Friends from Mt. Oliver and camping on the Allegheny River at West Hickory

The following pictures are some of my life as a 16 year old living in Mt. Oliver, a city within the  city of Pittsburgh, in 1960. By the way I am not shown in this slide show until a shot taken while camping on the Allegheny River. The curse of being behind the camera.

The slideshow begins with a picture of Bill Retsch my best friend from Mt. Oliver  and Gig (Ed Roehler) my grandfather in Gig's basement bungalow. This first picture shows  our living room, dining room, and  Gig's bed room. Behind the camera was the laundry, and shower. To the left was the stove. Behind the stove, in the work shop, was the refrigerator and the pantry. Further back was the toilet and finally near the front of the house  was my bed room and the furnace room, which was one and the same. I lived here from age 14 till I left for the Air force at 18. I am not complaining  I feel I had it pretty good, growing up with Gig.

The next several pictures some real cool guys, Bill, Jimmy Bock, a stranger in white, then a half face of Jim Lindner, at a swinging. party. Who was supposed to invite the girls? I guess we forgot to invite him. 

Moving on we come to some pictures of Bill and his 55 Chevy the first of which shows our house, the one behind the evergreen. Bill loaned me his car once,  so I could take my girl friend, at the time, Lynn Mcgrew, to her prom. Since I didn't go to her school, I didn't  know she had other boyfriends. After the prom was over, later the next morning when pulling in to park in front of her house,  several of these, I could only assume,  ex-friends of hers came at us with tire irons. They chased us, all over the North Side of Pittsburgh.  My pride and the 55 Chevy  were the only injured parties. I had it repaired almost as good as new. Thanks Bill. 

The last pictures are of Bill and me roughing it on the Allegheny River, across  from a small town called West Hickory.  Those were the days when you could still pitch a tent anywhere on the river, and no one  hassled you. In town we rented an old row boat from the grocer, for about $2.00 a week. All he asked was we return it. Little kids would stop by our camp and the young  girls from town would wave from the bridge. Thank God the girls didn't  have  boy friends. The fishing pictures were all fakes, except for the stringer shown in the final slide. We thought we had caught some weird  trout that were deformed when they hit the bridge. Later we were told by the locals, they were a fish called a Sucker, because of its bottom facing mouth and lips.