MAFIA IN APALACHIN

{Writer’s note.  In 1957, I was six years old and had no comprehension of the Mafia.  The small community of Apalachin was my whole world and my day-to-day life centered on playing sandlot baseball / football, riding my bike or playing Cowboys and Indians in the woods.  It was a time when our phone operated on dry cell batteries for power and you had to have the switchboard operator place your call.  Back then, we had three television stations to watch and only one was viewed without an extremely snowy black and white picture.  Typical of the 50’s, my family had one car, mom stayed at home to raise kids and dad only got one week of vacation a year.  On Sundays, most businesses were closed and if a grocery store was open you couldn’t by cigarettes and alcohol.  Religious instruction was permitted in public school and teachers could spank their students.  It was a time when crew cuts were the norm, it was rare to see pierced earrings and girls wore dresses to school.
            Apalachin’s population in 1957 was less than 1,000 people and crime was a rarity.  Many homes left their doors unlocked at night and car prowl was virtually unheard of.  My picture of a criminal was Warren Slater, the neighborhood bully.  The composition of Apalachin’s town center was a couple of mom and pops stores, a hardware store where coal was sold to heat homes, a tavern, a barbershop and a Grange Hall where I attended kindergarten.  Up the hill were the volunteer fire department, the Methodist Church my family attended and the library where my older brother attended grade school.  The biggest event in town that I recall at this early age was the building of the elementary grade school that I would begin attending in September 1957.  Mr. Cape, featured in the following account, was my principal.  His wife was one of my teachers in 4^th grade.  Life was so laid back in this rural setting that events such as my mother’s birdcage being knocked over and killing the bird in a windstorm became newsworthy for the community paper.  The significance of a Mafia meeting at Barbara’s was huge and it interrupted community gossip for months.
            The Barbara meeting itself had no immediate impact on me and I don’t specifically remember the day.  Later, however, I learned to appreciate its significance.  It especially came to the forefront after a day outing of wandering the hills and paths near the Barbara estate.  My friends and I hiked past the Barbara’s house one day and spent a few hours running in the woods behind the house.  When I returned home and shared my day’s events, my mother expressed great fear and admonished me for being in that area.  The Barbara’s had long moved away, but it was like some omen overshadowed the place and I might mysteriously disappear or maybe even get shot.  Of course I sneaked back again from time to time and it was only years later that I learned the true significance of the convention.  I lived in Apalachin when the gangsters came to visit and it was my town’s happenstance that alerted the FBI and federal government that the Mafia was much more organized than they had realized.  –Gary Hafer}