Autobiography

I was born on Sunday, November 2, 1947, at 18:29 hours, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This was exactly one half hour after the birth of my fraternal twin brother.

I was the weaker baby between the two of us and the doctors did not believe that I would live through the night. A nun who was also a nurse informed my mother of this and asked her for permission to baptize me. My mother agreed and I was baptized using only my first name, Peter. That night my mother prayed to St. Jude, the patron saint of the impossible, to let me live. She promised to name me after the saint if I lived. Thus, I received my middle name, Jude.

A few days later my twin brother became ill. The nurse got the two of us confused and not knowing who was who Baptized us both. I do not know which name she used.

I received a third, official baptism from St. Clement Catholic Church, Center Line, Michigan, on September 5, 1948. Here agian, there was confusion over who was who and the priest baptised us both using the name Patrick, my twin brother’s name.

When I was a little over a year old my penis became infected. My mother took me to the doctor’s office for treatment. While I was there, the doctor suggested that she have me circumcised in order to prevent my becoming infected again. She agreed and she also had my twin brother circumcised at this same time.

The reason she did not have me circumcised when I was born is because the doctors at the time said that my penis was too small and that the risk was too great. They suggested to my mother that she wait till I was a little older. I do not know why my brother was not circumcised when he was born.

When I was five, my parents took me to the hospital for an examination. The doctor said that I had a hernia and would need an operation. I remember the smell of the ether — it was terrible — and waking up in a hospital bedroom with several other patients in it.

Soon after this, my parents took me to the hospital again for a second hernia operation. Again, I remember the smell of the ether and waking up in a hospital bedroom with several other people in it. This second time I remember a nurse who was very kind to me. I do not know if she was there the first time. These two operations gave me a “V” shaped scar on my groin.

We moved around quite a bit during my early years. From Ft. Wayne we moved to Culver, Indiana. We stayed there for only a couple of months because my mother did not like living there. About two blocks away from our house, there was a lake in which my brothers and I frequently went swimming.

There was also a large empty lot behind our house that my twin brother and I used to play in. It had a lot of thorny bushes growing in it. One day my twin brother and I decided to get rid of them. So we got some matches and began setting each bush on fire. We did not think of the consequences and soon there were small fires in several places in the lot.

We tried to put the fires out with a bucket of water but soon the entire lot was on fire. The fire department had to come and put out the fire. We did not tell anyone how the fire got started but I do not think we fooled our parents. I’m pretty sure they knew how the fire got started but they didn’t say anything.

I almost drowned one day while swimming in Lake Maxinkuckee with my father and brothers. I panicked after stepping into a hole and began thrashing in the water. My father grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out. He told me to sit down and rest a bit before going back in. He also told me not to tell my mother; I did not tell her about the incident until I was in high school. Soon after this incident we moved to Huntington, Indiana.

I liked living in Huntington; it had a lot of trees. I remember one winter my brothers and I built a giant snowman. We took some pictures of it and called the local paper to come take pictures of it but no one showed up. Never-the-less, we had fun building it and playing in the snow that day.

On the way to school one day (I was in the first grade) I was walking in the street and almost got hit by a car. It came to a stop with the front tire touching my leg. Another centimeter or two and it would have run over me. I was with my twin brother at the time; we decided not to tell anyone. I do not believe that I have ever told anyone about this incident. I do not know how long we lived in Huntington but we eventually moved back to our house in Ft. Wayne.

I liked living there too; I have a clear memory of the house and what it looked like. (I also remember the houses in Culver and Huntington but not as well.) There was a playground with a pool not far from our house where my twin brother and I liked to go swimming in the summer time. We were both good swimmers and the lifeguards there were surprised at our ability to swim so well.

A bicycle hit me when I was about six or seven years old. I do not remember the year but I do remember that I was in front of our house in Ft. Wayne. The accident cut my left knee. It was a very serious cut and my mother had to rush me to the hospital. The doctor told me to lie down so that he could stitch me up but I wanted to watch. So I sat up.

The attending nurse also asked me to lay down and I told her that if I did that then I would not be able to see what the doctor was doing. The doctor then said that I was a brave boy and that he would let me sit up and watch as long as I did not move. I did not move while I watched the doctor put five stiches in my knee.

I do not remember it but I’m sure he gave me a shot in my knee to deaden the pain before he started to stich me up. But I do remember telling him that I was going to be a doctor when I grew up.

One day while attending St. Peter and Paul Catholic Elementary School in Ft. Wayne I was coming from the lunchroom and slipped in the hallway and cut my hand on a bottle of milk. It was a bad cut and there was blood all over the place but it did not require stitches. The nuns called my mother and she took me home and bandaged it up. Today I look at my hands and cannot find the scar it left. I cannot even remember if I cut my left hand or my right hand.

In another accident, I fell on the ice one winter day in the school yard and chipped my front tooth. The nuns called my parents and they brought me to a dentist. The dentist said that I would eventually have to have the tooth capped. I did not get that done until I got into high school. In the mean time, the broken tooth remained an ugly “scar” and I was embarrassed to smile. I do not remember which of these two injuries was first but I think it was the cut on my hand.

On March 26, 1956, my father died, leaving me with only a few vague memories of him. But I do have a very clear memory of waking up that morning and seeing him in bed. He had died the night before in his sleep; rigor mortis had already set in and his body was discolored.

A priest from St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church came to administer the Last Rights. He then took us to school that day and I remember my teacher (a nun) having the class say a prayer for him before school started.

The newspaper said that he died of a heart attack and the death certificate said that he died of a seizure. But the truth is that he died from a blood clot on his brain that he received about 18 months earlier when a couple of men beat him up and robbed him.

My mother had him buried near his own family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Soon after his death, my mother moved our family to Louisiana. She did this in order to be near her own family so that she might have some help in raising her five children. She bought a house in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. It was a double house. We lived at 3610 and my grandparents took up residence in the other half of the house, 3608. This is the house I grew up in. At the time the street was named St. Rene’ but it was later renamed West Metairie Avenue North.

The year 1956 turned out to be a bad year for me. Soon after moving into the Metairie house — in the summer of 1956 — I fell off the porch and dislocated my left elbow. The doctors at the hospital my mother took me to misread the X-ray and said that everything was OK. That hospital was on Metairie Road near Bonnable Blvd. and has since been torn down.

But a few days later I still could not use my left arm, so my mother brought me to another hospital. The doctors there said that they would have to cut my arm open in order to correctly set my elbow. I still have a large scar on my left elbow where they had to operate to fix the dislocation.

Then just after I got my arm out of the cast, my mother was taking the family out shopping to buy us some new shoes for school. She got into an auto accident and everyone in the family had some kind of injury. I broke my left arm again! We were all taken to the hospital. The doctors had to reset the broken bone in my arm and put another cast on my arm. Throughout the ordeal my arm was in a cast almost a whole year.

When I was nine or ten years old my mother’s brother taught me how to play chess. I immediately fell in love with the game and spent many hours studying various chess moves with books on chess that I would borrow from the library. I soon become an excellent player. However, I never joined any chess clubs at middle school or high school, as I was not the type of person to join organizations.

But I loved the game so much that it was one of the contributing factors in causing me to flunk out on my first attempt at attending college at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1967. I had neglected my studies and spent too many hours playing chess.

After my mother moved her family to New Orleans, the first school I attended was Incarnate Word Elementary School of New Orleans. It was within walking distance of the house we temporally shared with my grandparents at 8409 Fig Street.

I received my First Holy Communion while attending second grade at Incarnate Word. Because all the other second grade children of the school had already received their First Holy Communion, I had to receive mine at a regular Sunday Mass. I barely remember it and do not remember the exact date of this event but it was in April or May of 1956.

I received my Confirmation in 1960, from St. Christopher’s Catholic Church of Metairie; I took the name of Gabriel.

While attending St. Christopher’s Elementary School I tried to become an altar server. At that time anyone wishing to become an altar server had to learn the Latin responses. I attended the classes the priest held in order to help us learn the Latin but I was not learning the responses. Everyone was learning what to recite at mass except me and they all were saying that I was not going to become an altar server.

Two days before we were to be given an oral exam by the priest I still did not know the Latin responses. One of the other boys goaded me. He told me that he was glad that I did not know the responses because now I would not become an altar server and he would not have to put up with me any longer; he did not like me.

That was all I needed. I stayed home from school the next day, pretending to be sick and studied all the Latin responses. I went over each response several times until I could recite the entire mass by heart. I remember that it was a bright sunny spring day outside at the time. I went to school the following day and surprised everyone, including the priest. He even told me that I did better than some of the other boys.

But I still did not become an altar server because my mother took me out of St. Christopher’s the following school year and I attended Ella Dolhonde Elementary School. While I was attending the sixth grade there I eventually became very good friends with someone who, at that time, was my “mortal” enemy.

I do not remember what caused Alan, my twin brother and I to begin fighting, but every time we saw each other we fought. There seemed to be some kind of revengeful hate between the three of us that urged us on. Of course, this hate spilled over into the schoolyard, as Alan also attended Ella Dolhonde.

One day I saw Alan in line with the other children waiting to get on the school bus to go home. I rarely rode the school bus. In fact, I did not even like riding the school bus; I usually walked to and from school.

But Alan was standing there waiting to get on the bus. I walked up to him and pushed him aside and attempted to get on the bus in front of him. He hit me and we started to fight. The bus driver brought us to the office and we both got detention.

The next day Alan got in a fight with my twin brother; I do not know how that one got started.

But the next thing I know is that I was called out of my sixth grade class to go to the office. The principal told us that she was fed up with our constant fighting. She put us in the hallway outside her office and told us to sit there until we learned how to get along with each other.

I do not know how long we sat there but my twin brother eventually said: “Alan, I have a box turtle and if you want me to show it to you I will.” That was all that was needed. We have been close friends ever since. Although I have not seen him in several of years, since we both have gotten married, I still consider Alan a close friend.

The next several years of my life went by without incident. I attended Ella Dolhonde Elementary School after I was kicked out of St. Christopher’s for fighting with Alan. Then I went to Metairie Junior High, which was later renamed Haynes Middle School to honor the principal, Mr. Haynes. From there I attended East Jefferson High School.

My sophomore year there saw the opening of Riverdale High School. It was built as an all girls public high school and East Jefferson was to be the public high school for boys. The school board said that the reason for this was academic but we all knew it was because integration was coming. It seems that the school board did not want the white girls going to school with black boys, so they built Riverdale and sexually separated the students. I did not like it one bit but there was nothing I could do about it.

Sometimes when I had punish work to hand in or a report to turn in which was not finished I pretended to be sick and stayed home from school. I do not know why I stayed home from school on November 22, 1963, but I was home watching television at 12:30. Suddenly my grandmother burst into the room and said that there was a news flash that someone had just shot the President.

I remember that the first thing I thought about was that the news media was probably exaggerating everything; that some fool probably just took a couple of shots at the President but everything was alright. But a few seconds later the television station I was watching broke in with the news that someone had shot President Kennedy, that it was a serious wound and that he was rushed to the hospital.

By the time the news media announced his death I was in shock and disbelief that someone would kill the President. That entire weekend saw me watching television and keeping up with events as they were coming from the news media. Over the next several months I came to realize that the government was lying about the events of that fateful day. It was not until I started my own research years later (by reading books) that I came to understand what really happened. The entire thing left a lasting impression upon me and I never again trusted my government.

In 1965, I broke my second front tooth when I ran into an iron bar that was used to protect a storefront picture window from the high winds of Hurricane Betsy. I was not watching where I was going, it was blocking the walkway and I just walked right into it. However, I told everyone that it was knocked out as a result of the hurricane in order to save a lot of explanations about how it happened.

I had just gotten the other tooth capped, so I called the dentist to see what he could do about this second chipped tooth. I had to call him at his house because the whole city was without electricity and he was not at his office. But he agreed to meet me at his office; he said that he would do what he could.

Because the whole city was without electricity, the only light that he had in his office was from that coming in from the window. It was a very small window and did not let in much light. But he gave me a shot of Novocain and had me shine a flashlight on the tooth so that he could work on it. He did what he could, putting a temporary cap on it.

A few weeks after the electricity was restored to his office, he capped the second tooth. So, after years of having a face with a chipped tooth, I finally was able to smile in my senior year of high school.

I have other scars on my body — a burn mark on my stomach, a cut on my left foot, a scar in the middle of my forehead in my hairline, to point out a few of them — but none of these were very memorable to me. As such, I will not discuss them at this time. Indeed, I do not even know how I got the scar on my forehead. One day I just noticed it there. Later I made up a story about it. I claimed that I got it in a fight with another boy but I only said this so that I could appear to be tough in front of my friends.

Although I had many friends at school and in my neighborhood and a number of girl friends in high school, I was more or less a loner and rather shy. I never went in for sports, baseball, football, basketball, etc. This was because I was too small and thin but also because these were team sports and I did not excel in situations in which I had to work as a member of a team.

Another reason that I did not go in for ball games is because of the way I was treated at the local playground during my preteen years. Sometimes the other boys made fun of me by calling me Birdcage. I was so skinny they could see my ribcage.

I tried out for football when I was in the fifth or sixth grade but was never allowed to play when the team played against other teams. I was allowed to practice and play when the team played itself but not when it was in competition with other teams. I was told that I was too small.

I finally quit when I brought some baseball shoes to football practice one day. When I got there everyone laughed at me for having the wrong shoes. The coach would not let me practice even though I told him that I would practice in my regular shoes. He told me that the next time I would be more careful and watch what shoes I brought to practice. I went home but I never went back.

In fact, I never again set foot in Cleary Playground until over ten years later when I returned as an adult after returning home from Vietnam. My refusal to enter Cleary Playground was a conscious effort on my part not to enter that playground. So great was my determination to stay away from and out of Cleary Playground that just to avoid being in it, I would walk around it rather than through it. Even though going through it was a shortcut between my house and a friend’s house that I visited frequently in my teen years.

I had numerous pets at various times as a child: a dog, hamsters, parakeets, various species of turtle, rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks, chickens, a horn toad, several kinds of snakes (even a diamondback rattler that my twin brother had caught that my mother did not know about) and a baby alligator about 18 inches long that I and my brother also caught in a drainage ditch near our house.

My brother and I had seen it the day before while hunting for turtles. We tried several times to catch it but it kept getting away. We were unsuccessful in catching it, although we stayed there all afternoon and long after the sun set, until we could not see anymore because of the darkness. So my brother and I got up early the next morning to go and try to catch it.

We got there and I grabbed it on our second attempt. After, it bit my thumb but I was not going to let it go. It was a prize worth holding on to! My thumb was OK and we brought it home and built a cage for it. But it escaped from the cage and I never saw it again. But I have always considered it quite an accomplishment to have caught an alligator with my hands, even if it was only a baby one.

Years later I told this story to a friend (Joe Beauchamp) I was stationed with while serving in Vietnam and he soon began to call me Wally Gator. Wally Gator is one of several nicknames that I have had throughout my life. Other nicknames that I have had are: Birdcage, Rabbit, Kid, Julius, Peter Pan, Rudolph, Salty. (I got the nickname Rudolph because of a red runny nose that I got every winter as a child and I got the nickname Salty because of my attitude while stationed in Camp Pendleton.) I am fond of all the nicknames that I have had, for they each bring back wonderful memories of my life. But Wally Gator is my favorite nickname.

Alan, my twin brother and I would often ride our bicycles to the Mississippi River and go skinny-dipping just like Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. I often pretended to be one of them when swimming in the river.

We had no other way of getting a summer swim because all the public pools were closed. The pools were closed because the courts said that they must be integrated or close. Our civic leaders closed them rather than allow African Americans to swim in them. I did not like the idea that the politicians closed the pools but there was nothing that I could do about it.

When I was 16 I took some lessons to become a lifeguard. Since all the public pools were closed, the lessons were given at a private pool. I took the lessons mainly to impress a girl I was dating at the time. I wanted her to feel safe with me when we went swimming at the beach in Lake Pontchartrain, and because I wanted to feel safer when I went swimming in the river.

I was at my best when I functioned independently, which is probably why I was good at chess. I was also excellent at math; I was able to pass my tests with excellent grades without studying. My sophomore math teacher noticed this and was asked me if I wanted to join the math honor society at East Jefferson High but I declined. My other favorite subjects were social studies and science. However, I flunked Biology the first time I took it.

Early in my sophomore year I caught the biology teacher favoring another student. He was an “A” student and her favorite. One day he asked me if he could copy my homework as he had forgotten to do his. I let him copy mine. Later when the teacher gave us our papers back he had an A on his but I had a C on mine.

I pointed this out to her in front of the whole class that she gave an A to someone who copied my paper. But I did not tell her who this was. I just told her that someone who copied my homework got a better grade than me and that this proved that she was prejudice. This insulted her and she then sent me to the principal’s office for “disturbing the class.” She also told me that I had better watch myself or I might flunk Biology.

I did not believe that she was serious. I did not believe that she would flunk me but my grades soon began to fall. She looked for every excuse to send me to the principal’s office. For example, one day a new student came into class and she told her “A” student to tell the new student what would be expected of him. Her favorite student told the new student: “Don’t mind her she’s just an old bag.” Everyone heard him say it including the teacher.

She then told him to apologize to her and he said: “I’m sorry that you’re such an old bag teacher.” She then said: “Since it was you who said that, it’s OK, but if someone like Mr. Fagan had said it, I would send him to the office.” I laughed at this and she sent me to the office.

Another time a student had gotten some mortician’s wax, some stage blood and a chicken bone. He fixed his finger up so that it looked like it was broken in half with the bone sticking out. He then slammed the door and started to scream in pain. She asked him what had happened. He showed her his finger and said that I had slammed the door on his finger. She started to call for help but everyone began to laugh; we all knew what really happened. She told him to quit clowning around but she sent me to the office for “disturbing the class.”

Another time I walked in class just as the tardy bell was ringing. She sent me to the office for “being late to class.” Each time she sent me to the office she gave me a zero for my class work that day. I eventually gave up studying. But I learned a valuable lesson: One does not make enemies of those who have power over them. I took biology again in Summer School an made an A.

I spent my senior year in high school dividing my time between doing those things that seniors are prone to do in their last year of high school — dances, dating, parties, etc. — and earning money from a part time job so I could go to college. Due to my goofing off in my senior year, I almost did not graduate from high school. But my first attempt at college at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge was even worse. In fact, it was a total disaster.

I was away from home for the first time in my life. I joined a fraternity (Tau Kappa Epsilon) and spent much of my time drinking, dating and just having fun. I also spent much of my time in my dorm doing nothing but playing chess all day. I got quite good at the game. In fact, I got so good that there were only a couple of players who could beat me. This caused my first semester grades to fall.

They were Cs and Ds (mostly Ds) and I was put on scholastic probation because I did not have a 2.0 overall average. By mid term second semester I had all Fs and I knew that if I did not bring my grades up I would flunk out. I did not want that to happen, so I stopped playing chess, stopped goofing off and started to study. My fraternity brothers helped me study and grades began to improve.

But it was not enough.

I brought all my course grades up to C except English. I got a D in English which has always been my worst subject. I flunked out in May 1967. A few months later I got a draft notice from the Army. I was scheduled to go to Fort Polk, Louisiana in late 1967 and I knew that I was going to end up in Vietnam.

Autobobiography

In the Beginning