March 1958
WRH March 1958 Diary
March 1, 1958
Put in an early appearance at the club to help put things in order following last nights camp reunion. While the Jr. staff replaced chairs, benches and movie equipment I gave the gym floor a good dust mopping. Tom Foley dropped down to the club and we had a long pleasant chat and took a “35 cent” tour of the building. Tom was greatly impressed with our boys’ club.
We called at the house at noon and picked Helen up to have lunch with us. We drove to Manhasset, Tom followed-he is going on to the Malecki’s in Yonkers. Lunch was a very pleasant affair at the Candlelight Restaurant. Hot pop-overs, rolls, shrimp salad and shrimp and lobster au-gratin with a strawberry parfait to finish with. Lunch for three was $7.45-tip $1.25. Showered and dressed at the house before returning to the club. Saw Bill Cullum off on three well earned weeks of vacation and drove to Manhattan to Stake Conference.
March 2, 1958
Drove to Great Neck (Queens ward) to attend stake conference. I was whisked to the stand along with Wm K. Hinckley. I gave the invocation on the conference session and Wm K gave the benediction. Elder Brown-assistant to the Quorum of 12 Apostles was the presiding general authority. Services were lovely and Elder Brown gave a wonderful talk. Music was beautiful.
We prepared veal cutlets with Italian cheese and tomato sauce for lunch. I put Debs to bed for a nap and conked out for a wonderful two hours myself. Family attended sacrament service at Uniondale. I called a special meeting of my Aaronic Priesthood group to bring records up to date and discuss the stake welfare project visit to the farm. Spent a couple of hours with the Bishop interviewing Robert S—16—of Freeport. Bob was in on a car stealing. He faces jail or a foster home-he currently lives with his grandparents-senile. Looks like the Hinckley’s will have a foster son real soon.
March 3, 1958
Weather has come around to where a beautiful spring is in the offering. Crocus are blooming in the garden. Spent a long day at the office. Mrs. Shay a volunteer secretary spent about 5 hours helping out. Cleared out all the thank you letters necessary to closing the file on the camp reunion program.
Pressed at dinner time trying to get transportation organized for the basketball teams. Finally came up with Henry Roslund and Vince Gonzowski to handle the JV. They won and threw the league into a 3 way tie for first place. Meanwhile I had my hands full getting our varsity to move the ball and get rolling against Farmingdale. We are playing 2 out of 3 games for quarter finals of Nassau county Police Boys’ Club championships. Our varsity is defending champions from last year.
March 4, 1958
Sent Bill Kinnear and Ben S. to New Hyde Park with our biddy basketball team, they are participating in an invitational Long Island tournament. Ron plays with the team. He scored 3 points and John Galasso scored 31 points as our club lost 36-34 in a one loss and out affair. I had the alumni at home where we were taking a 104-88 shellacking from Freeport.
I doubled for vacationing Cullum and handled the intramural game. Gee but those kids do play terrific ball. Medals and turkey dinner means a lot to them. Today’s game was decided by a technical foul in the last two seconds. Spent a lot of time with the chairwoman of the mother’s club going over the notes from their executive committee meeting. They are working out like a million bucks-what a relief to me to get the responsibility off my shoulders for such things as luncheons and special event hostesses.
March 5, 1958
Ben called in-half way through a bottle-with a wild excuse (for his drinking) that we had no confidence in him, as evidenced by my delegating Birdie as coach of the biddy basketball team yesterday. I told him that if he wanted his job he should cork up the bottle and get over to the club.
I had a lovely luncheon with Mr. Pratt at his home and we enjoyed one of the nicest talks I have ever had with him. I spoke of my Denver offer. He spoke of fund raising and future potential in this general area. We made an arrangement to have my house renovated and re-modeled if I stay. I think I will. Bird and I took the varsity to Hicksville for our last league game. We got our best game out of them with an 80-31 victory over the Hicksville club.
March 6, 1958
I wrote Ben’s time out and have a check waiting for him when he shows up. He packed a bag and was asked to leave the home he has been staying in. He has a set of keys to my boys’ club that bothers me no little bit. Hope he turns up so I can pick them up. I am forced out of my office into the gym to keep the program from collapsing. My administrative work is stacking up but I can’t let the physical program go. Biddy and inter-sr. leagues are in their play-offs.
Took all the camping slides down to the “Hot Rods” meeting and after breaking out a soda as a treat spent a couple of hours showing the slides to the group. Would like to convince most of them to put in their applications for Canada. I doubt that they will, but it would certainly do them wonders. Mad as a hornet as I found that seven of our hard wood pegs had been broken from the coat board in the hall-sure would like to catch them.
March 7, 1958
Ben sure picked a beautiful time to hit the bottle and get fired-what with Bill Cullum on vacation. We had a card from Bill saying that he had arrived OK and was comfortable quartered at Boca Rotan. Spent the morning at the youth court in Mineola. Spoke to the judge who had Bob S case on his calendar and arranged to take him into our home. Bob’s companion got 3 years at Elmira reformatory. Took the entire morning to get squared away with the probation department. Ray Redfield, whom I’ve known for years was a big help. Bill Lightfoot who used to be with Children’s Aid Society in N.Y is the probation officer in the case. Got a week’s postponement in bringing Bob home with me in order to get the guest room painted up. Stopped at Britton’s and picked up a couple of gallons of paint. NCABL meeting at Westbury. Barred two Lincoln House players for life.
March 8, 1958
The Boys’ Club of Washington D. C. has its varsity basketball team in the New York area. Our mother’s club prepared a delicious luncheon and our team and the Washington team had lunch together. Our club went on to win a 1 point thriller 41-40. Dale Macdonald and 3 of the elders quorum put a couple of coats of paint on the bed room walls of the room our new foster son will occupy.
The afternoon session at the club was a hum dinger with 200 people moving in on us for the semifinals of the Long Island Midget Invitational Basketball Tournament. Weather is fair. Basketball is in its feverish peak of play-offs and tournaments. We are running a very good program in spite of our being very much understaffed. Think we will stay in Locust Valley-nice place!!
March 9, 1958
Helen and I attended the scout-parents dinner at the school cafeteria last night. Ron makes a good looking scout. He looks well in a uniform and carries himself well. He spoke up nicely in the bit he had in his patrol skit. Because of stake conference last Sunday-today is fast and testimony day, nice meetings. Good spirit. Dr. Parley Madsen and his family are leaving us to return to Salt Lake City. They are a very sweet family and have been good workers in the ward and stake. Had a good chat with the Bishop about our foster son coming in to live with us. Had to be back at 5 pm to attend ward welfare meeting. This will be a new responsibility for me.
March 10, 1958
Spent all day painting the spare bedroom. Washed the ceiling, gave one wall a final coat of paint and put a good load of paint remover on the radiator. Also gave some of the woodwork a first coat of white. After lunch I gave the ceiling a good heavy first coat of paint and scrapped away at the old coats on the radiator. Radiators are a hard job.
Bathed, had dinner and took over the varsity basketball team. We defeated Farmingdale 51-48 to win the senior division of the 2nd precinct, NCPBCL. Jr. Varsity lost its play off game for 2nd precinct honors at Plainview. Weather is fair and bodes the coming of spring.
March 11, 1958
It is a race against time. Bob Lightfoot the probation officer will call tomorrow and make arrangements to bring Bob S. into our home as a probated foster child. I can’t get the paint necessary to finish but have been successful in putting a coat of white paint on all the woodwork. Applied another coat of paint remover to the radiator and scrapped it down well. Helen did a nice job of spraying it with aluminum paint. We took all of our Christmas and vacation savings $150 and went to Macy’s to buy items for Bob’s room. The good Lord was with us and a $150 hi-riser bed cost us $100. The other $50 was just enough for a pillow-sheets-curtains, mattress covers, bedspreads, curtain rods, small foot rug and a couple of other minor items.
Ron made a nice one handed set shot to help his Biddy team come from behind and win its 1st basketball play-off game.
March 12, 1958
Still waiting for paint for the final coat on two walls. Finished one coat of white on all the woodwork. Finished the radiator and cleaned and waxed the floor of the guest room and hung curtain rods. Bill Lightfoot probation officer, called to make final arrangements to bring Bob S. over . we set Friday as the day of arrival. Our entire family is excited about our foster child. Used the afternoon to catch up some what at the office. National Boys’ Club week is rapidly approaching and our Banquet of Champions requires a tremendous amount of detail attention.
Mrs. Barbara Jewell called at the office. She is the chairwoman of the Mother’s Club and as the M.C. is just an infant it too requires a lot of discussion and attention. We are operating at a minimum of organized program. Free play and National Foul Shooting contest in the gym and movies and games room program downstairs. Our 12 foot “Lone Star” aluminum boat, won in the Don McNeill outboard safety program arrived and has thrilled everyone with it.
March 13, 1958
Bill Kinnear from my staff and myself spent the entire day at Harkness training center, boy scout training headquarters for Nassau County in attendance of the first Long Island Social Agency sponsored camping conference. John Gleason, Childrens’ Aid Society and Boys’ Club affiliation, keynoted the conference. Discussion groups followed. Howard Gibbs of BC National staff handled one of the discussion sessions. We lunched at the training center and moved into more workshops and a closing session. Bill and I hurried back to the club to put in another 8 hours with the boys of the club.
March 14, 1958
We were hit with a very bad and unusually wet snow fall. About 6 inches fell during the night and early morning. It seems to paralyze traffic so, here in the East. I got out and scrounged up enough paint to finish the guest room and still had about a dozen strokes of the brush to apply when probation officer Lightfoot arrived with Bob S. our court probated foster son. Bob helped me straighten up a bit and move furniture in. (He will use Scott’s bed until his new one arrives) he unpacked his bags and went to the boys club with me. While we were gone Helen hung curtains in his room and made up his bed. I took him around the club and registered him as a member. He enjoyed watching the Biddy basketball game and readily took to the billiard tables and games room. Things are a bit stiff and formal-which is to be expected for the first few days.
March 15, 1958
Breakfast over all 4 men in the house headed for the boys club. I had a short chat with Bob in my office and then left him on his own to try his new wings. Ron’s biddy basketball team put on a great team effort to swamp their challengers and sweep to the biddy play-off championships. Final score 49-28. Ron collected 18 of the points and played a nice floor game.
I put in a good afternoon at my desk while the boys watched the movies. After an early dinner we put the girls to bed, left Ron and Scott to baby sit and took Bob to the movies to help occupy his mind. We saw “A Farewell to Arms” – which was a marvelous production of the Hemmingway novel.
March 16, 1958
First day at church with Bob. Things went well. Early rise-breakfast over-family prayers (which Bob joins in with readily enough) and we were off to church. Bob made a telephone call to have his sister pick him up so that he could go home and visit his mother and grandparents. We enjoyed church services as usual. Dale Macdonald’s little boy came home with us for the afternoon. A short afternoon at home because of the need to return to Welfare Committee meeting at 5 PM. The couple of hours I had at home were spent working on Aaronic Priesthood individual records. I wish I could stimulate my teacher advisors to keep a better record of their evaluations and contacts with their priesthood class members.
March 17, 1958
To the bank with the bi-weekly pay check. It doesn’t go as far as it did a couple of weeks ago. Our town taxes have gone up forcing our monthly mortgage payments on the home, up from $96 to $103. Left Helen and the girls to do the shopping at a supermarket and I took Bob to register and be interviewed at the state unemployment agency. Picked Helen and the girls up and returned them home. Took Bob to the club and left him with the luxury of the billiard table while I attacked the paper work of my desk. Our Jr. Varsity stayed alive by winning at Plainview. Our varsity took in on the chin from Hempstead PBC in the quarter finals of the county play-offs.
March 18, 1958
Continued on our round of making contacts on behalf of Bob’s interest. Went to Bob Gunther’s print shop and met Mr. Gunther. Had a nice chat and asked to submit an application. Went on up to the upholstery shop of our Rotary President. He said he was looking for a boy and would be glad to start Bob next Monday and see if he would work out.
Drove to Mitchell field but couldn’t get the base gym for our NCABL play-offs. Had lunch at the Brookville Country Club with a Rotary Committee. Basis was the discussion of a Dixie Land Jazz concert for the L.V. high school scholarship fund. Attended a Rotary board of directors meeting. Reported on my community service committees plans and projects. Hurried back to the Boys’ Club to catch the tail end of the mother’s club meeting. Barbara Jewell has done an excellent organization job.
March 19, 1958
One of my 16 hour days at the boys club. Mrs. Foss came in for the entire day and we put out a great amount of correspondence. Set the NCABL play-offs up for the club gym. Took time out to take Bob over to the unemployment office in Glen Cove to take vocational aptitude tests. It took him about 2 ½ hours to complete the tests. Dick Ketcham picked him up. I worked way into the night, 12 midnight to be exact, shaping up a proposed budget for the board meeting on Friday. I know I will run into trouble with it. It is over $10,000 more than this years’. Bill Cullum and Bill Kinnear are both in for $1000 raises. Think that this will go by OK. Big raise is in the category of personnel. Instead of one man working 16 hours I have asked for 2 men to work 8 hours each.
March 20, 1958
Awoke to the worst snow storm of the winter. As time proved it snowed two days and two nights and deposited 18 inches of heavy wet snow all over the East. Snow meant a short attendance at the club. Most people just stayed holed up at home. It gave me an excellent opportunity to finish the copy work on the text material for the Banquet of champions. Things may take some radical changes so I want this Banquet of Champions to be a real nice-special occasion.
Enjoyable luncheon at Rotary. A blind representative of the Industrial home for the blind spoke to our Rotarians. Made all necessary arrangements to have the Rotary club have lunch at the boys club on April 10, during National Boys’ Club week. Called Mrs. Shea to ask her to come in tomorrow and help me cut stencils in order that I could have budget figures ready to present to the Board.
March21, 1958
What a snow storm-still coming down. Schools are closed today. We still held the NCABL play-offs at the club last night. Freeport defeated Hempstead-Floral Park defeated 4-M. the double header kept me at the club until 12 midnight. Mrs. Shea came in to cut some budget stencils which I prepared for tonight’s Board meeting. Club opened early and the kids poured in-happy with a school holiday.
Moved into our Board meeting with a lot of work to do. Everything went well until my proposed budget for ’58-’59 was presented ( $12000 over last year) a lot of discussion took place. We realized a $1000 raise each for Bill Cullum and Bill Kinnear. I was amazed but happy to also receive a $1200 raise (base salary now $9000) and a bonus loan that will mean that we can remodel our house. The budget will carry over to the next meeting. Big rhubarb at the gym as Floral Park beat Freeport 86-84 on a last second buzzer. Home by midnight.
March 22, 1958
Finally stopped snowing. Beautiful snow but every costly as it is most heavy and did a lot of damage to power and telephone lines, shrubbery etc. fully expected some of the Board members to drop in for individual chats about last nights meeting. I was fooled. Made a few preparatory arrangements for tonight’s Aaronic Priesthood Social and half the day was gone.
Made a couple of business calls in Glen Cove following lunch. Returned to the club to coach the Biddy team against the all-star Biddy team from Glen cove. Our kids were all steamed up and played a beautiful game in winning 53-12. John Galasso did a nice job in scoring 19 points for us. Ronald Hinckley played one of the best games I’ve seen him play. Lots of hustle and scrap on the boards. Good heads up floor play. Made a lot of assist and tossed in five points to help the cause. Did a nice job on defense also.
We had 27 members of the Aaronic Priesthood under 21 at the club for a social. Father and son type of program with competitive scoring done on a combination of games, rifle range and foul shots. Steve Novak and Keith Evans won the boy and man cups symbolic of high scorers. I cooked and served hamburgers, soda and a pastry roll.
March 23, 1958
No trouble getting to church services. Road plows had run constantly all night and traffic had cut the wet snow up fast. A nice plug from the Bishopric on the Aaronic Priesthood social we ran last night. Bob poses some adjustment problems on church. He is irresponsive to time and walks away to make telephone calls at his personal pleasure leaving us to pondering when he is coming in to services. He has a girl friend that seems to be the key to a lot of his anxiety. She was at church today.
Bob went to Freeport to visit with his family. We spent the afternoon at home. Nice steak and egg brunch. I worked on Aaronic Priesthood cards all day. I am the general secretary for the Aaronic Priesthood committee in the ward. All the family went back to an enjoyable sacrament service. Had our usual Sunday night picnic.
March 24, 1958
Took Bob down to Carl Adler’s shop to start him to work. However, Carl was busy with personal engagements and a trip to New York so asked us to wait and come in on Wednesday. Picked up the mail and stopped at the club. If we don’t get Bob a job, things will be in tough shape. He has too much time on his hands just sitting around. I picked Helen and Debs up and we drove to Plainview to do some shopping for Bob. Had lunch at the Howard Johnson Shoppe. At J C Penny Co. we found a good buy in a sport coat for him. $35 silk and wool coat reduced to $14. Just happened to be Bob’s size. Drove on over to the Gertz Dept Store and bought a lovely pair of slacks, shoes and complete accessories for Bob. Pants to be altered-will have to pick them up on Friday. After dinner I checked out with the Jr. Varsity squad and headed back for Plainview. We pulled a hum dinger of a game out by 1 point. It left us deadlocked with one other team for first place. League championship will be decided next Monday in a special play-off.
March 25, 1958
Had members of the mother’s club down to help with the addressing of invitations to the Boys who will attend our annual Banquet of Champions. Some people do a good job-others don’t-guess that is why I like doing things myself-I know how they are done. I put a terrific day in at my desk. Just can’t seem to catch up. But I know that the Board’s decision to reduce or rather hold our budget to $45,000 is going to bring about a big change in program. Bill Hinckley and the staff are going to cut back to sensible 8 hour days and start enjoying life and our families. Ron won the midget foul shooting contest at the Boys’ Club-32 our of 60 attempts. Last game of the NCABL play-offs. Floral Park with a lot of class beat Freeport. That wraps up the season. It has been tough being president this year.
March 26, 1958
Ada came in and spent the entire day with me-trying to get out from under the paper work. Misunderstanding always makes people jump to wrong conclusions. Mrs. Jewell of our mother’s club upset Ada a bit with some misdirected remarks about the efficiency of an office. Weather turned warm and the last of our snow is leaving fast. A very wet spring. The ground is thoroughly soaked-wish it were dry enough to work around the yard.
All of our Banquet of Champions invitations annual awards dinner at the club went out. Told Bill Kinnear that if he would get married that I would take he and his wife to Atlantic City on a combination Boys’ Club convention business trip and honeymoon. They are thinking it over and will probably accept-so I believe- if they can get together and overcome some of the resentment on the part of Jane’s mother. She has objected most violently.
March 27, 1958
Bill Cullum returned from Florida. Looks good. I feel that he is just now recovered from his accident of a year ago. He said that his mother really enjoyed Florida. From remarks that he dropped I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sell their Glen Cove home and move to Florida. Weather is still overcast and cold. Last storm brought great damage to Eastern end of the island. High winds and high tides.
Attended a Federated Girl Scout Board meeting in Mineola. Back in Locust Valley in time for Rotary Luncheon. Took Helen and drove to Westbury where as President of the NCABL I officiated at the 25th anniversary banquet. Floral park walked off with the championship honors. Hal Manaskie of the Boys’ Club won individual scoring honors for the season.
March 28, 1958
Fair day. Weather can’t quite make up its mind. Attended a cub scout pack meeting at the library. Scout (assumes he means Scott) is a big cheese in his den. The kids put on a cub scout circus. It was very cleverly done. Scott’s den was the band. All the kids (boys) had bright colored-dyed shirts on and wore paper hats. They mimicked with their instruments as a record was played. Other dens had side shows-animal acts (very cleverly done with boys dressed in their mother’s fur coats) and tumbling acts. One of the best cub scout programs I have ever seen. Had a chance to fight budget figures. The Board will not go over a $45,000 budget. Squeezing $51,000 of program and staff into $45,000 is quite a chore. Bill and I spent hours going over it.
March 29, 1958
Back to the battle of the budget. Bill Cullem and I spent the morning using the axe. Breaks your heart knowing what it means in program cut back to have to cut proposed staff increases. Bob is in Freeport. His mother (alcoholic) is to be married today. He looks real nice in the new clothes we purchased for him.
Greatest basketball game for guts and determination that I have ever seen. Our Biddy team split up to play a return match against Glen Cove. Our “B” team romped in the first game. Our “A” team without Burke (our rebounder) and Galasso (our shooter) gave 6” and 20 to 30 lbs. per man away to Glen Cove. Disheartened and half beaten it was half time before they convinced themselves that maybe they could win. Behind 11 points-6minute quarters-they stood the crowd on their ear as they won 35-33. Helen was there to watch the game. I know we had a thrill we will never forget as we watched Ron help his team mates to victory by scoring 18 points and scrapping like mad.
March 30, 1958
Sunday School went by without any particular problem except concern over Bob and his habit of disappearing and walking in late! We are functioning on a tight schedule due to our special church program. Spaghetti for lunch. Tyrone came home with us. (Bob’s brother) Nasty situation arose when Ron took the boys over to the Boys’ Club for a look see and came home in tears-cheated the machine selling candy. Repented and wanted to put candy back- Bob and Ty wouldn’t-Ty ate his! Ron came home in tears, apologized and paid for the candy. I gave the boys a real good talking to. Took Mrs. Edwards and Ada Foss and Mrs. Smith to a special message of Mormonism missionary meeting. Stake President delivered the address. N.Y. ward choir furnished excellent music. Beautiful version of “Come, Come ye Saints!” Helen stayed home with Debs while I took the boys back to the evening sac. Meeting. Dr. and Mrs. Madsen gave their farewell addresses. They are returning to Utah-Homesick?
March 31, 1958
Wanted to do some work on the yards but the rain is at hand. However, in a slight drizzle I did get the front and back lawns well raked. Really started to rain just as I finished. Teri Ann helped me rake. We then went to the bank and made our regular pay-check deposit. Took Helen and the girls to shop for groceries. Our new found butcher shop is working out quite well. We seem to be getting good cuts of meat at a reasonable price. I attended the Long Island association of approved basketball officials dinner at Wheatley Hills Tavern. An excellent roast beef dinner. Met an interesting person in the form of William Zachs. His stories of scouting for BYU and other western ball clubs were both amazing and a testimonial to the Mormon way of life