Al Garment
Al Garment was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York, the oldest of two boys, with a brother twelve years younger. He grew up in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, surrounded by fishing boats and private craft. His maternal grandfather spent his life in the volatile New York restaurant business and, by family lore, once ran a boat during Prohibition. His maternal grandmother, who came from Romania, had worked as a dressmaker for a royal family and was an early figure with the Lilly Rubin company in the United States. Al's father ran a company selling piece goods and fabrics to department stores, and his parents were introduced by a mutual friend, boxer Bob Olin.
As a child during the Depression, Al recalled that his family never felt poor because his grandfather's restaurant work always kept food on the table. A devoted Brooklyn Dodgers fan, he was at the ballpark the night Jackie Robinson made his debut and remembered the difficulties Robinson faced. Al earned a place at Brooklyn Tech, a selective school focused on engineering and mechanics, where students built a full house and even a PT boat accepted by the Navy. He entered the Army in June 1946, signed up for paratrooper training at Fort Benning, but a severe asthma attack led to his discharge at Fort McClellan.
Al met his wife Dottie, a redhead from Brooklyn, through friends, and they were married for many decades. He began his career in his father's fabrics business, which he disliked, then moved into electronics and cabling before returning to his passion for aeronautics. He worked at LTV in Grand Prairie building fighter planes and later at Boeing on aircraft equipment, from which he retired. Al and Dottie came to Texas in 1960 seeking warm weather and settled in the Dallas area, including Carrollton. They were active in Israel-related causes and in the Jewish War Veterans, where Al served as post commander and Dottie as a past president of the Ladies Auxiliary. He was about three blocks away when President Kennedy was assassinated. Al and Dottie raised two daughters and had four grandchildren.
Full Transcript
l 1928 brooklyn new york right let's go back what was it was life like when you're a little kid in Brooklyn I lived in a in the area called Sheepshead Bay it was a small Bay or a small Inlet a lot of private boats there and a lot of fishing boats boats that would take you out for five dollars a day flounder fishing something like that I have two funny sorry about that these boats were about 80 feet long very low to the water the only thing sticking up was the pilot house and they'd get about 70 60 guys on the boat scrunched up together
and fishing all day now my grandfather was in the restaurant business all his life and it was a typical Jewish grandpa we were walking down there one day and he says you see that both the glory to the ices I used to own it and I figured that this was a story a real story I said come on you probably never been honored uses though I never have instead during Prohibition my friends and partners partner they bought the boat it was a World War one sub chaser loads of the water with a very deep hole and they got a crew and the crew will go
13 14 miles out to sea meet up with this ocean liners going to Cuba in those days you could go to Cuba and they offload scotch and whatever was these they could Irish whiskey's and he brings it into sheep sube at night so that was my grandfather the bootlegger he wants he went to throw me it's very he had somehow and I they had some wine that went sour and he spent the whole night cooking up simple syrup that's sugared water till it won't it won't accept any more sugar they threw it all into the bathtub with that terrible wine and it made something close
not quite but close to a like a minor chevis type of wine but that was it yeah it was fun there was fun times bro living there as a kid yeah now did your grandfather owned a restaurant he had owned many restaurants it was a very volatile business in New York loves this you do good for a year and pull up some more there you're out of business yeah yeah yeah well that's that's what happened ya know tell me about your parents would your dad do for a living my dad had a company selling piece goods and fabrics to department stores fabric counters and two
individual fabrics clothes yeah I started off with him as a salesman and I hated every day of it I traveled all over the country it was good education I had as a kid I went to a special school in New York called Brooklyn Tech it will say some special schools for bright kids I'm gonna help bright but I was and I studied engineering automated order aeronautical engineering which I love but every time I got a job with a an aeronautical company when the when the contracts went down they fire everybody whether you go to bed they just said they could keep ya going and then
the two months later there might be another new contract coming up there would hire you again yeah I didn't like it yeah that for me yeah now when you're a kid was that the Yankees the Giants are the Dodgers it was the Dodgers I was at the ball club the night that Jackie Robinson made his debut well what was that low it was how it was it was scary because his old teammates didn't want him yeah and he showed them that he was a better man yeah yeah you say it was interesting into sometimes maybe we could go to the ball game on a saturday
but i think was fifty cents to get in and hot dogs were nickel or a dime or something like that it was it was neat yeah fun for a kid now when you went to the ball game and saw Jackie Robinson's debut did you understand the history you were with really I can't recall the forties well yes I did that yeah I know that yeah I know I thought I was younger than that I really was no i wasn't i remember the hard time he had going with him yeah because when they went out around the road it was terrible he and the kind was
was over there and they're in a hotel room by himself we're all the other guys were in a better hotel yeah yeah it wasn't that good yeah and what about the Giants were you a giant I doesn't throw a giant fan now so it was the Dodger so did you go to the ballpark as a kid a lot yes you remember some of the other players oh yeah d with reason I remember him your grandfather that you were talking about what the restaurants was that your dad's day I was my mother's father and what about your grandma on that side she was a very interesting
woman she came from a mania as did Grandpa but as a young girl she worked for the royal family as a dressmaker and she was always fantastic Lee handy did you ever hear of a company called Lily Reuben of course to explain she worked blue she was the beginning with Lily Reuben in the United States excellent craftsman in fact her brother was a craftsman he built the top of the Eiffel Tower why the metalwork a sheet metal worker if you ever relayed that experience to the family her family knows yeah but what did he say about it om no I never met him I think
he stayed in Europe yeah he probably was gone yeah but who's interested yeah and what about your grandparents on the other side my grandfather died I was about 7 years old 1935 my grandmother never remarried she had four boys and they they supported her all her life she never had woman brought came to United States and married and they live in malden massachusetts and she never had an European accent never had a Yiddish accent the only thing she was was a confirmed Yankee I must only in the accent now your grandfather passed away do you know what he did for a living no I go
okay I was little Pina when you were small the Depression hit did it affect your family we didn't know we were poor we eighth yeah and Grandpa working in the restaurant always had something left over that he'd bring home which was where everybody eighths yeah we didn't know it was eyes i said before we know we were born after now your mom and dad you know how they met I know my dad had a friend Bob Olin who was the light heavyweight champion of the world he is the one that beat maxie rosenbloom for the title he knew my mother and they knew by dad
separately and he brought them two together and in six weeks they got married now what was your dad's connections in this heavyweight boxer they were friends from from Borough Park Borough Park was a Madonna predominantly Jewish area of brooklyn bowl what was high school life like for you and where did you go to high school I went to a school called Brooklyn Tech it was a school you had to have a certain grade average to take a test to qualify to get into the school and it was just a certain amount of kids it could get in you know it was everything mechanical and engineering
it basically was a two-year engineering course it was fascinating we had one class was architecture one year you built a house inside the school a one and a half storey house the next class after you would take the house down because you learn just as much taking it down as you do building it wow that was what time so they had a naval architecture area and they built a PT boat which was accepted by the Navy and went in through accent now your brother was he young age 12 agenda yeah 12 years younger hello so you were somebody he looked up to that I guess
I guess so after school then was it on to college or did you go into the service I went into the service I went in in June 46 well when 41 when the tech Pearl Harbor what was going through your mind you're a young kid young man at the time oh i think i was like i had seen too many John Wayne movies going to go out there and beat the Germans and beat the Japanese yeah yeah that's the mindset to that but of it all so you went in in 46 the word technically it ended but you were telling me it was still the
fighting ended when they dropped the two bombs one another sacking one Hiroshima's they signed the surrender and Tokyo Abba on a Missouri but they never signed the armistice until I think December of 46 and I was so technically I was a world war two veteran but he served in the in the States I went into the army I I'm asthmatic I passed the test I didn't tell him I was asthmatic and a certain time to my guess is clear i got in i signed up to go to jump school paratroopers they sent me a Fort Benning Georgia first they sent me to McClellan and I
told him I had signed for powered Rover they sent me over to Fort Benning I was there a couple months then I got a horrendous as my fact they put me on a bus set me back before McClellan and put me in the hospital at Fort McClellan and that's where i was discharged from yeah yeah okay hey where did you meet the Dottie we lived out on Long Island and my all my friends and family lived in Brooklyn which was only 10 15 miles away I was coming into brooklyn one day my friend called me up one of my brooklyn mates said he met one
girl and she's bringing her girlfriend who got to get together that day at Sunday whatever was and there was this cute little redhead and that was naughty and it's in 63 years tell me about that first date I can't remember that I really can't remember I know we had a good time we had fun place a long time ago Donny and I were slated to get married at toba 28 of 28 1951 the week before Labor Day I got orders to report for a pre induction physical no I've been in the Army already I went downtown New York for the building live specified and as
I walked and I had papers in my hand that's it sergeant I is get online but I I just get online don't talk to me I can't tell that was of it get online so I went through the whole physical got to the end of the physical and as another side just sitting there were two stamps accepted for military duty and rejected he said any reason why you should not be accepted as it yes I'm a world war two ivette have a medical discharge and he got little puff pieces why don't you tell the sergeant upfront and so because that anyone listen to me and
he straightened up his back he said that idiot there's a Saturday army and at that particular point I would have fallen out of fall and left my butt off what do you what businesses you get into I first started with my dad's business which I hated with the fabrics and then I went on the road with electronics with cables and wiring cable and mechanical type things which was good but I always wanted to be back in aeronautics I wanted to stop traveling I went to work for quite a few years to LTV out and look grand prairie texas building fighter planes which was fascinating to
me and I loved it yeah and then before you knew it they had a way up because the end of the contract so went on the road again then couple years later coming home when one afternoon we live out in carrollton at the time there was a company called Boeing it was building them i walked in i got a job there I said with Boeing but 10 12 years it wasn't the airplane itself it was ancillary equipment for the airplanes and I loved it at a bowl and that's where i retired from now bowling here in dallas when was it when you started with LTV
in Grand Prairie doing get been ok so you still were living in Brooklyn at the phone oh no no I was here I come to texas in 1960 what brought you here warm weather warm weather and at the time I was with my dad's company okay honey had a at office in that small of a house here now when you wanted to leave your dad's company was that hard for you to tell him no because we were friends it was it was a great relationship my where my dad myself yeah when we enjoyed each other you wanted re think about coming to Texas she was
not happy hi mother was a widow with with three kids and she was leaving her mother it was very difficult for daddy we we moved into a house a small house which was lovely we were about five or eight blocks away from the local grocery store now Dottie had try i had thought daddy how to drive and she knew how to drive in Brooklyn but every time she got to take a test shoot freeze so she fell if I and I was on the road and I was coming home on the weekends I found an old Plymouth I must have been in 1950 plymouth and
then i'll never forget it had a hole in the floor and i would say they could move look for money on the floor but she started to drive that because there was nothing else yet though and we met another couple and the other woman took her out driving also when she finally passed and she's been driving all these years now were your kids all born in Texas no I Shelly was nine and karen was 50 we got iya okay okay happiest time in your life Texas Texas everything about Texas I when we were involved in the in the differ in Israel for many years I
am involved at dar es tu in the US war veterans that is a past president of the Ladies Auxiliary I'm a past commander of the post we met some lovely wonderful people here what you made it very very good yeah a lot of us were displaced New Yorkers and displace Chicagoans so we had a common cause to get together yeah we needed each other yeah yeah um in your line of business what changes did you see on an airplane over the years the jet I remember going to my dad's funeral and a four-engine airplane I'm droned on for hours and hours and hours and they
the same flight in three hours or less than three hours and in a jet yeah yeah that's that's been the biggest thing that's a bit love ya oh yeah yeah yeah now in your lifetime was there an invention that came along something else that you looked at and said wow how did we ever get along without that computers and I still don't know what I'm doing well I could I can turn it on i can send the message of his leg i spent a couple hours with my grandson who walks into the house and the computer seized him and says anything you wish master but
he's 30 years old he was brought up with computers yeah yeah now in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions as a young child of course the Great Depression World War two the Vietnam era President Kennedy assassination in Dallas something good the moon landing for the first time in 69 course the tragedy at 9-11 was there something that happened on the national scene that really stood out in your mind that affected you where you knew exactly where you were when it happened John Kennedy's assassination I was about three blocks away and I was working with a man who with my boss who was
a native Texan this guy that it was a bigot he didn't like blacks he wasn't fond of Hispanics he didn't like Jews and he hated Democrats I think I was four out of five I lost I had it I was finished and he was thrilled that tell john kennedy was shot I was so mad at him I said you son of a who sue me I said if there was a backflow to the Alamo it would be a Texas he nearly had a stroke when I said no but that's the way I felt yeah yeah I mean it's really really democrat or republican you don't
assassinate the president now you and Daddy have two daughters and four grandkids right what advice does grandpa have for the next generation love them my two girls we would have father daughter of course but with friends we respect each other we love each other and in this has gone on with my granddaughter my two granddaughters same way I've treated in the same way and they treat me the same way and it's fun yeah for instance I wanted about daddy's birthday is next Friday I wanted to buy her Chanel number five which is a favorite perfume but it's ninety dollars a bottle for a little bot
like that so sweetly Shelly my eldest I said I can't do that that's ridiculous she said let me shop first so she was shopping around to the dead we can't do it but last night yes it was last night she called me she did I spoke to Karen that's her younger sister well he's putting in thirty dollars you may Karen and we'll buy mom the perfume but that's the way we are yeah went together yeah yeah what's the one thing when you were a kid you used to do that your parents never knew something tells me you got in trouble a few times Oh probably
so when I went to Boy Scout meetings we go to the local candy store for penny and two pennies we get a couple cigarettes and a match I mean then that was a horrible thing yeah how stupid we were all three at the time the best bit at least 12 years old that's what Boy Scout started what you do with that cigarette match we smoke on hell yes another thing they used to do my mother didn't know what it was at first in Sheepshead Bay which I told you about they had these fishing boats when the boats left people were standing they throw coins into
the water I wait with dive off the pier into the water so i have a string of plaque over here and black over here from the oil and the gunk it was stupid Billy kids yeah yeah which I made money honey quarter yeah anyway that's about what we did yeah yeah well thanks for doing this today my job you did a great job thank you