Richard Allen, My Grandfather

I decided to do my culminating project on Richard Allen, my Grandfather. I chose him for many reasons. We both like technology, he has been in the Vietnam War, he has lots of old antique items, some new, and he has experienced segregation. He has suffered from strokes recently, and has had two major strokes in the last 5 years. These are all very important reasons why I chose to do my project on my grandfather. My grandfather was born in Malden, Massachusetts on June 16th, 1943 which was during World War II. He was born in a hospital, not at home, which was very common back in the day. He was raised in Everett, Massachusetts. When he was born everything was scarce. Food was rationed, and people were selling pots and pans for scrap metal.
When he was in elementary school, he bought war bonds, which were stamps that …show more content…
His dad drove a bus and the bus yard was across the street from the school. He would look out of the window to see if he could see his dad pulling into the yard. The buses that he drove were called trackless trolleys- kind of like the ones they have in San Francisco. The cool thing about it was that he got to ride around the city for free, when most people paid with coins or tokens. I had figured out that tokens are like a form of payment, but only used on trolleys. If you needed to take two different trolleys, then you had to buy a transfer book and get it stamped by the bus driver. My great grandfather worked for the Metropolitan Bay Transit Authority. He worked two jobs, one as a bus driver and the other as a ice cream truck driver. He would sell the ice cream to my friends in the neighborhood. My grandfather told me about some of his summer trips to Revere Beach with a group of friends. He said he enjoyed that experience very much. He would also go to the lake in the summer for 2 weeks to go to a church camp. He would also go to Hay Market Square with his mom and uncle to shop for