My Voyage: As Good as If I Did It All by Myself

PROLOGUE

MY VOYAGE: As Good As If I Did It

All By Myself

May you have fair winds and following seas, is the anonymous quotation that is inscribed on a wooden plaque mounted on my ego wall in my home office. The plaque was gifted to me by my oldest daughter, Tara, and her husband, John. The idea for the saying is to wish all sailors good weather and safe travels as they head out to sea. While not all of my voyage has been smooth sailing throughout my eighty-five years of life, I find the quotation inspirational and apt for much of it.

When I began writing this memoir, I thought for quite a while about what the title should be. Sitting in my office, I glanced up at my wall and was struck by the quotation. So, I created the main title that is derived from my love for sailing and the sea. The subtitle is a tribute to the influence of my father. During my youth, he tackled many home projects with the help of his three sons. When they were completed, Dad would say with satisfaction, That’s just as good as if I did it all by myself! much to our bemused amusement. Later when I had children of my own, I would say the same thing to them and even added some of my own, like when they inquired, How do you know that, Dad? and I would retort, That’s why I’m the Ph.D.! These comments are satirical, obviously.

Throughout this voyage challenges were met, and decisions were made that altered my headings, led to various ports of call, and ultimately brought me to where I am in life as of this writing. The reality is, I would not have been able to sail through this life, smoothly or otherwise, without the love and support of my parents, family, friends, teachers, and co-workers.

People say my energy and activism is unusual for a man my age. Strangers seem to think I’m fifteen to twenty years younger than I really am. My body is deteriorating, however, albeit more gracefully than many of my contemporaries. I have survived prostate cancer, several accidents, and a few surgeries. At this writing, I have stage V kidney disease and have started dialysis. My mind, however, is still inquisitive and I have vivid memories of events and experiences that influenced my life. The dates of various events are as specific as I can remember them. The names of people who have had significant positive influences on me and/or my decisions over the years are included. The names of those who have had a negative influence are excluded.

All of us have bantered about how much a child is like her mother or a sibling is like his father. I have found that I, and probably like most people, am an amalgamation of both my parents, nearly equally: Dad was hardworking, analytical, devoted, and predictable; Mom was artistic, creative, sensitive, and predictable as well. I learned from them and emulated many of their traits. I trust that my writings will bring understanding and clarity to my children and theirs about me. Perhaps it will be appreciated by their descendants in the years ahead. Therefore, being of sound mind and semi-sound body, let’s get underway.

Pre-birth to June 1945

G erald Joseph Finney (Jerry) and Helen Marguerite Kaufhold (Helen) were my parents. Dad was born in Gervais, Oregon, November 18, 1900. He was the third of eight children, and the oldest son of Anna Meiring Finney and George Finney. Grandmother Anna was born in 1876, shortly after her parents Henry and Mary Meiring emigrated from Germany. Grandfather George was born in Wisconsin after his parents fled the potato famine in Ireland in the 1860s. I knew my Grandma Finney, but not that well because she lived in Oregon, and our family resided in New Jersey. We did not get to see her except when she would come east to visit which was rarely. Dad went west to visit her occasionally, but the family drove to Oregon only once, in 1951 when I was a teenager. She passed away in 1970. I never met my grandfather. He died in 1936 when I was an infant. Anna and George along with my father’s sister Marie, who died in her teens, are buried in an old Roman Catholic cemetery in Salem, Oregon. My wife Scarlett and I visited their graves when we took a train trip to Oregon in 2011.

My mother was born in Newark, New Jersey on January 17, 1897. She lived with her younger sister Martha, and her mother, Magdalena Kaufhold, who was born in Newark on October 31, 1870. Her parents also emigrated from Germany in the middle of 19th century. Grandma Kaufhold had a somewhat stern presence. She was kind to us but did not play with us when we went to the Jersey Shore each summer. I was told she had a cousin who fought for the Kaiser in World War I. Looking back, I realize she was a strong and independent woman given that she raised two girls by herself, ran a fur business out of her home, owned a second home located immediately behind her house, and a summer bungalow at the New Jersey shore. She did all of this before women even had the right to vote. I never knew Theodore Kaufhold, my mother’s father. I was told he was a drinker, and that he had left the family shortly after my mother contracted scarlet fever in her early teens. Mom said she lost her hair as a result of that disease and, when it grew back, it was gray.

Grandma Kaufhold had nine children but only two of them lived to adulthood, my mother and her younger sister, my aunt Martha. The others died during childhood from diseases. Antibiotics were not developed until many years later. Helen graduated from Newark Normal School, the equivalent of a community college, and earned certification in primary education. She taught the first grade in a Newark public school. Mother was also raised a Roman Catholic, attended mass, and practiced all the sacraments regularly. I remember going to novenas with her during Lent.

The Finney family worked a 570-acre farm owned by a Lyman Savage, located near St. Louis, Oregon. It produced wheat, corn, and other grains. Jerry grew up there and attended Sheridan High School where he excelled as an athlete, especially in baseball. He was only 5’ 7 tall, but muscularly built. Following graduation in 1918, he pursued a career in professional baseball for six years. He was a right-handed pitcher, but an elbow injury caused him to switch to the outfield because he was also an excellent hitter. My brothers and I enjoyed many days playing softball with other kids in our neighborhood, and Dad would play with us on weekends. All the boys wanted Mr. Finney on their team because he could hit the ball so far, but he would only get a double out of what should have been an in-the-park homer because he was overweight and lumbered around the bases. He made it as far as Class A minor league baseball with the Salem, Oregon team, but his pitching arm eventually got worse. He sported a large bump on his right elbow for the rest of his life that he called his pitcher’s pimple." He gave up professional baseball in 1924 and enrolled at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Dad was raised a devout Roman Catholic and remained so his entire life. While enrolled at Oregon State, he lived in the rectory of a Corvallis Catholic Church where he received room and board for assisting the priests. He said his work at the church consisted of being a jack-of-all-trades from custodian to repairman because he had learned skills in carpentry, plumbing and electrical work. While at Oregon State he also went through an R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officers Training Corp) program that resulted in a reserve commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army Corps of Engineers. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1928, and was employed almost immediately by Carrier Corporation, a young company founded in 1923 by Willis Carrier who invented air conditioning. The job was in Newark, New Jersey, however, so he had to leave his family and travel across the United States. Cross-country air travel did not exist at that time. He purchased a one-way train ticket and, with a limited amount of cash, traveled east to begin his career as an engineer.

When Dad arrived in Newark, he rented a room at the local Knights of Columbus Lodge, and spent most of his evenings there. One of the evening social activities the Lodge offered was the card game Contract Bridge. My mother, her sister, Aunt Martha, and my grandmother all played bridge and attended regularly. One evening, they needed a fourth player to fill a table. My grandmother told my mother to invite the young man who was reading in the corner to join them, and that is how the engineer from Oregon met the teacher from New Jersey. Later, in my teens, I learned that Dad was an excellent Bridge player. He taught my brothers and me how to play the game. I became fairly good at it, but both of my brothers were much better players than me. Frank even won the campus bridge championship with his partner while in college.

Aunt Martha had a beautiful singing voice, and my mother was an accomplished pianist. Martha would sing, and Helen would accompany her at public events. They performed at a Fraternal Order of Eagles function where Charles P. McCann, a local politician, was a member and officer. Charles told someone that Martha was the woman he was going to marry, and he did so within a year.

My mother and father married May 19, 1930. They rented the house my grandmother owned that was located on 18th Street. Its backyard abutted my grandmother’s house located on 17th Street. The 18th Street house was rented by either the Finney or the McCann family for the next several years. Following my Grandmother’s death, years later, both properties were sold.

Fall 1930, The Carrier Corporation sent Dad to a position in Tokyo, Japan. He and Mom, who was then pregnant with my older brother Gahr, took the train to Oregon to visit Dad’s family. Then they boarded an ocean liner in San Francisco bound for Tokyo where Dad worked with engineers of the Tokyo Carrier Engineering Corporation. His professional baseball background was a factor in being chosen for that job. He played on the company’s team in a Japanese industrial baseball league the entire time they lived in Japan.

Mom gave birth to Gerald Gahr, on July 1, 1931 in Tokyo. Gahr was Grandma Kaufhold’s maiden name. They spent three years in the orient, including a brief time in Yokohama, Japan, and Shanghai, China. To this day, I have several Chinese and Japanese artifacts in my home. They returned to the USA in 1933 and moved back into the house on 18th Street. Years later, I learned from Mom that she had a second pregnancy in 1933 that ended in a miscarriage. This explains the four-year gap in age between Gahr and me.

March 31, 1935 is the date that I entered this world. According to my parents, I arrived just ten minutes before April Fools’ Day, something we used to joke about over the years, especially whenever I got into trouble.

According to my parents, I was a rambunctious little bundle of energy who kept them up all hours of the night. I had a habit of waking up noisily at 5:00 A.M. and rocking my crib so loudly that Dad would have to get up and take me downstairs so I would not wake up anyone else. Evidently, I was a Type A personality from the beginning. I was also the only blond with green eyes. This was attributed to my resembling a great uncle on Dad’s side of the family. Dad had blue eyes and almost black hair, but some of his siblings had fairer features. Mom was a brownette with brown eyes at birth. I remember her hair as always being gray, however. Gahr had almost black eyes and hair which were attributed to French heritage on my mother’s side of the family. Her grandfather was married to a French woman. Genetically speaking, I’m half German, almost half Irish, and a smidgen French. My younger brother Frank had brown hair and brown eyes and was born May 9, 1936. I was told that, as a baby, he was the exact opposite of me—placid and easy to handle.

Memories of a few experiences from my early years in Newark include riding a tricycle between the two backyards of the 17th and 18th street houses, but I was only three years old in 1938 when Carrier transferred Dad to its corporate headquarters in Syracuse, New York. Dad drove the family north in our green 1934 Ford sedan. Mom did not learn to drive until years later. They rented a big house on Midland Avenue near downtown for a year, but then bought their first home. It was located at 225 Hillsdale Avenue in Eastwood, a suburb on the Eastern end of the City.

Syracuse is known for having more snow annually than any other U.S. city except those in Alaska. The first snowfall would come in late October or early November, and some years we would not see the ground cleared of snow until April. There was snow everywhere, and sometimes it was quite deep with big piles made by snowplows that cleared our street along with us shoveling snow off the driveway and sidewalks. It was just wonderful for a little kid who loved to build igloos, snowmen, and go sledding. In later years, we would joke about how pretty upstate New York was but that it had only two seasons: July and winter. We lived just one block away from a street that had a steep hill where my brothers and I would sled down all winter long.

I was six years old when World War Two began and ten when it ended. I remember the radio reports and President Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy Speech. I remember vividly playing a game in the backyard in April 1944 when Mom came outside to tell us that President Roosevelt had died. I remember news reports of D-Day, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the music on the radio playing songs with lyrics that supported the war effort. One song by Spike Jones had lyrics we would mimic: When the fuehrer says we are the master race, we will heil [fart] heil [fart] in the fuehrer’s face!

My Dad did not serve in the military during World War II. He was over forty years old and held an important defense job with Carrier. As such, we had A, B, and C ration stamps pasted on the windshield of our family car. Each letter represented an additional allotment for gasoline which was rationed during the war as were a lot of products, including shoes, and many foods.

Our home in Syracuse had a deep lot, and my parents planted a victory garden in a space behind the garage. We tended and harvested small crops of corn, tomatoes, peas, asparagus, and squash from 1942 to 1945. I remember helping Mom in the kitchen. We stopped eating butter because it was rationed and switched to margarine, which I did not like nor do I to this day. Mom would buy Nucoa margarine in white slabs and we would mix in a vegetable dye capsule to make it turn yellow. Milk, too, was rationed, so we mixed powdered milk. It was called Starlac and we would mix that with water and blend it with real milk to make our milk allotment go farther. We bought real milk in two-gallon glass bottles directly from a dairy farm out in the county. On weekends, we would drive out into the county and pick apples and peaches right off the tree. We purchased vegetables from farm stands at the sides of the roads. Mom did a lot of canning at home and we helped her. She canned vegetables and fruit, and even made preserves.

We ate dinner in the formal dining room every evening after Dad got home from work. Mom taught all three of us how to properly set a table for a formal dinner, and one of us had table setting duty each afternoon. The other two boys had dish washing and drying duty after the meal. Typical entrées were tuna casserole, macaroni and cheese, pasta with meat sauce, or beef stew. Sometimes, we would dine on pot roast with noodles or roast chicken. Once in a while when things really got tight, we’d eat just bread and gravy. On special occasions, Mom would bake a rump roast, turkey, or ham. As devout Catholics we never ate meat on Fridays, but we did not eat fresh fish very often except during the summer when we vacationed at the Jersey shore. We had a single door refrigerator with no freezer compartment. Packaged frozen foods were a rarity, and our family did not buy a freezer until we moved to New Jersey after the war. There, we had a freezer chest that sat in the basement. Saturdays, Dad would cook a big pot of soup, and sometimes bake apple pies. One favorite was split pea soup filled with little slices of hotdogs in it. We would eat a bowl of that and dip rye bread with margarine into the bowl. He also made a great apple pie served with wedges of cheddar cheese.

Today, it is hard to imagine that I was a picky eater as a child. It was common for Bobby to be kept at the table until he ate at least two more bites of whatever. No dessert was forthcoming because I refused to eat my peas or squash, or some other healthy food. Gahr did not like lettuce, so Mom came up with salads that contained no lettuce. She made a Waldorf salad that included raisins, walnuts and slices of apple. Another one was quartered tomatoes and sliced onions in vinegar and oil that I did not care for because of the raw onions. I didn’t become a chowhound until I was sixteen.

During spring and fall, my brothers and I would play softball in the street. There were no curbs on Hillsdale Avenue. I remember Gahr hit a foul ball one time and broke the neighbor’s front window that Dad had to repair. We would play Hide and Seek, and make-believe war games in vacant lots nearby, using trees as bombers, and hiding in gullies for foxholes. We also played board games like Monopoly with friends in our backyard during the warm weather.

One indoor game we played during the war was on Monday nights. Mom and Dad went to the movies every Monday for their night out because ration stamps were raffled off during intermission. While they were gone, Gahr was left in charge. We were supposed to be in bed by 9:00 P.M. Our house had three bedrooms. The master had my parents’ double bed and a radio. Gahr had his own room with a double bed. Frank and I shared the third bedroom with bunk beds. As soon as our parents left for the movies, we dismantled the bunk beds and re-assembled them in the master bedroom, constructing a battleship with bridge and all. We would simulate bomber attacks and all sorts of things while listening to the radio. The cue for dismantling our ship was Cecil B. DeMille’s interview of the guest star following her or his performance on Lux Radio Theater, a network radio show that aired from 9:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. Mom and Dad normally came home about 10:30 P.M. and would find us sound asleep. Of course, they came home early one night and the proverbial S– hit the fan. Corporal punishment was common in those days, and Dad’s leather belt was his instrument of choice. One whack on the bottom was the usual punishment. If we were really bad, we got two on a bare bottom.

Another thing I remember about living there was we had no shower in the bathroom, only a bathtub. In winter 1938, when I was three and a half, my mother had a part-time nanny named Norma to help her. Norma would bathe Frank and me together in the tub. One time she got distracted and put me in the tub with my booties on. Another specific recollection was when in 1940, Gahr and I tried to figure out how Santa could get down our narrow chimney by sticking Frank in the fireplace. That escapade brought out the Fire Department and resulted in receiving another whack on