Silent Stories: The Depth of a Life Lived

In the serene sunlight of his backyard, surrounded by mementos of his past, the gentle rustle of the leaves, and accompanied by various wildlife, 70-year-old Mr. Bruce invites us into his world. A world woven with memories and reflections. As he settles into his favorite wooden chair, the lines on his face tell stories of love, loss, and resilience. In this intimate conversation, Mr. Bruce shares the touching moments that defined him, revealing not just the events of his life, but the deeper truths that resonate throughout time, reminders of the beauty and fragility of the human experience.

Q: Where are you originally from?

A: I’m from Gorham, New Hampshire I was born in Berlin, New Hampshire in a Catholic hospital ‘Uppita San Loui’s’ that’s how you pronounce it in French, Saint Louis Hospital. But it’s not in Saint Louis Missouri, it’s not in Missouri it’s in New Hampshire.

Q: What was life like growing up there?

A: Well, the first five years of my life I just played you know played in the sand. We lived in a Quonset hut which is a round tin house it was left over from World War Two it was surplus my father was in the merchant marine for eighteen years. Right behind the Quonset hut we had a nice little brook running down behind the house that was sixty feet wide mountain stream clear, you could see the rocks and the fish. I played in the sand, played in the brook for the first five years of my life, that’s all I can remember.

Then I went to first grade, I skipped kindergarten went to first grade and then I skipped third grade because I took the test for third grade, and I was. They determined that I was bright enough that I didn’t need that, I already possessed that information. That put me two years behind all my peers, which made it very awkward for me. You can imagine, but I graduated from high school I started my senior year at fifteen graduated at sixteen and then my mother got me a job with the Eastern Slope Inn in North Conway, New Hampshire at a resort hotel and I made good money I had fun there uh first time I ever got locked up.

I brought some beer I was with Wanda and a couple other friends, and I brought some beer while we were out. I stashed it under the front seat and Wanda didn’t know it was there. Nobody knew it was there but me, so the cop stopped us and of course he finds it. I took full responsibility I said they didn’t know it’s there it was all me. So, they put me in jail and my mother had to come and bail me out. I’m sitting in jail the acoustics were great, I was singing in there because the acoustics were great.

After that I go army recruiter come around, so I enlisted in the army. They said you can pick where you want to go in the world or you can pick what you want to do, so I figured I didn’t want to go to Vietnam. My parents didn’t tell me that I was a sole surviving son, and they couldn’t send me in a wartime situation; as Private Ryan in the movie saving the same about said mentioned person. I didn’t know so I pick fixed station radio receiver repair I figured I’d be in a building somewhere behind the lines. I was trying to protect myself, but I didn’t even have to do that you know I could have picked gymnastics or something.

(The Quonset Hut Mr. Bruce Grew Up In)

Q: Is there anything you miss about New Hampshire?

A:  I miss it every day you know I think in my mind I picture the places I use to go when I was a boy. All the nice trout stream right in my backyard and the stock truck, they have a patchery where they raise trout, and they throw them like pellets. It’s like a feeding frenzy and they come around with this truck and they park it next to the stream. They take a big net full of fish and they run down, and they throw them into the brook. You go with your fishing rod after they leave, those fish you don’t even need the worm on the hook. Just throw the hook in there and it’s like they’re used to grabbing anything that falls in the water. You get your limit of ten, it was ten limit you could get in a day; take them back home clean them, put them in aluminum foil, put them in the freezer, go get ten more. Yeah, we take advantage of that stock situation.

I do miss New Hampshire, the woods we lived on a narrow strip of land that was Route One. That went up on both sides was the national forest; Whitemount National Forest and I spent a lot of time in there. I used to tap maple trees when I was a kid before I went to school in the morning, I had a twenty-gallon wooden barrel that I latched down to a flying saucer; you remember those round things that kids slide down the hill on. I latched it down to one of those so it would just glide over the top of the snow. You tap the tree I go to hand drill because it’s no electricity in the woods. You bore your hole and tap your tap in there you can buy them in the hardware store out in New Hampshire. Back in the sixties and seventies you could buy them in the hardware store it would be a metal spout with a little hook that you hang the bucket on, but I would carve my own out of wood.

(Mr. Bruce Working With The Hand Truck His Stepfather Gave Him)

Q: How long were you in the army?

A: I got out at Fort Detrick in Fredrick I was in communications in Africa. I spent nineteen months in Africa while I was in the service. I spent my basic training was at Fort Dix in New Jersey and then I got advanced training at Fort Monmouth which was Sigma Core. After I went through the fixed station radio receiver repair course, they said anybody want to do another ten weeks in the states and not going anywhere else. I said yeah, I’ll take that, so it was a tech controller you ran everything. You routed all the communications so in Africa that’s what I did. Most of the time I had like a couple of guys under me that I was in charge of. I would let them run they liked doing the control panel. I let them run the control panel I’d go back and take the buffer, scrub and mop the floors and buffer that was my deal that’s what I liked to do.

I’d be back there buffing the floors I loved that, but we worked twelve hours on and twelve hours off because they were sending most of the guys to Vietnam, so we were shorthanded we worked twelve on twelve off, but I was in Ethiopia, Asmara Ethiopia. Which is a seven-thousand-foot plateau. The weather was seventy-two degrees all year long. It was beautiful, we had an indoor pool and outdoor pool, lifting man’s club, bowling alley, movie theatre we had it all up there you know it was nice duty, I enjoyed it. Then I got out at Fredrick.

Q: How did you specifically end up in Baltimore?

A: Like I say Uncle Sam dropped me off in Frederick at Fort Detrick and I worked at the Horn and Horn restaurant, and it was a girl there named Susie Spencer. I really was interested in her foster sister more than I was into her, but I ended up with her. She was a nice girl. We were married a couple years, we were married a year and a half and then we separated and then for six months.

Then we decided to give it another go; another six months we decided now were just not compatible. You know we didn’t divorce or anything we just separated, and one day she came to me with the divorce papers. She wanted to be with this other guy, and she said you know no muss no fuss just sign it to get divorced. I said cool, signed it we didn’t have any kids. We didn’t have any property we split so it was quick easy and then the second one lasted forty years.

Q: What was your first year like in Maryland?

A: I was in the army well it wasn’t a year I come back in November of sixty-seven. I come back I went to Ethiopia probably the end of sixty-five, I was in nineteen months and come back sixty-seven like November. I was in Fort Detrick for like four months and got out February. The first four months I was there in the military when I was moonlighting at the restaurant. After that I just told you I met Susie, and we got married. I went to work for a guy named Townson at Townson Typewriter Company. He was like an entrepreneur, he had contracts with the schools and stuff to fix their typewriters because they didn’t have you know what they have now.

He gave me a test because first he had me, you know carrying the machines and going with him and carrying the machines in and out. This was just something to tide me over, so he wanted to teach me how to repair the machines and he gave me a mechanical aptitude test which I failed miserably.

Q: Did you ever have a specific job that you wanted to do?

A: Now that’s a good question I think most of it was just to earn a living to pay my bills. Now the adult store I was a customer before I was an employee. So yeah, I was kind of into that, so I thought yea. If I had to pick one, I don’t know at my age now I realize how many choices there are, and I would have to do some research and look through the choices and pick something that really appealed to me but for just having it fall in my lap the adult job was fine with me.

Q: Okay, so with the adult job what do you feel like was the most surprising thing something you might not have expected?

A: You mean dealing with the public oh I used to clean the peep show booth’s I mopped semen, feces, and urine; I cleaned everything people are animals at times yeah. Dealt with the shop lifters you know women come and you got to deal with women and it’s kind of a weird business. Women come in and be going over to the big eighteen-inch rubber dildo’s and laughing and giggling and I’d say oh yeah ladies those ones are for large women and small cattle. You know I’ll always kid and joke with them, do impressions I tried to break the ice and make them feel comfortable. That’s why I made good sales because I talked to people, entertain them get them to feel relaxed.

Q: How have your relationships with your family changed since moving to Maryland?

A: Well, my brother and I still call each other I call him on his birthday in November he’s a Sagittarius and he calls me on my birthday in January I’m an Aquarius. Through the year we text, email we communicate, but he’s I’m trying to think of the right word unsociable. He’s happiest away from other people so yeah, he’s not a socialite by any stretch of the imagination. I mean you know he didn’t have his big brother there to help him during his formative years. I mean he’s ten years younger than me when I left at seventeen, he was seven. He had to deal with my mother and stepfather, my mother being an alcoholic and an undiagnosed manic depressive. My stepfather being stingy which pushed her button, so he had to deal with them two. I left him all about his self and I feel bad about that you know I should have come back after the service and gave him a little guidance. I only had one brother I should have put more time and effort into him, but you know we all have regrets, that’s one of my little regrets.

I get along with all my family I had a cousin my mother’s sisters son Richard Morno his father owned a moving a storage company with his father and his brothers and you might have seen. I’ve seen the trucks down here in Maryland named Morno and Sons it’s a reddish truck with the thing that goes over the cab. They always have the thing that goes over the cab “extra storage”, and they have a big warehouse where they store people’s stuff. He did alright for himself, and he married my mother’s sister. My mother’s sister was very religious and very pious my mother was a fucking wild child two opposites if you ever were to meet them; but my cousin I called him Dickie we all called him Dickie his name was Richard, but Dickie was his nickname we were like brothers.

We’d go to my grandmothers; my grandparents owned a florist business they owned almost the whole town block. They had seven tourist cabins individual cabins that they rented out to the tourists. They have three cut flower beds; they have three hut houses real glass hut houses with wood frame. Two of them were one hundred feet long and one was one hundred twenty-five feet long. They had a three-story garage with a furnace in the seller you could dump a whole dump truck of coal down there. It would heat the number one greenhouse it was connected to the garage from the other end it was connected to the main house. My grandfather’s floats always won first prize in the parade and my uncle was very talented, he worked with his father in the florist business wasn’t really what he wanted to do and when my grandfather died, he wasn’t in a hurry to take over my grandfather’s estate.

(Mr. Bruce’s Grandfathers Parade Float, Decorated With Flowers From Their Shop)

Q: As you’ve gotten older what role have friendships played in your happiness overall?

A: Friendships oh I’ve had lots of friends, and you know I have friends Rick is my friend your father is my friend in time maybe we’ll be friends. You know Joel’s my friend, Jerell they’ve only been here about a year or so good neighbors’ good acquaintances not quite friends yet. Bob and Patty, their friends, I mean when my dog had cancer of the leg. I didn’t have a car, and she needed surgery she took me down to Catonsville to get the surgery. I didn’t bring my money with me, so she wrote a check for five hundred dollars as a down payment. I reimbursed her but she trusted me for that, and she took me down there a couple times with the dog pick it up you know. I consider them good friends, but if the mood hits me, I could sell this house, jump in an RV and make new friends somewhere else I mean I would miss them like I miss all the friends I’ve made in my life.

(Mr. Bruce And His Cat Outside His Grandparents Greenhouse)

Q: How have the things that bring you happiness changed or has there been a change?

A: The things that have brought me happiness when I was a kid still bring me happiness now you know I try to be happy. I try to enjoy what I have and be thankful for what I have. I feel like I’m blessed you know I have this yard I have these critters I have good friends. You know I’m happy I’ve got good neighbors this is a good street we all communicate with each other Rick’s like the guardian they call me the ambassador and you fathers the mayor; is it your father or Fred I mean one of the two of them I mean it’s just pictured none of its real.

Q: You consider your talents singing, acting, dancing, impressions, do you wish you would have pursued them more?

A: I never got the right direction from my mother. I consider myself talented I can sing, I can do impressions, I can dance, I can act. In high school did she recommend that I sign up for drama and art and band and glee club and all that did she suggest that. No, she got me in academics you know sciences and history, chemistry, languages she gave me college prep direction when I wasn’t college prep material. I feel she didn’t give me the direction I needed I could have been a famous actor or singer maybe dancer any of those things could be an impressionist, but I been doing that since I was ten, twelve started out with cartoon characters using my friends and family that was.

Sometimes I’m glad I didn’t when you’re famous and in the spotlight, you don’t really have a life. Your life isn’t your own, you’ll always be spied on. I’ve been able to enjoy my life so it’s a kind of mix up you know something that you wonder how it would have been, but you can’t be unhappy with what you had you know. I feel blessed; I feel blessed you know to have come as far as I have and ended up with.

Q: What keeps you motivated in the face of obstacles?

A: Like Clint Eastwood said in Heartbreak Ridge *does impression* adapt, improvise, overcome but you can’t give up you got to try and keep a positive attitude you’re not going to get anywhere with a negative attitude, positivity will get you forever persistence pays off.

Q: I know we hit on it a little bit and I understand it might be somewhat of a difficult topic but with the things that you regret if you had a chance to change it would you?

A: Not quit being a security guard it might have changed my life I might not have ever met my wife. It would have been like Robert Frost a road diverged in a snowy wood and I took the path less traveled and that has made all the difference it could have changed my life, but it would have given me financial security. I struggle right now I’m on social security. I get broke, and I don’t like the feeling of being broke. If I had stayed at that job I’d be guaranteed a check from the government every month. Plus, the social security that would put me in a comfortable place that’s the biggest regret in my life. The second biggest is not spending more time with my brother, not giving him direction helping him get through the difficult times that nobody gave me the direction or help to get through.

Q: If you could give some advice to younger people, what would you give them?

A: The world is out there it doesn’t matter what your background is you have the power to create or destroy the choice is yours.

(Mr. Bruce With A Duck From His Grandparents Farm)

As we close out our intimate but poignant interview with Mr. Bruce we are left to question many things. Life, loss, happiness, grief and much more; aspects of life that everyone reading this is well accustomed to. He is one of the many silent stories throughout the US, shadows with voices that hold an immense amount of wisdom. Helping us to understand that we may look back on life and realize were not where we wanted to be. In a state that isn’t home, in a job that’s not a dream; but gratitude over what we do have supersedes all bitter dispositions. This has not just been a sit-down but an introspective look at the human condition.