Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1986. július-december (40. évfolyam, 27-49. szám)
1986-12-04 / 46. szám
Thursday, Dec. 4. 1986. 7. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO JÓCSÁK AND SON VI. 1 by JOHN F. GOJACK My formal education was coming to an end. Last days in regular school were two weeks at Roosevelt Junior High in the eighth grade. Playing hookey, on a short train trip somewhere, got me transferred to the Boys' Pre-Vocational School. That was for boys who misbehaved or did not conform at regular schools. There were two classrooms, with lady teachers, both nice and elderly. They struggled with a hopeless task, having boys ranging from illiterate to criminal to bright. The best they could achieve was to have boys listen to some decent readings, preserve order and avoid mayhem during school hours. My first day there I was tipped off to the major rule. "All you have to do to keep out of trouble is to be quiet in class. You can sleep or do anything, just don't make a fuss. The biggest rule is not to have any cigarets in your pocket or get caught smoking during recess or lunch time. Miss Pettit is death against cigarets," a student informed me. He was right. Miss Pettit would walk down an alley next to the school yard, trying to catch a student smoking. At least once a week she would have surprise inspection, ordering the class to stand and turn their pockets inside out. She’d walk the aisles, and at times feel a pocket to make sure cigarets were not hidden. I sat behind Jim Brown, one of the toughest black boys on the west side and built like a fullback. One day he was slouched in his seat, with a hand in his pocket. "Miss Pettit is watching you," I whispered. "I don't give a shit," he said. She continued to watch Jim and then got up from her raised desk, marching briskly toward his desk. "Please stand up, Jim Brown," she orederd. Jim was smiling when he did that. Quick as a flash, Miss Pettit thrust her hand down his pocket, to grab the contraband cigarets. Instead she shrieked, withdrew her hand quickly and rushed out of the classroom. About ten minutes later, the janitor came in to announce that Miss Pettit was indisposed in her office and we should monitor the class ourselves for the rest of the afternoon. "What did you have in your pocket, Jim?" a student asked. "Nothing," he teased. "Nothing at all." "Was it a frog?" another asked. It became a game, accompanied by laughter, with not one student guessing the right answer. "Clue us in, before she comes back," implored Jim's best friend. "I'll give it to you straight, with no bullshit. First place, I couldn't have anything in my pocket, the whole bottom is cut off. I was just minding my own business and playing a little pocket pool." The room burst out in raucous laughter, and the remarks were too raunchy for a family book. I hoped that Miss Pettit heard none of it. I liked her. That last year at Boy's Pre-Vo wound up my academic career. They never counted it as a grade, considering it a success if you stayed with them for the term. My real education was greatly enhanced by Pop, who never saw the inside of a school room. He was firm, using strong and foul language when angry, yet he never laid a hand on his children. He had no need for that. His voice was effective enough. The most important lesson he taught me was to take adversity in stride and go forward in confidence. I cherish the opportunity to have lived with and learned from him. While attending an ethnic festival I noticed bumper strips on sale proclaiming "Italian Power," or "Greek Power," or "Irish Power," or "German Power," or "Polish Power," and others. I bought one that said something about Pop: "Hungarian and Proud." To really honor my parents, I should get a bumper strip that reads: "Transylvania Courage." ON ONE PARTICULAR CHRISTMAS When one has passed three-score years, it is pardonable not to be able to remember every Christmas Eve in one's past. We all recall customs of this joyous season: whether the tree is decorated Christmas Eve, or earlier, and whether Santa arrives on Christmas Eve cr slips down the chimney during the night, with gifts opened Christmas Day. In prosperous years, which meant that both my father and mother were working, Christmas meant having a young pig being fattened with corn in the yard or basement for that great December feast day. While my parents did not find the streets paved with gold when they moved to Dayton, Ohio from Transylvania, Hungary in 1906, there was always food on the table and the house was warm. It was great for them to be living in this free land. It was also a marvelous opportunity for the six Gojack kids. The tree, ceiling-high, was always, decorated with an amazing assortment of glittering, brightly-colored balls, red and geld tinsels, home-made felt birds, angels, icicles, and burning candles which had to be constantly watched. It was a magical feeling to see the tree glowing with candle-light. Every detail of one particular Christmas is remembered, while others are recalled vaguely, and some not at all. One earlier Christmas time, the pig was being fattened in the basement for weeks and had developed a love for coal with its corn. At butchering time, the day before Christmas, the pig was so frisky that my father and brothers had to chase it for a longe time. "You're supposed to be football players, tackle it," Pop yelled. Andy, my older brother who later played pro-football, caught it with a flying tackle. We held it while Pop slit its throat, not too well, and the blood-spattered, feisty pig got away again. By the time we caught it, I thought Pop would stick us with the pig knife, . as he threatened with choise worker's language, in both English and Hungarian. We dipped the pig in boiling water for easy scraping of the hair. I goofed and kept it in too long, so the hair set. "If you can't scrape it off, shave it with my straight razor," Pop ordered. That took a longe time and I remember all that, but nothing more of that particular Christmas. Lean years were something else. In those days before penicillin when flu and pneumonia ended mv mother's life there were no more traditional Hungarian-American Christmas celebrations for our family. Elizabeth Vig Gojack was buried at thirty-one, leaving my father, a hard-working factory worker, to care for six hungry children. My mother, an amazingly resourceful, beautiful woman and a tower of strength, left a legacy of something strong in her brood. The three oldest girls of thirteen, eleven and nine, were able to stay home and escape the orphanage. Pop was determined to take care of the kids, and though he loved his pálinka (a strong, plum whiskey), he never touched a drop during the week, drinking only on weekends. He had a grueling job at the Dayton Pipe Coupling Company, and was up at four-thirty to be at work by six in the morning. At the fiery drop-forge hammer all day, by the time he got home around six in the evening, he could barely get through supper. Shortly after, he dropped half-dead into - bed. It wasn't long before the three boys, ages six, five and three, were placed in the hands of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, at the St. Joseph Orphanage, across town in Dayton. Orphanage life in those days should not be described in a Christmas story. Repeated runaway attempts from age six always failed until age twelve, when the railroad was discovered as a superior means of flight. It was no trick for a swift, skinny kid to grab the rungs of a ladder on a slow-moving freight, then climb up on top or jump into the door of an empty box car, going to who knows where. Thus began an early love affair with travel, with the clackety-clang of iron wheels and freight trains. A few years later, I joined the elite men of the road who scorned the slower freights. Graduated to passenger trains, I was anxious to go as fast as possible to nowhere in particular. This was riding the blinds! Steam engines had a tender attached, which held the coal and water. Just behind the tender there were places one could stand, holding tightly of course to a ladder or some other apparatus, while enjoying, the swiftest travel possible in those days. I loved telling family and friends of the joys of travel "as a non-paying guest on the railroads." That became my pet phrase. When not seeing America from box cars, or going more swiftly by riding the blinds on passenger trains in search of jobs and meals, there was always tha haven of one sister or another, or going to Pop's to live for a while. At age sixteen came the Christmas to remember. Riding the blinds, in a blizzard, on Christmas Eve! December 24th held the promise of a sweet Christmas that year. I was enjoying life with my sister Pauline, whose husband Frank had a good, steady job as a shipping clerk at Specialty Papers in Dayton. I helped earn my room and board by baby-sitting their first boy and doing household chores. That day before Christmas I stayed home to watch the baby while they finished Christmas shopping. They promised to be home before five, when I was to join my pals for cruising on Third Street, the main business street of Dayton's west-side About four, Frank's father came to the house with the customary Christmas present, a full gallon of delicious, home-made Hungarian red wine. "I'll wait a little while for them. You're sixteen now, Johnny, so let's sample Frankie's Christmas present."
