Okay, I'm Fred Merriam, here on March 4, 2010, at 15 Dupres Road, in Tyngsboro, Mass., right over the line from North Chelmsford, I guess.

You rolled over, you just rolled over. You have a North Chelmsford phone number and a Tyngsboro street address.

Right. So anyway, I'm here with Paul McGovern, and we're going to talk a little bit about North Chelmsford, about his early days in North Chelmsford, about running a business in town, in Vinyl Square, and favorite stories and friends, and you take it away.

Well, North Chelmsford is quite a town. The old rival of ours is Chelmsford Center, of course, and if you're a North Chelmsford born and raised, you were a North Chelmsford person, you know, so a friendly rival between the Center and North. But I was born in 1940 in Lowell, and my parents, Charles Paul McGovern, that was my father, and my mother was Gladys McGovern.

We lived on Newfield Street in North Chelmsford, and that's where I got my roots, right there on Newfield Street, right next to the McKay Library. And I'll tell you a story about the McKay Library, too, because Mr. McKay was a buddy of mine, and I grew up next door. We rented off one of his apartments there.

But anyway, in my younger days, I went to the Princeton Street School, which was on Princeton Street, and it consisted of two buildings. One side was grades 1, 2, 7, and 8, and the others had 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, and 6. So this is the bigger building that was built around the terminal?

So looking at it where the firehouse is now, looking at it from the street, on the right-hand side had classrooms 5, 4, 5, 6. No, 3, 4, 5, 6. On the left building, looking at it from the street, was 1 and 2, 7 and 8 were upstairs.

And I went to school there, my grammar school. And of course, right next door to us was the town hall, which back then, we used to have movies there. Every Saturday night, a guy named Leo LaRock, who lived on Princeton Street, up there across from Lawton's, he was into photography quite heavy and taking movies.

And he did make a movie of all the kids in North Chelmsford at one time. And he got a lot of the local businesses to support the production of the film. They paid, and he filmed their businesses, and it was all put in a format so that when they had this film come out in North Chelmsford, the town was all notified about it.

We did have quite a turnout, and it was all the kids from North Chelmsford, and there was a story behind it. But the movie went quite well. That was one of my memories back then.

And I know that film's still around somewhere, and I know somebody in the halls got it. It'd be a beautiful film, and they'd get a hold of it, because it's 16 millimeter sound. I think telemedia would love to have access to that thing.

Yeah, and I don't know whose goddamn films, whether they were destroyed or what, but it was actual movies professionally taken in North Chelmsford. The Square and all the businesses were the interview of every business owner. It was like a commercial, and this helped support the cost of making a film.

Of course, Leo had to get paid for all his time. But anyway, the Princeton Street School, I grew up, of course, and if you're from North Chelmsford, then live where I did on Newfield Street. You're always hung around Varney Playground or Crystal Lake, and that's where everybody went when you were kids, playing sports at Varney.

When I was a kid, it was the first time that they had the Pony League. It started back in, I would say, 1952, thereabouts. The Pony League officially started in Chelmsford, and we used to play on Varney Playground.

And I was on the Cognos. That was one of the teams. I can't remember what the other ones were, but I was on the Cognos.

And Varney Playground was quite a place. We had the Varney AA team used to play there. When we were kids, we used to get out and watch them play.

Back then, they had bleachers, and they had a scoreboard up on the hill. That's gone. The scoreboard burnt down.

I know how it burnt down. It happened on a Halloween night, that's all I've got to say. The scoreboard burnt to the ground.

Yeah, there was a scoreboard that went up, but it was a small one. The one that was there was a good-sized one. Was it a personal item?

Did they have numbers that they put on it? They had numbers up there, but it was a good-sized scoreboard. And that was back in the 50s, the 40s, the 50s.

And Varney AA, they were quite a team. They travel around locally. Nashville, all the places around.

And they used to play, and quite a bit of the town used to show up when they were playing down there. There was a lot of people. And we used to go over to the swimming hole, and we used to do a lot of fishing in Crystal Lake.

It had a lot of pickerel in it and a lot of bass and a lot of sunfish. We used to do all that swimming. And everybody from that ship that swam there are Stony Brook, which used to pass right near Crystal Lake down the bottom.

And the locals, the real locals in the area used to swim down there because it was fast-moving, and it was a lot cleaner. But it was a brook, and it used to go pretty quick. Pretty cold, too, all that.

It was cold, yeah. That came down from West Chelmsford right past Crystal Lake. That would be north, south.

It was just south of Crystal Lake. And we spent a lot of time at the lake. Of course, back then, that was back in the 40s and 50s.

There wasn't much more to do than go to your local ballpark or a swimming hole and hang around. The other places we used to go when we were younger was Vinyl Square. That hosted, when I was a kid, one restaurant, which was the Paramount Diner.

I know the diner very well because my father was a short order cook there for 25 years. And back then, of course, Vinyl Square was a very busy place, mainly because Route 3 went right through Vinyl Square. If you were going to go north, you had to go through Vinyl Square.

You had no choice. And when I was a kid, there was traffic going through there, and it was bad, a lot of traffic. And by today's standards, there wasn't a lot of traffic.

But back then, there was a lot of traffic. And the businesses that thrived the most in that was there was one gas station, which was what they called a safety tire shop at the time. And that was Joe Levall's.

And he was right in town. And there was one more. I can't remember.

There was Steve Bommel's Shell Station down on Tyngsboro Road, which I worked later on in life. There was a gas station. Is that here, the existing station?

That's the one that's just closed up now. But originally, Steve Bommel, who worked for the town of Chelmsford on the highway department, that was his gas station. And he lived right there on a part of his house.

Looking at it from Tyngsboro Road, it was on the right, and the gas station was on the left. And back then, there was only two pumps. That was back in the—I started working for Steve back in the early 50s.

He just used to let me—I was a local kid. You could pump gas and answer as very little questions as possible. My cousins would come in.

But that and the thing up at LaValle's, they did very well because they were on the main route. And I can remember, especially on Saturdays, Sundays, everybody gathering over at the hardware store. We used to sit on the wall and watch the traffic coming back from the mountains.

On a Friday night, we'd sit there and watch it going up because it all went by there. It must have been a steady stream. It was a steady stream, and you used to have traffic jams all the way back up through Kingsborough, past the TygsboroBridge.

And I remember as many as four and five cops in the square making the traffic go right through. You'd have two cops. Were there lights?

No lights. There were no lights back then. This was all straight through. They had to keep it moving. They had to keep it moving. And I can remember when I was a kid, when the motorcycles used to come back from Laconia, the cops would be out there, and they'd have them driving up on the sidewalk and everything just to move them through.

It was a bottleneck, Vinyl Square. And the cops used to just stand out there and move everybody through. They just wanted to see them move through, keep them going.

And this went on for years. Never had traffic lights there. The traffic lights didn't come into play.

Well, they come into play, let me think, in the late 50s, I think, the first traffic lights there. And they weren't working lights. They were just pedestrian.

They flashed.

I saw a picture of kind of a cone-shaped or a square cone-shaped thing that had a light on top of it, and they used to call it a silent policeman. Maybe that was back in the 20s and 30s. Oh, I remember that.

I remember that. There was something hanging there in the square at one point. Well, that was actually in the street.

Was it in the street? Yeah. They had those in the middle intersections.

I can't remember. I did a stretch in the service. It could have been in there when I was in the service.

So the lights you're talking about were hanging from the tables?

No, they weren't hanging.

Back then, they were permanently mounted on the ground. But just flashing? Flashing.

They had buttons on them so that if you wanted to cross the street, you could stop the traffic, and then you'd walk. You were still at the luck of the Irish. So who had the priority, Middlesex Street?

At the time, no, Middlesex Street didn't have it. On Middlesex Street, you had the stop coming in on Vinal Square. That was a secondary street.

The main street is Route 3A, which is the best state. That's Princeton Street coming in, and then Tyngsboro Road going out. You came in on Princeton until you hit Vinal Square, and then on the other end of the square, it turned into Tyngsboro Road.

And when it got down to Tyngsboro, it turns into Middlesex Road. That's right down here where a place called Robert Hall's used to be at the curve. And Stanton was my little train of thought.

One second.

We're recording Paul's memories of Vinal Square and North Chelmsford. The recorder's over there. He picks up everything that's going on in the house.

So feel free to contribute if you disagree.

She's from Lowell. This is my wife, Helen. She's from Lowell.

Helen, you said? Helen. Helen.

Helen Green. I'm Fred Merriam. But she's with Tyngsboro right now.

Yes. She didn't have the pleasure of living in Chelmsford. But anyway.

Anything to drink? No, thanks. You can make anything you want.

Getting back, then we're back in the late 40s, early 50s. Of course, the hangout in North Chelmsford back then was Eat at a Paramount Diner, which had a little watering hole in the back, which we used to call the bucket. It was always called the bucket.

Some refer to it as the bucket of blood. All of Fletcher's quarry's crew on Fridays and a lot of nights, they'd come down here from the quarry after working all day, and they'd go to the Paramount, and a lot of them would cash their checks, and they'd go in there, and inevitably there was always a fight broke out, and that's where it got the thing, the bucket, and the bucket of blood. And a lot of times you'd see the cruisers show up there.

But it was all bloody noses and everything. It was nothing like you hear about today, knives and everything. It was all slugfest.

But that was a place, and Balo's Diner was the other hangout. That was more or less for the younger guys, guys like me at the time. We all hang out there.

That was our hangout, Balo's Diner. Was that down where Bainbridge's is? No, it's right in Vinal Square.

It's a pizza shop now. Oh, okay. Right across from Sioux Swan's Chef, directly across the street.

Okay, between Rosie's and the Indian store there. Huh? Between Rosie's and the Indian grocery store.

Yeah, right. Yeah, and that used to be, that Indian store, that used to be John's Market. John Stephan used to own it.

They were Polish, and he owned that meat market when I was a kid. But where that diner is, it became Balo's. I remember when there used to be a spare lot, and a guy named Sullivan used to have a taxi business.

It was just a spare lot, and he had something like a telephone booth, a little bit bigger. It was like a hut with a phone in there. And that was his taxi business.

And Charlie Balo's bought the property, and I can remember when I was a kid. Now, that was back right around 1950, thereabouts. They excavated.

Somebody excavated, and Charlie and them, with their own labors, built that diner themselves. They built it right there, because I remember him swinging the hammer. And they built that, and it had become Balo's, and it was the local hangout.

Now, is that between the cement block building and the market?

Yeah, right.

There's a pizza shop there now. Is it still there, the same building? Yep. It's a pizza shop with two businesses on either end of it. One is a jewelry place. Like, I don't know, the guy has a little jewelry business or something.

And on the other end, well, that used to be Weldon Hare's office. He used to announce for the southeast.

Yes.

Weldon Hare had a little office right there. Well, Weldon, if you wanted a ticket, you saw Weldon. Weldon would take care of you, especially if you're from Mt.

Johnson. He got me tickets for the southeast. But anyway, that was the hangout for a lot of the kids in Mt.

Johnson. Balo's was well known. And it was well known that a lot of the watering holes, because they'd all go there after hours, and everybody would have breakfast.

And there was always a cruiser in the square for that occasion. But nothing ever really seriously happened there. It was just that's the way it was back in the 50s.

But let's see now. We used to do a lot of fishing in Crystal Lake. I'm sure you heard of Marty's Bait Shop.

Yes. Marty had a—well, I remember Marty. I get pictures over there.

If I can find one, you can have one. Marty's Bait Shop is a place that used to have boats, and you could rent them out. And back then, I think it was $0.50 for the day. You could take a flat-bottomed boat out and go fishing. And all he provided you with was two oars and a gallon filled with cement for an anchor. And we used to go out and fish.

And when we were younger, to catch some extra dollars, we used to go and let his boats go at night. And then he'd hire us in the daytime to swim out and bring them in, and he'd give us $0.50 a boat to bring it back in. That's how we made money back then.

Then we used to pick night crawlers for him when we were younger, and he used to sell that, you know, night crawlers. It was quite a place. A lot of fishermen went in there.

It was on that Route 40, and they were going fishing up through Groton or anywhere, Nabb or Long Soffer. All the fishermen stopped in there to get their bait. And right next to it, just before it, leaving North Chelmsford, just before Marty's Bait Shop, was like a swamp.

It was all water. And in the 50s, it was in the 50s again, early 50s, that they excavated, and they brought in what they call a clam bucket. It was like a crane.

And they started dragging it out, all the mud and everything. And I went over there. I remember as a kid, and I had the guy, what are you doing?

And he told me, I said, what are you doing? He said, there's a new school going here, which was the North School. And I remember him excavating for that.

And it was on wetlands. That whole thing was wetlands. Might not have been able to do that today.

Oh, I don't think so, no, because he pulled all the muck. They just dropped that bucket out there and dragged it all out. I remember them piling it way up, and then they took it away.

And directly across the street, that's all still wet. And it came right across. And I still think it's probably, you dig deep enough, you're going to get sponge.

But they did. They built a school on it, which was the North School, which we were the first graduating class from there in 1954. The town was real happy about that.

It was a beautiful school when they built it. And it had a very short life, according to school buildings. It didn't last that long.

Let's see, 1954 is when they opened it up, 1954. And we were the first to graduate from there. And I think it burned down in the 60s.

70s. Was it the 70s? Burnt down.

So the school had a very short life, and they never replaced it. They just got rid of it. They thought about using the auditorium, recycling the auditorium.

Yeah, they did.

I think they ended up tearing that down, too. Yeah. I didn't follow it too much, due to the fact my answers were other way.

Yeah, I know the building was coming down. They were going to put in these new buildings for the elderly and everything. But anyway, Chelmsford High School back then, we were the very last class to graduate from the old Chelmsford High School, which is on Billerica Road.

1958 was the last graduating class from there. In 1959, they graduated at the McCarthy, which at that time there was Chelmsford High School. But Chelmsford High School, they built another building, and that became the McCarthy.

But that was the Chelmsford High School, and the first graduating class there was 59. But while I was in school, I went out for Chelmsford football, signed up Joe Nolan, who was the coach. And I was all gung-ho for playing football, because I always played pickup football up at Barney.

And then the opportunity come along for me to work at Canada Dry Ginger Ale. They were looking for a couple of guys to work the night shift, which was 2.30 in the afternoon until 11 o'clock at night. And at that time, they had to repay $1.60 an hour, which was all the money in the world back then. And I turned in my football stuff and went to work for Canada Dry. After I got out of high school, I ran over there. And then whenever I could, I worked for Roger Boyd Chevrolet.

That was right there on Chelmsford Street. I remember that used to park his extra cars over on the ball fields across the road or across the field at the time. I went to work for Roger in 1958.

The new 58 Chevys were coming out, and we had to wash down the showroom, which was only hole one car. That's all you could get in his showroom was one car. But it was a big deal.

That's when people used to go to the dealerships. When the new cars were coming out, all the people went to see the new cars. They don't do that anymore.

You used to change them every year to get people excited. Yeah. And I can remember Roger there coming in and do this and clean the wall.

It was a big extravaganza for him. He used to paint the walls and get them all nice and crispy and then roll in the new car, and then they'd cover it. They'd bring it in.

If I remember, after hours, they'd push it in and get it in there, and then they'd cover it. Then when they officially announced a new car, they'd show it. And between that and Canada Dry, I kept myself pretty busy until I graduated.

What did you do at Canada Dry? I did two jobs at Canada. I started out on bottling, which you get on the assembly line.

Every 15 minutes, you change your position so you never get tired. You start out at the washing machine, one end, go to the other end, to the other end of the washing machine where they come out. Then you go past a guy by the name of Larry Ferguson, who was the bottler.

And Larry became the head man for the Elks in Chelmsford. But when I knew Larry, he ran the capping machine and the bottling machine. Then after that, all of Canada Dry would go in front of this illuminated viewing area, so you could look in the bottles and see if there was clothespins or anything that may be floating.

And, of course, you'd yank them. Your biggest thing there was not falling asleep, because it would put you to sleep. Sitting in front of that thing, you'd start dozing off.

So that's why they changed every 15 minutes. It kept you moving. From there, you go to putting the bottles into the thing after they come off the bottling machine.

The case? You put them in the cases. Did they get inspected before the ginger ale was in the bottle or after?

Pardon? Did they get inspected after the ginger ale was in the bottle? After it was in the bottle.

When it was in the bottle. Well, you used to have, first of all, you had the guy loading the bottles. Of course, back then, a lot of them came.

People would put paint in them and everything, clothespins. You name it. They were in bottles.

And when you loaded them up into the wash machine, which was filled with caustic and brushes that went up in them, if you saw anything obvious, you'd throw it away. We had barrels. You'd just throw it away.

When they'd come out of the wash machine on the other end, the guy would see them. They'd drop in front of you. And if you saw anything, same thing.

You'd throw them. Then they'd go down the line. And, of course, Larry would watch it, anything coming down.

And then the final thing was coming down in front of that. It was like a big TV screen. It was illuminated.

And all the bottles, they kept going like this right in front of you. And then from there they went into the cases. And then they went outside to the warehouse.

And guys out there would be taken into the warehouse for stacking. Then I got promoted, if you want to call it that. And I went upstairs with a guy named Mr. Reed. I can't remember his first name, but he was an old-timer. And upstairs in Canada Drive were two big carp kettles. They probably held 500 gallons of liquid each.

And I used to be out there and helped him make up the syrup in the water. What we would do was fill them kettles with hot water. And then we'd dump in the formula, which was so many gallons of syrup, so much sugar.

I can't remember. I think it was mostly sugar and syrup. And then we had these long shaft propellers that we used to put in there.

And it was only probably eight inches in diameter. But that would steer that thing up and get it to whirl. And all that stuff would mix up.

And, of course, we had hot water in it. It would mix all the syrup in it. Did you move the stirrer around like a mixmaster thing?

No, it was a long-shafted mixmaster. It was like a propeller. Did it just lower down in and then run in one position all the time?

We had it right there. You moved it around? We could, yeah.

But we didn't hold it. We had it like clamped. If I remember, it was like clamped.

And we'd start it and let it whirl. So it would circulate all the time. It would circulate all the time.

And then after we emptied one out, we'd transfer it to whatever they were running. If they were running ginger ale, we'd probably go through 1,000 gallons. We'd pump out 70,000 bottles in a shift of whatever we were running.

We were going to run root beer or what have you. Of course, back then it was can of dry golden. It was a ginger ale and pale dry.

And the chance of a favor was the golden. And we used to run them. And plus others, we had orange and all them things.

Did the local golden go out under the Chelmsford ginger ale label? Yeah, it said Chelmsford. It was Chelmsford ginger ale.

And it showed the map, the outline of the state of Massachusetts. And then there used to be a star where Chelmsford was. And there was something come out.

And I think it said Chelmsford. And that was the word Chelmsford. And we went right down and pinpointed on the outline of Massachusetts where Chelmsford was.

But that was the golden. A lot of people liked that golden. My son does.

He likes it. They make it. But it's not the same golden ginger ale that I knew because Coca-Cola owns it now, the Canada Dry.

But I worked for Canada Dry in 1958. Then they wanted us to go. That's when they moved to Waltham.

I think they moved to Waltham in 1959. 1959, I think, they were moving to Waltham. That's when they closed up the Chelmsford plant.

Yeah, they closed up Chelmsford. They used it for storage. And they tried to get some other small business to take the space.

I think so, yeah. See, I joined the Navy in the 60s. So I don't know what happened for four years.

I was never around. But I know right after I left Canada Dry, they left Chelmsford shortly thereafter. They moved to Waltham.

And, of course, the building, I don't know. I think they had offices there. Somebody rented it out for offices.

But I never really followed it after that. You know, I had other interests. But another place I used to work for was Hood Mill.

I worked for Hood down at Walker Street in Lowell. I got an education down there, too. When I was working for Hood, it was right after Canada Dry, I went to work for Hood.

And that's when I joined the Navy. I was working for Hood Mill. So you were in the bottling plant there?

No, I worked on the DIVCOs out in the garage. What's a DIVCO? Milk trucks, the old milk trucks that they stand up in and drive around.

With kind of a rounded nose. Yeah, and they were collector's items. If you're in old cars like I am, they still sell them.

But I joined the Navy when I was working for Hood Mill in 1960. And I went in and did my four. I was an electrician's mate.

And went down to Guantanamo Bay while I was in there. I was on a sub tender. And we went to Guantanamo Bay.

Then I transferred on to a destroyer out of Philadelphia and went to Long Beach for my last year in the Navy. That was my home port, Long Beach, California, where I got discharged up there. And I came back home and went to electrical school in Boston for a year, a coin electrical.

Because I was an electrician's mate in the Navy. And I went one year there. And then the first job I applied for I got was for Norman Day in Westford.

That's when Norman was alive. And went to work for Norman Day. And just about all the houses in the area were wired by his company, all the Hickses.

Every one of the Hickses was wired up by Norman Day. And then after that, I went and I got in the Union. I was a Union electrician for many years.

And then I always worked at the Gulf Station. And Freddie Fantosi, he owned the Gulf Station after the Levalls. The Levalls originally owned it,in North Chelmsford.

It was called a safety tire shop. I still got this safe. Right across the street from the church?

Yeah. That was called a safety tire shop. A fellow by the name of Joe Levall and his wife's name was Jenny, they owned it.

And I still got the original safe he had over there. Came with the business when I bought it. It's called a safety tire shop.

And I think it's a decal right on the safe. It said safety tire shop. But I hung around here when I was a kid.

And they always used to tell me I couldn't hang around. I couldn't hang around. Even though I was from Newfield Street, and that's where Joe Levall, he knew my father.

And everybody knew my father because he was a short order cook at the Paramount. So I couldn't get away with too much in town without telling my father what I was doing. But Joe Levall owned that.

And Freddie Fantosi, who I had. Freddie had a mobile station up next to the Princeton Lounge. And Freddie got a chance to buy Levall, which was a better location.

So he went up into North-Chelmsford. Now this was back in the 50s. And he bought it off Levall.

Levall retired. He was getting old. And Freddie took it over.

And a guy by the name of Pete. I think his name was Pete Liarkos. He used to always call it Pete Ciccone down there.

And that was right next to the Princeton Lounge. Now back then, the Princeton Lounge was owned by Joe Giuffrida. Did you ever hear the name?

Yes, from Skip's. No. Different?

No, different. Joe Giuffrida owned the Princeton Lounge in North-Chelmsford, which did very well. His brother, Frank Giuffrida, owned the Hilltop.

Oh, that's where I heard it. The Hilltop. He owned the Hilltop.

Right, right. Now I'm pretty sure both of them lived in Chelmsford. Joe Giuffrida, who I knew, he's dead now.

He lived in Nabnasset right there in Westford, but he owned the Princeton. But right next door to the Princeton, there used to be like a little ice cream stand there, which is gone now. But that's where Tony and Ann started right there, his first.

Yeah, Tony started right there. Because I remember when we were kids, I think it was 10 or 15 cents a slice of pizza back then. And everybody went to Tony and Ann's.

Of course, he'd become a legend, Tony and Ann, you know, with their pizza. As a matter of fact, they're out there in Draco. Did you read it in the paper?

No. About Tony and Ann's? I know it was down here on Tyngsboro Road.

It was down on Tyngsboro Road. And it's a Chinese takeout now. Yeah, they immortalized it a little bit in The Simpsons.

The Simpsons, yes. Okay, well, relatives now opened up a new one in Draco. Oh, so it's relatives.

Because I remember Tony passed away and they gave up. I think they gave up the business because he passed away originally. Yeah, yeah.

Well, Tony knew all the kids in North Chelmsford. He was like, everybody knew Ann, too. If you were from North Chelmsford, you knew these people because you always went to Tony and Ann's.

So did they name the new one Tony and Ann's? Yeah. How about that?

Yeah, out in Draco. And here you'd have to wait two or three hours to get a pizza. You'd eat a lot of Tony's or you wouldn't go near it.

But it was a pizza that would slide. Unless you're helluva level, the pizza would slide right off it. It was delicious, you know.

A lot of people loved Tony's pizza. But he started out down there, I remember, when I was a kid. And, of course, you know all about the mills in North Chelmsford, the Southwell and the Moore's Mill.

I don't know if Miskell told you, did he tell you about Joe Donovan's diner down there, which very few people remember. Well, that's the one that was on the canal. Right on the canal.

Joe Donovan, he lived in North Chelmsford. He lived on, Joe lived on Sherman Street. And I knew all these people because I was the paperboy.

I had 85 houses in North Chelmsford that I used to deliver to. And that was back in the early 50s. But Joe Donovan, he had a son, Dana.

He lived right there. And he ran that little diner and he made a living on the mill people. Everybody in the mill.

At one time or another went over to Joe Donovan's. And if you went in there, it had a sliding door like that. As you walked in, there was a countertop.

Place would probably hold seven people. You know, stool size. And you'd go in there and Joe did all his preparation of food on the left.

It was quite a place. He did a landslide business in there. And most of it was takeout because people from the mill would come over with an order and Joe would get it all ready and put it in a box.

And off they go back to the mill. Kind of like a permanent lunch wagon. Yeah.

When I was going to Princeton Street School, Ann Hahir, she was a teacher in the first grade. Of course, back then they all called you by your first name. Everybody was not a Chelmsford that went to that school.

But Ann. So she related to Weldon? No.

Brian Hahir, Father Hahir, Mildred Hahir, she was a Chelmsford high school teacher. She taught for years. Millie is still around.

But Ann used to always have me, just before lunch break, she'd give me a Heinz ketchup bottle and a tight cap. And she'd send me down to Joe Donovan's. I'd get right in, just walk down the street.

I'd go in there and Joe Donovan would make up a coffee for her and put the cap back on. They'd take it back up and then we went to dinner. But I always did that for her.

I always had to have her coffee. But Joe, Joe did well there. He had a lot of mill people.

And that was on the moor side. Years ago, we used to go fishing down there. We used to see that big smokestack.

That was the boiler room. And, of course, it's gone now. All that's left is the smokestack.

And right at Bainbridge's, right on that wall where Stony Brook comes down underneath the railroad tracks, well, where Bainbridge's is, there was a big mill thing. It was like a part of the sorting department, I think. But a lot of rubbish used to come out of them mills and dump into that Stony Brook and they'd go right out to the river.

And when we were kids, we used to sit on that wall there. There was a building. You used to have to shimmy around and then sit down.

You'd only be able to get three people in there. We used to fish in there because the carp, big, huge carp, used to come up from the river. They used to love that junk that was coming out of the mill.

It was like a grayish, brownish thing that would come from the wool. And they just dumped it in there and went out to the river.

And it was soapy, too, apparently.

Smelly, very smelly. Yeah, it did. But I remember when we were kids, geez, if you ever fell in, they'd never find you.

But anyway, we used to fish there when we were kids. And I can remember that the guy, Bucky Newman was his name. He was the fireman in the boiler room.

And they used to blow down the boilers. They had a big steam pipe. As you were sitting there to your right, there was a pipe, oh, two inches, three inches in diameter, that they used to blow the boilers down.

And I can remember Bucky would always go out there and see if there was anybody fishing. And if you were fishing, he'd tell you, okay, I'm going to blow down. You have to get over here.

We'd all pick up our fish poles and move. And then he'd open up the valves, and that thing there would blast out. And he did that for about ten minutes.

And then he'd shut it down. He'd say, okay, you can go back fishing. We'd go back and start fishing again.

These are just memories now of what was going on, you know. And, of course, the trains back then were always going, you know. And, oh, down on, talking about trains now, the North Chelmsford Depot.

When I was a kid, a guy by the name of Brown, he was the teletype operator. He was the station master down in North Chelmsford. And we used to go down there and watch him teletype.

They didn't talk. They were always working the teletype back then. And we used to go down there and watch the Montreal Express.

And I'll show you a picture of the Montreal Express. You ever hear of the Montreal Express? Well, I've only heard of it as a weather pattern.

I've never heard of it as a real train. Well, I'm going to show you a picture of the real train coming through Kingsborough. Authenticated.

It used to come down through North Chelmsford, full steam ahead. When it came down, it went right through. And we used to go down there and watch it, mainly to watch it pick up the mail.

Because Brownie would hang the mail out from North Chelmsford. He'd hang the mail out. And the Montreal Express would come steaming as a passenger.

And then it comes steaming down through there, and the iron was hanging out. And when it hit that mail, it was gone, right into the car. And that just kept right on going.

But I've got a nice picture I'll show you here of the Montreal Express. A lot of people probably don't remember it. Who would remember it, the Montreal Express?

It came down from Montreal. You remember the mail bag. You didn't mention the Express.

Well, there was probably other trains that did it. But we used to go down and watch the Montreal Express. It had come through the quickest.

That thing there was making a beeline for Boston, I think. I don't even know if it stopped in Lowell. But it was coming down from way up north.

And a lot of people would probably remember it, but a lot of people wouldn't. And I remembered it because we used to go down there and see Mr. Brown. He used to tell us it was the Montreal Express coming through.

It was just fascinating as a kid to watch that. And then right next to that. Was that steam or diesel?

Oh, no, it was steam. Steam at the time. When I was a kid, everything was steam.

Then in the 50s, they started coming out with diesels. But when I was a kid, all the trains I ever rode was steam. Quick transition.

You wouldn't believe it. Between the 40s, 50s, and 60s, the transition and the different things escalated so quick. But probably, you know, it was nice to be in the steam era.

I used to go to Boston on the steam. We used to just marvel at them. They made a big production when they pulled in there.

The oiler would get out, and they'd go over every fit in there, and they'd be oiling it and checking the train all out while passengers were getting off or getting on. And then after they checked everything out and oiled it and checked the packings and everything on the wheels, back on the train and off you go again. But down near North-Chelmsford, right up the street from the railroad station, right by St. John's Church was a place called Proctor Lumber. Did you ever hear of that? Yes. Proctor Lumber.

Well, I knew it real well because we used to go over there when we were kids and pick up all the scraps of wood they'd give them to you. They were glad to see it go. They'd go up there with a little wagon and fill it up, take it home, and you'd play with the wood.

It wasn't burning. You just played with it. But there was a lot of people right there, but one train crashed right into that. One thing after another with Proctor Lumber and it caught on fire and it burnt. I never went back into business now. The office building is now Dolan's.

That was Procter's office right there. The guy by the name of Gauthier lived next door to me on Newfield Street. He used to work in the office there.

So the Dolan's Funeral Home House was the office for Proctor Lumber. That is. Yeah, Jimmy would tell you that.

That was quite a good-sized lumberyard. It went from Church Street all the way to the cemetery there. It was all Proctor Lumber.

All you see those buildings down there now, all them rentals. That went out. That was in the 60s too, I think, because they went down.

I think it was in the 60s they finally, Procter was no more. Now, going back, let's see, we used to, Miskell told you about the gates up there, the canal coming out of Crystal Lake, everybody used to swim there, either there or over at the beach, the beach house we used to call it. Oh, we went over to the gates.

In the gates, a lot of guys went there because of the fact that they had a big steel ladder that went way up high, and we used to all climb up there and dive. More people got hurt up there through glass cuts. It was a potty place at night for people, and a lot of them would throw glass in there.

It was quite a place. That canal went all the way down to the mills back at Joe Donovan's, and there was a tube that took water in and went into the mill, and they had a great big wheel there. You'd open it up, and the water would flow down.

A couple of times we used to try and open it up and see what happened, but they had a catalog. When we were kids, we used to go down to that mill a lot and look in the windows and watch all the machinery working. It was quite a thing to see that.

And Miskell worked there. He gave you the rundown. Yeah, it was quite a mill.

People stunk a lot, especially where the wool came in on the trains. They'd bring it in, and they'd wash it. It was hot water-like, and they'd deburr it.

They did give off a stink. The machinery had names. You mentioned the names of the machinery and the names of the people who worked on it.

Yeah, that was a machine. It was a shopper. I used to know the manor, but I never worked in the mills.

My mother did. She worked in the mills for years. Everybody worked in the mills, one way or another.

A lot of people from Lowell come out to Notch Henson. See, over on Middlesex Street, that was all Southwell. And then on the other side of Princeton Street was the Moore's Mill.

But there was another mill in there. I forget. There was somebody else in there.

But the ones I knew was Moore's and Southwell. And I think Southwell was union, and I don't think Moore's was. And Moore's used to pay them just as well as Southwell.

He never wanted the union, and I remember that. Now, other things at Chelmsford. I had a whole list here for you.

I was going to bring up these different businesses in Chelmsford. Do you want a Coke or anything?

No, I'm fine, thanks.

Are you fine?

Yep.

Let's just touch on some of these things here. Oh, yeah, and the water tower. When we were kids, we used to climb the water tower in Notch Henson.

We had guys go up there and swim in it. Inside the water tower? Oh, yeah, when it was high.

In the summertime. Because it used to be open.

On the top.

Sandpipes. Yeah, it was open. It was like a catwalk around the top.

You never get in that because the slats were all thing. But we used to have the cops come up there all the time and make us come down. We'd go up the ladder and jump in when the water was coming over.

They used to overfill it and let the water run off. If there was any junk up there, it would roll off. But when we knew it was doing that, we knew the water was high.

So you'd go up there and swim. They'd call you up there. They'd raise cane with you.

They didn't want you up there. Drinking water. Oh, yeah, I know it.

I know it. But down in Vinal Square, now, well, when I was a kid, they had in Notch Henson two doctors. Either went Dr. Carey or Dr. Bushy. Did you hear those names? No. You haven't.

Okay, Dr. Bushy was the school doctor. Kind of reminded you a little bit like Peter Lorre. Scary.

He'd scare you. But he was a good guy. And he lived on Middlesex Street.

That's where his office was, right where the post office is. As you turn in there, that house right on your right, that was Dr. Bushy's house. Dr. Carey, who his wife Charlotte, ex-wife, was a schoolteacher in Chesley. But Dr. Carey lived on Newfield Street, corner of Newfield and Shaw. And when I was a kid, that was two doors up from me. He lived on Newfield.

I used to mow his lawn and take care of everything around the house for him. I was only a kid. And I had a power mower.

Saved all my money up and bought a power mower back then. But Dr. Carey, he always tended to me. If we had a problem at the house, he was always there.

He used to go to your house. And I can remember as a kid going in there, cuts, bruises, and I'd go in there. And I used to get special treatment.

Like I always had an appointment. It was just stripping the people who were sitting in there because I'd go in ahead of them. And he'd get me in there.

And, you know, like if I had a cut, he'd be fixing it. He'd get me all bandaged up and everything. First thing he wanted to know was how the fishing was.

Dr. Carey loved fishing. He was always fishing. And he'd hold up them people in that office 15, 20 minutes talking fishing to me.

And I wanted to know where the hornbill were because us kids were always fishing the lake. But the thing about him, him and two other doctors were fishing up the northward narrows, and two of them drowned, Dr. Skrebuka. And I'm pretty sure there's another doctor, but Dr. Carey made it. Like I say, he was a great fisherman. And they went up there, and I guess they got into a bad weather, and they were in a boat and it flipped over. And he was the only one to survive.

But I remember that. Was the other one a Chelmsford doctor or something? Dr. Skrebuka. I think he was from Lowell. But Dr. Carey was there. Geez.

Well, when I come out of the Navy, I can't remember if the doc was there or not. But, geez, I can't remember. My memory doesn't serve me well there.

But, you know, he was a good doctor. Both of them were. They were town doctors, I think.

And then another one came in, Doc Horan, who opened up our office down there in Vinal Square, right across the street from the hardware store, that newer building there. The first bank was in there for a while. Brick building?

Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Right on the corner of Adams Street there.

Now, down there, when I was a kid, I never missed one. Let's see. The pine grove.

Oh, over at the Water Department. Not Chelmsford Water Department. When I was a kid there, they just started those pine trees.

That was back in the 40s. They planted all those pine trees right next to the Water Department. That was supposedly to stop erosion of whole water or something.

I can't remember, but when we were kids, we went in there and played guns because the trees were only about three or four feet tall at the time, and you could hide behind them. Jesus, there was probably a hundred pine trees in there. But today, of course, they're all big, and they're all grown up.

You can see right under them. Yeah. When I was a kid, they weren't that old.

And they fixed it up too, didn't they? I think so, yeah. They did.

But I remember down there, I'm pretty sure in the water house down there, it had a big pump. When I was a kid, that pump was working. Of course, they get modern pumps now.

But let's see. The pine grove, right? Up at Crystal Lake years ago, when we were there, they used to have water carnivals.

Now, what that was, Mrs. Morrison, she was tied in with the Red Cross, and she lived on Crystal Lake, and she had a daughter, Betty, who one year was Miss Winnipesaukee. She was an airlines stewardess. I hung around her brother, Charlie.

But this Mrs. Morrison, she was pretty good. She taught a lot of us kids to swim and everything because she was affiliated with the Red Cross. And we used to go down and give demonstrations down the river down here, under her direction, right there where the bathhouse is.

And we used to hate it because it was all mucky back then. At Crystal? No, the Merrimack River.

There was a bathhouse on the Merrimack? Yes, still there. That's where the row house is now.

You know where the—let's see. Right where UMass has the—do you know where the pavilion is down there, the round pavilion on the river? UMass has got where they keep their boats, right there on the Merrimack, right across from Dunkin' Donuts.

Yes, yes. Where you go over the Rourke Bridge, you take a right. Yes.

And then they got—UMass has that facility there for the rowing team. They keep their boats in there. Yes.

You go down a little further and there's a pavilion down there. Brick building. There was a brick old brick building.

That was the bathhouse. Okay. Okay, that's where we used to go.

That other buildings weren't there when I was a kid. Right. But Mrs. Morrison, she used to give little demonstrations of how the Red Cross helped kids learn to swim. And we used to go out there and show people what we learned and everything. But like I say, we used to hate it there. We were used to Crystal Lake.

And you get in that Merrimack and you sink down in the mud that deep. That's when the mills were all running. Of course, it's all cleared up now.

I think there's mostly sand down there now. But I can remember them days, yep, going down there at the water carnival in North Chelmsford, which was a big deal. It was for the kids.

And they used to have all kinds of contests. And they used to have swimming races, which started at Marty's Bake Shop. And you'd swim across the whole length of the lake over what they call the gates.

And then from the gates, you'd swim back to Marty's. And then from Marty's, you'd swim to the beach at Varney. Now, that was all in swimming.

You'd leave Marty's, go all the way over, swim the whole length of the thing, all the way back, and then halfway back again. But that was part of it. But they always had some kind of a water thing going out there, canoe races and everything.

Now, that was back in the 40s, you know. Let's see. Pete Ciccone, that was where Tony and Ann was.

That's Peter. They called it Pete Ciccone. Freddy had that.

And then he moved up to North Chelmsford, which I worked for Freddy Knight's part-time since 1955 I worked for Freddy, you know, nights, weekends, whenever I could. Just to make an extra dollar for my gas money, which I finally ended up owning the place. I'll tell you that later.

But the Pine Grove Water Carnival's Crystal Lake. The first restaurant, according to the Honorable Roy Pearson. Roy Pearson was a Chelmsford boy.

He used to live right over here. Everybody knew Roy Pearson. I think he worked for the town of Chelmsford .

Related to Jim Pearson at all? No, not Jimmy, no. But Roy lived here, knew everybody, knew everything.

He could tell you all about Chelmsford . But over here on my other property, right over here, and I don't doubt Roy one bit, and his son too. His son will tell you.

Bobby, I got the first restaurant parked right over here on the property that was in the town of Chelmsford . And it was on Route 110, Littleton Road. And it's right over here.

I was sure it would come up here in the daytime. But Roy says that was the first diner ever in the town of Chelmsford . And all it was, it's a four-hipped roof.

And I don't know who put the stars in it or something, but he told me where it was. He said, I don't know if you ever get any old pictures of Chelmsford , but if you ever see the picture of this thing in a picture, it was the first restaurant in Chelmsford . And if it is, if they got interest, if they wanted, I'd be glad to donate it if they ever wanted to do anything.

Because before I wanted, I used to use it to store stuff in. But one of these days it's got to come out of there. But I do have that.

If somebody wanted to authenticate that, and the town of Chelmsford wanted that, I'd gladly. I think we'd like to take some pictures of it. Yeah.

Keep that at least. Yeah. It isn't much to look at now, but Roy always said that that was the first restaurant.

Roy's dead now, or he could tell you more about it. But he says that was definitely the first restaurant in Chelmsford . Now, he's going back.

He's probably going back, Roy. Oh, Jesus. Probably the 1900s.

He was older than him. Let's see. Was he as old as my mother?

Oh, I'd probably say back in the 20s. The 20s. But he said that that was the first restaurant.

That was probably there before the 20s, but he authenticated it. And he told me all about it. Any idea when that was set up originally?

Or does he just remember it being there? Maybe his son Bobby would. I don't see Bobby.

Bobby lives in Candy in New Hampshire now. They sold me that property over there, and after they moved to Candy, geez, it wasn't a very few short years that they both passed away. But they're originally from Chelmsford, you know.

Did they move the building over there? Yeah, Roy ended up with it somehow. I don't know how he ended up with it, but he told me the whole story of it.

He says this was the original restaurant in Chelmsford. Before all the restaurants, this was the first. That's what he said.

And, you know, he was pretty accurate on everything he told you. Could that have been moved during the construction of 485 when they moved so many houses? You know, I never asked him.

You know, it's too bad. That would have been a spot on 110 where the Power Genesis used to be. Route 110 now.

They tore out buildings? No, you're talking the other end of Route 110. You're talking on Littleton Road. Yeah, Littleton Road, yeah. That's still 110. Yeah, it was on Littleton Road.

And the construction of 495 wouldn't have affected that? No, it wouldn't have hindered it at all. But Hammington's hut paving, Jimmy and Bobby Hammington, was right in that area there somewhere, not far from the village, you know, going out.

But I was just saying, if there's some old pictures of Chelmsford, if anybody ever happened to take a picture and that was in it, that would be the cincher. That's why I want to take pictures. Yeah.

I have access to a lot of old pictures. Do you? Historic Society has a great collection.

Okay. In Chelmsford, too, we had, let's see, the first restaurant, I got that. Yeah.

Right. Paramount Diner, PV's Diner. It used to be a PV's Diner in North Chelmsford.

I used to always hear the old-timers talk about it. All right? Just the letter P, letter V?

PV's. Miskel would remember it. PV's Diner.

I don't know if it was P-E-E-V-E-E-S or P-V-E. I don't know how to, but there was a PV's Diner because all the old-timers used to talk about it when I was a kid. And also right next door to me, the golf station was what we called the Village House.

Did you ever hear of that? I did. Apparently there were three businesses on the first floor.

There was. There was a place called Pages. George Merrill says there were five apartments overhead, and Francis recalls three.

I'll tell you how many there were. There was three on the second, probably two up top. Two more on the third or the top floor?

On the third, yeah. Okay. So they're both right?

Yeah. The Olivers lived up there, and the Jensen's lived up there. Barbershop on the right side?

As you're looking at it from the street, on the left-hand side was a place. I don't know if they remember. It was a place called Pages.

Okay? Used to sell ice cream and stuff like that. That's when I was a kid.

In the center was Anderson's Market. Then Patty Murphy bought it off Anderson. And I used to deliver groceries for Patty.

And to the right of Patty Murphy's was the barbershop, the original barbershop. And that was a guy named Arthur Sansom and his brother-in-law Red. They were fixtures in North Jensen.

They were there. I got my first haircut from them. A lot of kids did in North Jensen.

But they were the only ones there. And then Peter, the barber knows him, Peter bought it. I think Peter went in there first, and then he moved next door.

Richiardi. They're from North Chelmsford too. Peter.

Did you ever meet Peter? He's my barber. Oh, Peter is?

Yes. He spends all his time in Vermont now, so I usually see his girls. Yeah, all the girls there, Liz and them.

They come up here. I haven't met any of them yet. But where he is now, did you ever hear the story about where Peter lives?

Cappy? I was one of his favorites. I can remember.

He was a World War I-A show. Really? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he was. Spies George didn't tell you that. I didn't hear about that.

But Cap was an ace. That means five hits, five shots. Something like that, yeah.

He flew the double wingers, I think. But Cap Elliot was an ace. And Cap was two things.

He used to like to drink, and he was very knowledgeable mechanically, very knowledgeable. And he loved fishing. That was his three hobbies, drinking, doing mechanical work.

And the store he used to sell the paper, candy, cigarettes. It wasn't much of a store, but it was Cap Elliot's. He'd have some bread in there.

It was very small. Well, Pete's Barber Shop, that was Cap Elliot's. But I can remember going in there when I was a kid.

And he had one of them barn bread snapping screen doors. He'd open it up. He'd walk in and slam behind you.

It had a big barn bread insignia on it. And you'd walk in there, and Cap would yell from the back room. He was usually sleeping it off.

Who is there? Who's out there? And I used to say, Cap, it's me, Paul McGovern.

Oh, Paul, get what you want and leave the money on the counter. See, he knew me because my father worked at the dining room.

Cap knew my father.

So depending on who you were, he could be cantankerous or he could be a good guy. But I remember when I was a kid, and some guys will attest to it because a lot of them are dead now, Cap Elliot used to love motorboating. Like I said, he was mechanical.

And Cap used to have three or four barrels out in front of his store. And he used to put outboard engines in them and test them, you know. And one of his favorite tricks was he seems everybody knew Cap.

So Cap couldn't get the regulars. But if Cap saw somebody coming out of the diner up the street, they had Balos, and he seen them coming, and he knew they were strangers, the first thing he'd do, he'd dash over and get one of them engines started in the barrel. And he'd wait until they got close, then he'd race it up and have all the water come.

And now, of course, it would go all over the sidewalk and everything. All he would say is, Oops, I'm sorry about that. He just used to do it just to be a hellraiser, you know.

But Cap was there. He was a fixture in town. Closed the store in a minute if the fish were running.

I remember one day I walked in there, and I said, Cap, I says, the carp jumping down the Yeti. Now, the Yeti is down in Southwell Field down there. When you go over the railroad tracks, if you take a right and you go over to the ballpark, over to your right is a Yeti in there.

If you ever get down there, you'll see what I'm talking about. And the cop used to come in there, big cop. And I never forget that I walked in there and said, Hey, Cap, I says, the carp jumping down there in the Yeti.

He said, Yeah. He said, Yeah. He said, Well, okay, hold on.

Cap had a Model A station wagon. George will tell you that. I don't even know if George was around then.

But Miss will remember it. He said he used to keep his fishing tackle in the Model A at all times. Yeah, it was always in there.

And he used to get me on. I was only a kid then. But Cap would say, Come on, Pauly, get in there.

Get in there. And just to aggravate people. He used to retort the spark as he was leaving.

Boom, boom. He'd go through large guns and make a backfire. You know, a lot of times when he'd leave the square, he'd do it all the way up Groton Road.

You could hear him. He'd just do it. They all knew Cap Ellie was coming, you know.

But we used to go down there. First thing he'd do is he'd make a mad dash and get the boiled potatoes. And that's what we used to fish for carp, boiled potatoes.

We'd go in there, and, boy, he'd catch them. And he used to have some people that wanted them. And that's why he used to catch them.

But he'd close the store in a minute if there was a fish in the area. He'd just off and run. But Cap, he was an ingenious guy.

That's one of them. Then we had in North Johnson down at the road shop, we had two meat markets. One was Secor's, Ray Secor.

And the other one was McEnany's. That's where the Brickhouse Pizza was. That was John McEnany's.

It was still McEnany's back in the 70s, late 70s or 80s. Okay, and then right next door to him was a barber shop. And, you know, I knew the guy's name.

Oh, geez. Because I went in and got a haircut a couple of times. But, you know, if you're from North Johnson, you always went from the Vinyl Square area, you always went to Arthur and Red, yeah.

But a couple of times I went in down there for a reason. I don't know if I went there and it was too many people there or what. But I went down a couple of times at McEnany's Market because there was a And I know the guy's name, too.

He wasn't a bad guy. But you'd be in there when a train come by, the whole building would shake. He had to a lot of times slow down the haircuts because the building would actually shake, you know.

And I still think it does well. You don't have the train traffic. No.

It used to. When they come through, when I was It's a couple of weeks now. It's only a couple of weeks.

And they come through There's one coal train up to Maine. And they're hardly moving. Yeah.

When I was a kid, they used to come through, you know, going low. The only time they go slow is if they're going left to New Hampshire. They had to take that left and go up.

And they had to slow it down because that bridge there over, that used to be called Froggy Pond, when it went over that bridge there, they had to go over it real slow, you know. But I hope you're going to edit all this and put it in there. Or are you just going to leave it like it is?

Because I'm bouncing. You're doing fine. I'm bouncing.

Okay. Down there next to McEnany's Market, that's where all the train tracks are, used to be a gatehouse there, a little gatehouse. And they used to put the gates up and down when the trains were coming.

By hand, I hear. All by hand. And put a lantern on the gate, too.

Yeah. And I'll tell you who it was. There was a guy named Tiny Gray.

Tiny Gray, big guy, big ox. Tiny used to be the gatehouse. He was one of them, but he worked the daytime.

Okay. And he had a daughter, Lillian. Roberts is her name now, Johnny Roberts.

But Tiny Gray worked for the railroad down there. And he put the gates up and down when the trains were coming. And he also, his other job was driving the school bus for George Marinel.

Oh. And Tiny was one of the only guys that let you smoke on the bus. Let the kids smoke?

Well, everybody smoked back then. You know, back then everybody smoked. I'm talking now, I'm talking in, let's see, 1954.

There was no big deal, you know, smoking. They just didn't like you smoking on the bus. But there wasn't people there squealing on you.

And you smoked on the bus. Everybody shut their mouth. But Tiny used to just say, you have to wait until we get down the road.

I'll tell you when to light up. And Tiny would get down the road. We were coming, leaving Chelmsford High School, heading back to north.

He had the north group. Of course, he was from North Chelmsford. We get through the square right past where the police station was there.

That's where the firehouse is now. As soon as we sat down there, he'd say, okay, you're going to light them up as soon as we get on North Road. Because it was a lot different.

And North Road went right to Drum Hill. But back then, see, it was different. You didn't have the highway there or nothing.

It just went up on a north road. North Road went all the way to North Chelmsford. And Tiny used to let us smoke them.

But we had to put them out. We had to put the cigarettes out just before the square and let the smoke all disperse. But, you know, I remember them days.

Oh, they were good old days, you know. Yeah, but Tiny was. And I don't know if they got any old pictures.

But if there's any pictures of the gatehouse, I think Lillian Roberts would have pictures of it. Does anybody have pictures of the gatehouse down there? I haven't seen one.

The one in the center from the year 1900 or just before that, but not the one here in the north. Well, I remember it very well. I've got pictures of the switch tower.

Bill Tobin used to run the manual switches. Well, that's down near North Chelmsford, too. Yeah, but not the gatehouse or the gates, the manual gates.

I got some old pictures, railroad pictures of North Chelmsford. This is a railroad book I got, and it shows North Chelmsford all down near Underwater, and it shows that tower.

Thirty-six.

That tower was sticking up. Thirty-six? Yeah, yeah.

And North Chelmsford, I'll tell you a little story about the meadow. You know, the meadow down here, the Meadow Lounge is now, what do they call it there? We used to always call it the Meadow Lounge, but it was really called the Meadow Grill.

You know what I'm talking about? What used to be Castore? Castore.

Yeah. It's Castore now, but it was the Meadow Lounge, and before the Meadow Lounge, it was called the Meadow Grill, and my grandfather owned it. And that's where my father grew up, his sister, and my uncle.

They all grew up there, and the guy that owned it was my uncle Mike. So there's a house with it also? Upstairs.

And there used to be a gas nozzle there, and I think there was a 500-gallon tank on the ground with a little garage, and that was off looking at the building. That was off to the right, and I remember the little garage, and Freddy Fantosi, who I bought the Gulf Station off of, that's where he started out in business right there. He says, Your grandfather put me in business, and he says he even filled a tank for me.

And he says that's where I got my start, right down there at your grandfather's. The Wanda Lancet Cafe comes in the, somehow I think that used to be called the Wanda Lancet Cafe. I read something somewhere, I don't know if I heard it in the family, but that was, I think originally, if you go back, you may find out it was the Wanda Lancet Cafe.

I don't know. Or it was the Meadow Grill. The Meadow Grill, I think, when my grandfather got it, I don't know if they changed it to the Meadow, I don't know.

I'm vague on that, all right. But during the 36th flood, the water was halfway up the door, and as a matter of fact, I got some pictures of me coming down Tyngsboro Road, which was back, I think it was in the 70s. When that flooded out again, Tory Larson went under, well, half his building.

He was, half of his building was underwater. Duffy's, out in front of Duffy's there was deep. I come down in a canoe, and I went down in the back toward the river.

I come down Tyngsboro Road, and I took a right into Tony and Ann's there. That road, that was all underwater. And I went over to Tory Larson's, and I went, of course, Tory knew me.

He had both doors open. I went in with the canoe. I got pictures of it with my video camera.

I come in the door. One door went up there. I said, Hi, Tory.

Hi. And he just shook his head. But I went all the way down through there in the canoe.

That's the first time ever I went down Tyngsboro Road in a canoe. And that was, I forget when that was, but it was, it all got flooded down there. And that was, I think it was in the 70s.

I'm pretty sure. Did you have any record of that, that it got flooded again? I don't.

Well, it happened. There's been some minor floods in the last few. Well, there was another time.

There was another time. Back in 06, I think, the Mobile Station got flooded. Yeah, there was another time where, yes, it did come over Tyngsboro Road.

But it was not like the other one before that. You know, because that is, what happened is, there's a brook that goes right by Duffy's and over by Lassie's. Is that Black Brook?

It may be Black Brook. Or Deep Brook. Black Line Brook.

It comes down right over here. It starts right over here, over in back of Paul Fortin's house. It comes all the way.

As a matter of fact, you know what Dunstable Road is up here where it's always flooded over? It comes down the back, all the way down through the back, down into LaRose's Pond, which they don't call it. If you're in Old Town, it's LaRose Pond.

But they call it something else now. It's right there by the Old Sportsman's Club. And then it goes underneath Dunstable Road, back to those houses, and goes back down toward Duffy's Auto Body.

But all in back there always gets flooded. And what was happening was, it was getting down by Duffy's, and it goes under Tyngsboro Road through a small culvert. And then it goes over back at Tony and ends through a small culvert again.

And if all the brush and everything got in there, it used to back up. And they'd flood the field over by Duffy's, and it would go all the way back up. Of course, you couldn't flood Dunstable Road.

It's too high. But they used to flood all that field between Dunstable Road and Tyngsboro Road. The field was always underwater.

And what they did was, a few years back, over there near Larson's, they ripped up the road and they put a newer, bigger culvert in there, I think. And it's high right now, but I haven't seen a flood since. But that's the lowland.

There's not a lot to be said about that. Let's see. Okay.

The Gate House, the doctors that were around when I was a kid. Water Controls. Vonnie Playground.

Paramount, PBC, McEnany. Okay. There used to be a guy named Provincial.

As you come into Vinal Square, you take a right to get out into the mills, which is— You mean Southwell?

Southwell down the field.

Down by the fields. They used to call it Southwell's and Southwell's in the field. They used to call it in the field.

That's how they always referred to it as. That is—what the heck's the name of that street? Watton?

Watton Lane. You take a right, go down to Watton Lane down there. Down on the left, which is Parking Lot now, a guy by the name of Provincial.

He used to have a barrel company there.

It's gone now.

I know because I used to go down there and wash out barrels from him. He didn't talk about contamination. He'd get barrels from everywhere.

He didn't know what was in them. He'd just dump them. These metal or wood?

Metal. Metal barrels. We'd wash them out.

Dump it, and then we'd go down into the brook. You don't know where it went. I don't even know what was in them barrels.

But we used to put a chain in it, spin the cap on it, wash them out, drop a chain in it, and then rotate the barrels in that chain in there clacking around. Then he'd take them out. We'd wash them out again.

Everything went out. It just went down to the water. I don't know what was in them barrels to this day.

But he ran a barrel company. He'd clean them all up and everything, paint them. They'd go out somewhere.

He had a market for them. They were all painted black and everything, ready to go. Also, in that chance, there was Hadley Upholstering.

Did anybody ever tell you about that? Hadley Upholstering. Was that down in Middlesex?

No. That was right there next to Anderson's Market at the very end where Page's, I told you, Page's was. Looking at the building from the street, the barbershop was on the right, Anderson's Market, Patty Murphy's Market was in the center, and then Hadley.

Back in the 60s when the Red Sox, Yaz and him, Hadley was in there then. But Milton E. Hadley Upholstering.

His son Billy had a chance of firefighter.

In the village house, you said? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, right there in the village house, yeah. And his son Billy was a chance of firefighter.

Page's was on the left. Ramadi's Bakeshop. First, it was the first national store in that chance that I remember that.

And an A&P in the opposite corner? And there was an A&P. Yeah.

I remember them. We have some pictures way back showing. Cushman Bake, we had a place there too.

Did Miskell tell you about Cushman? Like a thrift shop or something? No.

Right where Robinson's Garage is. Right where Chandler Robinson, you heard of that name. That's the cement block?

Yeah, right there where they rent it out now. Right to the right, looking at it from the street, just to the right of Peter's Barbershop. That was Robinson's Garage.

P.T. Robinson? P.T. P.T. P.T. and Chan. They had a son who was on the chance of police.

Chan Jr. But anyway, Cushman's Bakery. You remember Cushman's? They used to go door-to-door and sell bakery products.

Cushman's, they were big. They had bread all packaged up in kind of a yellow and blue wrapper.

They had them.

They sold brownies, you name it. But Cushman's, that was their warehouse when I was a kid. Because Charlie Livingston, who lived up on Millpier Street, he drove a Cushman truck.

And his son went to Chelsea High. So did you say this is in the Robinson, P.T. Robinson building? Yep.

So after the Robinson's were through, it was used as a warehouse? This was. Because it seems like the post office is down there too at one time.

The post office was to the right, just to the right, where that girl has the hairdressing shop. That was originally the post office when I was a kid. They used to bring grease down here during the Second World War, fat.

They used to bring it in there. Use cooking oil? Yeah.

To the post office. I remember my mother sending me down there with it. Then after that, it became a coffee shop.

What the hell was the name of it? Donut Shop. It was a donut shop.

I forget. I just got out of the Navy. It was a donut shop, the old post office.

Did they tell you about the library that used to be on Gay Street? Yes. Actually, George says there's the front steps or something still there.

Probably still there. When I was a kid, we went in there. It was only a little building.

We got a picture of a couple of views of the front of it and a couple of shots from inside. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

I went in there when I was a kid. Did they ever tell you about the store on the bridge? Misko remembers it.

He did mention something about the little store on the other side of the bridge. Just on the other side of the bridge on the right side. The second time you met him, because I asked him, I said, did you tell him about the bridge market?

He says, geez, I don't think so. Then you saw him again?

Yeah.

As you were going towards Chelmsford Center, as you went down the hall and come up onto the top of the bridge, right as you crested the bridge, just on the other side of it, there was a store. Right. And us kids used to go in there.

I'll tell you how we used to go in there a lot. When we were going to catechism, the nuns used to pick us up at the Princeton Street School and march us over to St. John's Church. What they would do, they'd get across the street.

Old Budgie Marinel would start the traffic. We'd go across the street, take a right, and head toward the bridge. When we got to Mount Pleasant Street, we'd take a left, and that would take you right up to St. John's Church. Well, in back of that bridge was a sand bank, and it went up to St. John's Hall. So all of us guys would stagger in the back, and the nuns would be up front, of course, and they'd be marching us to catechism. And as we got to the bridge, we'd peel off and go into the bridge, get ice cream or what have you, ice cream or candy, and then we'd beat it out the door and run like the old proverbial Western.

And catch up to them. And we'd catch up to them. They never even knew we left the line, and we'd catch them at the church, and we'd fall back in the line.

But there was a market there right at the bridge, and they called it the bridge. We used to always call it the bridge market. Powers' store, did he tell you about that in North Chelmsford, the liquor store?

Billy Powers. Yeah, and I think he said it's not related to the Powers Liquors. No, no, not at all, no.

But Powers, his sister. Where was the building? Where Parlee, right where the Parlee building is, there was a liquor store there.

But before that, it was coming through in North Chelmsford. You take a left on the Groton Road, that building that's like a V, comes to the V in the square. Right in front.

That was a variety store. Got a picture of it. Have you?

Yeah. Yeah, that was a variety store. And Ruthie Powers owned that.

And in back was Miskell worked there, Powers' liquor store. That's where it started and moved across the street. I remember that.

There was a spa in the front. I think I've got a picture of the spa. Yeah, she used to have a little ice cream spa in there, yeah.

Artie April's Shoe Repair, did they ever tell you about that? He did mention a shoe repair. Yeah, it was Arthur April's.

Was it? All five went in there after that. Right where the shoe shop is, just to the left of it, was Arthur April's shoe repair shop.

I knew it very well. I used to go in there when I was a kid. And then he went out and a guy by the name of Carson, Roland Carson, he took it over.

And they live up there at Crystal Lake. But after Roland left there, it was never a shoe shop anymore. And then to the right, I'm going to give it to you.

I got it over there, Pages Drugstore. Wait a minute. It wasn't Pages.

It was, he was on my paper route. They told you about the drugstore in Hutchinson. I've got pictures of it.

Over there when they announced the grand opening of it. Somebody gave it to me. Might as well have the historical society have it if they wanted.

If anything ever happens to me, my kids will burn it. If you know what I'm saying. I guess we better take it and put it in the collection then.

And I got a picture of my father and three waitresses and another guy standing behind the grill at the Paramount Diner. There's a way we can copy it. Now that's, in my end, you can read the menu.

Egg sandwich, 10 cents, hamburger, I think 20. I can scan it if you want. I'll get it together for you.

I'm going to bring my camera over and take a picture of that restaurant. You know, if I can find my old photo album, I've got pictures of my father standing up in front of the Paramount. It used to be a metal dining, you know, like one of them Worcester cars.

Yeah, well, Francis gave me a picture of it, a beautiful picture of the front.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Somebody in it, but it's a nice clear shot. You know, I belonged to the early Ford V8 Club. And they're all old.

I think the average age there, the average age is about 63. All right, they're all old time. We all loved the old Fords.

And I was in there the other night and this guy, Bob, oh, geez. Why don't we suck up a conversation? He was from Littleton.

And we started throwing names around. Well, by golly, I knew more people and he knew more people than we both knew, you know. You know this one.

Yeah, you know that one. And then he was telling me about the Monarch Diner in Littleton. And he says, a guy, we're going way back.

He says, a guy by the name of Johnny DeCola. I said, you know, that rings a bell. Johnny DeCola.

I says, Eddie Damracchi was a cook. He says, how do you know Eddie Damracchi? I said, well, my father worked there.

He says, what's your father's name? I said, Paul McGovern. He says, you have Paul McGovern?

He says, your father worked there. I said, yeah, I know, when I was a kid back in the 40s. And this guy, he isn't his age. But, you know, it's a small world. And I said, yeah, because my father worked down Waltham. He said, yeah, I remember Eddie Damracchi going down there and Johnny DeCola going down to Waltham.

I said, well, I can remember as a kid my father dragging us down. We stayed in a little apartment once in a while my father did cooking down there and my mother dragged us all down there. But a small world, you know, when you start talking about different things like that.

But that's going way back. Now, let's see. Okay, I told you about Cushman.

I told you about Charlie. The DeAmicis used to own the Paramount Diner. The DeAmicis, the old man.

I remember the old man well. I can tell you stories. Funny stories.

Oh, McKay Library. I'll tell you about McKay. The guy that owned McKay Library was Stuart McKay.

He was a selectman in the town of Jensen. And Stuart, he was quite a craftsman. He used to make, I think he taught a little tech.

I'm not sure. But Stuart used to make looms. For the textilers.

He used to make them, hand make them. And the reason I know this is because I lived next door to Stuart and I was like his little son. He never had.

And I was always over at Stuart's house. He always had me over there. And he had a, I don't know, Mrs. Young. He had a live-in, she was either a live-in housemaid or she lived across the street with her daughter, Alva. And she'd come over and she'd make Stuart McKay's dinners and tend to the house, clean it for him. And Stuart had one of the biggest gun collections you ever want to see.

I don't know who got it, but somebody got a beautiful. He had machine guns and you name it. Stuart, all upstairs was guns.

Of every kind you can think of. He had a Gatling gun. But he had old Navy revolvers and everything else.

But Stuart had a little workshop over there on Wright Street and that's where he did all his working with looms, making them. And he'd take them over to Old Tech. I don't know what he did with them.

I was too young. But I'll tell you a little story. One time, he got the biggest laugh out of it.

I got a boot and a fanny for it. Stuart had a garage over there, right where Jimmy Robinson lives. And he had a, back during the war years, they used to paint the headlights half black.

And Stuart had a, he had a, I think it was a 41 Ford. And the headlights were half black. So I could go over there and never get in trouble because everybody always saw me around Mr. McKay's. And I went into his garage one day and he had a Model A parked in there. And I noticed the headlights weren't black like his 41. So I found some black paint in there and I proceeded to paint his headlights.

I was only a kid. Well, my father found out, you know. Stuart said, Paulie was over there.

He says, come over. What he did, he painted my car and he brought my father over and showed my father. Well, Stuart thought it was funny.

My father didn't think, oh, fuck. So I got a little bit of a thrashing for that. He wasn't driving that car, so that's why he didn't paint it.

He thought it was funny. But Stuart, he was a little bit of a mentor to me. He was a pretty nice guy.

And he always tried to teach me something. Of course, I was too young. He died when I was young.

Stuart died in the 40s. And I think Stuart probably died when I was nine years old, somewhere thereabouts. But he donated that building to the town.

The town ended up with it. And Mrs. Young, she ended up with the house across the street and her daughter, Alva. And I haven't seen them, oh, my God, since.

But Alva Young, they were very nice people. She was a smart girl, too, because she still owns them buildings down there, Alva. I hear she's pretty sick right now.

I don't know. But, you know, okay, I touched Roger Boyd, Stevie Baumholder, Charlie Dinnigan's alleys. You ever heard about the bowling alleys down there?

I used to set up pins down there for four cents a string. Oh, you did too, huh? Yeah, but I missed, I think, three cents a string.

I got more money. Okay. At a later time?

I set up pins down there. It was in the 50s, the early 50s. Pin boys.

We used to, all the kids would get out of school and you'd run down there. And Charlie Dinnigan, who lived in North Johnson, would pick out his crew. It all depends on when you got there.

And in the afternoons, he'd have six pin boys just to give guys. One for each alley? One for each alley.

He had six alleys there. But at night when the leagues came, three pin boys. One pin boy for two alleys.

He'd get the help of it because you could get hurt down there. When them pins started flying, I got bagged many a time. We used to stand up on the seats sometimes.

The worst guys you ever wanted was Bobby Dinnigan, the son. He would shoot a ball down there at the speed of sound. And when them hit them pins, them things went everywhere.

Guys were afraid to set up again, but we did it. But a lot of kids worked there. A lot of town kids worked there.

Now, when I get into the gas station there in North Johnson, most of the gas kids I hired were Johnson kids from the high school. I gave a lot of employment to a lot of kids. Some of them fanned out and some of them didn't.

But, you know, that was... So you had gas pumps out front? You had a repairer in the garage?

Yeah. We were the third biggest pumper in the state for Gulf Oil when I was there. Oh, really? Yeah. They told me that. Were you there when the traffic, when there was all the traffic, or was this after Route 3?

This is, I bought Freddy out. I started working in 1954, and I bought Freddy out in 1970. So in 1954 the traffic was still heavy, but by the time you bought it, Route 3 was still heavy.

It's still heavy. It's heavy now. I bought the place.

Because of the commuters, I guess. I bought it off Freddy. I'm going to tell you.

I think I bought it in 1978. 1978 is when Freddy asked me if I still wanted... I was doing electrical work at the time.

I had my own electrical business, and Freddy asked me if I was still interested in it, because he said, I remember you telling me when you were a kid, if I ever wanted to sell it to give you a shot. He says, are you still interested? I said, yep, because I know that's good property.

So I took it over, and I had to learn mechanics all over again because I had been out of it. But I did very well there. Gave a lot of kids jobs.

Quite a few kids from Chelmsford High School worked there, after school, weekends, you know. And we still got it. I still own it.

Quite a few stories come out of that place, you know, over the years. Is there anything else I can... Did Jerry Cowgill work there for you?

I put Jerry in business.

He's my mechanic.

Is he?

Yeah.

You ask him about McGovern. I call him up one day. He was working on a shell station in Chelmsford.

He was working for, what the hell is his name? Well, I forget. But anyway, I said, I hear you'd like to go into business for yourself.

Yeah, I'd like to, but I got no money. I said, come over here and talk to me. So he come over, and I talked to him.

And I says, you want to go into business, you come over here. I'll put you in business. And I meant what I said.

I put him in business. He had all the equipment. He took over, and then I worked for him for a while, and I got him to know all the customers.

And one day McDonald's come along, and McDonald's wanted the place. I had a lot of people want that place. But McDonald's come in there, and Jerry got a little nervous.

And I said, hey, Jerry, if I'm going to sell it, I'm going to give you first shots at it. And McDonald's made me an offer, which I'm glad I didn't sell it now. McDonald's made me a good offer.

And I said, I presented it to Jerry cheaper. But at the time, his bookkeeper says, you can't do it. But I prove him wrong today.

Jerry should have grabbed it. But I'm glad he didn't because I stayed there, and I'm still getting rents. But after that, I went back into business, ran it for a few years, and then I put Mark Ryan in business.

I did the same thing for Mark because I knew his father-in-law. This is a 2B father-in-law. So Mark's in the shop now?

He's up there in Tyngsboro. Oh, in Kingsborough, okay. No, Jimmy Jarvis.

Jarvis, his uncle-in-law, and she got a Beware, and they went up in there. But Jimmy is in down, me and Ty was there in down there. So when Jerry left, he went over Pasadena?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I moved over there with him. Chick Chambers owned that building years ago.

Do you remember Chick Chambers? No, I don't. Real stuff.

Yeah, Chick was in there. And then I'll tell you who else went in there. It was a glass company that's still in business.

Then Jerry bought it. But that was a glass company. They used to replace glass in cars, you know.

Anything else about it? Well, of course, you know about Robert Hall down here. No, tell me about it.

I remember when I was there, but I didn't. When I was a kid, my uncle Howard Buckley, who lived in Chelmsford, Robert Hall was in Cambridge, and it was a great big, it was new. It was a huge clothing store.

I don't think they were women's. I think they were strictly men's. But they were huge, and they did very well.

And they were down in Cambridge, and, geez, lo and behold, they opened one up in Mount Chelmsford. And a lot of people went there. Robert Hall closed.

It was well known. It was on the radio and everything. But that was a Robert Hall store for years.

And then it went out. And, you know, people still, some of you have said, well, where do you live? I said, you remember where Robert Hall used to be?

Oh, yeah. I said, well, you take a left there. Well, it's so out of place to see what was an early franchise of a major company.

Yeah, and they were out of business. Well, the location has got to be pretty poor. Route 3 traffic.

After they went out. Not much traffic headed up that road, is there? Other than commuting time.

Used to be. That road? Used to be, yes.

That was a busy road. It's busy. It's still busy because you've got a lot of people coming.

If there's an accident on the highway. Then they'll bail out. They all bail out and they come down through there.

So when did they build that building? That building was built. I'm going to tell you approximately.

That building was probably built in 1954, 55. Right around in there.

Before Robert Hall?

Robert Hall, yeah. And after that was Robinson's Furniture. I remember that.

We actually bought some furniture there when they closed shop. And they had a liquidator come in and we bought it. Up the street from that was a Dairy King.

You know where Bruno's is now? Katie O'Connell's Pub? Yes.

That originally was a Dairy King. There was a Dairy Queen over here. That was a Dairy King.

I stopped for the heavy traffic back in the old days. What's that? The Dairy King.

That was on a heavily traveled road. Yeah. And then after the Dairy King left there, of course there was a Dairy Queen.

Dick, I could tell you the guy's name that owned that because I did electrical work down there. It caught on fire one time and I rewired it for him. But anyway, the Dairy King was up here.

And then after that, a taxidermist went in there. And then there was a coin shop in there. And that's all in North Chelmsford.

No, wait a minute. No, that's in Tyngsboro. Tyngsboro, yeah.

Oh, we're close enough. We call it North Chelmsford. It's local.

Yeah. But just like here, everybody said, you were a native of Tyngsboro. I said, no, I'm not a native, but I'm not a blow-in either.

I said, I'm a roll-in. I said, because I lived in North Chelmsford. You know, when I was a kid, a lot of these kids around here went to Chelmsford schools, you know.

Tyngsboro didn't have a school. On the other side of the bridge, they went to Lowell. On this side of the bridge here, they went to Chelmsford schools.

Then, of course, they got their own school. They opened up the Winslow, and they had their own school. But was it the high school? All the kids around here from Tyngsboro went to Chelmsford schools when I was a kid, you know. But it was always like that. Let's see.

Anything else I could tell you? Well, I had a couple of questions, if you want to just divert for a second.

One was relative. You mentioned a police station where the fire station is now. There was a Civil War-era school building that was probably before your time.

Was there a police station built there between the school and the town hall, between the school you went to, Princeton Street?

Oh, Princeton Street, yes. And the town hall. You mentioned a police station.

What building was that in? The police station? Yeah.

Oh, over in Chelmsford Center. The old town hall. Oh, you're talking about the old?

The old town hall is where the police station was. Yes, I got you. Okay, so that wasn't referencing?

No, not North Chelmsford. There was never, to my knowledge, a police station in North Chelmsford, not from the 40s on up. No, it was actually in the brick building.

They had a satellite police station. Oh, yeah.

Oh, they called it that, didn't they?

Yeah, that was. Teddy Balo was on that building. Teddy died, and he gave it to this girl I know.

She used to work in a bank down there. It was a screwed-up deal, but she owns it now. But, yeah, down there was a satellite station.

You know, there was some grant money available, and they grabbed it, and they put cops in there. All it was was an eating station. They used to pull the shades down, and you're lucky, and they had the TV, and then you're lucky if you could get any service out of it.

It was just a, you know. Well, recently, there was a flower shop in there. A good friend of my wife's had a flower shop.

Oh, is that right? Yeah, I think she's gone. That was only there for a year or two.

Originally, there was a highway store in there. Alice Green used to mistletoe that. Alice Green?

I don't think so. She owned a highway store. But she used to work.

Maybe you did. I just forgot. There used to be Quinn's.

Okay. And then directly across the street where the flower shop was, the whole bottom floor was a highway store. And I'll tell you who owned it.

Cafiso opened it up. He used to work for Quinn. No, we're not talking the building that Powers was in.

We're talking about the building that Jimmy Quinn was in? Jimmy Quinn's Highway. Highway, yeah.

Okay. Directly across the street, that brick building, you're talking about? Right.

The flower shop? It was a bank. I remember.

First bank. It was the first bank. And then it went to the Shawmut Bank.

Yep. And then they moved out. Yes.

And they went down low. But originally, down on the bottom floor, back in, I would say, the late 40s, that was a hardware store. That whole bottom floor was a hardware.

And the guy that opened that up was a guy named Cafiso. And he opened up. After he left there, of course, you had competition too close, and you just couldn't support the two of them.

So Cafiso packed up and he went to Wilmington out there on Route 38. Right when he hit the Wilmington line, he had a big hardware store there, and he did well. But he's from Chelmsford, too, Cafiso.

He just died. He had a daughter, Cafiso. But after that, Jeeves has been a dessert.

Hairdressing shop in Arnall. It's a friend of my wife's that had that. And Teddy Balo had a chiropractor shop upstairs.

I remember I went up there with a sore back. I come out of there worse than ever. And I love Teddy.

He told me he was going to hurt. So I had a hard time getting out of the building. But, oh, Jeeves, there's so many memories in our Chelmsford.

There's just too many of them to remember them all, you know. I have a question. You mentioned the downhill side of the dam at Freeman Lake.

You talked about the gates and so on. Yeah. You went there.

You played there down by the tracks and where Stoneybrook went by. That's where it blew out. That's where it blew out.

So I'm just wondering, were there any signs of the old Boston Ice Company left over? Yeah, there were. And I got pictures of the Boston Ice Company.

You got pictures of that? I scanned some of the Georgia. I'll tell you what I remember when I was a kid over by the Boston Ice.

There was remnants, and you could see it when the lake went down, pillars, telephone pole-type pillars going out in the water. Yeah, they used to have a pier. We got a pier near one of George Merrill's ancestors.

Yeah, and they were still there when I was a kid. And you had to be careful if you were fishing. You always catch your plug on it.

And you had to be careful swimming around. You could get hurt, you know. But then you went over to the gates.

Of course, when I was there, when I was a kid, they had pulled. All that was there now was the upright with the cogs for the gears, and they used to raise the gates and lower them. The gates had been taken out.

There was some framework there. Part of the gates was still there because they had a steel ladder that went up, and we used to all climb it. And that was a favorite swimming place for the North Chelmsfordn people over to the gates.

You either went to the bathhouse, what they call Sandy Beach. It was always called Sandy Beach. And the people of North Chelmsford, it's still Crystal Lake.

They'll never call it Freeman, you know. And I knew Bruce. I even used to do his electrical work.

Now, the Ice Company Barn Foundation is there.

George showed me that. He said there was a florist, kind of like a Lawton's, and he used to work for them.

Where? As you're approaching the pond. Oh, that was Moore, old man Moore.

Oh, yes. Yeah. Bobby Moore, his son, I went to high school with him.

Okay. He had a nursery business. Yeah, he did.

Right as you went over the bridge, right in front of you. The barn that was there, the horse barn for the Ice Company. There was a big barn there.

And Bobby Moore, who I went to grammar school and high school with, we used to always wait until his father went to bed. Then we took his 49 Oldsmobile out, and we used to race it down along the lake down there, all down the dirt. We were only 13, 14 years old.

He let you drive it around. He didn't let us drive it. We just took it.

It's a wonder we didn't crack it up. We used to fly up and down them dirt roads. It was all dirt roads down through this.

Yeah, that was Moore. He died. He had a lot of ferns in there.

He used to do a lot of work where they had ferns, and he'd make up these things from my memory. And then there were baskets with a lot of ferns and balsam and stuff like that. I forget what he did, but it was.

Yeah, he used to make them up. I remember that well. Oh, yeah.

That was right next to the gates. The gates were a favorite place when I had my garage.

The gates are in the canal. I'll have to go back and revisit because I don't remember ever seeing those.

Right as it enters Crystal Lake, there's all granite on the other side.

Yeah, there's granite. And it's been filled in because the fellow that has the house up the hill from where the canal is. I don't remember.

It doesn't ring a bell.

But he built the cottage, and he had access through another man's driveway. Logan's. The other guy shut him off and said, You're not using my driveway anymore.

So he was forced to go to the town and request permission to bridge the canal. So it had already been filled with dumped matter, and he was driving across. He has permission to actually fill it and improve it, which he did.

How did he fix it up? Where Pete the barber had his house across the street was a duplex. And somebody by the name of Logan and Belita lived on the other side.

To get up to that house on the hill you're talking about, you had to go through that over to the right of the house. And there was a road that went up over to that house on top of the hill. And that's what you're talking about.

So Peter lived up in that neighborhood?

Peter lived on the bottom. He just sold that house a year ago. But he lived right on the canal.

Pete did. But his mother and father lived over there in Groton Road, right next to Miskell, right across the street. Peter Richiardi.

Peter knows quite a bit about it. Of course, he's younger. I'm a little older.

When I see him, I tell him, you know, Pete, my consolation is I know you're always going to be older than I am. I think he's about a month older than I am. He used to work with Bobby.

Bobby Shine, he was from North Chelmsford, too. Him and Bobby were in business together. Then they had a fallout.

But Bobby lived on Swain Road, North Chelmsford. The dump. There's another thing I can tell you about the dump. Years ago, old Dinky Moore, he was the dump keeper. Swain Road? Swain Road, yeah.

We used to call it the dump road. People that lived on that road didn't like that when you called it the dump road, especially Mrs. Ostman. She'd always correct you.

If you said the dump road in front of her, she'd say, please, that's Swain Road. They're all dead now, the Ostmans. Geez, they're all dead now.

And I knew them. They're Swedes. And nice people, because they used to hang around Barry.

But we used to go to the dump years and years ago. That's back in the late 40s, too. Early 50s.

Dinky Moore was the dump keeper. And he had a little shanty there. He used to live in it a lot.

He was always down the pound line, down the bucket, then up to the dump. But I can remember going in there when we were kids at night with .22s. That's when you could walk around the streets with a .22, and nobody would even bother you. It was normal to see a kid going down a street with a rifle in his hand.

But we used to go in there. That was the town dump. And we used to go in there late at night, and you could hear the rats.

And we used to bring flashlights with us. And a couple guys had spotlights. And we used to turn them on.

You could see the rats, and we used to start shooting them. At night, of course, their houses weren't there then. And nobody bothered you.

You'd be over there at night shooting, and nobody bothered you. But today, you never get away with that. It's all shut down anyway.

The town still owns the property. But at a bunch of old sportsmen's clubs, I used to be a member there too. And Scotty Hollow.

Scotty Hollow, that's what it is now. See, that was all there. We used to walk all through there when we were kids.

There used to be water coming in there one time. I forget where. There used to be a little pond in there.

Probably over near the highway. See, the highway wasn't there then.

I think George mentioned there was a small pond, and he thinks there was a small mill between that pond and Swain's Pond.

Is that right? Yeah, he thinks there was a little dam structure above Swain's Pond. Swain's Pond, that's what I was telling you.

We used to call it La Rose Pond. Oh, okay. L-A-R-O-S-E, La Rose.

Miskell said that. It was La Rose Pond. It wasn't Swain's Pond.

When I was a kid, we used to go fishing there. Coming out of there, it goes underneath Dunstable Road, and there used to be trout down there, because that came from all the way up over here. That's where the Wikasakee Mill used to be, Wikasakee Works Mill, right on the other side of Dunstable Road.

Oh, is that where it was? Yeah, you can see the wall, the foundation wall.

Yeah, all right. That's in back of Eddie's house there, yeah. What was it?

For about 10 years, he built turbines there. Oh, is that right? It was small turbines that were like the equivalent of a one, two-horsepower electric motor.

Oh, wow. So he pretty well perfected those, had patents. I actually got a copy of a patent from somewhere in Michigan on the Internet.

Oh, yeah? And I've got a trade business card that shows a picture of one of his turbines. I don't really want to pout when I'm at this time, but I've got an old chunks of ginger ale bottle.

I can't see through it. I have a small collection of chunks of ginger ale. Yeah, I have that.

My favorites are mugs that they had that were promotional mugs. Yeah. I keep using those pencil holders.

Oh, how about you get the old... Several generations of bottles with the stoppers. Yeah.

You get the Old Tercentennial 1955 book. You got that. You must have that.

Yeah, I do. Actually, I don't have it myself, but I scanned the entire thing. It's on my website.

I still got mine, 1955. I still got it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I kept it. I got a set of Canada Dry hubcaps up there in my garage there. Remember the moon hubcaps?

Yeah. They were like spun aluminum. So were these on the trucks?

Passed. We used to have them for hot rods. Moon caps, they used to call them.

They were just spun aluminum, flat. That said Canada Dry on them? I still got them.

I still wrap that and it says Canada Dry on them. Yeah. How would you like to donate those to the Historic Society someday?

I may. Yeah. That would be neat.

I still got them. Because we've got a pretty good exhibit of... They're still in my...

...piles of ginger ale. They're still in the... They come like in a bag, a Bemis bag like wrapped.

I still got them over there, brand new. Yeah, I could consider that. I'm getting the age now because, like you said, it don't mean nothing to the younger generation.

They see something... It's heartbreaking when you find out somebody had stuff and then let their family get rid of it. Yeah.

I still got... I got downstairs an old Hobbit beer bottle. It was still a beer.

We found it one day. I had a backhoe business years ago, and I got it somewhere. I don't know if I was digging, but I used to find a lot of bottles when I was an electrician putting plugs in houses.

Stevie Burns, he's a Chelmsford . I did some work over there at South Chelmsford , and I was trying to put my snake down the wall and it kept clanking. What is that?

So I shimmied over and I looked down there. It was a balloon frame filled with bottles. The whole wall was...

So the contractors, as they were... Who knows what.

Maybe insulation.

Maybe they figured it was good insulation. I got as many as I could, but the whole house is lined with bottles of water. So they did it intentionally.

It wasn't just disposal. Yeah. That's bizarre.

But I got some old medicine bottles with a label still on them. I got them, yeah. I got all of them. What else did I get from Chelmsford ? See, my uncle Bucky Howard, he lived on High Street.

He used to be a mailman at Chelmsford . Friend of Francis? Yeah, he knew my uncle. Yeah. But he's over there on... Well, no, he didn't want to be on...

One of these days I'm going to have his name put in the veterans pack. We all donated to that. All the businessmen when they built that.

The Vietnam? Yeah, yeah. The one over there next to the old police station.

That's a nice little veterans pack. Oh, that? Okay, you're talking about...

Memorial, yeah. Yes, it is a nice park. Yeah.

Me and a lot of the businessmen. John Harrington. You know John?

Yes. John's a good friend of mine. Is he?

Oh, yeah. He's up here all the time. As a matter of fact, he just called me the other day.

He calls me almost every day, John. He just sold three of his cars. And he always gives me first shots.

That's my old truck in his store.

Oh, is it?

I was just going to say, that truck is beautiful. That's my old one. I put it in there for him.

I put his car bed in there for him. I wired up his house for him when he built that house on Boston Road. That's going back a few years.

What number is that? Do you remember? Boston Road.

Is that... I wonder if it's one of our historical homes. He used to always tell everybody it was across the street from the red bomb with the clock.

Okay. Gotcha. I forget what number.

I used to... I know where that is. Right there.

John owns all that property now. He owns his mother's house, Louise, who's dead. And I put an alarm system in there for her.

And she was a good old gal. And then the father, Jim, he was the matriarch. I met him when he had the little...

Do you remember? He had a liquor store right in downtown Chancer. Farrington Wine & Liquor was a little store.

Did you ever get that? Vaguely. Well, it's right there and right where the stream goes by.

v Yeah, near what used to be Paige's Drugstore. Was there a... Yeah, it was right next to Paige's Drugstore.

And I'll never forget the date. It was John... It was not John, but Dennis.

Dennis said to me that his father needed some electrical work done in the package store. I didn't know the guy. And I went in there, and Dennis introduced me to him.

And, of course, he looked at me. I was young. He told me he wanted it this time.

And he says, You think you can do it? Yeah, I can do it. I was working for Normandy.

I always do night work. And I went in there and did some electrical work. He was thrilled.

He was happy what I did. And that started. I was part of the group. I was invited in there, and used to have the little back room crowd. You know, not mention any name, but if you were invited into the back room, they were all in there, you know, partaking. But if you were invited in, you were in with them.

But it took off from there. I got to meet John. We used to go down to Hawaii together, work out.

One thing led to another. You know, we've become friends over the years. That's great.

Still friends. Paul, your two hours is complete. Well.

Appreciate it. I don't know if I can fill you in. It sounds like I'm selling myself here.

No, no, that's great. I'm telling you local stories. What I know about North Chelmsford, the days when the Paramount played a big part in North Chelmsford.

Paramount and Balos, they were a big part of the Chelmsford people because that was where the kids went. And the old, the quarry, all the quarry workers went there. Boy, they went in there by the gross, cashing their checks.

You know. Those were the days. Everybody had to eat. And the trucking, all the Leahy's trucks from Fletcher's Quarry. Leahy used to haul all the granite out of there. And North Chelmsford, I can remember when I was younger, the whole square was loaded with tractor-trailer trucks and all parked on the side of the road down Middlesex Street, everywhere, because they were in the diner.

It was one of the only places where you could get a breakfast. They load up at the Fletcher's. Blue Line Express coming down from Nashville, they all stopped in North Chelmsford. Because see, you had to go through North. If anything from up in Nashville was going to Boston, you had to go through North Chelmsford. All the Red Sox, the Birdie Tebbets and all of them that used to play for the Red Sox, they used to stop at the diner down here.

My father introduced me to Birdie Tebbets one time. He was a catcher for the Red Sox. But they all went through North Chelmsford.

Yeah. Well, thank you for all those terrific stories, Paul. And...

I'll talk to you on that thing. If you want to go over and take pictures of it