Chapter 40 - 1988 Epilogue

Chapter 40 Version 4

1988

John exited the car and walked out to the waterfront in front of the Bund in Shanghai. The Whangpoo River, where Stanley’s ship led the Allied fleet into Shanghai in 1945, was the traditional heart of Shanghai. He looked out upon the moorings in the river and felt a faint familiarity with the place. He went inside. The banquet hall on the second floor was old but well kept. The celebration was for the progress made in constructing the feasibility study or the “FS” that would determine whether the joint venture that was already seven years in negotiation would be financially viable.

For the task of constructing the FS, John had brought to China a state of the art Grid 386 chip based laptop computer. The US State Department was consulted to see if the laptop could be brought into Red China in July of 1988. The two color screen was halloween orange plasma on a black background. There were no financial templates available for the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program so in the six working days they were in Shanghai, John had produced a P&L, balance sheet , cash flow and capital spending model for the joint venture going out 10 years. Sales were adjusted to make the numbers work out to an acceptable level. John worked on the model as numbers were defined by members of the negotiating team during the day and he worked into the nights in his room on the 17^th floor of the new Shanghai Hilton overlooking the city of an estimated fifteen million people housed in buildings three and four stories high stretching in all directions. The high-rise developments were islands of new construction in a sea of older urban sprawl. Fifteen percent of all the high-rise construction cranes in the world were currently in Shanghai.

“Everyone has an interesting story” said a member of John‘s team who was the Asian general manager. “If you get a chance, ask Mr. Li about his time being rehabilitated in the countryside during Mao’s Great Leap Forward”. Mr Li was the accounting and finance specialist representing the Chinese government in the negotiations. The translator assigned to do the translating between the teams decided not to show up for the week. To avoid a totally unproductive trip, the Asian general manager from John’s team assumed the role of translator. The GM spoke mandarin but he could understand a passable Shanghainese. He also spoke fluent Vietnamese from his time working for USAID during the Vietnam War and enough Korean to get by. One morning the GM was quite haggard from lack of sleep. He later explained that he had a 3 am meeting with Deng Xiaoping’s son the night before.

With the FS well on its way to done, a banquet was held the night before they were to leave for Seoul South Korea by way of Japan. There were no direct flights from China to South Korea as technically, Red China and South Korea were still at war from the 1950’s. At the banquet at the Bund, a number of delicacies were served. John ate a number of frog’s legs that were very tasty. His Chinese hosts watched John intently as John tasted a gelatinous blob. He decided it had the texture of a Polish dish that his mother Jane made for the holidays called studzienina that was jellied pigs feet. With studzienina as a reference, he downed the rest of the Chinese delicacy. The Chinese told John that he had just eaten sea slug. John declined a second helping. Other Chinese food tried during John stay was grilled eel, tastes like trout, and goose liver pate which though quite good stained his tongue brown.

Had he known that his uncle Stanley was on the first ship into Shanghai after the Japanese were defeated in World War II, the banquet at the Bund would have been a good time to offer up this interesting family story. Unfortunately, John did not discover this story until well after his uncle Stanley’s death in the mid-1990’s.

John returned that evening to start packing for South Korea. Shanghai’s new airport allowed the large 747 airplanes to land in Shanghai. It had one terminal building with nine gates but only three gates were operational. There had been no downtime for any shopping and John ended up buying gifts at the airport shop using up as much renminbi yuan as he could at the 3.5 exchange rate. Having some trinkets to bring home to Mary and his two daughters, John put on his Sony Walkman and listened to Tracy Chapman’s album containing “Fast Car” and “Revolution”.

Wife Mary and children Brookye and Sandy took John’s absence to travel home to Louisville for a few weeks. Mary had taught first grade in Cairo West Virginia for two years while John finished up his MBA at Ohio University in Athens Ohio in the late 1970’s. She had finished up her bachelor’s degree at Marietta College in 1976 after attending the University of Louisville before she married John in 1974.  With all of her credits in art from her associate degree from Green Mountain College and her education classes from U of L, Mary had a double major from Marietta and dual certification in elementary education 1-8 grades and art K-12. She taught art in Worcester City Schools in the late 1980’s. For a while she had her own art studio on Main Street in Holden when schools cut back on art and music programs to save money in the early 1990’s. Mary supported her daughter’s high school interests in art, music and theater including when she led a group of students to construct and paint a giant castle set for their annual madrigal dinner complete with a large painted rose window.  She taught first grade in a private school in North Brookfield for a few years in the late 1990’s before getting a job teaching art at Notre Dame Academy, a private Catholic girls high school in Worcester.

“How many people live in Taegu?” John asked the leader of the company delegation as the aircraft prepared to land in south central South Korea.  They had a meeting with some lawyers in Seoul before heading to Taegu.

“Taegu is about the same size as Worcester” was the response. That would be about 160,000 thought John. The city below seemed much larger than Worcester.

“About 3 million” responded the president of the company that John’s group was there to review as a potential acquisition.

“Let’s go to dinner to my favorite restaurant. I have not had Chinese food in a while” said the company president.

Korean Chinese food turned out to be garlic with Chinese food added. The real Korean food was much more interesting with John trying grilled octopus, kimchi and grilled garlic later in the trip.

Going over to Asia, there was no perceived jet lag for John. Coming back, John was OK until the next morning when he could not stand and walk across the room without falling to one side. He was worn down going into the financial closing for the quarter and yearly budget process. He also needed to finish up the FS. He was on overload working from 7am to 7pm as a normal day and added hours during “crunch time’. He made some inquiries and arranged a transfer back to the operational side of the business from corporate. He had only planned to work in finance for a few years starting in 1981 because that was the weakest area of knowledge getting his only B in his MBA in the Accounting and Finance class. He stayed in finance as his personality suited the job of analyst but the schedule wore him out.

Back in operations in 1989, he worked on activity based costing, simplification of the complex pricing methods, two computer ERP conversions to MacPac software and then ten years later to SAP software. Outside of work John joined the Episcopal and then the Congregational churches and had the time to assist in his daughters high school interests in art, music and particularly theater set construction. John served as the treasurer of the high school theater booster group. The theater department took a trip to Broadway in NYC to see the play “Jekyll and Hyde” that John and Mary were fortunate to tag along in 1998.  The trip took a side visit to the top of the World Trade Center. Outside at the top of the WTC, Manhattan stretched out below but the noise of the city was too far away to hear. The quiet was unexpected. At work John also had a stint as manager of production planning & inventory control for an $85 million abrasive division. Finally he served as the accounting and finance overseer of the million dollars per month Worcester works utilities and the half billion dollars of abrasive’s North American fixed assets before retiring in 2015 after 36 years with his company. The excessive work load done by corporate personnel in the 1980’s had become normal for all exempt employees by the time John retired and John along with many of his coworkers were far exceeding the nominal 40 hour work week. Retirement to pursue digital photography, reading, writing, yoga and walking in the woods was a welcome option for a 63 year old.

Daughter Brookye had an assignment from school to do some family tree work in the late 1980’s. Where were our grandparents and great-grandparents born? Mary’s parents were doing family tree work to see if they could get into the DAR and the SAR so they provided their colonial Virginia to Louisville roots for Mary’s mother. Mary’s father’s South Carolina and Civil War roots were being researched. As far as John’s Polish side of the family, he would have to check with relatives as he was clueless on his grandparent’s hometowns or interesting stories in Poland or their coming to America.  John did remember some of his uncle Stanley’s stories about World War II.

“We will have to check on that.”

Chapter 39 - 1972 & 1973 Road Trips

Chapter 39 Version 2

1972

John liked traveling. For the abrasive company he worked for after 1978 when he graduated with an MBA from Ohio University, he had traveled to Texas and Canada and would also go just over the border into a plant in Mexico near Brownsville. In a job he took when he graduated from RPI, he logged many automobile miles covering West Virginia as a fire protection engineer for an insurance company. He was infected by the travel bug in college when fraternity brothers presented him with opportunities to take a number of long distance road trips.

On spring break in 1972, two fraternity brothers, Ned and Ron, wanted to go visit their homes in Lynchburg Virginia and in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Traveling with their girl friends and another fraternity brother, Bill, they were taking two cars and had room for another person who could help drive. The bonus on the trip was that it could be routed from Lynchburg through Louisville to get to Milwaukee. John could get to visit his girlfriend and wife to be Mary. In the fall of 1971, Mary was a freshman at Green Mountain College in Vermont. She came down with two other GMC girls with fraternity brother Ken to see a Blood, Sweat & Tears concert at RPI and met John. The BS&T concert included a warm up by an unknown singer/songwriter named Don McLain. The venue went wild when McLain performed “American Pie” which in a few weeks became a huge hit on the radio.

In the summer of 1972, fraternity brother Larry had been given the ok to take his mother’s station wagon on a trip to California if he had a traveling companion. When invited, John quickly agreed without a thought of how to pay for the expenses on the trip. His father Joe was more pragmatic and extracted $350 from John’s older sister Susan who was teaching kindergarten in the Easthampton Public Schools. Equipped with enough cash to live on bologna sandwiches, John and Larry headed west in early June. They had a fraternity brother passenger Dave, to drop off in Cleveland. Dave would later be encountered at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado on the drive back from California.

Phi Sigma Kappa had over a hundred fraternity houses across the country. Between fraternity houses, relatives, and fraternity brothers, Larry and John headed ever farther west to Milwaukee, the South Dakota Badlands and Mount Rushmore. Coming down from Mt. Rushmore, Larry made a good decision to spend the night on a scenic overview a few miles from the town of Keystone as it was raining so hard, he couldn’t see the winding mountain road. The flash flood that hit the Rapid City area dropped as much as 15 inches of water in a six hour period. 232 people were killed in the flood including 10 in Keystone a few miles down the mountain road. Larry had called home from Rushmore the night before and his family had told him to go back to Rapid City and get a motel room to keep out of the rain that night. Larry’s parents woke up the next day and saw the headline in the New York Post “Life Ripped From Black Hills”. John’s mother had a bad feeling that night and spent time praying for John that night. Since all of the phone lines ran through Rapid City, there was no calling home until Yellowstone Park was reached the next evening.

From Yellowstone, the trip went through Salt Lake City, Reno, Berkley and Oakland where the A’s played the Detroit Tigers.  Detroit ‘s long time star Al Kaline led Detroit to the AL championship series that year. The A’s won against Detroit and went on to win the world series in 1972 with the likes of Bert Campaneris, Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi and Sal Bando lead by an all star pitching staff including Ken Holtzman, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter and Blue Moon Odom. They then stayed at John’s uncle Lewis’ home in Sunnyvale. From cousin Mary Jane’s apartment in San Francisco, John and Larry headed south down the coast highway past Big Sur to San Luis Obispo. There they went inland to search for the Visalia Mets. Larry’s father was the sports editor at the New York Post and Larry was a big New York sports fan. Finding that the Mets were playing the Fresno Giants in Fresno, they headed up the central valley in search of baseball. The next day, the search changed to big trees. It was off to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks with spectacular trees. Then it was down through Bakersfield to Pasadena where fraternity brother Dennis’ family generously housed the two as they saw the sights of LA including Disneyland with Dennis. Then it was out through the desert where John’s father Joe had waited to go to the Pacific War. But John’s destination was Las Vegas and the midnight show at the Stardust.

By this time, the pair had seen many of the great wonders of nature. Passing over the Hoover Dam to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, they pulled up to the edge of the canyon, got out of the car without closing the doors and exclaimed “That is one big hole!” before jumping back into the car and heading east to the four corners area and into Colorado. After stopping to see Mesa Verde, the AAA triptik took “a scenic drive through the Rockies” which was an understatement. US 50 became John’s favorite US highway. Fraternity brother Dave who had been dropped off in Cleveland was taking an ecology class in Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park. The duo shared Dave’s tent for a week while enjoying the scenery. Then it was east across Kansas and Missouri to Louisville to stop and visit Mary and go to Mammoth Cave National Park. The final destination before Easthampton was to Worcester Massachusetts where fraternity brother Tony was marrying college sweet heart Paula.

Upon John’s return to Easthampton, his cioci Faye made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Cousin Marty wanted to move back to Miami and drive her convertible car down. His aunt offered to fly him back if he accompanied Marty in her drive. When sister Sue heard of this road trip, she signed on too. With one stop at cousin Chris’ house in Virginia Beach, it was a long drive to Miami. For John, the route back of course needed to go through Louisville. He bought her some tiny carved ivory animals at the Miami flea market before John and Sue bussed up to Orlando for a day at Disney World. They then bussed up to Louisville before flying back to Albany for a summer fraternity party in Troy. The common intersection of all three of the 1972 road trips was Louisville.

Travel continued in 1973 for John. Spring break brought a road trip with fraternity brother Ken to Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Ken’s magic suitcase accompanied the group on their travels.

After graduation, Ken in his pickup truck and camper along with John and fraternity brother Len, headed up to Canada before they started their real world jobs that summer. John delayed starting his job as a fire protection engineer for Factory Insurance Association until early July. The Canada trip started in Montreal with a tour of the Molson brewery and then moved to Quebec and Laurentides Provincial Park. Len became attached to a moose skull he found and it accompanied the campers home. Crossing the Saint Laurence River, the campers drove around the top of Maine through the Gaspe and into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A tourist trap called “Magnetic Hill” was experienced in Moncton. Beautiful scenery was in store on the Cabot Trail around Cape Breton Island in the north of Nova Scotia. A stop at Glace Bay yielded an underground tour of a coal mine by a grisly old retired miner. The miner said the only time he was concerned mining coal in a seam out under the ocean was when the seam became so thin that he couldn’t turn over his shovel. Then it was down the east coast of Nova Scotia through Halifax, Peggy’s Cove and over to the Bay of Fundy. A place called “The Rocks” produced natural sculptures of eroded rocks topped with trees in the huge tidal changes in the Bay of Fundy. The camper then received a rest during a ferry  voyage from Digby Nova Scotia to St Johns New Brunswick. Crossing back into Maine, Len was sent to assure the US customs official that we had no contraband including Canadian liquor. The official commented that you could hide just about anything in the camper and opened the cabinet full of hard liquor. From his vantage point the official did not see the bottles and waved the camper through. From there it was down to Westerly Rhode Island and a fishing excursion out on John’s uncle Stanley’s 27 foot fiberglass fishing boat “Chipee”. Stanley would never loose his love for the ocean and would pilot his boat out to Block Island and “The Race” off the eastern end of Long Island. He and Jeanette looked forward to their two day weekly stays at their cozy apartment upstairs at the Avondale Boat Yard on the Pawcatuck River near Watch Hill.

Neither of these trips took him to Louisville so John with a couple of weeks before he started his job in Pittsburgh left for a solo trip to Kentucky. On this trip Mary was not a stop on a trip to somewhere else. She was the destination. He returned to start his job in Hartford only to find that he was expected to drive that day to Harrisburg on his way to Pittsburgh.

Back home in Easthampton, Joe had done enough traveling and ocean voyaging for a lifetime. He preferred to stay home and tend his garden, giving away his ample crop to his friends and family. Jane had been to California with sister Nancy to help out when sister Sophie died of cancer. She had never been out of the country. When Stanley offered to include Jane and Joe on a vacation trip to the Canary Islands given by one of his suppliers, Joe declined the offer. Jane asked if she could go and take a friend along. Joe changed his mind and came along on the trip. There were two alternate dates available one week apart and so the people traveling in the group voted and chose the earlier date. The vote was close. The flight not chosen crashed into the sea upon takeoff on the return flight with all of the passengers and crew lost. Timing is everything. The experiences we have give rise to stories that are passed down to future generations. Lest we forget.

Chapter 38 - 1946 & Beyond - After the war life goes on for those who returned

Chapter 38 Version 2

1946 & Beyond

By the middle of 1946, everyone was back from the war and demobilized -  everyone that is except cousin Edwin who was still down with the sunken USS Reid in the Philippines. No one in the Zywar or the Borsuk families had decided to stay in the military on active duty as a career. A few stayed in as reservists. Henry, as a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve, signed up for three years. Eddy, as a 1^st Lieutenant in the Army Reserves, served until 1953. Nancy's future husband Chuck Vella also served in the occupation force in Japan. One more Zywar, youngest brother Al, would serve as an Army MP in Korea and North Carolina. 

Returning veterans found few employment opportunities as America made the painful transition from a war time to a peacetime economy. Joe could not find employment as a machinist as Pratt & Whitney Aircraft scaled back aircraft engine production. Kazmer was lucky to get his job back with Package Machinery Company.

Many vets took advantage of the GI Bill’s educational and training opportunities and went back to school. Eddy went down to Tacoma Park Maryland to attend and graduate from the Bliss Electrical School in 1947. Henry attended Westfield Vocational High School studying electricity for a year and a half while working for a local contractor wiring houses.

It may have been the “can do” attitude of the veteran who was turned into a risk taker from combat experience or the fact that there were limited job opportunities or both of those factors together that thrust many veterans into the position of being entrepreneurs. Upon leaving the service, Joe joined the “52/20” club. For 52 weeks, the veteran was given $20.00 per week to ease the transition back into peace time. Finding his skills as a machinist not in demand, Joe and his two sisters, Mary and Amelia (Mickey) pooled their resources and bought Lang’s Restaurant on Main Street in Easthampton. The price was $10,000 and Mary contributed $5,000 while Joe and Mickey each added $2,500. Lang’s was directly above where Louie Borsuk had his cobbler shop until he died in 1941. The restaurant was open for breakfast and lunch. Joe’s jobs included being short order cook, floor washer and soda jerk. Mickey had worked in a defense plant in Tarrytown NY during the war and she now cooked, cleaned and waited tables. Mary handled the finances. Joe worked ninety hours per week alternating between 18 and 12 hour days and was paid for 80 hours per week. Mickey met her future husband Ray McMackin who came into the restaurant for a cup of coffee. He was in town on business from his home in New York.

After working nearly non-stop in the restaurant business for three years, Joe, along with brothers Michael and Al,  decided to join Stanley in forming a general contracting business they called “Zywar Brothers”. They did general contracting like hauling snow for the town and built custom single family houses. Stanley organized and lead the business. Stanley designed all of the houses and no two houses had the same floor plan. They built houses from Longmeadow to Northampton. A lumber yard, hardware and paint store was built on Northampton Street where Jeanette was employed keeping the company books. Each of the brothers brought their own skills to the business with Joe doing carpentry and masonry work. He also excavated cellar holes using the company’s two diesel bulldozers.

The Zywar Brothers company resulted in a major rift in family relations in the 1950’s. The business was set up legally as a partnership among the brothers but Stanley ran it as his own business. Mike and Al left over a dispute over finances. Joe was making $25 per week working six days per week but was living rent free in the old farmhouse apartment on East Street. Joe continued to work for Stanley until 1969 when he took a job as a maintenance craftsman for the Easthampton School Department where he had benefits like health insurance and a pension plan.

 

Henry also became a successful entrepreneur, starting his own electrical services business after marrying Aurelia. When Henry came back from the war, his letter to Aurelia led to a date. After the first date, Aurelia fell head over heels in love with Henry. The Ouija Board was proven to be correct.

The Ouija Board was also correct when it predicted Jane would marry a Zywar. She ended up marrying Joe. Jane had a very good relationship with her employer Lorita. That relationship extended beyond 1949 when Jane left to take care of her new daughter Susan and son John came along  few years later. Jane also became an entrepreneur when Joe built a house at 10 Sutton Place that included a beauty salon. Jane worked out of her home adding children Joseph and Jayne about 10 years later. Jane worked out of her house until she sold it to her daughter Jayne. After retirement, Jane and Joe became snowbirds dividing their time for 10 years between a summer cottage at Laurel Park in Northampton and a house in Dade City Florida during the winter.

Both the Zywar and Borsuk extended families maintained their family ties even though some relocated far away. Mickey and Ray relocated to Long Island New York. On the Borsuk side, Faye moved to Florida after marrying Miami professional saxophonist Warren Knowles. Sophie sold her interest in the house on West Lake Street and moved to the west coast for health reasons. She married missile inspector Lewis Diefenderfer after passing FBI security to make sure Sophie was not a national security risk. Sophie and family lived in Alamogordo New Mexico before moving back to Sunnyvale in California’s silicon valley. Eddy located closer to home in Pittsfield Massachusetts working for General Electric.

When families returned for a vacation in Massachusetts it was always an excuse for a party. For the Borsuk’s, the family party location varied from the Polito’s on Hendrick Street where Agata had taken up residence with daughter Mary to a number of other sibling’s houses. The parties were a movable pot luck feast sometimes at Rose’s at the end of Brooks Street, sometimes at Jane’s house, sometimes in Enfield Connecticut where Helen and Nancy owned houses side by side, or at the homestead on West Lake Street where John Borsuk now lived. There was always a good time for the cousins and good food from the varied ethnicities that had been married into. There was usually a card game or two that broke out and a few beers were downed by the grown ups.

“Jeanette makes the best rice pudding. She will make that for our pot luck dish” offered Stanley for a Zywar pot luck gathering without consulting Jeanette.

“I never made rice pudding in my life” said Jeanette.

Chapter 37 - 1945 At War's End - Jane Gets a Job - Kay, Ed and Joe Demobilized

Chapter 37 Version 2

1945

“They made a mistake. You have to take this back” said Agatha.

“There is no mistake” said Jane.

“Yes, they made a mistake and you have to take this back” insisted Agatha.

“OK” said Jane and she picked up the envelope and put it back into her purse. It was no mistake and it wasn’t going back!

After graduating from beauty school in the spring of 1945, Jane took a few weeks to do what she had been delaying. She had been living with some pain. Then it was done. Without her appendix, Jane felt better but stayed in bed for a week to convalesce. She spent her time in bed not reading or listening to the radio, just sleeping. Then she was allowed to walk. On the first day she walked down to the post office and that was much too far to go. A neighbor spoke with her at the post office and drove her back home.

Jane started working at Charlotte’s beauty salon before she was fully recovered. On the job the first week, she lifted something that was too heavy and created a lesion on her operation. Going back to the doctor, he confirmed that she injured the operation and Jane only worked at Charlotte’s for one week. She did make $80 for the week. When she came home and gave it to her widowed mother, her mother couldn’t believe that she made that much money in a week. Jane didn’t take the money back and she didn’t go back to work at Charlotte’s.

Jane was confronted with a problem. A few older women at the beauty salon, and one in particular who was Jane’s neighbor, decided they did not want an inexperienced girl working on their hair. After recuperating, Jane was in Holyoke at the second floor apartment of her sister Helen at 5 Faille Avenue and she called a local beauty salon to see if they needed a new beautician. She immediately walked down to the beauty shop for an interview.

“I think you are going to like working here” said the manager of the salon after about one minute into the interview. Jane started working the next day.

Helen’s husband Kay was in the Navy in Nevada so Helen welcomed Jane’s company during the week. On weekends, Jane went back over Mt. Tom to be with her friends in Easthampton. Jane would give her friend Bert facials. She went to the Majestic Theater on Cottage Street on Sunday afternoons with her friends including Aurelia. Jane liked westerns and light hearted mysteries like “The Thin Man Goes Home” with Myrna Loy, William Powell and Asta the Dog.

Jane’s friend Bert was going to a beauty salon owned by Lorita in Easthampton. She recommended Jane to Lorita when she heard that Lorita was looking for a beautician.

“No thank you, I am not looking to move from my present job.” Jane told Lorita on the phone.

Jane’s brother Ed had been going to infantry school down in Fort Benning , Georgia before going to unit training for infantry officers at Fort McClellan in Alabama. He started infantry training in October of 1944 and finished his infantry officer training in June. He left for the western Pacific in July a few weeks before the atomic bombs were dropped. His assignment was to the 800^th Military Police Battalion that was based in Manila in the Philippines. He arrived in mid-August the day after the Japanese surrender delegation left Manila to return to Japan. This was a few weeks before the formal surrender of the Japanese on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Ed was in Manila when Stanley arrived on the USS Rocky Mount to take Admiral Kincaid’s staff to Korea. The 800^th MP’s had been involved in the taking of New Guinea and Luzon with heavy losses. Had the Japanese not surrendered, they may have been involved in the scheduled invasion of Japan in November. Instead, Ed was assigned to be part of the occupation force. Lieutenant Borsuk was put in charge of seventy military policemen in the Kobe/Kyoto area of Japan. His job was not only to police the occupation forces, but also to police the civilian population. Having 45 points for demobilization, Lieutenant Ed left Japan in February of 1946 and separated from the active military in April at Fort Devens in Massachusetts.

“No thank you, I am not looking to move from my present job.” Jane again told Lorita and again Lorita would not take no for an answer. She kept calling on weekends when Jane was home.

On the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Kay left Fallon, Nevada for his annual leave. Including his travel time, Kay was on leave from August 5^th to August 31^st. At every stop of the train, he heard the Andrew Sisters singing, “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” both coming and going. By the time he returned to Fallon, his job of torpedo training for use by bomber pilots was no longer needed. But on November 1^st 1945 Kay only had 31.5 points and was not yet eligible for immediate release. On January 30th 1946, Kazmer went to San Francisco on his way to the Boston Separation Center in Massachusetts. He was honorably discharged from the Navy on February 8th 1946 and returned to Helen in Holyoke.

“OK, I am interested in coming back to work in Easthampton” Jane finally told Lorita in December of 1945. Jane started working for Lorita in January of 1946. The timing of Jane’s decision was good as the salon in Holyoke was sold to investors from Vermont. A few months later, a water problem in the salon spilled over into a food store next door. The salon in Holyoke shut down and never reopened. Timing is everything.

It seemed that everyone was being demobilized except Joe. On September 17^th, 1945, ACORN 29 itself was decommissioned. Joe was assigned to Naval Air Base Yonabaru, Okinawa. There would be no need for his ACORN unit to rehab another captured airfield during the cancelled assault in November against the Japanese island of Kyushu. His training as a LCI, Landing Craft Infantry, motorman would have been especially dangerous in that landing. Japan still had over 6,000 aircraft for the defense of the homeland. Their plan was to use half of the aircraft as kamikazes against the landing craft concentrating on the infantry and wreaking havoc on the shoreline. Smaller ships and mini-submarines were also to be used as kamikazes to go along with the 3,000 aircraft. This would be a change in tactics as the beaches were not contested on Okinawa. The defense on Okinawa was done in the inland hills. But the atomic bombs were a game changer and Joe was never called to this next assault. He might even have been ferrying Lieutenant Ed’s MP unit to the beach on Kyushu.

On November 1, 1945, Joe had only 27 points and was ineligible for immediate release. He decided to study for the exam that would qualify him for an advancement in rating to MM3c. He was MMS3c – a shop machinist mate. A MM3c would be a full machinist mate. Joe sat for the exam on January 25, 1946. He qualified and on February 6, 1946 was approved pending an actual vacancy. On February 26^th, his rate was changed from MMS3c to MM3c. This was done on some of his paperwork.

On March 18^th, a day before his birthday, Joe’s points were recalculated to be 29 and he was eligible for discharge. He had the option of reenlisting at his new rate and probably be assigned to an airfield in China or he could go home. Joe had seen enough. He opted to go home.

Millions of veterans made their way home under Operation Magic Carpet uneventfully. Joe’s trip home would be one of the exceptions. On his way home, his ship broke down and was lucky to be close to Japan as it was towed into Yokohama in Tokyo Bay. The ship took two weeks to repair so Joe enjoyed some R&R in Japan. Had the ship broken down in the middle of the North Pacific in bad weather, it may not have made it to Seattle. Timing is everything. As it was, the repaired ship had to contend with huge swells and it was a very rough crossing to Seattle.

Then it was off to the Navy Separation Center in Boston via train on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Joe arrived in Boston on April 24^th. He was honorably discharged on April 26,1946 as a MMS3c as his paperwork for this rate increase didn’t catch up with his records before he was discharged. Joe did not care to “Hurry Up And Wait” any longer.