Hudson - Rust & Crust

Hudson - Rust & Crust
Originally uploaded by sisudave.

There are two Hudsons, both rusted out, parked right adjacent to each other behind fence at auto junk place Rte 25 south side of town. Since vehicles are packed in so tight this is only real shot I could get.
I rememeber when I was a kid and these came out. My friends father who lived in same apt. building as us got one - think it was their first new car. All previous ones Jimmy used in his construction business. I was fascinated as first car I saw where you stepped down to get in the car. He used to sleep it off in the car Sunday mornings after Saturday nights at the Knights of Columbus. Man a couple blocks over from us was the Hudson Dealer. They had 3 cute blonde girls and all us kids played over there. They were one of the first to have a TV and invited all us kids to watch lots of times. I especially remember Ed Sullivan Show, as one of the first ones.

Ou neighbor, Dominick, on the third floor was the first in our apartment to have a TV. No cable in those days so he had big antenna attached to side of wall up at the roof. They were real good about having us kids upo to watch TV,too. Remeber Lil al;ways had treats, like popcorn, also. In those early days they had a lot of big events on the TV and I particularly remember watching The Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus. Even though had seen the real thing in New York , that was still a tremendous treat. In those days people troed to all kinds of things to enhance their picture. I think Dominic put a big magnifier on his. Of course in these days we would say YUK that just distorts the picture and it was already snowy enough. But we all thought it was just a marvelous thing.
My brothers were older than me. They decided they wanted to get us a TV. My father was against it. I don't know why he was funny about things some time when it came to his family. I never did figure him out completely, especially in that regard. he used to work extra besides regiular job to make his "drinking" money. Always turned the regular paycheck over to my Mom from day they were married. he didn't care anything about managing it and always did other things for his own pocket change. only he kept in in his shoe and he would often take his coins out of there just to show us kids how much change he had. I couldn't ever figure out how he could walk around wuith that money in his shoe - he probably didn't and just use a little slight of hand in fromt of us.
Anyway my Mom appointed me to sneak over and see if Pop was watching TV at the Bader's which she suspected. They were the people who owned the bakery across the street where he worked and spent a lot of time with them. I remember they always had a small table in back room of the bakery with a bittle of booze on it. I think that was part of Pop's and the bakers salary. I think she had told him that if she found out that he was watching their TV she would let the boys get us one. I don't remember the outcome, but do know that Gus and Herb went to see Mr Asherman (another Baker) who owned the Apartment building and Mrs. Asherman said "sure the boys can have a TV." Hooray for her. I always thought it funny that after Mr Asherman died, the Mrs eventually married again, to Gus Anderson - not my Pop. but another man with same name.
I remember evry day running out of Washington Sciool and looking for the antenna on top of the roof. Finally it was there and our lives, as with most other Americans coming into the TV age, were to change and never be the same. Our antenna was put up on the chimney o higher than Dominics. That made him mad and all I ever remember about him from then on was complaining that our antenna interferred with his reception.