Abstract
Jim Camaris shares his experiences growing up in the Tremont neighborhood. Born in 1935 to Greek immigrant parents, Camaris discusses his family's cultural heritage and the strong sense of community that characterized his upbringing. He reflects on his education, local social activities, and the significant role of the church in his life. The narrative also addresses the challenges faced by residents during the mid-20th century, including economic hardships and the impact of World War II. Poor audio quality.
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Interviewee
Camaris, Jim (interviewee)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
2003
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
75 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Jim Camaris interview, 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223059.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1386
Transcript
Interviewer [00:00:01] Pronounce your name and spell it for us.
Jim Camaris [00:00:03] Yeah, my name is James E. Camaris. That’s C-A-M-A-R-I-S.
Interviewer [00:00:10] Thank you. What was your first memory of Tremont, first thing that you remember about the area?
Jim Camaris [00:00:16] Well, I go way back obviously. I was born in Tremont, 1928. Attended Tremont Elementary School, which was also a middle school, and went to Lincoln High School which at that time was on Scranton Road. The thing I probably remember through all the years I had lived there - I lived there all those years including going through high school before I went to college at Ohio University - was that diversified people there. What do I mean by that? We had Italians, Greeks, Croatians, Russians and there was, and all got along. There was no problem. And as I referred to it and others have referred to it on television. A good generation. What do I mean by that? Most of us are first generation and we about our parents doing something to us than anything else, so therefore compliance was 100%. So if a teacher ever called, God forbid, you’d just be crucified, which is much different than it is today. Very few bad stuff. In fact I don’t think any of us growing up even knew what juvenile court was, and maybe that would be because we didn’t have any money- [inaudible] -although we were adequately fed. There was never a problem [inaudible] in sports. But we just wanted to do well. Maybe that was our interpretation because our mother, my mother, was born from Greece and my father was Greek, and they didn’t have the education and we looked upon ourselves to maybe enhance ourselves and that’s what we did. So we didn’t have a problem. Very few if any ever got on any serious fight.
Interviewer [00:02:13] What was the first activity that you and your friends did?
Jim Camaris [00:02:17] Primarily sports. Since we didn’t have any bikes, cars or anything, a lot of us would go down to play baseball. Not like it’s played now like tee ball. No longer this day you played and there’s 20 guys made a lot. You’d have to wait to get back in as you coach the play to play. And myself When I was 17 years old there was about five or seven of us. We were playing [inaudible] at that time which at that time was equivalent of the nine wine. But you know they had good team. They each had at Lincoln High School. They never had a baseball team. Since we were so young playing such good high-class baseball, we formed the team at Lincoln the first time in 1945. Went to the state finals, lost one or nothing. Came back the next year won the state championship. So that’s most of where we get very involved in sports. And I would say academically all of us were good students.
Interviewer [00:03:15] Do you have Any remembers recollections of Lincoln Park area?
Jim Camaris [00:03:20] Yeah, yeah, of course, see you look at Lincoln Park now it’s got nice grass, everything. Back then it was cinders and rough ground, got a lot of bushes. That’s where we primarily learned how to play sports. In fact we had a football game there, sand [inaudible] You get burns and bruises, hit the ground. A lot of us like myself, where I played later at Lincoln, once we started playing on green grass of a football field, a lot of great athletes come out of Lincoln Park. I can mention some of ’em. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:04:13] Where did your, your, your parents work at? What kind of job did they have?
Jim Camaris [00:04:17] Well, my dad ran a shoe repair place and it was downtown on Huron Road. And hats. Hats and shoes. And my mother didn’t work. She took care of [inaudible] and an older brother, four years older than me. And my mother didn’t work- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:04:41] Did you share a house with any other family members, uncles, aunts?
Jim Camaris [00:04:46] Yes, I grew up on West 11th Street. My grandfather had not come over yet. Later when I moved to Kenilworth, yes, my mother’s father came over here because- Of course, my father at that time, when I was 7, passed away. Fell down and- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:05:11] So your mother and your-
Jim Camaris [00:05:13] Well, my mother, my mother with her, my grandfather, my brother and sister, we all lived together.
Interviewer [00:05:23] Then you, your brother and sister and you helped support the family after your father passed away?
Jim Camaris [00:05:29] My mother was drawing- They didn’t call it welfare at this time. She was on ADC for a while and yeah, we did a part-time jobs. I sold peanuts at the stadium. My brother did some part-time work. My aunt had a grocery store by the old baseball field, old League Park, East 66th and Lexington, and some of us worked part-time for the grocery.
Interviewer [00:06:06] When you were a teenager, where did - if you were lucky enough to have a date or a girlfriend - where did you go?
Jim Camaris [00:06:12] The big thing was weekends. The weekends were the downtown shows. That was a big thing. That’s where they had the shows, the Palace, State Theater, the Allen Theater. They had the Garden Show, of course, which is no longer there, right across Euclid. Gave birth to that church on West 14th. Right across from the State, but no longer there. [inaudible] Jennings Theatre [inaudible]. Or if we had enough time, we would get a streetcar. Not a bus. We had streetcars then. That was probably the best park ever, ever made in my opinion, and that is Cedar Point- [inaudible] You would take the streetcar, ride it for almost an hour. Excellent. All the facilities, the good, no rowdies in the park, and a lot of people got their start there. Perry Como-
Interviewer [00:07:38] Tell me more about the Euclid Beach, how it evolved throughout- [crosstalk]
Jim Camaris [00:07:44] Euclid Beach was not part of Tremont. Tremont is the area, the Lincoln School, the elementary school, the high school at the time was on Lincoln Avenue, not Scranton. Of course, as you know, it moved west, over on 41st and Clark. The park just had good food. They had wonderful rides, free to get in, bring your own food and all good rides and popcorn balls and so forth. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:08:20] Was it a group of people you went with?
Jim Camaris [00:08:22] Yeah, well, we all, like I was telling you, we grew up. Polish kids, different nationalities. And maybe, maybe one of them would borrow Barbara’s car. We would go out there. Before you could do that, you would ride the streetcar. We’re talking about a 45 minute ride at that time. There was also another park at that time on Puritas Road. [inaudible] Scariest ride ever. You would stand up on top. Roller coaster. And it was a wooden roller coaster. But what made it very unusual it would go and it would go past- It would go be in the daylight or whatever and then it would go down into the ground underneath. It would be dark, shoot down there for 30 seconds, then come straight up again. [inaudible] -on Puritas Avenue off West 150th. Very small place.
Interviewer [00:09:38] Tell about a couple of your friends. What you would do, like a typical day, after school and practice?
Jim Camaris [00:09:44] Well, I would go to school and obviously seeing there being no money basically they didn’t have cars or other things or computers and the various things everybody has today. First of all, we had our homework. A lot of us played sports, which I did. I played sports back then, basketball, baseball, football. Back then, of course, being a student athlete was a [inaudible] bottom of the barrel. [inaudible] Typical day would be that get around, play some kind of cards, maybe,play some baseball or go basketball at night. At Tremont we had Tremont Elementary School at a gymnasium. We worked out there, and on weekends we didn’t have any- We’d go to a movie theate. They were charging 25 cents. Either with the date or without a date. And a lot of us took up dancing of course. And as we got a little older we went to dancehall on West 25th and Clark, Aragon Ballroom, with all the bands including Merv Griffin. A lot of people don’t know Merv Griffin was one of the people in Hollywood- [inaudible] He was- He came with the band. He was a singer and- [inaudible] If you had a few bucks left, you played pool. There was the Garden Show, West 25th, Pearl Road, and Clark Avenue, and the Aragon Ballroom- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:11:58] Do you remember your prom very well?
Jim Camaris [00:12:00] Very well. Yeah. We- Four of my good buddies we went to elementary school, junior high school, high school. [inaudible] We wound up at a- There was a restaurant downtown, Alpine Village, [inaudible] and of course that was there. And then later some of the people booked a place for hayrides. That was out somewhere out on the west side, [inaudible]. And none of us got in trouble. There was no drinking. We weren’t sneaking out drinking or marijuana. Of course, back then all of us thought of marijuana as something Chinese people [inaudible] like heroin [inaudible]. And first of all, we couldn’t afford a pack of cigarettes and [inaudible]. And that’s another thing. Very few people smoked. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:13:05] How did you get there?
Jim Camaris [00:13:07] Somebody had a car. Here we go again. Oh yeah. One guy had a car, so four of us went in the car.
Interviewer [00:13:13] How was that? How was your ride to prom?
Jim Camaris [00:13:16] Well, it was good. Because the girls [inaudible], real nice girls, had a good time. We danced, laughed, and went out to the hayride and had a good time. Had some pop and so forth. I will confess, it was a couple of bottles of beer we had. That was it, but nobody- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:13:42] Talk a little bit about the Senate Championship Game at Cleveland Stadium. So that was at that time.
Jim Camaris [00:13:50] Well, you got to remember this. Lincoln High School was the, was the St. Ignatius teams and St. Edward’s teams of today. Now we’re going back starting about 1941 up to about ’46. We had a 26-game winning streak, undefeated, and played in a Charity Game. And we’re talking Charity Game back then had [inaudible] 65,000. One game went to 71,000, and 26-game winning streak was broken up by Cathedral Latin. They beat us. We had won the previous year in Collinwood and first year I played, we played Canton-McKinley, and we went down with our scrubby little uniforms- [inaudible] -which had two All Ohio players on it. They ran off the- [inaudible] -and they beat us 12 to 7. We were so elated that they came back and pushed me down Somehow they beat us but they never should’ve. We won the rest of our games including Holy Name. So at the end of the year we had the same record as Holy Name. [inaudible] But we had beaten them, so we should have gone to the Charity Game. Had a huge stadium. They decided back in 1946 they- [inaudible] So the teams we played, we had great football teams. As I alluded to you earlier, starting in 1945 the [inaudible] were playing Class A ball. I say Class A ball, back then there was class A, B, C, D, E, F, and a lot of us played with former major league ballplayers. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:16:06] Did you speak any other language or just English?
JIm Camaris [00:16:08] Oh yeah. [inaudible] I spoke Greek before I spoke English. [inaudible] [00:16:28] Oh yeah. That was true, I think, of most folks there by the way, that are- [inaudible] -spoke that language and so a lot of us are- [inaudible] [00:16:38] That’s why my wife, who was not Greek, when I saw the- [inaudible] -knew all the questions- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:16:51] Did you go to church and what church you go to?
Jim Camaris [00:16:54] Well, there was only one church and that was the mother church on West 14th- [inaudible] -Church of the Annunciation. [inaudible] Then the affluent people on the east side decided they wanted a church and they got St. Constantine and St. Helen, and the priest there, his son was George Stephanopoulos, who later became on President Clinton’s staff. [inaudible] People on the west side wanted a church so they put the one on [inaudible]. A lot of us in Tremont moved into Parma, North Royalton, and Parma Heights- [inaudible] So now we have, let’s see, 1, 2, 3- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:17:42] What were the functions of the church other than going there on Sundays? Like what other activities did you have?
Jim Camaris [00:17:47] Well, in fact that’s the reason a lot of Greeks grew up in the Tremont area which is [inaudible] the mother church. The guy owned the [inaudible], John Manos, a federal judge, lived on West 11th Street. I was born then I moved over to Kenilworth, which was the next street over. And it was mandatory to go to church. [00:18:11] I mean your mother took you. If you didn’t go you’d be dead. One thing I found about the church though, we didn’t have any pews so we would stand. We didn’t have a half-hour mass. Go there at 11 and get out at 1 o’clock. Standing. One day a good friend of mine, a Catholic kid, said come to my church. I went, and the mass is 11 to 11:25. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:18:41] Describe downtown Cleveland a little bit and how you got there.
Jim Camaris [00:18:45] Well, the only way we got there obviously was the bus. driver. [inaudible] West 14th Street, there was a bus that would go there. Well, a little later, but very earlier, when I was still young, streetcar. That was the affinity of everybody was going to [inaudible], because Euclid Avenue had everything. They had [inaudible], restaurants, they had Clark’s restaurant. You walked the streets, and like I alluded to earlier, had all these great shows. The Hippodrome, the Palace, State Theater, Allen Theater, good movies. Walk that street and [inaudible] going to Las Vegas or Atlantic City and walking on the boardwalk and it was great. I mean, they had food, so you could stop and eat. They had- Yeah, it was- Looked forward to it. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:19:48] Why did your parents move to Tremont and the Cleveland area?
Jim Camaris [00:19:52] Well, probably because that was the congregation. One family moved to Cleveland, moved there, and everybody said go to that area. They said you’d be with your people there, and that’s why they- The nucleus was really Professor, West 11th Street, Kenilworth, Starkweather, and the church was on West 14th- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:20:19] Was the mass spoken Greek too?
Jim Camaris [00:20:22] Yeah, well, mostly, 90% there was Greek. A lot of chanting and so forth, yeah. [chants in Greek] Long. None of these half hour- These are long masses. Later on they- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:20:48] Did you marry someone from Tremont?
Jim Camaris [00:20:52] No. No, I didn’t.
Interviewer [00:20:54] Where was she from?
Jim Camaris [00:20:56] She, my wife, [inaudible] she was from, let’s see, West Tech area. [inaudible] friend of mine at a dance, and when we did get married I was out of high school, then I went to Ohio University- [inaudible] Now, right now the Tremont people that lived in my area all moved to Parma, Parma Heights, and so forth. So if you take Valley Forge, Normandy, and Parma High School, that would comprise what would have been the Lincoln High School that was on Scranton Road. [inaudible] -stayed together at one school, we would- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:21:48] Did you- You spoke about the dances. How are those held and where?
Jim Camaris [00:21:54] Well, the one that I remember very vividly was Pilgrim Church. They opened their doors for us on, I think it was Friday nights. And I don’t know if it was on Saturday. Pilgrim Church is the one on West 14th and Starkweather. They played music there and it was open and- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:22:27] Was it kind of separate, like guys on one side and girls on the other and then someone-
Jim Camaris [00:22:32] No, no, no, no. Because. Because it was not pure dancing. In other words, you went there and some of the girls would be doing something and we would be playing ping pong or doing some other function. And we knew girls would be there. So it was a mixture. It was not per se dancing. Per se dancing was later on. That was Aragon Ballroom. But then that was the mixture of people, 40 years old, 35, then there were girls, 18, 19. And there wasn’t really much dancing. Nothing was forced. Now this is gonna be a dance and you gotta be there. Line up. No. None of that stuff. You wanna dance, you dance. If you don’t, you don’t.
Interviewer [00:23:18] After athletic events, where did you go? Did you go home or you go to someone’s house?
Jim Camaris [00:23:25] Yeah, I would probably go to one of the guys’ houses. I played sports with these fellas and then would say, Come on over the house, and you had a bigger home, let’s say or something, and just go there, play, talk about the game, [inaudible] sports, drink some pop or some popcorn. Very seldom beer. Very seldom beer. Nothing above that. No wine or vodka or these drugs like they have now [inaudible] and ecstasy and all- [inaudible]. When they talk about Tremont, that’s the bedrock of everything. You took the community which stands for so good, and you take that out over the whole city. And everybody liked the Collinwood area. They liked Collinwood. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:24:25] Tell, talk about, you said you played basketball, what was the atmosphere in the gym during a basketball game?
Jim Camaris [00:24:33] Well, we had a small gym. In fact if you went past the basket that would be getting into the cement wall. So I had to be the- I couldn’t be a forward. And you know gotta remember this. Our center was six-four. We thought he was mammoth. Today, I mean six-four, he couldn’t even be a guard. And obviously being as small as I am, I was 5 foot 7, am 5 foot 7, I probably [inaudible]. I dribbled the ball, I set up the shots. We were an average basketball team, but our claim to fame- My best friend is a soccer coach at South High School, and he played on a team that was the best high school team they said ever played. [inaudible] President of Holy Name High School, Kowalski[?], played on the team, three Polish guys [inaudible] and [inaudible], former pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, and [inaudible], who was the principal of [inaudible] High School. And we beat that team. To this day my buddy- [inaudible] They broke their winning streak. That was in 1945.
Interviewer [00:25:58] Alright, back to baseball. Did you and the team, or guys from the team, go to the Indians games and watch the Indians play?
Jim Camaris [00:26:05] Yeah, we saw ’em. We used to [inaudible] very good students. But most of them we saw started out at the League Park, which League Park was actually in Boston Red Sox in reverse. Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, they got the wall in left field, short field. Well, that’s League Park, just in reverse. In fact, we played the city championship at League Park, and I doubled off the wall three or four times. And, nah, the reason we were probably good ball players, that’s all we did. So we were very gifted athletes by the time we were 17 or 18. A lot of us played Class A ball, which is probably the equivalent of the team out there at Eastlake, whatever they are.
Interviewer [00:26:55] The Captains.
Jim Camaris [00:26:56] Captains. Yeah, the Captains team. I played with Bill Barnes, he was a former pitcher to the Cleveland Indians. Eddie Malinka boy played with [inaudible] with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Man, I was just a 17-year-old punk kid playing with 30-year-old guys. But we were good because that’s what we did. Today I probably couldn’t do it because I have a car- [inaudible] That is the one sport they never got better. Today in basketball, golf, football, almost any sport they’re bigger, they’re better, but not baseball. [inaudible] Kenny Kelpa, Vernon Stevens, shortstop for the Boston Red Sox, 144 runs batted in, 149 following year, matched up with- [inaudible] -super player, that would take him 10 years to get these runs batted in that Vernon Stevens.
Interviewer [00:28:10] When you get together with the guys you play baseball with, do you reminisce about when you guys played?
Jim Camaris [00:28:16] Yeah, well, after a while, it gets to be that. I mean, if we’re now in 2003, sure, we’re proud of ourselves. In fact, that’s what started everything. Thirty years ago, Art Lambos and somebody, a couple other guys said, why don’t we start getting the old sports back? Let’s get the old sports together. The first year it was 70 people showed up. We had a good turnout. Let’s have some more. So two years later, we’ve gone out for 30 years now. We’re getting about 220 people show up. We’re getting a lot of guests that come out that’s friends of ours. [inaudible] [00:29:26] And the place looks like Iwo Jima. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:29:36] What was the impact of the Cuyahoga River? Now, the last interview I did, the guy told me that they used to practice down in the Flats occasionally?
Jim Camaris [00:29:45] No, Cuyahoga River had nothing to do with it. When we practiced at Lincoln High School, you would have to go from Lincoln with your fleets, run over past West 14th Street, keep going. And then we went down underneath Clark Avenue. But the river down there, now they got ballfields there. There was nothing there. First 20 minutes, we’d have to clear the tin cans and beer bottles, clear everything out of the way. That’s where we practiced. So later when we practiced, uneven place. And later on, we’re training on this nice grass fields, that was [inaudible]. Like I said, when we started at League Park, you’d come home with bruises and where your body hit the ground. And later on when you played at these soft fields, you loved it. But that’s where we went. That’s the Lincoln High School. We didn’t have a field, obviously, so that’s where we practiced. So then you shower and all of us didn’t have cars. I lived on Starkweather Avenue. That was two miles, maybe three and a half miles away. So, there you are. Walk home in the snow. I’d say just about 95% of all my friends that I know, I don’t- [inaudible] You’re sick, really sick. There’s no cutting. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:31:03] When you walked someplace, was it in a group, by yourself, one or two other people?
Jim Camaris [00:31:10] Yeah. If we went on a Sunday walk, it would be one or two. Yeah, yeah. Like if I had three of my buddies, I’d say, I’ll come by your house, I’d walk with Peter Banwick, Big Chamberson, Frank Wilker because- [inaudible] Two of the guys didn’t play sports, so I had to walk alone and walk back with somebody else. Yeah. The only reason I got so quick is because I’m a lawyer and all these Irish guys, Ahh, Lincoln! You guys- [inaudible] And I’d have to show ’em- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:31:43] The streets of [inaudible]. Tell me a little bit about that.
Jim Camaris [00:31:46] Well, I moved. I lived for five years with my mother on West 11th. Then I moved over to Kenilworth. My mother didn’t have any money, and I was one of the first people that moved into Valleyview Homes. Now that place was a heaven. A lot of great people moved there and lived in Valleyview Homes. Beautiful, all glass clean. Everybody had their roses, their bushes and so forth. Outstanding because it was a project type of home. And I was proud to be there and grew up there. Go by there now and I want to vomit. There’s no grass anymore. There’s nobody that has grass anymore. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:32:36] In in the Valleyview Homes, was there a lot of other children there to play with?
Jim Camaris [00:32:39] Oh, always. Great people. I could run off, Bill Malz, three kids, All-Ohio football players. Kenner Bamworth, one of the greatest athletes we’ve ever had. Nick Sanderson, Laddie Granger, Nate Gable. Good athletes. Oh yeah, no problem.
Interviewer [00:33:00] Would you and other children throughout the day in the summer be in the front yard and play, like, stickball and football?
Jim Camaris [00:33:07] Well, we didn’t have stickball. We went down- There was a ballfield out down the hill on Houston. Down there there was a baseball team. Or we would go to- Across the street from Merrick Park, there was a basketball court. We would play basketball, basketball on their court, baseball and so forth. That’s when we are not working, part-time, we’d get a part-time job. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:33:40] What was your first part-time job?
Jim Camaris [00:33:46] It was working at my aunt’s store. I used to work there to make enough money so I could go to the hockey game. I was a fanatical hockey [inaudible]. [inaudible] Cleveland Barons used to play at the old Arena [inaudible] Euclid. I worked at my aunt’s. Then I sold peanuts, not inside, outside the stadium. Made enough money, bought the peanuts, packaged them up and did the whole thing ourselves. And I did some part-time jobs. I was helping out a guy who delivered flowers. So there wasn’t too many jobs especially if you played sports. So, I was in love with sports, so my mother, you know, she was always worried. Don’t get hurt. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:34:59] We’re talking about the jobs you had.
Jim Camaris [00:35:02] Yeah. Well too many. I mean that was that. And then I went to college. So as I got out of college I was in military service. [inaudible] So I served in the Korean War- [inaudible] -secret. That was the investigation department of the United States Army. So I spent three years there, and then I went to law school, Western Reserve Law School, finished there, and I’ve been a lawyer ever since.
Interviewer [00:35:38] Talk about Lincoln High School’s education.
Jim Camaris [00:35:42] Outstanding teachers, dedicated. You want it, you got it. You wanted chemistry, [inaudible] All the teachers there, no problem. And all we had all good schools, very good students. The girls were good. The guys were good. There was a couple of bummy ones. They used to go out an smoke, but very few. No problem. Very good. Excellent schools.
Interviewer [00:36:09] What was your favorite subject?
Jim Camaris [00:36:12] I liked history. I was always a history buff. I didn’t like math, but I took math. Slipped in a few courses. And I like chemistry. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:36:30] With your group of athletes that you hung around with because of sports, what did you guys use during the school day, like at lunch or study hall or something like that?
Jim Camaris [00:36:41] Nothing. School was there. Would meet, would bring our lunch from home most of the time. I don’t think we had lunchroom. We didn’t have a lunchroom. They had a couple stores across the street that sold hot dogs and forth. We were busy. We would go from class to class. Hi, how you doing? Maybe go outside. Not for a cigarette or any of that stuff. Just chitchat about something. [inaudible] [00:37:27] The teachers, the coaches were good too. They’re old timers. Most of them had been around. And of course what was nice about it was there was discipline. No rowdiness. We didn’t have one-tenth the [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:37:55] Do you remember your, one of your favorite teachers?
Jim Camaris [00:37:59] Yeah, that was Ms. [inaudible]. Ms. Castell[?]. Great lady. Great teacher. They were all good. She was probably my favorite.
Interviewer [00:38:23] How was your coach?
Jim Camaris [00:38:24] Outstanding. [inaudible] Two weeks ago. [inaudible] He was our freshman coach. [inaudible] A great athlete at one time at Bowling Green. He was our basketball coach. And Ron Frazier[?], served in World War II and Vietnam and was on the coaching staff at Ohio Wesleyan. That was Ron Frazier. [inaudible] -was also a baseball coach. [inaudible] was his assistant. Joe- [inaudible] was baseball and football- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:39:12] How much of an influence did the coaches and teachers have on-
Jim Camaris [00:39:17] [inaudible] -role models. They were good. They were sensible. Nothing phony. Well, we all did well. I keep going back into the best first generation. We didn’t have a discipline problem. Our mothers and the fathers of the others. The teacher was 100% right. I don’t care if you were right. Forget it. If a teacher ever called, forget it. Today, a teacher calls, you got to give you [inaudible], force them to come in with five lawyers, [inaudible]. Influence of money.
Interviewer [00:40:11] Is that one of the reasons why you left Tremont? Moved out?
Jim Camaris [00:40:18] No, I didn’t move out. What happened was we got a little more affluent and my sister married a guy that did very well. He opened his own business, residential awnings, and could afford a home and we ended up moving into the Parma area. It was just a question of new, bigger, and better, a little more green grass. So that’s why most of the people from Tremont, generally speaking, went south, which is Parma, Parma Heights, not so much Strongsville then. Right now if you move to Strongsville, I mean the homes are like 300,000. Back then, I mean the homes back then were only about 26, 28,000.
Interviewer [00:41:07] Who influenced you into going to college?
Jim Camaris [00:41:12] Well, it was half myself primarily because I said ge, what am I going to do now? You know, go to college and get an education, you could make more money and I can get more things, help my mother, help other people, and so forth. [inaudible] And of course I should say, one of the guys that I grew up with in the Valleyview Homes, Walter Frazier, who was the catcher [inaudible]. [00:41:40] He had [inaudible] a year or two, and he had gone on to university and he said why don’t you come down here? And I checked the school, I thought it was good, so that’s- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:41:50] Do you think some of the teachers had an influence on furthering your education?
Jim Camaris [00:41:55] No. I mean they, they, they, they showed me what is right. They had a little influence, but that was the sole reason. I was just self-motivated. Do I want to work for, in today’s wages, do I want to work for $7 an hour or do I want to make $20 an hour? Well, in order to make $20 an hour you’d better get an education. And [inaudible] going to college.
Interviewer [00:42:23] Was that kind of like the feeling through the people you were with?
Jim Camaris [00:42:27] Absolutely. I would say at least 50% went to college. Probably the ones that didn’t had to work because there was a real [inaudible] in the family, three brothers and sisters and so forth. [inaudible] So we had a lot of people in that area know one of them was the white. We had a lot of people from that area- [inaudible] [00:43:06] That’s one thing I could be really proud of. You could be looked down on by a fellow brothers and sisters. Did you hear about so and so that- [inaudible] -That was the extent of it. [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:43:40] Did you ever get to eat at any of the restaurants in Tremont when you were growing up?
Jim Camaris [00:43:47] They didn’t have restaurants. No restaurants- [inaudible] Lola’s [inaudible]. Nobody had any money. How are you gonna go to restaurants? [inaudible] There was a couple that were- [inaudible] There was a little one there. Now, again, it wasn’t a restaurant. This guy right next to Dempsey’s Oasis, Dempsey’s. It was an open place. An older guy in his 80s and he had a hot dog place. He had a grill, and he had like 20 hot dogs [inaudible] and rolled them over and over perfectly.
Interviewer [00:44:32] How much was a hot dog?
Jim Camaris [00:44:34] A hot dog? Six cents.
Interviewer [00:44:35] How much was a drink?
Jim Camaris [00:44:37] Drink? You’d get a Pepsi- If you get a combination, it was a quarter.
Interviewer [00:44:44] Was that no fries?
Jim Camaris [00:44:45] No. Well, fries were 12 cents, sure. Are you kidding? If you wanted fries, the place for fries, that was the Shushan’s, down in the Flats. Shushan’s. Where Harvard comes together with Jennings. Shushan’s was- [inaudible] They had the best fries- [inaudible] Wimpy’s was the place, after doing dancing or going to the Garden Show- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:45:32] How long would you say [inaudible]?
Jim Camaris [00:45:36] Well, we’d go with the buddies there and if one guy had enough money would get a Plain Dealer. We’d all read the Plain Dealer sports obviously. So we stayed up what’s happening. [inaudible] [00:45:50] But we knew. Which is unfortunate today, I don’t think [inaudible] kids, they couldn’t name who your United States senators are.
Interviewer [00:46:03] To finish up here, compare a little bit, Tremont then, Tremont now. the major differences as you see- [inaudible]
Jim Camaris [00:46:17] So unbelievable. I guess the only thing I can compare it to was in World War II. I compare it to the bombing of all the German cities and so forth. Terrible. Different people moved in, they didn’t take care of their properties. Became slum, and what’s happening now and I- And it is really good. I don’t know. It’s probably the yuppies or whatever group is involved. But I see ’em. You can tell. Just drive the streets on West 7th or any of the streets and you’d always see the ones with the flags out there remodeled. And you know it’s a group, probably the yuppies, unmarried. They want to work close to downtown. That’s the only good thing going down there now other than that. And of course the influx on Professor with good restaurants. You read about them, they imported good cooks, chefs from Austria. They write about ’em in Free Times, and so forth. That’s good. And of course the [inaudible] church is there. St. Ignatius, St. John Cantius. [inaudible] [00:47:42] And it’s changing only because what I referred to when I said yuppies but it was probably young, influential, [inaudible] type people who, for whatever reason, decided it’s nice to live in Tremont. And it’s good to see them. I see it coming up- [inaudible] But other than that, just [inaudible]. People moved and they won’t keep it up. So they put the windows, board it up, cars on jackknives so forth. Other than that it’s, it’s like night and day. I grew up in ’40s and ’50s. [inaudible] Early ’60s, spotless. People took care of their property. You want to compare back then what it would have been today, you take Parma. They call it [inaudible]. If you go down any of those streets, you’ll see the lawns taken care of- [inaudible] [00:48:55] -pink flamingoes, white socks [inaudible] He’s on television. He had been married to a girl in Parma and they got a divorce. Ghoulardi. [inaudible] -pink flamingoes, white socks, but all these- [inaudible]. There was never a better community, centrally located, no problems. [inaudible] Take Parma today. That’s the way Tremont was in the late ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. After that, forget it.
Interviewer [00:49:43] Would you change anything growing up in Tremont?
Jim Camaris [00:49:47] If we made ourselves growing up there? Nothing would change. Obviously if we all have more money, it would be great. You know, we’d have cars, and this, and we’d have milkshakes every night, and this. But I’m not too sure how we would have turned out. That’s a very good question, by the way. Assuming today’s generation really looked upon the influence of drugs and fast foods, if we were growing up that way, [inaudible]. If I was doing that, you wouldn’t be talking to me today. I would not be sitting here. [inaudible] That’s a big change. At some point they look back at us, ahh, you old-timers [inaudible]. It’s a different generation. Juvenile court when I was growing up had one judge. Today it’s five judges, 14 [inaudible]. We got 19 people compared to, 19 compared to one. [inaudible] Tremont area girls were- A lot of good looking girls. I’ll tell you one thing: very, very, very infrequently were the girls [inaudible] that type of stuff. They respected themselves. They worried about their parents. We worried about them. [inaudible] She decided she wants to go to University of Iowa. In fact, her parents had a bar, [inaudible] So she went to Iowa, University of Iowa, and we- [inaudible]
Interviewer [00:52:53] Did all your friends go to college?
Jim Camaris [00:52:56] No. Ones who didn’t, it because they couldn’t afford it, even though it wasn’t much to go to college. Of course I had a helping hand because I had a scholarship, a baseball scholarship, but it was very cheap. In fact, it costs 8,000 or more to go to St. Ignatius. For the cost of one year, I could have gone through the whole college. I know that the values have changed [inaudible]. [00:53:34] High school, 8,000. Come on! [inaudible] 90% of our judges are [inaudible], and they’re- They are a good team. They were not that good then. We used to send our third team to play. They only got good later on. The good teams back then was Lincoln in football, Cathedral Latin, Collinwood. [inaudible] schools were not that good then. [inaudible] Nobody goes out for sports anymore. [inaudible] Come with me. I got the brand-new car. [inaudible] I can tolerate you speeding, I can tolerate you on everything. If you get involved in drugs, I’m a lawyer. Don’t call me. [inaudible] Unfortunately. Unfortunately, I do letters- [inaudible] They all do it. Hallelujah. What? You don’t want to drink? What’s wrong? You wimp! Come on, have a drink. [inaudible] Yeah. Well, I was in Korea and I met John Glenn who was an F-86 pilot. He wasn’t that well-known too much but you know. And his wingman was Ted, who I idolized growing up as a ball player, was Ted Williams, was his wingman. If Ted Williams played today with his artificial turkey, would have been indicted. There’s that ball coming off the trip so hard when he hit that second baseman. He was the best pure hitter I’ve ever seen. .345 batting average. Got a .406 [inaudible]. Reason- [inaudible] The reason he never [inaudible] the newspapers because in 1938 they interviewed his mother who was a Salvation Army worker. And he thought that they did a hatchet job on her, pictures of [inaudible]. From that point on, [inaudible]. He lost two most valuable player awards. He had a .406 in 1940. They gave it to Joe DiMaggio. That guy with .406 is the most valuable player, which of course is [inaudible] good service. One thing I will say about the Japanese, they were warmongers, and that’s the way [inaudible] animals. Most subservient people I’ve ever met. I went there in 1952 [inaudible]. They were very subservient. The older you were, the better you got treated [inaudible] -sisters. They would eat first. But you just have to remember today, [inaudible] go to school all day. [inaudible] Reading, writing, and arithmetic. Japanese today are like the students in the ’30s and early ’40s of the schools [inaudible]. They pushed it like parents. I didn’t have an education. They come from Poland. They come from [inaudible]. You gotta do good. You better do good. They did. All turned out good. [inaudible] -only pilot in World War II, an ace and a pilot. He had 38 German planes shot down. Led the European Theater. When he went to later in Korea. That was the [inaudible]. And he shot down six MIGs. Five [inaudible]. And he’s the only guy that’s an ace- [inaudible] I was talking about ted Williamson. [inaudible] Joe McConnell Jr. and Nathaniel [inaudible]. [inaudible] They were different squadrons. [inaudible] And I got to meet both of them. Joe McConnell was five foot nine. [inaudible] had a bottle of beer. It loosens me up. So five MIGs make you an ace. 8, 7, 12, 10. Time to leave. I ain’t leaving. I got to feed Fernandez. You know, when they got a kill, they come over the base 50 feet and go straight up. [inaudible] Yeah. Wound up the top ace of the Korean, 18, Joe McConnell Jr. [inaudible] Joe McConnell then left the service, was a test pilot. One day he’s flying an ordinary plane. Malfunctioned. Went down and got killed. Made a movie on it called the McConnell Show. One day you’ll see it. He’s up in heaven looking down [inaudible]. Allen Land. Allen was five foot seven, blond hair. [inaudible] [01:00:35] So yeah, Joe McConnell Jr., Daniel Fernandez. The Yellow River divided China. You couldn’t cross the Yellow River, you’d be in China. McConnell had [inaudible] gonna let this guy go. [inaudible] He had four of his kills over the Yellow River. [inaudible] McConnell, FBI agent [inaudible] Marine [inaudible]. Wanted to land at Inchon to go around. The Marines landed. Here’s the Yellow River. Hey, this is like that where they’re going, there’s no problem. Ten divisions, the Chinese, they went in the war. They were- This is like December 23, 20 below zero, ten divisions came over. Biggest retreat [inaudible]. [inaudible] They got the hell out of there. And that’s when MacArthur got mad. That’s when he says, you know, I’m a great hero of World War II. Best president here and the most honest president. Probably the best president ever had, Truman, came out of Missouri [inaudible]. Johnson was pulled into Vietnam. [inaudible] That’s when he said, we’re gonna go into China. Harry Truman says, We’re not. [inaudible] That saved a lot of problems. You look back on it, it wasn’t the troops we were going into China. [inaudible] An old soldier never dies, he just fades away. He came over there. We’ll say this is [inaudible]. Japanese people [inaudible]. -he came out on the street, people bowed their head. [inaudible]
Interviewer [01:03:42] Okay, I guess just to finish up then, Tremont was, growing up, was a good experience for you?
Jim Camaris [01:03:50] Outstanding. If I grew up today, I don’t know what [inaudible]. No problem. Primarily because of the parents we had. All of us were more aware about our parents. [inaudible] I’ll never forget the day- I did have a wild friend. [inaudible] We walked to the May Company. We got out of there walking. [inaudible] When I came home my mother said, where’d you get that? She said, you didn’t have no money. And I can still see my mother chasing him down the street. [inaudible] See, the unfortunate thing is he didn’t have money [inaudible]. One of my friends that I had, his father had a 19 standard automobile [inaudible], Ford Model T. [01:05:34] If I’d had a private doctor, you know, they’d take care of it right away. You look back upon that, it’s- [inaudible] My mother, I was counsel for six years. [inaudible] Oh, good. Come on in. All the people are very hospitable there. [inaudible] Come on in. They always want to- [inaudible] I’m gonna vote for you. Get out of here! So I finally met Kucinich and we got to be pretty good friends. He became Clerk of Courts, City of Cleveland. [inaudible] Jim, I don’t have much time. [inaudible] Yeah, what about my mother? He said I’ll never forget when I came in she says, Mr. Camaris, are you a Democrat? She says, no. He said, well, you must be Republican. She says, no. She says I’m Greek. I said, that is it, you’re all right. [inaudible] Of course the landmark there [inaudible], Sokowlowski’s. [inaudible] [01:08:20] Mike Sokowlowski [inaudible] and the right fielder, at the time he was a football player, the right fielder was Bill O’Neill who was the right fielder for the New York Yankees. His mother’s a gourmet cook, I mean his wife. Everybody goes there when the Yankees come in. I said, well, they can invite your buddy, pull me out. I says, has he ever come? And he says no. He says you didn’t give him the bottom line. I said what’s that? [inaudible] Even though he makes six million dollars a year. [inaudible] [01:09:01] That’s a good place. It’s a meeting place too. They got a group there that comes on Wednesday one of which former Plain Dealer reporter [inaudible]. There’s a group that worked at Ignatius in the 1940s, there’s only 12 or 15 of them there. They come there. My buddy Ted Cook [inaudible]. It’s a meeting place. Good food- [inaudible] [01:09:57] What do you want to hear? The same thing. My buddy Ted Cook, he brings me up to date on the [inaudible]. You know. [inaudible] They served World War II. Three of the guys went to Poland when they were attacked by Germans. They went to the [inaudible] house in England. They sat down and they broke the enigma. That was the code that they had. Especially on the subs. They knew where every sub was leading, where they would be. And they knew where the troops were gonna be. [inaudible] [01:10:43] They formed the Polish Squadron. The Kościuszko. The book just came out. It’s a husband and wife that wrote it- [inaudible]. He said here comes the Polish pilot. Said Polish. What’re they flying in there? Well, they were, in World War II, they were led by a guy by the name [inaudible]. They had the highest kill ratio of all pilots. The best. They transformed how to fly the planes [inaudible] the British were flying this way, and they said, hey, we can’t fly this way. [inaudible] [01:11:31] But my buddy’s pushing it. We had him here in Cleveland. Took him to Sokolowski’s University Inn. [inaudible] What’s sad about that is World War II- [inaudible] Here was me. They sat down and [inaudible]. What are we going to do after the war? Asked the question. Churchill said, you can’t [inaudible]. That’s why I like History Channel. [inaudible] -overshot the mark by thirty miles. 101st Airborne [inaudible] Normandy invasion. The plan worked. [01:13:35] Landing in an area where the Germans- [inaudible] George Patton. He was going so goddamn fast that they had to pull him back in. [inaudible] I had no great feelings about Eisenhower. [inaudible]
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