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Home > Archives > Short Stories > Norbert Pestana A collection of short stories about growing up in Wamesit by Norbert Pestana  Pre mid fifties Wamesit had it's own Post Office and grocery store on what is now Old Main Street behind Paris' gas station, now TD Waffle. Those of us living close by had a post office box there instead of an RFD (Rural Free Delivery) mail box in front of the house. We called it Lucia's after the elderly woman and Post Mistress that ran it, she also lived in the back so was a member of the neighborhood. The great fun was picking up the mail and getting a loaf of bread. With any pennies in the change my Mom would allow us to buy dots candy. That item consisted of a two inch wide paper strip with four rows of dots that were probably just pure sugar stuck on it. It was a challenge to lick off each one without getting to much paper. You could get about 6 inches of dots for a penny, a great bargain. When the overpass was built over the train tracks in the early 50's the now dead end road put an end to the commercial viability of the store. The local store that replaced it in functionality was Vinnies' (I am not sure about the name) at the base of the overpass, it had a butcher shop and was then on the land that was later used for a Holiday Inn. It was my afternoon job to walk or ride my bike there to get meat. I was appalled when the price for ground Hamburg went from .19 to .59 a pound during the few years I was running that errand.  At the end of the street the Reno, a bar owned by the Stillwells, now a Mexican Restaurant. In the summer we were always looking for things to do. The main line of the railroad and a spur line to Tewksbury Center embankments formed three ponds that were favorite summer time hang outs. You could go exploring these swampy area's less than a mile from home and feel like you were out in the wilderness a-la Daniel Boone from the Wonderful World of Disney fare seen on Saturday nite TV.  Fishing at the Chemi; Ricky, Barby, Mickey, Andy, Norby, Georgie. During the late 50's before I was old enough to own a car my brother and I would walk down to the Wamesit Drive-in to see a movie. There was a short period of time when we were old enough to convince our parents that we would behave and not get into trouble and when I got a car. Of course in order to get something to eat the dollar we had between us was not enough to pay for admission and lay waste to a bag of popcorn and coke so we had to first sneak in. Actually we thought since we didn't have a car that they wouldn't let us in anyway. The strategy had to be well thought out, because the back side of the drive-in was all swampy before the go-cart track was built and there were homes on the Lowell side of the theater so a frontal subversion was the only way. We would mill around near the entrance until it got dark and just walk along the South side of the Wamesit-Bowl-a-Matic and hop the fence to get in. It was actually easier when there was a good movie as the traffic would back up the length of the entrance-way to the ticket booth and the officer would have to step out into Route 38 and control the traffic. Many teenagers were bold enough to perform the trunk trick right there while they were stopped in line to get in. It was quite the sport as the people in the cars already parked on the theater ramps would occasionally boo us as they saw us sneak in without paying by jumping the fence. We would run to the back of the concession stand fear-full that the boos would draw attention to us and get us thrown out. In the late summer it was easier as it got dark earlier. The down side of the Wamesit was that the screen faced west and the setting sun would wash out the cartoons and advertising during the first 15-20 minutes of the movie until the sun went down. The darkness was our ally as we could then move about without drawing attention. Our cover story was that our parents had kicked us out of the car because we were unruly. Hopefully if we were escorted back to the nonexistent car we would could make a run for it. Luckily we never got the bum's rush. The constant fear was that some of the older boys would run into us and start a fight. The rumor was that some of the kids from Lowell felt it was their Drive-in and the kids from Wamesit/Tewksbury felt it was their territory. I never saw any fights but there were times that the Lowell Sun would report minor scuffles there. I was involved in one fight but it was amongst a high school class mate/his friend and myself. My brother, who is three years younger but big for his age faked out the other boy by saying "let them fight" and the fight reduced to just the two of us. It was really weird as the two of them were doing well at first against me but when I got a hold of him in a head lock and started to squeeze and was now winning some big giant guy picked us both up by the scruff of our necks and broke it up. As we got older we got wiser and managed to stay out of trouble. The window hung speakers had terrible sound quality and usually when selecting a good spot to park you would have to move again because someone had ripped the cord off when driving off and forgetting to put the speaker back. The drive-in operator always made a big thing of reminding you at the end of the movie to replace the speaker on the hook before driving off but it still happened a lot. The fun thing about the experience is that some daters would stay there late and not get kicked out at the end of the movie. Then they started having an officer go around at the end of the night when the help was leaving and his finding people sleeping or sometimes missing having left in a friends car. The most traumatic thing that happened at the Drive-In was strangely when our parents took us. This time my little sister was the victim. She was riding the train they had set up there in the play area for use before the movie started. The train derailed and several kids took minor bumps. My father after seeing that she was ok was pretty excited when he thought there might be a pay day if he agreed not to sue. For him it was big, as he agreed for $50 which was about a weeks pay for him at that time. The drive in was also a culinary adventure because my Dad thought it would be neat to give Mom the night off from preparing a meal by filling a thermos with beans and wrapping a few hot dogs in tin foil and putting them on the manifold of the engine to cook them. Unfortunately the trip to the Wamesit was not far and the hot dogs were barely warm. Of course the beans would be fully digested by the end of the movie so on a cold night just after having rolled up the windows they would make there presence known. My Dad was very proud of the Wamesit area and wanted the distinction to continue even as a subset of the Town of Tewksbury. We felt that when the Drive-In was raised that the identity would be lost as the town line only read Tewksbury and there were no other prominent signs in the area identifying the area as Wamesit. He got very involved with the Wamesit Indian statue and was proud to see it built in front of our home and in someway continue the Wamesit name.  The Pestana's up North at the Nexus of the Universe.
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