Humans of my family: Joseph Kelley

 

Part (1/6): “I was born in Boston during World War II in 1944 in Roxbury. My father was a lieutenant commander in the Seabees, a construction unit in the Navy. When he came home from the war, he was an engineer. The first thing he did was get his wife and child out of Boston and the reason he did that was in those days, Boston was a backward city economically and he felt it was going nowhere. Throughout his career at AT&T, he moved the family several times. It was tough on my brother and me because we were constantly the new kids in school. For example, in kindergarten, we lived in a town called Ramsey, New Jersey because my father worked in New York. In first grade, we lived in Virginia because my father was transferred to the Washington D.C. office. In second grade we lived in Brookline, Massachusetts because my father had a fellowship to go to MIT to get his master's degree paid for by AT&T. He studied with these guys from a lot of major corporations. So that was second grade, and then third grade, back to New York. In the third grade, I was in this Catholic School in Ridgewood, New Jersey with a nun who used to beat the hell out of us with a long yardstick. Her name was Sister Maria Concepta, she was this horrible old lady with loose teeth and bad breath. And then he got transferred to Denver, Colorado for the last half of third grade and the first half of fourth grade. In Denver, they sent me to another Catholic school but the nuns there were pretty nice. Instead of forcing the catechism down your throat, they read Bible stories and they taught lessons, moral lessons, they were nice. It was fun living out there in the mountains and he would take us on trips. Then, back to New York for the last half of fourth grade to a great public school, Ridgewood school system. I loved that school because it was two blocks from my house and my brother Rob and I used to walk every day. It was great, the teachers were great. Just as we were settling down, he moved us again to the next town, Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey. So now I'm in New Jersey for fifth, sixth, and seventh grade. Finally three whole years in one school, I had lots of friends and was having a great time. He comes in one night and says we're moving to Pennsylvania because he got transferred to the Philadelphia office. So now I got to spend eighth grade with all these kids I didn't know. Then, he let us know that we're moving back to Ho-Ho-Kus because he's getting transferred back to New York. I spent my high school years in this town. My mother mostly was the evil genius behind this idea to send me to an all-boys Catholic High School, Bergen Catholic High School. Those were the worst years of my life, I hated that school. It was run by the Irish Christian Brothers who believed in physical punishment. I made some good friends there, people who I'm still friends with because we all went through the bullshit together.”

Part (2/6): “I hated school so much that while all my friends went to college, I decided I didn't want to go to school. I went to work in a warehouse loading trucks and I did that for about four months in one warehouse, and then I found a better job that paid more. The minimum wage was $1.25, that's what I was making, but then I heard of this job in a town called Hackensack. I joined the Teamsters Union and instantly my wages went from $1.25 to $2.12. So now, I'm a member of one of the toughest unions in the United States. I met all these guys at the warehouse, and they taught me more than my teachers had. They said you know kid, you can go to college. If you don't go to college you're going to end up like us loading trucks and pushing boxes, is that what you want for the rest of your life? Ultimately, they were the ones who influenced me to go to college. I went to Boston College and spent four years there, it was a great time. I loved it and graduated in 1967, but there were no jobs.” 

Part (3/6): “I was an English major, so I wanted to go into publishing or advertising, but there were no jobs. One day I happened to see a notice on a bulletin board at BC for English teachers wanted at Malden Catholic High School. Well, the idea of teaching was ludicrous be- cause I hated high school. Even more ludicrous, the job offer was at a Catholic High School and I hated the Catholic High school I went to, but it was all that I could get. So I went, and within two days I loved it. I had this instant bond with these kids and I simply decided that what I would do as a teacher, I would do everything the total opposite from what my teachers had done. I spent four years in Malden Catholic, and one year at Danvers High School up here in the North Shore. Then after that, I went to graduate school for two years, got my Master's Degree, and I did a residency requirement for my doctorate, which I paid for because I was on a fellowship. They paid for my tuition and books but in return, I had to train student teachers. The second year was when I started working on my doctoral thesis, about teaching propaganda in public schools which was something I always made part of my course. I taught the kids the difference between propaganda and information, and between reporting and bias. Then, I went back to work where I taught for a year at Acton-Boxborough Junior High School, and then I got my dream job at Lexington High School, one of the best school systems in the country. I was there from 1975 to 2003 when I re- tired and loved it, it was a great career.”

Part (4/6): “I met Melanie when I was probably 19 or 20. You know, I didn't want a steady girlfriend at the time. We talked for a little bit, but we didn't seem to find much to talk about so it didn't look like that was going anywhere. My girlfriend at the time left to go to Australia for a year. One day, it was I think the summer going into senior year, right before school started. Andy, a friend of mine, called me up and said he was going out with Melanie's friend Janet and explained that Melanie was moving to Connecticut to help her mother because her par- ents were going through a divorce. So Andy and I jumped into this U-Haul with the girls and drove down to Melanie's house. We unload the furniture from her apartment and we spent the weekend working, drinking beer, and eating food; we had a good time. Melanie and I hit it off. We started going out and pretty soon she moved in with Andy and me. That was my senior year in college. Andy went home for a weekend and Melanie and I woke up together one Saturday morning, and she said, "You know I don't think we can go on like this."
"What are you talking about? I said.
"Well, I think that living like this together is going to become problematic."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I think we should get married."
    
    And being a dumb young guy, I said yeah okay. Just like that. I didn't want to lose this beautiful girl, I loved her, I was in love by this time, and that was the end of my single life. I was the last guy that was going to get married, but she hooked me. We got married in New Canaan, Connecticut in June of 1967, and that was the year I started at Malden Catholic. She worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield and together during our first year of marriage we made $11,000. Our apartment at the time, a pretty cool little apartment, was $170 bucks a month. So we did fine, and then the next year we got another apartment rented on Beacon Street. Then, that summer of 1969, we drove across the country in a Dodge Dart. Andy just got back from the Army and Melanie, Andy, and I drove from Boston to California. The first day we drove 14 hours nonstop to Chica- go, the second day Chicago to Denver, then we hung out with our friends in Denver. Then, we drove from Denver to California. We got to Los Angeles first and stayed with my friend Al. Then we drove up the coast and ended up in San Francisco where we had a great time. This of course was during San Francisco's great late sixties flower child days. Then we drove up to Oregon, turned east, and then drove back to Boston. Six weeks, it was fantastic, we had a great time.” 

Part (5/6): “For the first nine months of Sarah's life, Melanie stopped working to take care of her and I was making a whopping $7,000 a year. We made just enough to get by. The apartment we had was not crappy. We moved out of the city to get a cheaper apartment, it was in Melrose, a pretty boring town, so then we moved back to the city. We got a job through our friends Betty and John running a dormitory, and that’s how we survived because I had no money for anything at the time, we even had to get rid of our car. So we lived on the bottom floor on Newbury Street and ran this dorm as the house parents. We had a two-year-old kid, and of course, all of the girls loved Sarah and took care of her. I can’t say we struggled. We didn’t care that we didn’t have any money. One time we went to the bank and looked at each other and laughed because we had seven dollars left in our account. We got free food, free meals, and free room and board. So we just barely scraped enough money together for beers on the weekend and that was it. We couldn’t even afford a bottle of wine. But who could? We didn’t care, we were in our twenties. When I worked at Danvers, even when Sarah was like two and a half, three, Melanie continued to stay home to take care of her. It wasn't until Sarah was in first grade that Melanie went back to work as a realtor for a while. When we were in Danvers, I went to graduate school and then we moved to Brookline. With me as a teacher making better money now in the public schools, and Melanie working as a secretary, we could afford a nicer apartment in Brook- line.” 

Part (6/6): “One of the bigger events that came later in my life, was in April 1999 when my granddaughter, Melanie, was born. That was a blast. One time, you were in your stroller and you looked at me and said “Pata!” This little tiny person. That’s when I felt great to be a grandfather. This little person knew me and my name, that she created of course.”