much speed that he made a sharp turn into a driveway to try and slow down, lost control, and crashed with the handle bar going through his left (face) cheek. He still has the scar to prove it, because dad didn’t think it was worth going for stitches about it and just taped it together.
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72 Dover Street | Fall River, MA | November 1964 – December 1964 and June 1966 – July 1966. We lived here the first time was when John was 7 and Vivian was 4, and the second time was when John was 8 and Vivian was 5. Our vovó (“vah-voh”) and vovô (“vah-voo”) owned this 3-story house—where they lived on the first floor, our aunt Vivian (my dad’s sister) lived on the 2nd floor, and our uncle Eddie and Aunt Laura lived on the 3rd floor—and we stayed with my grandparents for these 2 short periods of time until we found a house of our own to live in while dad did each of his 1-year tours of duty in Vietnam.
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22B Carver Street | Fall River, MA. Our mémère and pépère, our maternal grandparents, lived here for a while, and it was virtually “around the corner” from my paternal grandparents’ house on Dover street. Their address was “22B” and it was the bottom right apartment.
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56 Howland Street | Fall River, MA | July 1966 – December 1968. While we lived here, John was 9-10, and Vivian was 6-7. We remember a “mean landlord,” Mr. Daniels, who lived on the first floor of this house, while we rented the second floor from him. We went in that door to the right, which had the stairs to the upstairs just inside of it. Vivian remembers friends of hers while we lived here named “Norene and Dorene” and whose fingers were fused—two of their own fingers fused together, not one of Norene’s fingers fused to Dorene.
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45 Breezy Lake Drive | Coventry, RI | December 1968 – December 1969. While we lived here, John was 11, and Vivian was 8. We lived in this split-level house for a year while my dad was in Vietnam the second time. My aunt Annette (my mother’s sister) and her husband, Uncle Frank, lived in the downstairs, which had been closed off as its own apartment. All the while (and for a total of 30 years), my uncle was building the house next door. He was a stone mason, and he cut each individual stone of the exterior of the house to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. There are a couple of other pictures of the house in this old posting of John’s. Breezy Lake was behind these houses and we had lots of fun ice skating on it.
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Other places from our childhood that we visited today included:
Nick’s
This is a hot dog place we lived for as children, and one of the things we missed most moving down south. Sad, but true.
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St. John’s Club
St John’s Club is “the Portuguese club” that my dad belonged to for years and years, and where he was sort-of a “local hero” (being a Marine, going off to war and back). There were 2 sides to the club, the bar (where only men could go), and the restaurant side, which included a jukebox that Vivian and I used to do The Salty Dog Rag and a line dance to a couples dance to Winchester Cathedral. Today, we ordered some steamed clams and some chourico (Portuguese sausage) sandwiches, 2 of our childhood favorites.
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Notre Dame Cemetery
We brought Vivian and Jeff by to visit our grandparents, who Bob and I had visited the first week we were here.
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We had a full day and completely forgot about visiting the Lizzy Borden house, about which we’re okay.
Back at the house, we played a game of Scrabble, skipped dinner in favor of appetizers, and later played some Catch Phrase.
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On our way out of Fall River, we dropped by to see our Aunt Vivian and Uncle Nibby, spending about a half hour sitting in their driveway catching up with them. So nice.
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