Globusz^® Publishing 

This story cannot be complete without showing something of what happened to my life after leaving ISSCS. The effect of living in that institution is reflected many times throughout my life. I am sure it might have been entirely different had I lived in a normal and safe family situation. If there were one redeeming thing, it would be having respect for family and true brothers and sisters. I was able to see the difference in families I met and what I had endured to realize this.

Shortly after moving from Washington cottage and into boys row, I was told I and my brother were going to live in a foster home in Mendota just north of Normal about 70 miles and on a farm. Once during an interview with a welfare worker, I stated I would love to live on a farm. What surprised me was that this couple had sixteen children of their own. Most had already gotten married and lived away from the farm. There were five still living there when we moved in.

I am sure the state did not give all the details about my sexual orientation and problems I had at the home. To this date, this family still does not know about it. There are only five left alive and I doubt any of them will read this book. My brother Richard does know and has no problem with any of it. For the first time in our lives, we were going to allow living together. The state welfare did not feel too comfortable with this, thinking we would not get along. They thought my brother would be too dominating, but they were wrong.

The Hochstatters were a very devote catholic family. It was the Priest and pastor of the local Catholic Church the state used to find a family to take us in. There were several others who might have, but the state selected the Hochstatters. This was a German Irish family. I never really got the feeling we were accepted by the parents as anything more than a charity thing for the church. Most of the sons and daughters treated us like their own brothers and a few simply did not like us at all. It was still a better way to live than in the state home. I have great respect for this family and considered them as real family regardless of the difference in feeling some had towards my brother and I.

It is ironic that my brother was accepted better than me due to looking more white and not Italian looking like me. I remember the first day we were paraded down the church isle on Sunday for mass. We all sat in the front pews and I could sneak a look and see everyone staring at us. I was the big attraction since was the only Italian in the entire parish. Of course everyone wanted to see the two boys the Hochstatters had taken in. They were very proud then of this and certainly enjoyed the scene. After the mass in the front of the church, we were the big show for the day!

When it came to religion, I never embraced it very much. I did not feel the faith was really doing much for most people and certainly nothing for me. Over the years I studied comparative religions and human societies and patterns. I attended some college for metallurgy, engineering and philosophy of science and comparative religions. I have several on line books published on these subjects. You can read them by putting my name on Google and they are free to read.

I attended one year in the parish catholic school and graduated from the eight grade there. It was a two-room school and the nuns were the teachers. I did not like it one bit and I am sure the nuns were glad to see me gone. That school closed to lack of funding later. Now I know I had learning problems due to stress and trauma as a child. Actually I did very bad in school and just could not get into learning things. That would change fast after getting into the US Navy after high school.

I attended the local high school in the town of Mendota and graduated in the usual four years. I just turned eighteen when I graduated. I loved living on the farm and learned how to drive tractors and do field work. My brother never learned to drive a tractor and now I think he did that on purpose since he was not excited about doing fieldwork. Taking care or the chickens, livestock and helping when planting crops or harvesting them was fun for me. But I did realize that the farm was not going to be my life after school.

In the spring, I had to spend a few hours after school with the tractor doing fieldwork to prepare it for planting corn, oats or soybeans. We had the old John Deere two-cylinder tractors and I loved driving them. They were called Johnny poppers due to the engine noise. My brother never did any of this. And I am sure he didn't care. I figured out later the Hochstatters thought I would never amount to as much as my brother, so he did homework while I did field work. I did lousy in school because of this.

Summer work on a farm is very hard and hot and dirty. The hot humid summer and making hay made for a bad time. The hay bales where heavy and the sweat and hay chaff made for lousy work. I can say most farm boys were in good physical condition. I believe they stayed healthier than the boys in town. Their social life was a little cut off. I did meet a neighbor girl once and as green as I was, we managed to secretly experiment and have sex together. I was scared I might have gotten her pregnant and never said anything about it to anyone. She did not get pregnant and is married to an old friend of mine now and has her own family. That is one secret that will stay that way. I have never seen her since then.

While living on the farm and in high school there was the summer event of the Sweet Corn Festival in our hometown of Mendota. Del Monte had a large canning factory in the town and donated around 14 tons of their sweet corn to the city. This was still in the husk and was simply piled up in stacks at the cooking stations. They used large steel cattle watering tanks (new ones), filled with water that was heated to boiling by old-fashioned steam tractors pumping boiling water into the tanks. The local dairy provided free butter and salt. One could have all the ear corn one wanted and it was really good, was a mess of husk and corncobs to be cleaned off the streets the next day. This still takes place every year.

I became a close friend from the neighbor farm boy. His family name was Andrews. He was he great grandson of Wild Bill Hickock. There was a small town called Troy Grove near our farms and it was Wild Bills birthplace. It was originally called Homer. Once we found a box of old country records in an old one-school building that was going to be torn down. It had lots of records and even some pictures of Wild Bill. We took them back to our farm and showed them to Mr. Hochstatter. One of the boys recommended he contact a fan of Wild Bill and see if he would buy them. He was interested and came to the farm and bought all of them for $5,000 dollars. We did not get a penny of it.

Do remember the hayrack rides while in high school too. Lots of guys met their future wives on these rides! Was fun and was usually a fall time ride. Some farmer would use his tractor and hayrack to have these. Managed to get on two of them while in high school. After graduation from high school, I joined the Navy and that is later in the book.

After the Navy before and moving west, I was involved in many civil activities. I was a volunteer fireman, civil defense director and a few other activities. I was also taking Karate at that time in a local Do Jo for Korean karate. At this time I was looking for a move west and away from farm country. One morning in September, I surprised my brother that I was leaving for Phoenix Arizona! I packed up and drove west! Fortunately a family I knew in Mendota had moved there earlier and let me stay with them until I got settled.

What was being suppressed all this time was my attraction to males. I did not understand it and was having a hard time keeping it to myself. I did not want anyone in the family to know I liked both boys and girls. They would not have liked it and may have told me to get out permanently. They were devoted Catholics and the boys were typical macho men. I would never have any sexual encounters outside of the previous girl till after I was in the US Navy. Actually I knew little about such sex and how to do it right. One encounter is not a good teacher.

Attending Mendota Community High School was not an exciting part of my life. I was a below average student since I had little interest at that time in schooling. After attending class A school in San Deigo in the Navy, my interest in science, engineering and other areas grew. Now any schooling was a challenge I wanted. I managed to receive several degrees in three areas in college. That would be Business Administration, Industrial/Manufacturing and Philosophy of Science.

The one high school teacher I can remember was Miss Pottinger. She was the practical math and English teacher. Now I can see her as an old fashioned teacher. She used to love having fresh flowers on her desk. As somewhat bad kids, we would pour black ink in the water and watch it work its way into the leaves veins and finally kill the poor flowers. It really made her mad when we did this. She really was a great teacher though and that is why I still remember her. I am sure she never envisioned me going to college.

My brother was an extremely good and natural artist and loved doing watercolors. I had no such talents. He still is doing artwork and some for the city of Mendota. He designs and draws the decorations for annual Christmas tree ornaments and other events. He is considered the town’s artist. He liked doing nature artwork as birds, animals and rural and country paintings. He is extremely good and has sold some of his painting. I have been trying for over 50 years to get one of his paintings, so far no luck.