450 Thole Street - Part 2 | Episode #451

Right Thinking with Steve Coplon.

This week's show is called "450 Thole Street - Part 2." Tune in and hear Steve continue the journey back to his first neighborhood. A neighborhood that was a true community, where neighbors knew one another and watched out for one another. It will take you back to your own roots. The visit will help you find the peace and understanding that we are all searching for.

In this episode, I continue my reflections on 450 Tholl Street, a neighborhood rich with memories of community and connection. Joined by my sister Arlene, we share anecdotes that highlight the warmth and camaraderie of our upbringing, emphasizing the importance of storytelling in honoring those who shaped our lives. We delve into the invaluable life lessons learned from neighbors, illustrating how their support during both joyful and challenging times influenced our resilience.

As I discuss my family's trials, I underscore the compassion shown by our community. Together, we explore the interplay of light and dark in my childhood, including the significance of literature in shaping perspectives. I draw connections between my experiences and spiritual teachings, encouraging listeners to find strength in their own histories and communities, ultimately trusting in the divine plan that guides us.

https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
There must be lie burning brighter somewhere.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Got to be birds.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Why I am higher to the sky four of blue.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Good morning, welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good morning, everybody, glad to be with you. Well.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Today's episode number four hundred and fifty one. Right Thinking
with Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce that this
week's show was called four fifty fold Street Part two.
Tune in near Steve continue the journey back to his
first neighborhood, a neighborhood that was a true community where
neighbors knew one another and watched over one another. It

(01:05):
will take you back to your own roots. The visit
will help you find peace and understanding that we are
all searching for. I just couldn't wait all week to
get back to y'all to do the rest of the
show that I started last week.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks for putting up with me last week.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
I had asked you to just indulge me and let
me go back, and it did get a bit long.
But I've had some wonderful responses this week, probably more
responses from listeners than I've had on any show.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
In a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
And yeah, I just I just had some wonderful comments
from people that did get something out of the show,
and I know that it brought back a lot of
memories for people, not so much of my neighborhood, but
maybe of their own neighborhood. My sister Arlene, she just
got all over it with me and had brought back

(01:57):
a flood of memories for her. And she's she's the
one that I worked the title of today or the description.
She said, well, you know, it was a true community.
Everybody cared about one another, watched over each other. These
were great times. It disappoints me the times are so
different now where people don't have the sense of community

(02:19):
that we had, where you knew all your neighbors, you
were inside their house. She ate dinner over there, things
like that. But she corrected me on a couple of
things that she just wanted to make sure I got right.
And that's she's my older sister, So I'm going to
listen to her. I never did when I was young.
So it's never too late to turn over a new leaf,
so to speak. Well, I talked about Katherine and Robert

(02:41):
Sawyer and Katherine Robert Sawyer. I said, I said that
they lived next door to the Winslows. I mixed that
up altogether. They lived on Virginian Drive rather, which was
the street where the school was burn Park Elementary School,
and the corner there where the Cahuns lived. That's Galveston

(03:05):
and down Galveston a couple of blocks down there, Barbara
by Virginian Drive. I think it was they lived on
Virginian Drive. And I mix it up because it's very
important to the story that we're doing today. Because I
said they lived next to the Winslows, but they didn't.
The Gresham's live next to the Winslows. And so I'm

(03:27):
going to come back to some very very serious conversation
about the Gresham's house.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
But I don't want to do that just yet.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
One of the things that I really had to go
back and think about, Orlean said, well, when I talked
about Louis and Christine from twelve years old holding hands,
you know, just for true love, got married, had beautiful family,
I mean, I mean two, well, one's not really a mistake,
Orleans said. I said, see, Christine had beautiful red Arlene said,

(04:02):
I thought she had blonde hair. Well, I called my
sister Abbey, I said, what color was Christine's hair? She
goes red. Well, really, you know, strawberry blonde. Well that's
even more beautiful because strawberry blonde that's a cross between
blonde and red, and Christina had that. So you know,
lewiing your life, your family, living across the street from

(04:25):
me all those years, and keeping the friendship for all
these years now, it's just been a blessing to all
of us, and I love y'all. Well, but I also
said that I knew it was a tiny giant that
had been built, because that got built when we weren't
very far into the neighborhood, and we loved having a
convenience store at the end of the neighborhood, right there

(04:46):
next to the railroad tracks. But I said it was
a seven eleven, So please forgive me everyone that knows
the neighborhood. I don't know that anybody else would have
known the difference. But it was a tiny giant. So
I got that one straightened out. And the hot bed
that I talked about in the backyard when I described

(05:06):
the orchards that we had, I don't know how many trees,
I said, but there were ten trees. Arlene said that
I probably only talked about eight. So she said, thought
we had more apples, and we probably did. We probably
had two more apples than I said. But got those
things straight, which is important. Arlene told me that the

(05:27):
hot bed though, that she said, this is really important
because there was a hurricane back in those days, back
in the nineteen fifty four or five range date range.
And she said, oh, yeah, I remember the hot bed.
She goes, Dad, mom cared more about that hot bed
than than most anything else. And during a hurricane, they

(05:50):
made sure that they button that thing down with you know,
like tarps and things. And this ties into the front yard.
Our front yard had a hit ed going all the
way around the front either side, and it grew so
big that you couldn't see the street, and we finally
had had to prone it way down. Then finally we
cut the front part down. After my dad left a

(06:11):
few years later, we just had the whole thing taken
down so we could see the street well. That hedge, though,
Orlean told me that in the hot bed were all
of the shoots. Clippings were not clippings, but the shoots.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
That grew that hedge.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
We had gotten those from someone and they were rooted
in the hot bed and then transplanted all around the
house sides in front, like I just described.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So that was good.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
You know, these were good times back then, getting into
growing things like that and just living in a nice neighborhood.
I appreciate Bud telling me that, you know, he went
to Suburban Park. He actually started, I think in the
third grade, and we were friends our whole lives. We
still are. He's one of my best friends going all
the way back. And he knew the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
We played.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
We played nick There was a lot right there at
the Suburban Park, on the side lot of the school,
and we played a lot of sand loot football there
and it was dangerous because the end zone was a
sidewalk and there were a lot of injuries where you
got tackled and hit somebody onder the sidewalk or whatever.
But but Bud said, you know, I knew, I knew

(07:22):
Bentley later, and I knew I knew Wilkie and William,
and I haven't gotten some of the other people they knew.
But he said, I was all all all the time
over there. But I never knew any of the history.
He didn't know that it had been pastures and and
that there was all all custom built houses at the time,

(07:42):
and so he thought that it was just maybe like
a project that somebody built a whole bunch of houses.
And I said, now, every single house on Tholl Street,
that whole community, even on all the side streets, uh,
Kirby Crescent, and and and Carl Street and all these streets,
every house was a custom build house. My sister did

(08:03):
point out one other fact that she thought was very important,
and I will continue to honor my sister, Arlene, I
love you. She said that, you know, when you talked
about the Greshams and not excuse me, the JD. Weaver
the house that we grew up in on Bavy Boulevard,
that JD.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Weaver built our house.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
She said, well, that helped him build it too, And
I said, oh, I know, she goes, well, I don't
think you said that. I'm saying it now that when JD.
Weaver built the house on a lot that had to
be cleared farmland, that my father was very, very involved
in the full construction of the house. So you know,
my wife thought that was really good because you know,

(08:43):
I've built my own house. I got into contracting and
construction in my life also, and I'm not going to
analyze it too much further because this whole reason for
going back into this, you know, I said, you know,
learn more about my childhood and and.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
And see how Steve grew up to be the man
that he is.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
But I will tell you this if any of these
stories interest you and you'd like to hear more. The
Value of a Dollar, my memoirs and How I learned
the work ethic is my autobiography. And there's nineteen shows
that go back a couple of years ago. I don't
know the exact numbers. It's going to be out on

(09:23):
audible eventually. And I said, this is the prequel every
one of these stories that I'm talking about from the
early childhood here in my first neighborhood on four fifty
Thall Street. I lived there until I was eighteen years old.
I moved out when I graduated high school. So a
lot of the stories that I'm relating to you, they
go carry over as some of the background for things

(09:46):
that I talk about later. And so I'm going to
continue talking about some of the neighbors and then I'm
going to get to some of the more serious parts
that I wanted to share with you. You know, it
was a great neighborhood, a great neighbihborhood, and so I've
talked I've talked about quite a few of the neighbors.
And to any of my neighbors families that might ever

(10:08):
listen to this, do not think that I don't think
you were as important as anyone else because I didn't
talk about you in the first part of the show
or the order of the show here. Uh no, no, no,
slight meant here. I'm just trying to talk about things
as as it comes into my mind and paint the
picture of our neighborhood, our community, and so as I

(10:30):
there's a very important neighbor two doors down you must
Braves live right next door. And then on the other
side with the Cursers, uh Sam and Minnie. I always
liked her name, like you know, many miles but she
was a wonderful person. And and then they had a
daughter named Elaine, and then then there was then there

(10:51):
was Barrett bart was a year younger, and we spent
a lot of time together. I was over their house
many many times. They actually had a five and dime
store over in Portsmouth, and every now and then we'd
get to ride over there with the Cursers and go
into their dime store. And Arlene told me that there
was a doll over there that she just had her

(11:12):
heart on. I don't think she ever got it. So
maybe we got to learn to get over disappointment as
a takeaway from this. Sorry Arlene if you didn't get
that doll, but you've had a lot of other dolls
in your life, and so that's that's part of life,
I guess. Well, but the Cursers were really wonderful. And
like I say, Barry, Barry ended up becoming a dentist

(11:34):
and he lived up in Richmond. And Barry was a wonderful,
wonderful person. Sam the father, he was a wonderful man,
just a kind man, and he was he was an
accountant bookkeeper man, and he kept books for some companies.
And I remember I'd be over there a lot and
we'd be doing some homework or something, and then he'd

(11:56):
need the kitchen table and he'd have his little calculator
out there on the table, adding machine type calculator, and
and he just was good, you know. I ended up
being an accountant, you know, and I just admire the
way that he always did that. But he had baseball cards,
I mean baseball cards.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
He had a.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Whole closet and he had like full sets unopened for
forty or fifty years of the tops baseball cards. So
they're always mint condition because he never opened them. And
he had he had some original Mickey Mickey Mantle card
that was worth, you know, a fortune. But he was

(12:37):
a collector of baseball cards, and I always always admired that. Someday,
I guess he was going to bear he was going
to inherit all those baseball cards. But boy they were.
They were the real deal. But one thing that that
was really impressive about Sam. He he had lived in
Newport News and he worked in a clothing store. And Willie,

(13:01):
one of the greatest baseball players Hall of Fame San
Francisco Giants, the Hey Say kid, to say Hey kid?
What they hey say? The say Hey Kid? He came
into that clothing store and he bought some suit from
that clothing store, and Sam got to know him a
little bit. He had spent a little time with him
because he got alterations had to come back and pick

(13:23):
up the suits, and he gave Sam his original, not
a copy, his original first contract in professional baseball. And
when Sam that, Sam pulled out that to me one
night and showed it. Tommy, Yeah, I love my baseball.
But Sam, I got good memories of you Bury. God
bless you. And I will say though that there are

(13:46):
certain things in life that you know, good memories in bed.
When my parents did get divorced, when my dad left,
my mother would get a ride. My mother was a
sales girl at Learners and she'd go up to the
end of Full Street and catch a bus to go downtown.
And many days when the weather was bad, many would
give her a ride, which was which was very wonderful.

(14:09):
You know, I loved many, So what I'm getting ready
to tell you it was just just some kind of
a mindset that was cruel that hurt my mother so much.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Many I forgive you. I don't know that you.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Know that that you met what you said, but what
many said to my mother one day, my mother had
a really hard time forgiving her.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
She did one day. We talked about it later in life.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
My mother was an eleventh grade high school dropout, and
many made some comment to her.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
No wonder Sydney divorced you you're not educated?

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Well, please, I'm not going to analyze my life, but
I want to tell you I'm a person that will
never ever believe that because a person's educated, with whatever
higher level of education they may have, they're better than
another person.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
No, no, I'm not going to go there.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
My mother, my mother used to say the divorce that
you know, Yes, Sidney Copland's got all that book knowledge,
but he doesn't have any common sense. Okay, we're getting
into some ugliness here, but that's just something that I
was exposed to when I was raised by my mother.
My father had left. Well, I want to go back
and finish up some of the neighbors. But while I'm

(15:18):
on it, I'll just stay on it because I want
to get past it. So the main thing with my
father and my mother's marriage, Donna asked me after she
listened to the show last week, well, what was it like,
you know, when they were, when they were like when
they first got married. Well, I wasn't quite there yet,
I have to tell you that. But I did hear

(15:40):
stories that my father was a Jewish fraternity and he
was a great athlete, and my mother she when she
was fill in high school and my father was a
year older than her, she would go to his basketball
games and she would watch him play basketball. So I
knew that my father was a was a really good athlete.
And so that's probably the best thing I can ever

(16:02):
say that I know that my mother and my father
did together when they were before they were married, when
they were dating and they got married or early. My
father went into the Navy, and then when he got
out of the Navy, he went on the GI Bill
to Blacksburg, Virginia, went to Virginia Tech on the GI Bill,
and they moved to Radford, Virginia up there where next

(16:24):
to Blacksburg. And my sister Arlene was actually born born
in Blacksburg. So I guess I'm not gonna do the
math on that. Because they finally came back to Norfolk,
they lived on Baby Boulevard, and then the rest is
history that I'm trying to communicate here. Okay, So in
our neighborhood, I told you that there was an alleyway
that goes behind all the houses on my block. And

(16:48):
there in that alleyway, you could walk down that alleyway
from one end of the block to the other and
there's I don't know right off the top of the
head of them stopped accounting for it.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
There's probably about eight houses on our block.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
So my sister would spend the night over the Winslow's
house with Betty Sue. That was her age. And one
night Arlene was looking out the window Betty that the
house was next to the last house on the block
at the other end towards Spurn Park Elementary and our
house was next to the last house toward the other

(17:22):
end of the block. So one night my sister looked
out of the window watch she was over there to
spend night Betty Sue, and she saw my father coming
out of the alleyway to go to the Gresham's house.
Now that's the whole story that my parents got divorced,
mostly that I know because of an affair that my

(17:46):
father and Amy Gresham were having. And if you go
to my autobiography, the episode is mister Airy my mentor
I was in my twenty six or seven year old
I was working for mister Airy. It's all detailed in
in that chapter. There was a man from the telephone
company that's working on the switchboard, and I heard the

(18:07):
receptionists say his name Chalk, and now, how many people
in your life are you going to know that I
have a first named Chalk, like the blackboard chalk that
you write on. So I came out and I said,
excuse me, is your last name Gresham? And he said
it is. I think I was twenty eight years old,
so this is last I hadn't seen him in years

(18:29):
and years. My father left when I was seven, and
Amy's husband was Chalk, and this was Chalk Gresham that
lived in my neighborhood. In the affair of his wife,
and my father destroyed both his family and my family,
and so there he was. It had been at least
twenty twenty eight seven twenty one years. Sod been twenty

(18:53):
one years. I heard his name. I came out and
introduced myself and I said, your name Gresham? He said yeah,
And I reached out my hand and I said, I'm
Stevie Copelan, and he looked at me because he hadn't
seen me in twenty one years, and it was just
an amazing reunion that we had because his wife my

(19:13):
father destroyed our families, and so we had a few
minutes to talk to each other and he was very
very kind to me. He was a wonderful man. It's
a tragedy of what happened in our neighborhood. And so yeah,
so my sister got into a whole lot of great
details of my father and Amy Gresham and some of
the real real ugliness that was sort of blatant that

(19:37):
was going on between my father and Aiming. And I'm
not going to get any more details to it. But
the story that I told last week about my mother
getting hysterical with the butcher knife, I believe that was
the night that my mother found out about what was
going on, and it was just too much stuff. I'm

(20:00):
going to move on from that, but I just want
to tell you that's that's a neighborhood experience that I
went through. And you know, divorce, family, a lot of
stuff very close to my mom and dad moved out
of state.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Got that okay. Well, the Sawyers I.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Talked about a lot last week because they were just
the most beautiful people that that just loved me so much.
And the story that I've told was that I needed
the surgery in and they gave they gave me enough
money to pay for the insurance premium. So that I
could have a surgery in and and then they gave
me an extra hundred dollars and and and just told

(20:36):
me how much they loved me, and just said they
don't want their money back, but they just wanted me
to always do good for others. That's another chapter of
my autobiography, so you can get a lot more detail
on that one. But Arlene started laughing. And you know,
let me tell you, when when you're going through a
lot of pain and hardship, laughter is always good. My
buddy Rodney had a few laughs for you last week,

(20:56):
and I thank everybody for appreciating that. So Catherine Sawyer,
she always wore white gloves. She had some kind of
germophobia or something, I don't know, and she always had
these white gloves on. And she came out of our house.
And the story's real quick here. She came out of
our house and she took her gloves off. I guess

(21:20):
maybe go restroom or watched her hands something I don't know,
but she lost she lost one of her gloves and
a couple days later we found her glove. Our dog,
our dog Tammy, had eaten the glove and it came
out when she pooped and my mother got the glove

(21:42):
out of the poop and washed it, called Katherine up
and said, Katherine, we've got your glove if you want
it back. It didn't seem like it was too stained.
But my sister Arlene has tears in her eyes from
telling me that story. And I remember vividly. We did
a lot of laughing on Full Street, a lot of laughing. Okay,
Arlene gave me a wonderful story. I told you about
Jimmy Musgrave And the main thing about Jimmy was that

(22:06):
he he broke the croquetset mallet over over Ronnie Coleman's head,
and that caused a lot.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
I'll tell you. The parents even got involved in this one. Well.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Jimmy was a practical joker, Arlene told me. And and
I didn't remember this, but my mother she couldn't she
couldn't handle the sight of blood. She just couldn't deal
with blood. And so one day Jimmy let all the
other kids know. But I remember his mother was a nurse.

(22:39):
He came up to the back porch and he had
ketchup all over his face and he knocked on the door.
My mother opened the door, and he said my mom's
not at home and I need some help. My mother
screamed and screamed Arlene and said it was the it
was the meanest thing that could have been done. But
that's just a neighborhood kind of thing. So I want
Arlene to just keep telling on her stories, and I'm

(23:00):
gonna help her get her stories out there and record
it because she just she's gotten as many stories as
I do, more because she's four years older. Okay, so
you know the Cursers and Musgraves and Jimmy and the
hot bed Catherine's love. So soon if my father left,
we got a dog that was a boxer. The Roberts Bentley.

(23:22):
They had a dad a They had a boxer named Rusty.
And then we got a boxer. I love boxers. Well
they got a vertical leap that can be as like
straight up like five feet, and so Cindy Lou was
just a beautiful boxer. And so we had a fence
in the round the yard in the back and Cindy,

(23:43):
Cindy Lou, she just kept jumping that fence and Arlene
told me that she'd be at school and be on
the beyond the loud speaker. Arlene Copeland. Could you come
to your office. Your dog's here and you need to
take your dog home. We only live like five six
houses from the school. So that was a memory there

(24:05):
Superb Park Elementary School. I could go on all day long.
But the last two things about Superb Park that I
want share is the following. We used to Bud and
I and some other buddies in the neighborhood while we
were playing kickball with those wonderful red balls. They had
different kind of kickballs. One was more like ard soccer ball.
We had these red bouncy balls that you play four
square and stuff with. Well, we'd kick them up onto

(24:28):
the roof of the school sometimes and then while we're
in playground and then we come back after school after
hours and we climb up onto the school. You had
to go to where the office was, and there was
a gutter there and then there was an overhang, and
we learned how to climb up that gutter and then
grab onto the overhang and then swing our legs up

(24:49):
on there, and then we'd get the balls and throw
them down. And okay, so you know, I told you
I wasn't a saint, and I'm still not. But it's
a memory. So the thing I'm talking about school is
that up until a couple of years ago, I was
able to remember every single one of my teachers in

(25:09):
elementary school. And it's hard for me, harder than most
of you, because my elementary school went all the way
through the seventh grade. Some of you you only go
through the fifth but you might have got to kindergarten,
so that's sixth grades. But I didn't have kindergarten. But
I had three different teachers in the first grade. A
couple months in that Miss Bell was a Navy wife
and her husband got transferred and she left and this

(25:32):
was an apology. There was another teacher and I want
to say Miss Burgess, but she could well. No, I
think I got her down for the fifth grade, but
I don't know the second teacher that I can't remember
in the first grade. It's my first real lapse now
that I'm getting a little bit older. But so my
first grade was missus Bell, someone that I can't remember

(25:52):
her name. Anybody that was in my first grade, We're
going to run that down and find it out. And
Miss Lime Weaver second grade was miss Out, the third
grade was Miss Marshon, fourth grade was Miss Pond, fifth
grade was Miss Burgess, sixth grade was Miss Hilton, and
seventh grade was Miss Partrayed. So there you have my
elementary school teachers, and I want to thank every single

(26:12):
one of y'all for giving me the education and the
wonderful start in life that you did. It was a
real education. You instilled in me reading and we're going
to get to reading a little bit later because that's
one of the core core things that I want to
just tell everybody. And I won't say more about reading,
but I'm coming back to it. So that's my memories.

(26:34):
I was not just the teacher's pet. I was the
principal's pet. I told you all about Jody and me
and her, you know, Stuart kicking kicking each other with
our boots over Jody. Well, me and Jody got to
go the school got a new big fish tank that
was right there in the front of the office. And
when you will come into the school, well, we got
taken out of our class to go up to the
ward's corner and buy the fish to stock.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
That was what an honor? What an honor?

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Okay, So everybody, if you're not relating anything, I'm saying
it's not bringing back any memories if this doesn't fire me.
The rolls in the cafeteria were, oh my gosh. The
rolls in our elementary school they were just to die for.
And the ice cream sandwiches. Okay, we're going to stop

(27:23):
on that. So I think that some of the other
neighbors that I want to talk about here. So behind
behind the the Bollingers was a house and a guy
named Dillart lived there. And I want to tell you,

(27:43):
if Dillert's listening, he's probably going to come beat me
up again, because he beat me up a lot. He
was about six years older. He was two years older,
five six years older. He was older than Bentley and
and he was kind of one of these reform school guys.
And we used to go over there, and he lived
above the garage. But Dillart was uh yeah, you know,
Dillart had magazines up there, and he was a rough guy.

(28:07):
And uh so when Bentley and I used to want
to go over there, and we learned a lot over
Dillart's house, that's for sure. But Dillart was rough. We
used to have snowball fights all the time, and we
put firecrackers in the snowballs, and we'd have these these
forts and we'd throw the snowballs and we'd stick a
firecracker on it and light it and throw it. And

(28:27):
we got real good at these fights. And you could
have it so that snowball would explode right when it
was getting near, you know, hitting somebody. And yeah, we
have some epic battles. They were really really good.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
I'm not going to tell you more about Nick La Master,
but Nick Lamster was the very first rapper in my life. Man,
he he had the rap Nick did Nick, Nick, You're
amazing and I love you and Okay. So Dillard's family
moved out eventually, and then Punky and Sonny moved in.
Their parents were the Davenports. It's it's funny because the
Davenports lived in the house where the Bullegers moved out of.

(29:00):
It's a different unrelated but Punky and Sonny were really good.
They grew up to a construction companies and things like that,
but they were really good kids. All the way at
the end of the block down there, right before you
get to the tiny Giant were some really good friends
of mine, the Morris that lived down there, and Robert
was the older brother and John. John was the younger brother,

(29:21):
and they had the best work ethic of anybody I
knew growing up. They had real lawnmoars with big wheels,
you know, they were like, you know, like farm lawn
wars that weren't just like all the wheels the same size.
They had the big wheels in the back. And they
made so much money, bought cars and things when they
were in high school, just cutting many many yards and

(29:43):
doing the agent and the yard work. And they were
very very very very good, very very good, I mean.
And then John and I became really really good friends later.
That's later on there and on the corner next to
them was Susan Bart told that was all the way
through first grade with me. So I saw Susan in
our high school reunion. But just a great neighborhood. And

(30:05):
and so one of the one of the things about
Full Street was that there was a fire station, fire
station number nine, at the very end of the of
the street, right before you get to the get the
Granby Street. And when I was paper boy later in life,
I used to be able to go in there and
they'd feed me breakfast. And when it was snowing, I

(30:26):
got hot chocolate, and they were just wonderful. You know,
let me be in there and get out of the coal.
But that was the best place on my route to
come in there and be welcome in the fire station.
But the other, the other part of what I'm I
want to tell you, because there's a fire station in
the street. You already know that I heard trains every
night of my life. Well, we heard fire engines every

(30:50):
day and night of our lives too. There was always
a fire engine with its siren on going all the
way down the street. Well, so that was that was
pretty much setting out the tone of the neighborhood. So
when you get down there onto Kirby Crusc where my
where my aunt Jimmy and uncle Sidney and Bernie and
Debbie and Judy lived, it wouldn't be a real neighborhood

(31:13):
storyline here if I didn't tell you that between the
Gabriels directly across the street and the Davenports there was
the Powells. Herbie Powell. Well, I guess our neighborhood was
really good for real serious love affairs because I already
told you about Louis and Christine. Well for years and years,
Herbie Powell and my cousin Debbie were in love, I

(31:36):
mean just junior high school love and they were they
were like really really serious, and so that was that
was just a really good that was just a really good, good,
wonderful thing. Didn't turn out so good though, they broke up.
And but but Herbie was a nice guy. His parents
were really really nice. And there was a tree in
the front yard that I've wrapped my brain to figure

(31:59):
out what kind of tree it was, because it was
just a wonderful climbing tree. We lived in that tree.
We had craick myrtles lined up along Full Street. That
came a few years later, and just a wonderful memory.
President John Kennedy when he was running for president. He
got inaugurated in nineteen sixty one, but during the nineteen

(32:20):
sixty election campaign, sometime it was just before the election
in November, he came to Granby High School, my alma mata,
and he talked and then he had the motorcade come
down Full Street and I was able to stand on
my regular mailbox, not any kind of great big fan.

(32:40):
It was just a kind of like a wooden four
x four post with just a regular metal mailbox. But
I stood there in that mailbox, held my balance, and
when John Kennedy was sitting on the top of the
back seat with a convertible down with Jackman Kennedy next
to him, he came and I caught his attention. Me

(33:03):
and John Kennedy mine one of my favorite presidents. One
of the most famous quotes of our lives, ask not
what your country can do for you, but what you
can do for your country. So that's that's my experience
getting to know John Kennedy like I did. And so
you know, next to the Spruls were the Demolises, and

(33:25):
they had the Temple of Music and they were really wonderful.
The Andy and Tony grew up to to have a
security company was was was Tony's business, really good security
company and and it was it was just a wonderful neighborhood.
Next Door to the Roberts was was early early years
was the Mentalitos. And they're a real Italian family, you know,

(33:50):
just a movie star looking family. And and I guess
they were pretty strong influenced on Bentley too, because he
learned a lot of stuff from them that he passed
on to me. And there was there was Ronnie Mintauto
and Stevie Montauteau and Ronnie just loved ron RAN's for
Boda of the New York metch. He get up there
and play stickball and be talking about Ron's boat coming

(34:11):
to bat. Now, yeah, he here was pretty cool. And
then they moved and then and then then the Celics
moved in and it was the same lot though, by
the way, where Bentley and I got in trouble for
starting a fire.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
I'll told you that last week.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
And then after the Celics moved out, Big said Kupleman,
I think that's his last name, And Big SAIDs his
name because he was a four hundred pound guy that
had a motorcycle shop and he had motorcycles.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
And he was a great guy, great guy.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
So I'm trying to I'm trying to not leave anybody
out because I don't want to anybody's feelings. The Weinstein's
lived next court, next door, across the street from the Davenports,
and well, I I think I got it going pretty good.
Just other people in the neighborhood. The Alutu's, I've told
you about.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
A little bit. We had movies in there.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
They were very enterprising and and you know, pay ten
cent get popcorn and watch a movie like you know,
eight millimeters kind of stuff in the garage. They were very,
very entrepreneurial. And then they ended up having Larry Lutu
ended up having a bookstore up at Ward's corner and
and and that that was a good time over there.
And so I hope I've done everybody justice in my

(35:25):
neighborhood introductions. Maybe someday I'll come on and finish it
up for everybody a little bit. But I'm gonna move
on a little bit now. And the Creep Moors, I
can't leave them out. They were good friends with my mom,
and they were real construction people. And that Margaret Treat
Moorings had a couple of beautiful daughters and a couple
of sons, and that was all good. And it was

(35:47):
just a great neighborhood, just great neighborhood. The Finders, h
David Finder and I were best friends and we rode
bicycles together other than other neighborhoods. And it was when
The House of the Rising Sun was coming out later,
you know, and every he learned to play that a
one with the guitar, and so the the other the
other part of that was their father Theatre was a

(36:08):
concentration camp survivor himself. And when I talked about the
IgG Dolls, I used, you know, the Holocaust. You know,
they were survivors of the Holocaust. I called them immigrants.
I apologize there they're they're survivors of the Holocaust. And
and and mister Finder was the fur yer at at
at the ricest store downtown and his wife was Beth.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Wonderful family.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Andrew was a David's older sister, and Robbie was his
younger sister of my age. The Retta Sports lived across
the street, and we used to go out at night
and I'd climb up into the back of her house
and they'd come out. She'd come out. Me and Robbie
and her would go roll lawns with polet paper and stuff.
And those were fun days. But I I just don't

(36:51):
know what else to say except for Carl Street. I
couldn't leave this out on Carl Street. There was families
over there. And so behind the Roberts family was the Harrisons.
And and Gail Harrison and Nancy were two really really
beautiful girls in the neighborhood. And you know, I think
Bentley had a crush on on Gail for the longest time.
Going down next to the Harrisons was the the Johnson's. Barty,

(37:15):
Billy and Cindy and their and their parents. Nice people
and Billy. Billy was pretty good baseball player. He's a
couple of years older than me, but he was a
real different kind of nice guy.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
He kissed his bat.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Every time, every time he came to bat, He'd kissed
that bat, and and and Barty though he he went
into the Marines right out of high school and he
had some rough years and there I saw him when
he came back from the Marines and stuff, and he
was he was getting into a lot of stuff, but
just wonderful things. Cindy, she ended up working at Turpins Flores.

(37:49):
Uh well, just Turpins Flores, wonderful, wonderful Flores. And she
was great there. So okay, So where I'm going to
go with the rest of this is the last neighborhood story.
And again, if I've left anybody out, I just apologize because.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
I need to move on.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
I don't want to make the same mistake I made
last week. The Blis were living in the neighborhood. So
that's it for that. I can't keep doing this deal.
So here's what it is. The Roberts would have me
over sometimes. I could spend Christmas Eve there and they
had the most beautiful Christmas trees. They were just it
was just all Christmas. And Bentley had more army men

(38:29):
and tanks and soldiers and things than anybody in the world.
And well, the Roberts is Milly. She really took good
care of me. I'll tell you. They gave me a
room in their house when I went to college to
come over there and study in jamm McKean. But they've
felt really, really sorry for me because I was Jewish
and I didn't celebrate Christmas, and so they'd have me

(38:52):
over there. If not spending the night on Christmas Eve,
they'd have me over on Christmas Day. And they always
Bentley had about eighty five gifts under the tree and
all over the house, and Tathy too. They always had
a gift for me under their tree. That was this
the most loving, wonderful thing that they wanted. They never

(39:12):
left me out. They always gave me a gift at
Christmas time. And so I guess I guess I've done
the best I can for reminiscing the basic neighborhood stuff.
What I'd like to tell you a little bit now, though,
is some other things. When when my father moved out

(39:33):
and we didn't have much money, my mother was forced
to have rumors, borders, whatever you want to call them,
people that could come in, that could rent a room
from us. And there was this one border that we had,
and her name was Connie, and she was she was
really beautiful, and back then the style was to wear

(39:55):
these I guess the only way to say it is
like hot pants. But you know, she had boyfriend. What
I didn't know. My sister told me this, but I
never knew it. She got kicked out of the house
because she was she was prostitute. My sister knows more
about that than I do. I didn't realize it. I
liked her and a boyfriend. Her boyfriend would take me

(40:18):
up to hit golf balls up the street there at
a driving range, and so I was just treated nice.
But I didn't really know Stanley, that was the mailman
for years and years, and he taught me how to
play golf. He was a really good golfer. And you know,
this is the early days of somebody doing something for
the neighborhood kids.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
You know, he'd come back on.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Weekends and take a couple of us up to suburban
park to the field, and he'd have hundreds of golf
balls in his trunk and golf clubs, and he taught
us how to hit golf balls. Stanley was just a wonderful,
wonderful man, and you know, I just always admired it
somebody that could give back to the children in the
community like that. I have a cousin named Glenn, older

(41:02):
cousin and his wife is Arlene.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
My sister.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Arlene's ended up being one of her best friends in
life all the way through. And so I have a
cousin Arlene and sister Arlene. But when Glenn was in Korea,
Arlene and Deedie, her baby that was probably just two
or three years old, they lived with us for about
three months. And that that was really nice too, That
was really really good. So I wanted to make some

(41:28):
references to those. When I told you that there was
a fire in the Gabriel's house and that Missus Gabriel
saved one of her children, I believe that it was
Helen that she went in to save, and she had
some pretty serious burns, but she had a great recovery.
I remember the story. Now, Mary Gabriel, that's a year
younger than me, saved her mother's life. So that's a

(41:51):
that's a neighborhood story. Helen was in the house, the
kitchen caught fire. Missus Gabriel went to save say Helen
the youngest, and Mary had to save her mother, and boy,
I'm so glad that they were saved.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
It was really really beautiful.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Okay, I'm going to bring bring some of the stuff
that I'm trying to talk about to you close to
some sort of an end game here. One of the
things that when I was living on Full Street, there
was a bookshelf between the living room and the dining
room and it was half up and there was plants
on top of it. So divide it the two rooms

(42:30):
and we had we had a full bookshelf there. And
I never really knew that Arlen got into that bookshelf
like I did. But I'd wake up, or I was
already awake from the screaming and things, and I couldn't sleep,
and so I, in the dark would go down there
with a flashlight and get by that bookshelf on the
floor in the dining room and I'd start pulling out books.

(42:51):
And at five years old, one of the books that
I that I read and you know, I told you
I learned to read really early. We had fabulous, fabulous
you know, upbringing with learning to read. Dale Carnegie's book
Dale Carnegie's Book How to Win Friends and Influence People,
written in nineteen thirty six, was a book that was

(43:11):
on that bookshelf from to this day. That's one of
the most widely read books that's still out there for
trying to help people just learn self improvement and public
speaking and skills, you know, interpersonal skills. Dale Carnegie. That was,
you know, his core point from his books though, that

(43:32):
I never let go of. It's possible to change other
people's behavior by changing your behavior towards them. That's so important.
Another one of my favorite books that I loved looking
at was a book called Cartooning for Everyone. It was
just a big book on how to how to learn
to draw, and boy, I studied that book forever and

(43:55):
that was just one of my favorites. And then we
had the World Book Encyclopedia, and I loved, I loved
what you get the annuals we probably got them for
about ten years where you get the supplement, you know,
if you bought your soyclopedia set in nineteen fifty six,
for example, in nineteen fifty seven, warbook gives you, you know,
like an update to it. And I'll never forget that.

(44:17):
One of the things that just held my interest more
than anything they did. The United States of America a
map with overlays. And these overlays were were clear and
you could turn one starts off. You just got the
raw land, the mountains and the oceans and the lakes
and the streams. But then the history moves on and

(44:38):
then they show you as the development of the country came.
You keep doing these overlays and you see when new
you know, the Louisiana purchase comes on there and these
other kind of things, and so by the end, you know,
you got the whole United States developed out. But and
I read every one of those encyclopedias as a kid,
you know eighth you know, exccopedias usually A through Z,

(44:59):
But no, I I read encyclopedias. I mean reading. I've
said it every show I've ever done, I've tried to
slip in that reading is the key, and I want
to tell you if when you've gone back to your
memories from the childhood and the things that I'm trying
to bring back to you by telling you about mine,
if they weren't always so good, you know, maybe there's

(45:21):
things that you can do to escape, to make a
positive out of it, to get into some really good reading.
It's always said that I put out that some of
the very best mentors that we could ever have in
our lives could be an author, a writer long deceased
one hundred years ago that you've you've met through the
books to learn the wisdom and learn about life from that.

(45:44):
A mentor doesn't always have to be someone's that you
know that you know is going to be with you.
And so some of the other books that we had
that we had on there was The Black Ruse and
I and I never I never knew, but the book
The Black Rose was ended up being a movie. And

(46:10):
it goes all the way back into North Africa and
en route to China, and and and I think I
think that that was a Rudyard Kipling book. Let me
let me make sure there that I know who wrote
that book, you know, The Black Rose. I believe it
was rudyerd Kipling and the movie ended up starring Tyrone

(46:32):
Power and Orson Wells. But it gets you into the
world history, the world travel. I picked it up from
there by the way. Rudyerd Kipling was the one that
wrote the Jungle Book and the other tales of those characters.
He wrote children's books and adult books and a wonderful
book that he read that he wrote rather The Man
Who Would Be King a fabulous short, short, longer story.

(46:56):
You know, it's like a novel that I guess they
call it a movie in nineteen seventy five with Sean
Connery who's famous because of his first James Bond and
Michael Caine starting that movie. And then the other books
that I got into there was The Black Rose, which
was another historical novel of the thirteenth century Thomas Costaine,

(47:16):
and like I said, I guess I've been talking about
The Black Ruse. But yeah, that's it, apologized it wasn't
It was written by not Rodger Kipling. I just threw
that at you because I was wrong, Thomas Costaine. But
Tyrone Powers and Orson Welles just a panoramic world history
kind of a movie that takes you all the way
back to historical figures and the Saxons and Cathay China

(47:41):
and Roger Bacon and Edward the First these kind of people,
good history, and then ivan Who Ivan Oh by Sir
Walter Scott. These are the kind of books that were
on that bookshelf there. And the movie ivan O is
a plastic movie nineteen fifty two and it starred Robert
Taylor and Fontaine and Elizabeth Taylor. So when I was

(48:03):
talking to my sister about the bookshelf, I didn't know
I never bumped into a night when I was sneaking
down to the bookshelf there.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
She said she.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Did too, And then I said, well, what books did
you read? She said, she like Gone with the Wind,
you know, Gone with the Wind. You know, I don't
know who I'm talking to. Sometimes a lot of people
don't even know it. But it was written in nineteen
thirty six by Margaret Mitchell, and it was one of
the most classic stories of the Civil War. The Scarlett
O'Hara and rhtt Butler, and the movie starred Clark Gable

(48:33):
and Vivian Lee, and it just Olivia de Havlin. So
what I'm trying to tell you is that when you're
going through some times in your life, go to a book.
That's what I've done, that's what my sister's done. A
lot of you know, that's what we do in my family.
But my sister has never stopped reading. And it's just
so wonderful that we've got that. And we got into

(48:56):
our reading because we started out on Full Street the
nighttime in the bookshelf there, and so on Tholl Street.
We had a dining room table with a lazy susan
and we had these pads you put on there so
you could do your homework there. But in nineteen fifty six,
this is a memory for everybody from the Norfolk area,

(49:18):
in nineteen fifty six when the movie The Ten Commandments
came out, The Great Great Ten Commandments starring Charleston Hedton,
Charlton Heston and Yule Renter cecil by the Mills, the
greatest epic movie ever to that time.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
It played at the Riverview.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Theater on Grammey Street, right up there by City Park
for three years or so. I mean, we kept saying
that we've already seen it, are they could bring another movie,
But no, it just played forever, and we had a
book that you buy when you see the movie. It
was one of these ten dollars books, which was a
fortune back then, and it was a whole picture book

(50:00):
of the whole movie, all the scenes from the movie
and all the background and stuff. And that was on
the buffet next to the dining room table. Okay, so
what I'd like to do now, I'd like to try
to bring the show to a close and thank all
of you for showing an interest in this that that
are still with me. Reach out Tommy and hey, I'd

(50:22):
like to learn about your background. I think I could
help you bring out your background. I got plenty of
time to do that with you. Anybody that's listen, call
me up and we'll start talking about your background.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
I have a lot of friends.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
That that I have very good relationships with that some
of them are seniors that I like to get them
talking about their life. It's always interesting, you know, in
this life, it's it's not so much the life that
you've been given, it's what you do with it. It's
the choices that you make. And I'm not gonna I'm

(50:56):
not gonna appreciate you today, but I want a reference
to you.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Matthew.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Chapter twenty five, verses fourteen to thirty. And this is
the parable of the talents, because that's what it's all about.
It's about the Master that gave the three servants different
coins talents. They called him there, and you know he
wanted to see what they could do with it while
he went away. And so I'm not going to teach

(51:24):
it at all, but it's what you do with what
you've been given. That's a good starting point to figure
that one out, what I'd like to tell you, And
I think that more than anything, the purpose of my
life that I've come to know over my journey is
coming closer to the Lord and serving the Lord to
do whatever it is, to be obedient and do what

(51:45):
the Lord wants me to do. And so I want
to tell you that Psalm thirty seven, verse twenty three
through twenty four, the steps of a good man are
ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way fall.
He shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord
upholds him in his hand. We're promised that the Lord's

(52:11):
going to protect us and he's going to give us
divine guidance for those that want to live in accordance
with his will.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
What I'm trying to tell you is if you're tripped back.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Into time in your memories, if you're stuck somewhere and
you still haven't figured things out, and you still don't
don't know things that you want to know, and you're
still in any kind of pain or lack of forgiveness,
these scriptures that I'm giving you are going to help you.
It's just remembered that the Lord is there for all
of us that come to him, and he wants us

(52:39):
to be a good person, and he's going to be there.
He's always going to be there for us. So that's
that message from that there you can find comfort in
the Lord through that. And when you're when you're searching
in that direction, you know, seek counselor from people that
are good, good and that there's good spiritual leaders and
get their perspective and look at how you think you know,

(53:02):
see if it conforms with what God God's word is.
But something very very important is it's about God's time,
not about your time or my time. It's about God's time.
So sometimes you pray it doesn't happen and you're just
tired of waiting. It will happen. When you learn patience
and just learn to wait on the Lord. And I

(53:25):
think that that's that's so important because you know that
he's got a sovereign plan and he's going to direct
the steps of the righteous. And so one of my
all time favorite scriptures to live by is Proverbs three
five six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways.

(53:47):
Acknowledge Him, and he will make your path straight. So
in closing right now, I try to bring my life,
my neighborhood to you. Hope you look look at yours.
I'm here for But my real role is is that
I want to bring you closer to the Lord and
help you have a better life. And I couldn't be

(54:08):
more thankful for my life and all that I've been given.
And I've shared my neighborhood, my home, my friends, my
good times and my bad times. My greatest blessing is
that I grew up knowing God and my mother and
I found Jesus together. She taught me that four fifty
fold Street, despite all the pain and suffering that she

(54:28):
went to, may not really be our home quote end quote,
that this is not our home. And she taught me
from early life because she suffered a lot, that there's
a place that at least all of us, where the pain,
hardships and sorrow that we see so much of does
not exist. It is the place where we will be

(54:50):
with the Lord for all of attorney, all of eternity,
with him when we're in heaven with the Lord. So
just remember this, don't have any fear, and remember that
in tewod Corinthians chapter five, verse eight, absent from the
body present with the Lord. And so these are the
things that I bring to you today. And what I

(55:13):
want to tell you is that just as my sister
Arlene talked about, we had a true community when I when.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
I found it Right Thinking Foundation.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
The logo for Right Thinking Foundation says that success is
to be connected, and you have to have a home, work,
and be part of a community. And so I'll end
it with this, and I look forward to next week.
But it's just remember, don't quit, plan ahead. It will

(55:41):
get better. And so I've done the best I can
to bring you back into my neighborhood. And all I
can say is I'm here for you. Trust in the Lord,
and you're gonna You're gonna come through whatever you're going through.
And just I hope that you have a wonderful day,
a wonderful life, and God bless each one of you.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Thanks for listening to right thinking with Steve Copeland. I'll
look forward to being with you again next week and
remember it, don't quit, plan ahead, it will get better.
God bless you, and have a great week.