I was a student at Saint Rose of Lima
Grammar school and immediately after Mass on Sunday, January 5th,
1941, I dashed across Orange Street and stood under the Marquee
of the Tivoli Movie Theatre, waiting for some friends who had also
attended the children’s’ 8 or 9 A.M. Mass. Suddenly,
this Irish kid runs up to me and says” Hey kid, are you the
“Pepper”? Upon hearing that greeting, I prepared for
another fight, with another “Harp”, right there, in
front of the theatre and Church. The Irish kids referred to us Italian
kids as “Peppers”, and we referred to them as “Harps”,
and them was “fightin words” in those days. As eight
and nine years olds, that was about as harsh as the name calling
ever got, but of course that changed as the years passed.
But I had this kid all wrong. He wasn’t looking for a fight.
He was conveying a message from the men at the Roseville Avenue
Armory. “They’re looking for you at the Armory”
he said. “They want you to shine shoes.” Little did
I know the significance that day would have on my life. The 3 Squadrons
of the 102nd Cavalry Regiment, New Jersey National Guard, had received
orders to mobilize for Federal Service, in preparation for World
War II. The Regiment, with elements in Newark, West Orange, and
Westfield was ordered to Active Duty, effective the following day,
January 6th, 1941, my ninth birthday.
I ran home and picked up my shoeshine box and then ran back to
the armory, arriving just after 10:00 A.M. I didn’t get home
until after 9:00 P.M. that night, spending the whole day shining
shoes and boots. Some men, not having time to stand around waiting
for me to get to them, left their shoes or boots in the hallways,
just outside the office doors. There were many people all over the
armory without shoes. They left quarters and half dollars and some
even left Dollar Bills inside their boots. I figure I shined over
200 pairs of footwear that day, and after paying my helper (who
wore some of the shoes while I shined them), I went home with more
then $85.00. In those days, that was more than my father earned
in several weeks.
On the following day, Monday, January 6th, 1941, as some of us
tried to get to school, grownups and schoolchildren alike watched
in awe as some men and equipment exited the Armory on the Bathgate
Place side, and paraded East on Orange Street toward the Rail Yard
at Orange and Nesbitt Streets, behind the old Borden’s Dairy
Truck Garage. Other elements of the Headquarters and Headquarters
Troop, 102nd Cavalry exited the Armory on Roseville Avenue and paraded
North on Roseville, toward the Liff-Schultz Rail Yard, at Bloomfield
Avenue and Ampere Parkway, in Bloomfield. At each location, the
men and horses and equipment would be boarded and loaded for transport
to Fort Jackson, where they soon traded their horses for tanks and,
were redesignated the 102nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The Regiment
served Honorably throughout World War II, in Africa and in Europe,
but that’s another story.
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