Last Updated Sunday June 10, 2007
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I grew up in New Jersey, my grade school years in the house on left in Westmont, a suburb of Camden, and my teenage years in the house on the right in Columbus. Actually it's in Hungry Hill, a suburb of Columbus, but since Columbus only has 600 people, most folks don't know the suburbs by name. The name Hungry Hill comes from the Indian burial mound that was there. Unfortunately when the house next door was built they bulldozed the mound. We sure found lots of arrowheads and tomahawk heads in the fields.
Within a block of our house in Westmont was my Father's parent's house, the church we all went to and my Mother's parents house. It was a nice cozy neighborhood, not to mention my uncle's and aunt's houses just as close by.
Mr. Voss from next door and my Dad relax in the cool shade with ice tea, something they do a lot. Here's my Dad resting, which he does between relaxing.
My sister-in-law Mary, brother Don and my Mom prepare food, the center of attention of any family gathering. Here's some of the famous Jersey corn and tomatoes. They are so sweet only minutes from the garden that you don't need butter or anything on them. Just pepper on the tomatoes.
That's my Dad on his tractor in his garden. Don is defending the garden from groundhogs. With this old 22 the groundhogs are safe.
My Dad tends to his garden with corn, pole beans and lots of tomatoes. He usually keeps a larger garden back by the trees, but he's slipping lately with all his travel. There's more than enough fresh veggies for the whole neighborhood anyway. My Mom takes care of the fish pond with gold fish and big frogs. My Mom swims laps in the pool every day that it isn't frozen. Here she joined by my niece Melissa and a sea monster that is the daughter of a friend my Dad met in France. She was visiting for a month last summer.
My little sister Patty used to have a horse in the backyard. My Dad built this horse house, and Patty painted this sign on it. It's pretty old and faded now and the house is used for the tractor. Patty makes her living, when she isn't painting, by doing children's characters at birthday parties. She's usually booked months in advance and has a lot of fun telling stories and face painting. That's her fancy new hotwheels car that she goes to parties in dressed like this. She gets lots of wolf whistles! This is one of the few pictures I have of Patty in normal clothes.
This is Betty and Charley Gould. Charley was and still is my scoutmaster. Old troop 45 was definitely a growing experience. The best part was going camping every month, summer and winter. I should borrow some pictures from Charley of those good old days. He always had a camera along and I'll bet I looked pretty goofy back then.
My uncle Howard was shot down in World War II a few years before I was born. That's why my middle name is Howard. I inherited some of his junk like a chemistry set and electrical goodies out of my grandparent's basement. That's how I got started as an engineer.
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