Sometimes it’s the little things that set off a chain reaction.

In this case it was the publishing of those Good News from Elco posts.

That led to my going back to the yearbooks to dig out some photos that I needed.

Which led to my casually mentioning to Cindy in an email that I ought to be more organized and get all my yearbooks scanned so I wouldn’t have to dig into them when I needed a picture. I didn’t really mean anything by that remark at the time, but a few days later, I thought, hey, why not?

So I scanned the entire 1963 yearbook; well, most of it anyway.

Which led me to notice once again that the kids in the senior class pictures from 1963 looked noticeably older than those from just four years later in 1967.

Which led to another blog post where I published four of the pictures from 1963, which led to— 

One of the pictures was of Vincent Calarco Jr., who according to the yearbook was from Richland. He was a good-looking dude and I didn’t remember him at all. Now that’s not strange in and of itself. Richland is a very small town with a population of a bit under 1300 folks back in those days but even in such a small town, everybody does not know everybody else. But I thought I’d at least look into it a little bit.

Which I did.

And I had an eye-opening experience.

Let me just say at this point that Vincent Calarco Jr. only spent one year in Richland, his senior year, which was the first year that the consolidated Elco High School was opened, so that’s probably why I don’t remember him. I may never have even seen him. We wouldn’t have taken the same bus to school and he may even have driven a car to school since he was old enough to do so. After graduation he went to college, spent some time in the military and had a good career. The rest of this post does not concern Jr.

But I’m going to back up a little bit, because what I discovered in the newspaper archives jogged some long, nearly forgotten memories.

Back around 1962 or 63, give or take, when I was attending eighth grade, more or less, there was a fellow who moved to town and started hanging around the fire hall and in the lobby of the the movie theater. The guy was around 40 or so, slightly receding hairline, glasses, and he was one of those know-it-all types. There was a room adjoining the lobby of the movie theater and I’d see and hear him in there whenever I went to the Neptune Theatre to see a movie, and he was always pontificating over something or other. Sometimes he’d come into the lobby itself. Most of the time I ignored him as I had little or no interest in his topic of the evening, but I recall one night when he was explaining to anyone who would listen on why Ethel Merman had been denied the starring role in the film version of Gypsy. I no longer recall just what he said though. Anyway, he became a fixture for a year or so, like a piece of furniture. He didn’t really bother me, he was just there, along with a few other regulars who weren’t quite so vocal.

One day Randy Klopp—I’ve mentioned him previously, he was about my oldest friend in Richland—asked me if I knew who—and here he mentioned the name of a 13 year old girl from Myerstown. I did not. Well, according to Randy, she was very well developed for her age and apparently she had been dropped off at the Neptune and somehow the know-it-all had gotten to her, and he plied her with alcohol and raped her.

I never saw that know-it-all again. Nor did I ever hear anything further about that alleged rape.

Until the other day when I searched on Vincent Calarco. Because that know-it-all was Vincent Calarco Sr.

That was published on June 19, 1964. Here is a page that explains the Pennsylvania corruption of a minor charges, though I’m not sure it is exactly the same as the statutes back in 1964.

To back up just a wee bit, Calarco Sr. was from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where he married a Rose Mestrow in 1943. They had two children, both boys, only a year apart. Rose moved to New York City and divorced Vincent in 1962, by which time the older of their sons had enlisted in the military and the younger had one year of high school to finish, which is probably why she left him in his father’s custody, so he could finish his schooling in Hazleton. Thereupon, Vincent Sr. pulled up stakes and moved to Richland dragging Jr. with him.

In Sr.’s obituary he’s referred to as a chef, so perhaps he received an offer at a restaurant in Lebanon County, but if so, I don’t know where he was employed while he was living in Richland. After his arrest, he moved to Reading, and his former wife, who had resumed the use of her maiden name, came to live in the Richland house, presumably to be near her son, who was mostly away at college now.

Anyway–

On July 24, 1964, Vincent Sr. entered a guilty plea before Judge Thomas Gates (remember him? We’ve had occasion to refer to him previously).

Then on August 8th, appearing before Judge Gates again:

Vincent Calarco Sr., 42, Reading, who was scheduled for sentencing after entering a guilty plea to a charge of corrupting the morals of a minor, had his plea refused after he indicated during the proceeding he is not guilty of the charge. The charge involved a 13-year-old girl who got drunk on liquor allegedly provided by Calarco. The incident occurred at a teen-age dance in the Richland area. It was indicated that Calarco may now stand trial.

Finally on August 21:

Four hundred dollars?! Well, times were different then, I guess.

When Sr. died in 1999, he had been living in Philadelphia.