Charles Read Recalls Hodges Square Yesteryears In Memoir

The title Charles J. Read originally considered for the memoir of his childhood was “The Bridge.” He meant it in both an actual and a formative sense, referring to the neighborhood that helped shape his life and the span that altered that neighborhood.

“Everything’s changed, pretty much,” he said. “It’s hard when you grow up and you get used to a place.”

Read, 78, recently published through Lulu Publishing. It recounts his childhood in Hodges Square between 1939, when he arrived in New London, and 1953, when he went into the Navy for four years. Read said he got the idea from an old friend, Brad Roberts, who lived at Sunset Court and worked at . Read said Roberts wanted to do a research project on the people who had lived in the Hodges Square area and arranged a reunion.

“I thought to myself, ‘I’m a writer. I’ve got to do this,’” said Read.

Read was born in New Haven and moved to New London when his father, a pharmacist, got the idea to open his own business. His father opened a store in Hodges Square and got a house on Bolles Avenue. Read was there before the first span of the Gold Star Bridge went up, and remembered the area as a mix of commercial and residential space with less traffic.

“We played a lot of sports, which were really sandlot,” he said. “They didn’t even have Little League yet.”

Read said he and his friends usually played these games in a field off McGrath Street. They also spent a good deal of time in , pursuing crabs on a small beach and occasionally sleeping overnight there. Chefs in the area, many from the Solomon Islands, sometimes held neighborhood cookouts in the park.

In one incident, Read and a friend sneaked into the through a fence in Riverside Park to watch a dinghy race. Read’s friend fell into the river during horseplay, and the dinghies raced to his rescue after Read got their attention. The men in the boats gave his friend a blanket from the academy and let him keep it.

“I said to him, ‘Bobby, you should really learn how to swim,’ after nearly letting him drown,” said Read. “He didn’t say anything, he just shivered. That’s always stayed with me.”

Read attended the University of Connecticut after his time in the Navy and worked for several newspapers, including the Providence Journal, New Britain Herald, and Bennington Banner. He moved to Lorain, Ohio with his wife to work as a sports editor, came back to the East Coast to be a features writer in New Jersey, and ultimately moved back to Rhode Island. After he was unable to find work in the newspapers there, he “sold his soul” to work in public relations for the health care industry.

Read, now a resident of Richmond, R.I., closed his professional career as head of communications for the Hospital Association of Rhode Island. After his wife suffered a stroke, he cut his hours. He retired after her death in 2000 and began writing short stories.

“I have a ton of them started and not finished,” he said. “I’ve got two or three books in the works as well.”

Some of the neighborhood remains unchanged from Read’s childhood. Other areas have disappeared. Other aspects have found new homes, such as a fountain that was once in the square and now resides outside the . Read said the work was a way of recollecting the old neighborhood for himself and his childhood friends.

“Naturally, it was written for the guys,” he said. “I never intended to make money on it.”

For more information on the book and how to purchase a copy, contact Read at writeon32@cox.net.