Please delete all the others. word count ?
HE WHO CLIMBS A TREE AND HOLLERSA Ragamuffin's Quest for Success and Love
Volume I. GROWING UP FAST, POOR, COLD AND HUNGRY
A First-hand Account of Life During the Great Depression
By John J. "Jack" Gargan
PROLOGUE
This is a chronicle of the life of one John J. "Jack"Gargan. The J. stands for Joseph and I also have a Confirmation name of James. When I was "Confirmed"at age eight or so, I took the given nameof myyounger brother, James, better known as"Jim" . We were very close then and remained so until his death. During his early years we all called him "Jimmie", a name I still frequently refer to him by. Sadly, Jim passed awayin 2004at age 72, the victim of a too-late-diagnosed colon cancer. I miss him. I also haveanolder sister, Frances "Dolly" (she prefers to be called "Franny") and an adopted little sister, Catherine " (she preferred to be called "Cathy") who is seventeen years my junior and passed away, another victim of cancer, a few years ago. Actually, shewas my cousin, the daughter of my mother's half-brother, Joe. Mom and my step-father, Siegfried "Steve" Beck, adopted and raised her from the time she was an infant. In fact, brought her home from the birthing hospital and her first "crib" was a dresser drawer with a pillow and ababy blanketin it.
When I was baptizedmy grandmother insisted that I be named "Aloysius", my father's middle name (alsoSaint Aloysius, one of her favorite saints). My mother, yearslater, told me about that battle of wills. It seems she andmygrandma never did see eye to eye on many aspects of child rearing, especially mine. Mom said "She would be damned if she would tag a life-sentence moniker like that on any of her children" and refused to give in to Grandma's harangue. Thanks, Mom! I have been eternally grateful. Saint Aloysius may have been quite a guy in his day, but in today's world, with a name like Aloysius Gargan I think Iwould have been doomed to a life of ridicule and failure. I can just hear my peers tauntingly sing-songing, "Allo-wishes do the dishes”.
For some time now, years actually, I have been meaning to write my life story. I have even been urged to do it by a number of friends and acquaintances who were aware of,and sometimes part ofthis fascinating life I have been blessed to live. Finally, after a triple bypass, two stents and an angioplasty, a defibrillator pacemakerandat the outer limits of life expectancy, I have decided to quit procrastinating and get this thing on paper while I am still here to do it and have all my marbles andsharp memory to record it properly. It is now 2014 as I start writing this story. I will add to it from time to time. It helps that I am now retired and living in Thailand and have lots of spare time which needs productive utilization while my new young bride teaches World History and Geography at the local high school in Ban Wang Phoem. This is NOTmy life story. Althougheighty four years have already passed me by, I still have a lot of living to do! That will have to wait for a later chapter.With such a long and interesting life it looks like it will require more than one book to tell my story.
This first volume will cover the period from my birth up to my first “real”job upon graduating from high school. It should give a pretty good insight as to what it was like growing up poor during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Strange, how I started life at the beginning of a monstrous financial and economic collapse and it looks like I will leave this old world during its sequel, which I think will be soon andeven worse!
The Honest-To-God truth is I have enjoyed my lifeso much that I would not trade places with anyone in the world, past or present, with the possible exception of my hero, Thomas Jefferson. Although, like most lives, at times mine wasnot very pleasant. This is not to imply that there may notbe a host of others who were also blessed with a great life, but for sheer interest, pleasure, adventure and accomplishments, I don't personally knowof anyone who has had better. Certainly not as a boast, but just to highlight points of interest in my life, what other ordinary person do you know who has honorable discharges from both the Army and the Navy; has six published books, includinga "Book-of-the-Month” selection; worked as a dishwasher in a roadhouse and asa "pitch-man" at a boardwalk concession; can milk a cow (or goat) and plow and harrow with a horse; worked his way through college while sole support of his wife and two children (two more after graduation); was "Man of the Year" of his college fraternity;was helmsman on a smallwarship during a fierce Atlantic storm; piloted a plane; worked the cruise lines and luxury resort hotels as a world-class handwriting analyst (commanding fees of $500 per hour plus all expenses back in the 1980's) and is afair-to-middling artist?
And who else do you know of who ran for Governor of a large state (and, with a war chest of only$68,000,had the third highest vote in a primary field of nine candidates, most of them spending millions), set voting records running for Congress (but still lost!), counts people like Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, Joan Rivers, Ross Perot, Jesse Ventura, Pat Buchanan and John Anderson among his circle of friends and acquaintances, served as adjunct professor of finance for seventeen years and was selected by The Chicago Board of Trade as one of the "Outstanding Instructors of Finance in the USA", conceived and ran what has been described as "the most successful amateur newspaper ad campaignin US history" with 633 full-page ads in practically every major newspaper in the country, kissed the Blarney Stone, was elected National Chairman of a major political party (Reform Party USA), appeared as an invited guest on over a thousand local and national radio and TV shows (including almost all of the "biggies" like DONOHUE, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, and LARRY KING LIVE), was elected world-wideChieftain of an Irish clan; was invited to speak at the prestigious Harvard Law School Forum, founded a professional association (IARFC) which has become the largest of its kind in the world, andwas named "Hero Of The Week" by TIME magazine?
Not to mention being subject of full-color, multi-page cover stories in the weekend magazine inserts of U.S.A. TODAY and the ORLANDO SUN, founding the THRO (Throw the Hypocritical Rascals Out) campaignand caused what political analysts have described as "the catalystfor a sea-change in American political history"; has been acclaimed as "The father of the national term limits movement", wasselected, along with brother, Jim, as two of the twenty graduates to the "Hall of Fame" of his high school, has traveled in all 50 states (most several or many times) and visited many countries of the world, was originator and driving force of the "Draft Perot for President" movement, was host of his own TV talk show,married a beautiful Thai school teacher thirty three years his junior,was recipient of the prestigious Loren Dunton Award (The Heisman trophy of the financial services industry), was invited to the Presidential Palace in Dublin, Ireland to receive the Clans of Ireland Order of Merit, has past or current listings in Marquis' WHO's WHO IN AMERICA, WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD, WHO'S WHO IN FINANCE AND INDUSTRY. STRATHMERE'S WHO'S WHO and INTERNATIONAL MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT (a British publication)?....and can document all of the above!All this, and claims descent, with substantial verification, from two EgyptianPharaohs(Nectonibus and Ahkanaten and his wife, Nefertiti)and a long line of powerful Celtickings (to say nothing of the Nile River being named forone of his ancestors). Again, I say all this notboastfully, but just asa factual listing of a most interesting and unique life.
The story culminates in my non-retirement to Thailand where, after being apex of a June/June /November lovetriangle in my late seventies (one, one of the richest and most powerful women in Thailand, the other a poor country school teacher, both thirty three years my junior), I married the beautiful Thai school m’arm. I completed a half- marathon at age 76, built a small fortune in real estate and motel ownership with my wife, was called "Po Yi" by all the locals (Great One -a term usually reserved for the King), was stricken with several near-fatal illnesses, had a run-in with Thai gangsters causing loss of my entire fortune and fled for my life in a daring escape with my wife with literally only the clothes on our back and a cocked and loaded .32 Colt revolver at our feet. We returned to the US where we remain in hiding. Now, let's get started with volume I, life in the Great Depression of the 1930's!
VOL I CHAPTER 1 ELEVEN POUNDS OF POTENTIAL
I suppose the best place to start any autobiography is at the beginning, so here is the story of John J. "Jack" Gargan: I was born on October 20th, 1930, in the second floor front bedroomof my parents' home at 1215 Sangar Street. That'sin the Northwood Subdivision of the Oxford Circle area of Northeast Philadelphia. It wasa little after 9 PM (a time someone notated later on some document). In a conversation many years later in the 1980's,Mom told me it was actually around9 AM, not PM, and with her sharp wit added, "I ought to know, I was there". I weighed-in at a whopping eleven pounds!Itell people that I asked my mom to give me an easily remembered birth date, and she obliged: 10/20/30.Severalunsolicited astrological charts cast by strangers and sent to memany years later when I went through a period of high publicprofile, tag me as "A Man Of Destiny". Well, obviously, not of the Jefferson orChurchill or Alexander The Great caliber! But, who knows? I still have a few years left, I hope, to try to make something of myself.
Times were tough. It was the beginning of the Great Depression and my father, John A.. Gargan was to soon be diagnosed with an advanced case of tuberculosis. He was attendingnight school at Drexel University School of Architecture, while he was employed as a salesman of building supplies. Typical of the period, my mother, Frances, who was two yearsolder than my father, was a housewife without outside employment. Mysister "Dolly" was born in the same narrow, brick, two-story row-house a yearor so earlier, on December 15, 1928.
We were, I suppose, a typical middle-class Irish-Catholic family of the times. Especially on my father's side. My mother was German-Irish. Her father, a young Germannamed Frank Kerhart was born in Philadelphia in 1874. Likehis father and three of his four brothers,he was a taiIor by trade. His fourth brother became a plumber. Frank Kerhart was an avid and talented gymnast, or "Turner", as the German social clubs called them.He taught parallel bars and rings at the Philadelphia Tergamine Club. Frank's father emigrated to America from Bohemia around the 1860's.
Ithink my German grandfather was also a woodcarver, as somewhere in my filesI have an exquisitly drafted "blueprint" of acorns and oak leaves which he drew. Itappears to be the pattern for some form of woodcarving or sculpture.. Sadly, he died suddenly, of a heart attack, on May 20th,1903, exactlyone month before my mother was born on June 20th..My grandmother became a bride, a widow and a mother all within one year. The only legacy he lefthis family was a history of heart trouble which continues to this day. My mother, sister and myself were unfortunate beneficiaries.
Mom's mother was a Flynn.They came to America from Ireland somewhere in the mid to late 1800's.The Flynn family owned and operated Flynn's Dairy at Fifth and Leithgow Streetsin Philadelphia. They had horses and carts which would go door-to-door ladling out fresh milk from large canisters carried on the carts. Mom's mother later married again to another German, this one namedStoerrle. That union brought Mom two half-siblings. First, a sister named Catherine, and a few years later a brother named Joseph. Her mother wouldbecome a widow once againsomeyears later and married a Mr. Carmony. Theymoved to the San Francisco area where she died on February 9th, 1932. I don't remember ever meetingher or talking with her or anything about her.
My fathe had quite a different family background. He was born April 22, 1905 and his birth certificate (and his younger brother Neil's andyounger sister Alma's) record the surname of "Geoghegan". There was also an even younger sister, Loretta whodied at age 93 and an olderbrother, Gerard, who died in infancy. About 1910my grandfather got tired of explaining to people that GEOGHEGAN was pronounced "Gay-gan", so he just up and changed the name to Gargan, apparently without any legal formalities. Thereason he put the "r" in the name, as far as I can figure, is thathis father's baptismal certificate listed his (father's)name as "John Gargan" son of Patrick Geoghegan and Julia Delaney A Mary Ann Gargan was shown as "godparent/witness". I strongly suspect that my great grandfather was the bastard son of Patrick Geoghegan and Mary AnnGargan. Why else would the unofficial baptismal certificate list his surname as Gargan? I'd love to see the official birth certificate. As further evidence, by almost iron-clad Irish tradition, as first born sonhis name should havebeen Patrick Thomas Geoghegan (father/grandfather).There were no other "Johns" in previous generations. I suspect that if we check out Mary Ann's father's name it would be John.Inotice that his first born son (my grandfather) was named John Patrick Geoghegan, reverting back to tradition. Apparently,my greatgrandfathernever used the name of Gargan during his lifetime as his marriage certificate dated 21 April, 1879 to Mary Ryanlists him as John Geoghegan. Strangely, he is shown as John Gargan on my grandfather's baptismal certificate dated 23 May, 1880 (born 10 May, 1880). Patrick Geoghegan, the patriarch, died in Bradford, England in 1909.
Anyway, my grandparents, John Patrick Geoghegan and Agnes Mellon Geoghegan owned a "mom and pop"grocery store at 701 E. Allegheny Avenue in the "K&A' (Kensington and Allegheny Avenues) areain Philadelphia. Much later, during the depression when they lost their store, my grandfather found work (as a security guard, I believe)at the Philco factory nearby. He died of stomach (colon?)cancer in 1939 at the age of 59. I remember him fairly well as an easy-going,kindly, handsome, silver-haired gent who always wore a smile and had a good word for everyone.
My father, like the rest of his family, was a devout Catholic (something I strayed from quite early in life). His younger brother, Neil,a 6'4", brilliant,handsome man became a Jesuit priest, later becoming President of Gonzaga High School in Washington, DC and then Father Superior of Georgetown University. His sister, Alma, joined a strict Catholic order of nuns, the Carmelites, until frail health forced her out. She continued as a very active lay member of the church until her death (in her 90's)and never married.My father graduated from Roman Catholic High Schoolin downtown Philadelphia and later enrolled in Drexel University. His ambition was to be an architect, a calling I wasalsoattracted to. I still have some architectural drafting instruments in a beautiful mahogany box which he used at that time.
He was active in the theatre group of Ascension CatholicChurch, his home parish. I believe it was there he met my mother. He was also extremely interested in politics, a trait I inherited. In1930, at the age of25 he ran for the office ofReceiver of Taxes, the youngest person evernominatedto run for such a high municipal office in Philadelphia history. He lost. Probably because he ran as a Democrat in a Republican dominated city at that time..
My grandfather, John Patrick Geoghegan was bornin Bradford, England on May 10, 1880, His father, born March 1st, 1857, alsoin Bradfordand alsoa "John", was a chemist by training (pharmacist). He came to America in 1881 and found work in a large dye factory in Philadelphia. Shortly after, in 1882, a catwalk crossing the factory floor where he worked collapsed and pitched him into a vat of boiling tar.(no pun intended). They pulled him out alive, but he only lived a few hours. My great-grandfather (who died in the tar accident) was the son of Patrick Geoghegan, the patriarch of the family who was born in Mount Mellick,Ireland about 1830. Somehow, witha younger brother, he made his way to Bradford, England, when the potato famine of 1844 killed both ofhis parents. At first a wool carder until a wool carding machine was invented and thena blacksmith by trade, he literally rose from rags to riches where he became a prominent man in Bradford society. All seven of hischildren were beneficiaries of higher education. One of his grandsons even married a French Countess. Yet another grandson, Laurence, became a famous mystery novel writer and was known as "England's Perry Mason".
It turns out that the Geoghegans were an important and noble family of ancient Ireland. They trace their ancestry as direct descendants of Niall Of The Nine Hostages, powerful High King of Ireland (and of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Midlands England and parts of Normandy) from 377 AD until 404 AD.This O'Neil connection, considered by genealogists to bethe oldest recordedfamily tree in the world, can be traced todaughters (both named "Scota")oftwo Egyptian Pharaohs, Amenhotep IV (later he changed it to Ahkanaton and married his Queen, Nefertiti), and Nectonibus (the last of the native Egyptian pharaohs).
The Geoghegansare descended from Fiacha, oldestof Niall's eight sons.For centuries, the MacGeoghegans controlled a large territory in themiddle of Ireland in what is nowCounty Westmeath. Theirgenes are different from the rest of Niall's descendents in that Fiacha's mother, Inne, the daughter of the thenKing of England, was his first wife whodied in childbirth. All the other sons were by his second wife. The Geogheganslost almost allof their wealth, power and land in the mid 1600's during the Cromwellian years when he (Oliver Cromwell)set about conquering Ireland, killing or exiling practically all of ancient Ireland's nobility. In 1992 I became world-wide Chieftain of the Geoghegan Clan in a ceremony marking the installation of the first Irish Chieftaininaugurated in Ireland since about 1648. It was a colorful and inspiringceremony carried nationally on Irish TV and covered in a documentary by a British film company. More on this later when I get to that time of my life.
Due to my father's deteriorating health, he was advised to move to a dryer climate. So, on December 6th, 1931 we packed upand moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I would have been about13 months old at the time. Among the blessings of some great genes I inherited from both of my parents are a high I.Q. (142) and a remarkablememory which vividly re-creates events of many years past. I canclose my eyes andactually re-livethe sounds, smells and "feel" of the moment.But, in spite of my abilities of memory, I recall absolutely nothing of my days living on Sangar Street in "Philly".
On a trip to visit friends in Canada in 2002, I went by the old house on Sangar Street. I swear, the place and area has not changed since the days I hadlived there 72 years before! I can compare it to pictures in the old family album and you would not know there was such a time space between them. Unfortunately, I did not think to take some current pictures of the place.
CHAPTER 2 A SHORT STAY IN ALBUQUERQUE, NM ENDS IN DEATH