Grammy and Ken

Our grand parents, on my father’s side, lived upstate in Santa Rosa, about a ten- hour drive. Around Christmas time, we went up for a visit. My Grammy, Lorna, was a tall handsome woman, a real looker when she was younger. She married Ken in the forties after divorcing her first husband, Wayne, my father’s father. Unfortunately, I have no memories of my grandfather Wayne because I was very young when our paths last crossed and I would never see him again. Ken Gillie was our surrogate grandfather, though we never addressed him as Granddad. He was always Ken. But he was a gracious man and sincerely grandfatherly as he could be. Grammy and Ken’s house was a ranch style house with a pool in the back yard. Their property was next to an orchard separated by a split-rail fence. Their two children, Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Gary were teenagers then, and put up with us as we invaded their home. Jeanne was a very sweet girl who smiled politely at me when I made eye contact her, but we rarely spoke after how do’s were exchanged. Conversation was awkward between a ten-year-old nephew and a sixteen-year-old aunt. Seemed like they should have been our cousins, I guess. Uncle Gary was assigned to entertain Joe and I and gave us a tour of the place. We hung out in his bedroom and listened to the new Beatles album, Rubber Soul, as we read Flash and Green Lantern comic books and shuffled through his baseball card collection. I was envious Gary had his own room and that there was a pool just outside his window.

He asked us if we wanted to see his fort and led us out the side yard. I expected a tree fort or a clubhouse in a converted shed or something as I looked around and saw neither. Instead, he led us to a tarp next to a huge pile of dirt. We were impressed when Gary whipped off the tarp and exposed his underground fort. It was an impressive feat of engineering, and to this day I never saw one like it. He pushed aside some wood planks and we descended a ladder about six feet to the first level. We sat on a large wooden platform about 6ft x 8ft built into the sidewalls and supported from below. Gary pulled out a flashlight and climbed up the ladder and pulled the tarp back over us. He had a stash of cigarettes in a bag inside a small niche dug into the wall behind a wooden plank and lit one up as he spoke of his plans. He was bullshitting us of course, but said he planned to dig a mile deep until he reached the center of the earth. That way he could heat the place and light his smokes on the molten core when he ran out of matches. We peered into the depth that went down maybe 12 feet. The walls were supported with crossbeams and the walls framed with two-by-fours and scrap wood. At the bottom was a bucket tied to a rope next to a shovel. He saw how it was done watching the movie The Great Escape. We hadn’t seen it. He told us about the tunnels they dug through a floor in the bunkhouse. Gary went on and on and about Steve McQueen, who did his own motorcycle stunts, jumping barbwire fences when he tries to escape the Nazis.

Grammy Gillie was nervous and somewhat overwhelmed with the sudden invasion of their quiet abode. We were like a pack of wild dogs running through the suddenly packed house, sniffing around, snapping at each other and lapping up all the soda in the fridge. We were warned to settle down after the first day, or else we’d all be out in the doghouse. They didn’t have a dog though. Joe and I would have gladly slept in Gary’s underground fort if it came to that.

When my grandparents met, Ken was a Private Detective and met Lorna who worked in the
Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. The gumshoe and the secretary fell in love and married soon after. They were devoted to each other and shared a long and loving marriage. Ken was now a Teamster, who rose from the ranks and became a local leader. Grammy told me he once had dinner with Jimmy Hoffa. Ken was a man’s man, a former sailor, teamster and an avid hunter and fisherman. He was as comfortable in his own skin as he was in a wool plaid shirt. We never saw the tough side of him but you could tell it was there by the way he carried himself. Ken loved a good cigar and puffed on it contentedly in his easy chair as my sisters combed his silver hair. The tough guy’s eyes became heavy, soothed by the loving attention and the sweet tobacco, he drifted into a peaceful slumber.

Orange Crush

I saw those movies at a different drive-in on another night when I joined Kevin and his sister Cindy on a night out with their parents later that summer. On the trip back from the concession stand we caught their parents making out in the front seat of their spacious white Buick. They looked like two love-crazed teenagers going at it. Preoccupied as they were, they didn’t see us. Kevin had a flashlight and beamed it on them, saying in the lowest voice he could muster, "What’s going on in there?" Mrs. Ferring screamed a blood-curdler that blended in sync with the other sounds of carnage up on the screen. Mr. Ferring’s head hit the roof when he popped up. He gave us a look that would have normally killed as sure as a Mothra death ray, but with his disheveled red hair and the smeared red lipstick around his mouth, he looked like Bozo.

"Why don’t you kids get the sleeping bags and watch the movies in the park up front there", he panted.

That wasn’t a request; it was an order.

"Yes, good idea, honey. Have fun kids..." Mrs. Ferring agreed quickly while she adjusted the rear view mirror to apply a fresh layer of lipstick and combed her fingers through her hair.

Kevin carried the three bags while Cindy and I brought the popcorn and orange soda. We unrolled the bags and sat in the grass with our backs to the fence. Speakers we pulled over from a nearby post dangled above us as we craned our necks to watch the gargantuan mutant dinosaur fry King Kong with his atomic breath. I stood up at one point to stretch and looked back at the Buick. I couldn’t see Mr. and Mrs. Ferring. The windows were steamed up.

Kevin’s sister, Cindy, like her dad, had red hair, bright orange like Lucy Ricardo. And like Kevin, was covered with freckles. Her freckles and scars didn’t obscure the fact she was really cute. Every time I looked over at Cindy, she smiled back. It was driving me nuts.

I secretly liked her and wanted to kiss her so bad my stomach ached. This wasn’t puppy love; I wanted to lap her face like a dog. I’d seen enough Frankie and Annette make-out scenes in those stupid beach movies that I figured I was ready to give it a go. You just kind of puckered up and mashed your lips together until you ran out of air. I was dying to try it out on Cindy. But it didn’t seem like the right time for romance at a Godzilla movie. Anyway, I would, could, never do it with Kevin there. But as luck would have it, he had to make a run to the restroom. I scooted over next to Cindy, on Kevin’s sleeping bag, and nodded awkwardly at her as I tried to think of something romantic to say. She stared back at me as she sipped her soda. My eyes moved down and were suddenly glued to her lips around the straw.

“Can, can I have a sip…of your soda? Mine ran out,” I said.

Uh, real romantic, I thought, as Godzilla screeched above us. She handed me her soda and I took a sip from the straw her lips had just touched. I was about to chicken-out, when I blurted, “ Bet your lips taste like Orange Crush too.”

She blinked and looked at me, then smiled.

“Probably…” she said.

I leaned over and closed my eyes (that’s what they did in the movies) and kissed her, missing her lips entirely and instead laid a wet-one on her chin. She kindly adjusted and our lips locked. A warm tingly sensation ricocheted around in my gut, down to my toes and back up again. No wonder Frankie was all over Annette, this was great! Cindy tasted like Orange Crush: zesty and delicious. I didn’t know what to do after I came up for air so I just said, “Thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” she said and smiled that beautiful freckled smile again.

“Mike…”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have my soda back?”

That was my first real kiss. Every time I taste an Orange soda I can’t help but think about Cindy…and damn it, Godzilla too.


Fight Club

My personal time shared with the Adams clan was primarily at the house or when we went out as a family unit to church or the zoo. We painted a portrait of civility when we were out in public. At home it was like Picasso’s painting… Guernica. When our parents were out or my mom was pre-occupied on the other side of the house, mayhem ruled. There were days we were so bored we decided to fight for the fun of it. A seemingly innocent wrestling match or pillow fight would escalate into an all out brawl after someone got pissed. One of us always managed to get hurt. Not seriously, but squealing-pig-hurt, I guess. An ill-aimed karate chop, a poked eye, or say, an accidental bite might occur in the fracas. More than once, someone’s skull bounced off a hard wood floor. I’d do the Three Stooges hit-my-fist-routine, where you hold it out—someone hits the top of your fist—creating a quick opposite and not so equal reaction and you’d nail the dupe on the noggin with a swinging vertical roundhouse hammer-blow. Sometimes, you kind of missed the target and delivered a painful blow to a nose or a tender ear. Then you’d nearly smother the squealing sibling by clamping their chops shut to muffle the crying. If that didn’t work, the injured party would be ditched and left bawling wherever the incident occurred. Fingers were pointed, denials made, and if my mom remembered later, possible retribution awaited the offending party when Dad got home.

I guess it was cruel, in retrospect, but it was definitely entertaining and funny as hell when we forced my sister Laura and brother John to fight each other. Karen was never included in these events because she would have told on us or been a killjoy and put a stop to the festivities before they began. John was four, Laura six and a half, both were thin and wiry with sun-bleached dirty blond hair and always game for the battle. We had rules, not Marquess of Queensbury etiquette per say, but the competition had a semblance of civility to it. Fighters could be disqualified for intentional face punching or groin kicks. Hair pulling was tolerated as long as it remained attached to the scalp, inadvertent face rakes were ignored and grunting was permitted. No yelling, screaming out in pain, and definitely no crying!

We encircled them as they faced off like roosters in a cockfight. Rounds lasted a few minutes with a minute break in between as the fighters caught their breath and were coached for the next go-round. My brother, John, I’d describe as a grappler. He would drive forward, his hands protecting his head as he went in low for a leg-take-down. As he did so he received a vicious pummeling from Laura, a boxer, who employed a windmill fighting technique of churning arms and fists. John would retreat under a rain of blows until he found an opening. Laura kept him at bay or would quickly squirm free if she were taken down. If John curled up in the assault, Laura would vault on top of his back and beat him around the head and neck. The next second, she’d be flipped on her back in a reversal and be subdued in a choke-hold/crab-leg-lock combination. Back and forth it went, the rest of us cheering as they beat the crap out of each other.

Gore Fest

Gore-fest

Besides that Padres baseball game, our Dad took us to see a San Diego State University football game on another occasion. Don Coryell was in his last year as the head coach there before stepping up to coach the Chargers. His assistant coach at State was Joe Gibbs, an alumni and letterman on the Aztecs from 1961-63. When Coryell left, Gibbs took the helm at San Diego State and led them to an undefeated season his first time out. Watching football was relatively new to us but Dad managed to explain the basic nuances of the game as it played out so we would know what was going on. It was just as fun and loud as baseball. Mid-way through the third quarter and my second soda, I had to find a bathroom.

The men’s room facility was absolutely horrific. It was under construction, I don’t know, but there were no barriers between the urinals or toilets. The center urinal was a long open knee-high tub, twelve feet long, equipped with a sprinkler bar above it to keep it flushed. You stood on either side of it facing someone else, adults, unzipped and exposed. If that wasn’t disgusting enough, rows of toilets were out in the open. Guys sat on the pots with their pants around their knees staring sullenly at floor tiles. I pretended I only came in to wash my hands and got the hell out of there. Outside, I found my way to the back of the building and left my mark on the wall.

We faced more horror that night when Dad decided we’d take a little detour on the way home. We headed south, to within a mile of the Mexican border.

“You guys like scary movies, right?”

(Does a bear shit in the woods?)

“Yeah,” we answered.

“I’m gonna smuggle you in.”

“What—Yeah?”

My dad may have spent most of his money that night at the game or he just wanted to save a buck, or we were too young to be allowed in; I’m not sure, but he had a plan. He was in the military, after all, having once worked in a U.S. Embassy and had to know about espionage techniques and stuff. We pulled over to the side of the road when The South Bay Drive-in sign came into view. It was featuring a triple-header of blood-sport. Before I ducked down I read aloud the movie listing: “Color Me Blood Red, 2000 Maniacs and Blood Feast.”

“Ok, you boys duck down behind the seat, that’s right, on the floor. I’ll pull backseat down and cover you up. Don’t say a word, don’t breathe, I’ll handle this.”

“Sir, Yes Sir!”

When the car pulled up to the admission/guard booth we held our breath. What would happen if we were discovered? Was there a law about smuggling kids into bad movies? When the guy said, “Evening, how many?” my dad intentionally cleared his throat and calmly answered, “Just one.” I almost blew our cover with a fit of suppressed giggling. My heart raced as the money was exchanged, papers examined, or whatever went on. “Thanks,” I heard Dad say as we pulled away from the checkpoint. I waited for the guy to figure out our cunning ruse at the last possible second, and yell out in a thick German accent, “Halt! HALT!” followed by a spray of machine gunfire.

Instead, I heard the pop of gravel as we drove up the hill and the sound of distant screams as we drove into the movie lot.

“Are we there yet?”

“Shhh! I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”

After another loop around Dad found an open spot with no vehicles on either side of us and steered the car into position up a small incline. He flipped up the folding seat and announced, “The coast is clear!” Joe and I stealthily crept out into the bright flickering light of the movie screen, looking guiltily around. The lot was half-filled and nobody seemed to pay us any mind. Mission accomplished. We eagerly climbed through the windows and pulled in the metal speakers from the posts and rolled the windows halfway up to hook them on the lip of the window.

Dad made a quick run to bring back some refreshments as the closing credits for the first feature “Color Me Blood Red” was scrolling down the screen. Shame, I probably would have liked that one because it was about a painter who used human blood, (altar-sacrificed model’s blood) when he ran out of crimson red. Oh, well.

Herschel Gordon Lewis, the “Godfather of Gore” directed the infamous blood and mayhem trilogy. They were visceral campy drive-in fare that sidestepped vague censorship laws and quality filmmaking that would have made fellow low budget director, Ed Wood, (Plan 9 from Outer Space,) proud. The Lewis films unlocked the door that let out Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers in the 80’s.

“Blood Feast” was about this insane bug-eyed Egyptian caterer who butchered people for their body parts as sacrifice to an Egyptian god, Ishtar, who actually was a Babylonian goddess. So much for details, and for that matter, good acting and film technique…let the slaughter begin!

I’m not sure what made you cringe more, the dismembered limbs or the acting. But the ending was pretty satisfying. The two dumb-ass detectives, as Dad called them, finally did something right and somehow managed to chase the killer into the back of a trash truck. It was an unfortunate choice for a hiding place; the caterer was crushed in the compactor.

“Two Thousand Maniacs” was a fun knee-slappin’ Hee Haw kill fest with a lively blue grass sound track. A carload of Yankee tourists is lured into a small off the road Southern town. The welcoming citizens—vengeful ghosts of the Civil War, invite their special guests to the town’s carnival-like centennial celebration. A girl gets a splinter in her thumb and a friendly local pulls out his whittling knife and offers to remove it. Her thumb, that is. She, well, parts of her, are roasted over a barbeque pit as the rednecks passed around moonshine jugs and sang hillbilly campfire songs. Four horses pull apart her boyfriend limb by limb. Yee Haw! The tension was unbearable; (Oh No, Dad finished off a big box of popcorn. In an enclosed space like we were, the consequences could be deadly.) Another couple is dispatched soon after. The girl is tied down on a wooden platform below a huge boulder as the folks take turns until one hits the bull’s-eye, triggering the release lever.

Crunch!

Having personally survived a similar ordeal, minus the nails, the worst death scene was the last. The squashed girl’s boyfriend gets rolled down a hill inside a barrel; his was spiked though with nails. The boy was hamburger when he reached the bottom. The third couple escapes so the movie ended on an uplifting note. Joe and I clapped our approval. We thought the movies were bloody good.

There was one last possible horror that awaited us when we got home…Mom. She would be absolutely appalled if she found out what we had seen. Dad briefed us, making it clear that what we saw that night was to be kept “Top Secret.” In case we happen to be cross-examined later, we’d have to come up with a good story. After a brief discussion on the ride home, we decided on a Godzilla double feature: “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and “Mothra Against Godzilla.” The plots, easy…Godzilla kicks King Kong’s Kiester and Godzilla makes mince meat of Mothra.

Moon Song and Baseball

Moon Song

Kevin’s mom and dad were the prototypical Leave It To Beaver types. Mr. Ferring was a natty dressy who kept his office tie on until after dinner and like Ward Cleaver, never lost his temper or raised his hands to the kids. He’d say, “Now Kevin….” followed by an order or comment, and that was it. Mrs. Ferring only had to say, “We’ll talk to father about this later,” and Kevin and Cindy would get respectfully back into the obedience line. It was amazing.

When I stayed over at Kevin’s, Cindy hung out with us. She was a year older than I was but didn’t hold that against me like my sister Karen did. Cindy had two fascinating penny-size freckles on either side of her mouth. Kevin told me they weren’t freckles but scars from a terrible incident when Cindy was younger. I wasn’t able to find out what possessed her to do it; she didn’t like to talk about it. But she stuck her tongue into an electrical socket and the voltage blew holes through her cheeks. Still, she was very pretty and looked real fine.

Mrs. Ferring was carefully coifed. Her blond helmet hair was sprayed into place, her orange lipstick glistened on her freckled lips and her fingernails and toes were painted to match the lipstick of the day. There was a Stepford Wife quality about her. She adored her husband and waited on him hand and foot and kissed him with affection, constantly. They were always cuddling and polite to each other. I wondered if Cindy would grow up to be like her mom. That would be great.

Kevin, my brother Joe and I came up with a song, well, someone else’s song we heard on the radio, but we wrote our own lyrics. We called it: “By the Light of the Moon.”

While I was walkin’ down the street
I met a pretty girl that I’d like to meet.
Hmm by the light of the moon, Oh yea
Hmm by the light of the moon, Oh yea
She was pretty and looked real fine,
…something, something, and she’d be mine.

Chorus, repeat, repeat, and repeat until we stretched it out for a good two minutes. We practiced it over and over until we got it right. We swayed and kicked out a leg move in unison after the “Oh yeas.” Our prepubescent voices were maybe one octave lower than The Chipmunks, but better. Our first performance was in front of Cindy. She thought it was great. So did Mr. and Mrs. Ferring. Our biggest crowd was a group of ladies gathered for a Tupperware party at my house. Mom pulled us in from the backyard to sing our song. We absolutely killed; the chicks dug it! Enamored by our cuteness and the lovely melody, the women clapped with enthusiasm after our bow. We always finished with a bow.

We got caught up in the hysteria and pondered this music thing rather seriously. First, we’d have to think of a cool name. “The Horny Toads,” “Moon Monkeys,” and “The Lizard Lads,” were considered and shelved. In the meantime we better write a couple more hit songs, get an agent, and make a record. Then we could quit school and go on tour. We were on cloud nine for a good week. Our final performance was in front of Mike Harper who brought us back to earth with a resounding thud. He laughed at us, mocked our song, and said, “It was pussy.”

Baseball

Kevin and I were on the same baseball team, the Pirates. I really didn’t like baseball, but it was like church, you were expected to go. I did my penance in left field for the transgressions of the sacred game I was surely guilty of. I was like a fish out of water and flopped around in the outfield when a ball was hit to left. Kids in California could play ball all year round, depending on the league you joined, so I began my short-lived baseball career with a disadvantage. The puny skill-challenged players like myself rode the bench half the time and alternated in the outfield where we could do the least damage to the team. I wasn’t the worse outfielder ever, I don’t think, and could get under a ball with my speed, but it was a 50/50 chance I’d catch it. I had a good arm and I could whip it into the infield to throw out an aggressive runner at second or third even if I fumbled a catch. I was very good at striking out and eliciting moans from our dugout and the stands especially if it was the last out of the inning with a guy at third. But I did my best and managed to draw my share of walks, and by chance, get a hit every once and a while. I loved to run the bases and learned to slide under a throw. On the rare occasion someone hit a single or double after me, I felt the exhilarating experience of crossing home plate. I don’t know if I was a jinx but the Pirates finished in last place.

Our Dad took Joe and I to a Padres game that summer. The San Diego Padres of that era were a minor league AAA farm team of the Cincinnati Reds, playing in the Pacific Coast League. The Padres were the reining champs, having won the PCL pennant the year before. Tony Perez was the third baseman that year. In the 70’s, Perez became an important cog on the awesome “Big Red Machine.” Cincinnati won five straight division titles, three pennants and two World Series.
We had a good time that night. It was great to be out anywhere with my Dad. I can’t say I have as many father/son memories as I wished I had, but while we were in San Diego we shared a few outings that were special to us. That baseball game was one of them. We sat together high up in the bleacher seats, which provided a great view of the well-lit field. I recall wearing my baseball glove, at the ready, for the entire game, wishing for a souvenir homerun ball. I don’t recall the final score or if the Padres were victorious, but I fondly remember the sounds of Balboa Stadium. The stadium was filled with the murmur of a thousand voices. Dad, Joe and I joined in with the collective singing the National Anthem, roared when a run scored and booed when the umps blew a call. We could hear the crack of the bat making contact with the ball and the distinct pop of a fastball hitting the catcher’s mitt. The food vendors climbed between aisles calling out: “Get your hotdogs! Peanuts—Fresh Peanuts…” and “Cotton Candy Here!”

I still love those sounds.

On the way out, gorged with hotdogs and sodas, we drove by a new stadium under construction in down town San Diego. It would be the future home of the San Diego Chargers in two years and the home of the National League San Diego Padres in 1969, when the city was awarded a major league baseball franchise.

Now that I was playing ball, I began to pay attention to big league baseball on TV. We watched the Los Angeles Dodgers, the best team in Baseball. The Dodgers also had one of the best pitchers of all time, Sandy Koufax. Against Chicago that year, he pitched a perfect game. Twenty-seven batters faced the great left-hander that day, not one of them reached first base. It was the third of four consecutive years that Koufax would throw a no-hitter. Koufax won his second Cy Young award and led them to the World Series in 1965 with 26 wins.

There was a big hullabaloo when Koufax refused to pitch the first game of the series because it fell on the Jewish Holiday, Yom Kippur. A first game loss by Don Drysdale and a Koufax letdown in the second game left the Dodgers down 2-0 to the Minnesota Twins. But the Dodgers came back and took the next three games including a Game 5 shutout courtesy of Koufax, in which he also knocked in the winning run. Minnesota tied the series in Game 6 and the championship went to a deciding seventh game. Unbelievably, Sandy Koufax pitched another shutout, a three-hitter, and the Dodgers clinched the World Series title. Koufax was unanimously voted the MVP of the Series.

The Summit

Kevin Ferring had surfer-blond hair and was speckled with freckles on every surface he had ever exposed to the sun. Kevin was also ten and my best buddy. He joined Joe, Mike and I on our lizard hunts and was a pretty good skateboarder to boot. Harper always had an excuse to blow off climbing to the top of “S” Mountain, claiming he had done it once, and that was enough. Kevin was more than up to it and said he hadn’t yet and always wanted to. That week we planned the expedition out in every detail. Kevin would bring first aid supplies consisting of band-aids and a bottle of Mercurochrome in case of a rockslide or getting scuffed up running from coyotes, they lived up there. Joe brought an official Scout snakebite kit and a flashlight to signal a search plane at night should we get lost. I packed my knap sack with provisions of sodas, a can opener and an assortment of baloney sandwiches.

When the day came, we started out at the crack of dawn because the summer heat could be a problem by late afternoon. The plan was to get to the top by mid-morning and back by early afternoon. We made our way up the zigzagging east side trail, pacing ourselves as we went. It was a pretty tough trek but my skinny legs were Schwinn-toughened so it wasn’t something I couldn’t handle. There were plenty of distractions along the way, so it wasn’t a strait up climb. Animal carcasses, unexplored caves and lizards pulled us off the trail here and there.

The sodas were gone by the time we were halfway up the mountain, so was the sugar rush when we reached the summit. I was disappointed when we got there because I expected the top of the mountain to have one central peak where you could plant a flag or a plaque, like Pike’s Peak. It was actually more of a long spine of rolling hills and chaparral. (Chaparral is a fancy word for a dense thicket of shrubbery and small trees, primarily evergreen Oaks common in Southern California.) After a good walk, the trail widened to the size of a road as other trails fed into it. We found a good view on the far side and sat under the shade of an evergreen Oak tree. We ate our sandwiches as we stared in awe at the ultramarine blue expanse of the Pacific. What a spectacular sight it was!

“Over that way is Hawaii,” Kevin pointed out.
“Yeah, Don Ho lives there, right?” I said knowingly.
“Who gives a shit about Don Ho?” Kevin asked.
“You do. Everyone knows you dig Ukulele music.”
“Yeah, right…”
“You know, Joe and I saw Ho driving by us in Arkansas.”
“Who gives a flying-shit?” Kevin said.

“S” Mountain was the first mountainous summit I conquered. Not many people I knew could say they climbed a mountain, so I felt proud we accomplished something so noteworthy. We didn’t have a flag or plaque to leave for posterity to celebrate our amazing feat so we left our mark in another way. We climbed to the top of the biggest rock and pissed off of it. Something was strange; Joe’s piss shot out in a double stream.

“What, do you have two holes at the end of el pippi?”
“Yep, guess so.” Joe said. “It’s always done that.”
“That’s weird.”
“You better tell mom.”
“No.”

But he eventually he did. It was impossible for Joe to stand and go because he left a big mess from the errant flow. If he was at a school urinal it wasn’t a problem, but at home he had to sit on the toilet seat and pee like a girl. His pippi problem was a direct result of the slipshod circumcision by the butcher of Belgrade. Scar tissue formed within his urethra, blocking his passage. A Urological specialist re-cored his urethra and poor Joe had to endure a painful ordeal while it healed. I heard him screaming when he went to the bathroom.

When we discharged the last of our fluids we stood and watched as it quickly evaporated on the hot rock. Kevin busted the Mercurochrome bottle on the rock, leaving a deep orange bloody splash that stained the stone, maybe forever. It wasn’t an obvious graffiti like “Kilroy Was Here,” or the bright white spray painted “S” below us, but we left our mark on the mountain, just the same.

Sometimes, you did something stupid but not realize it until after the fact. Part Two

Now that we were skilled trappers and could collect any number of species in a given week, the question was what to do with them. It came to me while on a school field trip to the San Diego Zoo. It was my first visit to a zoo. It was amazing to see the array of magnificent animals I knew so well from watching another of my favorite shows, “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” Marlin Perkins and his trusty assistant, Jim Fowler, traveled the world and each week featured a new adventure, or to be more exact, a forced encounter with exotic animals. They were out in the muck or the brush wrestling alligators, running from elephants or wriggling out of a potential death-grip of a python or anaconda that got the better of them.

In the zoo’s reptile house, the snakes and lizards peered from within glass displays that replicated their natural environments. And then I remembered—the old TV in the garage, it was just the thing we needed. We gutted the inside of the TV and tacked on screens in the front and back. After cutting half the top off and replacing it with a weighted board, we placed it out on the back patio. We filled the bottom with dirt, pebbles and stones. In the corner we planted a clump of grass next to a Beaver-tail cactus and set in a bowl of water in front of it. With a few specimens we’d have the second best reptile exhibition in San Diego.

We captured a couple Sagebrush Lizards, a Skink, a Pocket Mouse and a good-sized scorpion. We figured they’d love their new abode. It was an impressive San Diego eco-system complete with a pond. That first day or so life in the “Desert Kingdom,” as we called it, was hunky-dory. The mouse hid under the grass, the scorpion claimed the dark under the stones and the lizards preferred clinging to the screens. The Skink sat on top of the stones panting or slept behind the cactus. We caught some crickets and dug up a few worms and threw them in at night.

It was an ecological disaster.

The exhibition started to stink. The over-watered the cactus was wilting in the corner. The scorpion killed the little mouse; the skink, we surmised, ate one of the smaller lizards and most of the crickets and worms drowned in the water. The scorpion was immediately evicted and the skink let go soon after, when the other lizard disappeared. A couple crickets were the only surviving occupants. Joe decided, because we had plenty of room in the desert kingdom, he would get us a new tenant on his own.

Across the street were plenty of ground squirrels. Some of them friendly, especially if you threw them some nibble food. Joe coaxed one over with some Cheerios, and threw his tee shirt over it. In the ensuing Jim Fowler-esq struggle to overcome it, the little beast bit his hand. Joe was used to pain, and a little bite was nothing to him. Victorious, he carried the bundled squirrel back, and let it loose it inside the box. The squirrel went totally berserk and tore the place apart trying to jump out. It left fist-sized dents in the screens, upturned the water bowl and knocked over the cactus. It eventually calmed down after we stepped fearfully away.

“It’ll be all right, I think…”

“Yeah. I’ll get some more Cherrios,” Joe said as he casually inspected his bloodied finger.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

It was anything-but nothing.

When my parents found out Joe had been bitten by a squirrel, they went berserk. It didn’t help matters when the squirrel went nuts again when they went out to take a look at it. Seeing the big fuss Joe changed his story to: “It’s just a scratch...”

I heard something like, “Jesus, it could have babies!” Actually, it was, “It could have rabies!”

“Rabies—what’s that?”

They dragged Joe inside immediately to wash his finger off with every disinfectant we had in the house. Numerous frantic phone calls were made as my parents paced back and forth in the kitchen. In a matter of minutes the Board of Health, the SPCA and the Animal Control Bureau were on their way to our house. Joe sat disgruntled out on the patio in one of the comfy Price Is Right chairs with the floral motive. Two cars and a big truck pulled into the driveway and the people were escorted through the house to the patio. The gathering took turns solemnly inspecting Joe’s finger and the crazed squirrel. Each official personally interrogated Joe, or tried to, as he glared back at them with mulish reticence. I watched from inside, waiting for one of them to start beating him with a blackjack or make him drink some truth serum. Joe confessed, kind of, non-verbally, that it might be a bite, with a nod of his head. He was informed it didn’t matter; a bite or scratch was enough to be contaminated. It was incredibly fortunate we had the squirrel. The Animal Control Bureau people carted up the furry perpetrator and took it away to be tested for the rabies virus.

IF the thing had rabies, Joe faced a series of inoculations, maybe up to eight shots in his stomach. Joe had to sweat it out, (no he didn’t want to do that) because it would be mistaken for a fever, one of the terrible telltale symptoms. Within a week, signs of nervous system damage could appear. There’d be no frothing at the mouth, like raccoons and dogs exhibited, but disorientation, hallucinations and seizures could occur. Eventually paralysis would set in. Joe might drop-dead any minute with a heart attack or go into a coma that could last for months…kept alive with the help of life-support measures.

Joe thought it was funny. As soon as my parents turned their heads or left the room he’d feign a seizure or grab his heart and keel over. Half way through the next week the report came back on the squirrel. It was perfectly healthy. The Desert Kingdom was thrown out in the trash, but I saved the cactus. The only specimens I was allowed to bring home after that were cactus. A Golden Snake, a Cotton-top and a Hedgehog, joined the Beaver-tail as part of my desert garden in the backyard.

San Carlos Cowboys

In San Carlos, everybody had a ride. You weren’t a cowboy without a horse, or cool without a bike. To remedy that, Joe and I decided we would get a job. We became newspaper delivery boys. At first, Ma woke us and escorted us to the newspaper truck rendezvous where we sat, rolled up papers and slipped on rubber bands. Our sacks filled, we walked either side of each street like dueling gunfighters. Fast on the draw, we turned and shot well-aimed newspapers with deadly accuracy. We ruled the dark morning streets until the sun came up and every delivery was made. We collected our payments and handed out stamp-like cardboard receipts as we carefully counted the take. We didn’t earn a great deal and split the loot.

It took months of personal deprivation, not to mention, miles of walking, but I saved most of my money. Joe wrangled up a few dollars but spent his money elsewhere like a drunken gambler. Pa, in the end, pitched in a ten spot to help out because I worked my britches off or he got sick of me whining about it. A brand new Schwinn Stingray was a hefty $66.95. With banana seats, 20” tires and other hotrod-like amenities, I can only describe in loving detail, was worth every penny. The bike corral was a few miles away and I had moseyed inside numerous times to check out the herd. Rows of untamed Stingrays stood in line like proud multi-colored steeds of coppertone, purple, sky blue and lime. Each biting at the bit to be let loose on the freshly paved trails of the suburban frontier.

Newspaper Boy

I stopped for a moment to watch as a meteor shower streaked across the cool starry sky. Brilliant flashes sparkled then disappeared beyond the edge of the ocean. That was just for me that night and it was beautiful. It was 5:00 in the morning and I had all of San Carlos Village to myself, and thirty more papers to deliver. I pushed off and peddled down the curving streets and flung my newspaper in high meteoric arches onto lawns of polished pebbles and skateboard-scuffed driveways.

I rode my pride and joy, a dazzling iridescent purple Schwinn Sting-Ray with a banana seat, back racing slick and hi-rise handlebars. It was cool, and when I was on it, so was I. My papers were saddled behind me over the seat and within easy reach. I had a pretty good arm for a skinny little runt and my aim was true. I knew to stay clear of the cactus and saw-toothed palms and never once missed. I did a Yeoman’s job, I was told. That’s Navy talk that meant I did a good job.

“S” Mountain

The east trail to the top of “S” mountain, as we called it, was a mile and a half long. A huge bright white S emblazoned a rocky outcrop three quarter’s the way up the mountain on the south side. You could see it from miles away. San Diego State students originally painted it in 1931. Except for the war years in the forties, when it was covered up for the sake of national security, the giant “S” was ritually re-painted every year until the mid 70’s and briefly in the 80’s. Protests by environmentalists finally put an end to the practice and the San Diego State moniker has since faded away, as has the nickname for the mountain. Today, the locals call it by its proper name, Cowles Mountain.

The mountain beckoned me in the same way the deep woods of the North East did. I didn’t climb it right away but made forays slowly up the hill, but not too far and out of site of where my bike lay hidden 40 yards off the trail. I’d ride it up the hill until my legs gave out then go off trail to find a rock or bush to hide it behind. I brushed away any bike tracks leading from the trail with a snapped off branch. It was a cunning Apache trick I picked up watching a Geronimo movie with Chuck Connors. I found out later that Geronimo wasn’t ruggedly handsome, have spooky blue eyes or was 6´5” tall, quite the contrary.

The trail up “S” Mountain was a light sandy- brown, mostly smooth and foot-worn. Occasionally rain-washed gullies cut deep fissures along the path or across it as they meandered down the rocky terrain. Patches of dark yellow grass, dry brush and scrub clustered stubbornly here and there between jutting boulders, rocks, stones, pebbles and sand. At first glance the land seemed uninhabitable. But if you looked, and I looked all the time, you’d glimpse a flash of shadow darting between rocks, beneath a ledge or from under a bush. Lizards— tons of ’em! As I climbed, I spooked them from their resting places along the trail. They skedaddled across the dry stony ground in a blur of beige or grey, their tails whipping up pebbles as they rocketed to another shady spot under the nearest large rock or shrub. I carefully turned over many a rock and more often than not, something was under it.

Strange and wonderful creatures were there to discover … and capture.

My neighbor, Mike Harper, our intrepid leader and sage, shared with us a remarkable trapping skill we put to use soon after. It was genius.

“All you gotta do is bury some cans and put some rocks on top; you’ll catch loads of shit.”

We buried coffee cans to the top of the rim and placed a large flat stone or a stack of stones over them, careful to leave openings beneath. When a critter ran from rock to rock for protection or shade, it would fall into the bottom of the can, unable to climb up the slick metal sides. And we did catch a shit-load of amazing creatures.

Harper had been a Boy Scout the year before but quit because, “there were too many freakin’ rules and half the crap they made me do was—pussy.” But, he picked up a few useful skills and proudly owned a pair of leather hiking boots to show for it. My brother Joe and I had been Cub Scouts for a few years and had a much better opinion of the organization; we loved scouting. But we couldn’t help but be envious of Mike’s hiking boots because we didn’t have any. Along with the boots, Mike wore these baggy surfer trunks, called jams. They were bright Pacific-blue with a yellow stripe down the sides, or a loud Hawaiian floral pattern that hung to his knees. He assured us, “lizards are color blind so it don’t matter.” Mike’s legs were almost as hairy as my sister Karen’s. I wanted to wear shorts too. It was a heck of a lot cooler, but if you had hairless toothpick legs like mine, you’d keep them covered, no question about it.

Every couple days, we’d follow Mike up the hill and check our traps. He was our Svengali, the big game hunter and safari leader. Weary of the dangers ahead, he spoke with whispered foreboding as we neared the unknown prey. We were warned to be careful not to step on a dry stick or kick up a stone or rub against a brittle bush as we went. If we did, he’d say we jinxed it and would refuse to look under the stones. Mike had this spell over us, filling us with dread as we faced the likely terrors under the rocks. When we got close he’d suddenly freeze, snap his head around and give us “The Eye.” Holding his gloved hand up, he waved us down into a crouch as we approached the traps.

“There’s something poisonous in this one, better stay back.”

We knew nothing about lizards except the big ones could be quite vicious and hissed and snapped if you tried to pick one up. Mike said most of them were poisonous just to scare us. Skinks and Alligator lizards were fearsome and latched onto Mike’s leather glove when he reached into the can. More than once they left behind part of their tail in the can, still wiggling. With all the Roadrunners around, you saw plenty with a half-grown tails. They could shed their tails as a cleaver distraction during a life or death encounter with another creature higher up on the food chain.

My favorite catch was definitely the formidable Horny Toad lizard, properly called the “Coast Horned Lizard.” It’s a fat little prehistoric-looking beast with a lot of attitude and protective devices akin to 007’s Austin Martin. When agitated, it blows it self up with air, making it difficult to swallow if you happen to be a snake. A large crown of sharp spines project from its head and rows of pointed scales stick out along its trunk. If the spines didn’t deter you, it wouldn’t hesitate to bite you. The coup de grâce is its ability to shoot blood from the corners of its eyes to disorient an intruder.

We caught small lizards mostly, but there were plenty of unexpected surprises in store. Kangaroo rats are cute but could scare the bejesus out of you. The moment the rock was lifted off, they’d shoot out of the can like a jack-in-the-box and land on you, send you sprawling, shrieking in terror because it happened so fast you didn’t know what hit you. On the other hand, the Little Pocket Mouse was so gentle it allowed you to hold it in your palm. If there was a small rattlesnake inside you could hear the rattle when it picked up your vibrations a few feet from the hole. Mike was crazy and sometimes would kick the stone off and we’d run for it as the thing slid out into the daylight. I was scared of snakes, still am, and my first reaction was to get the hell out of there. There were a dozen variety of rattlesnakes in the area, just didn’t want them in my cans. We once found a small Rosy Boa that curled it self into one of our cans. Mike was nuts and proved it by picking it up barehanded and held the snake near his face, both of them flicking their tongues out at us. The boa was as docile as the Little Pocket Mouse but I had no interest in holding it.

Snakes and dogs can smell your fear and I knew I must have stunk. I can tell you from experience it is an intense primal terror to get bitten by an animal or a snake. Let’s include insects on the list while we’re at it. Even a tiny wasp is enough to send you into a frenzied fit of flaying arms and contorted body convulsions. You can outrun a snake but not a dog or a wasp. I’ve tried. In addition to the reptiles and rodents, we also captured lots of scorpions and once or twice, humongous hairy brown Tarantulas, so big they covered the entire bottom of the can. I passed on holding those also. Mike had the leather glove, I didn’t.

“Look, a Potato Bug!” Mike called excitedly after turning up a stone.

It was the biggest, ugliest bug I had ever seen. It gave you the creeps when it looked up and checked you out. It had a huge amber-colored humanoid head, tiny black eyes, and a fat bulbous orange and black ringed body. It was 2” in length and could scuttle fairly quickly as it ran, a blur of ochre in the bottom of the can. Mike claimed it was as poisonous as a rattler. But it wasn’t. It didn’t eat potatoes, technically wasn’t a bug, nor was it poisonous. In case you happen to come across one, it’s called the Jerusalem Cricket.

Secret Agents and Joe's Dilemma

Secret Agents

Spying was both real and romanticized in the news, the movies, in songs and on television. Our country was in the middle of the Cold War, an arms race and a space race with Russia. We had one thing in common with the Russians, a little shared philosophy aptly called M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction.) We were living in the Atomic Age and doomsday was an all-too-real scenario. Spy planes had been shot down, basement bomb shelters dug and the Sputnik satellite kept an eye on us from above. Useless emergency drills were performed in schools, just in case. The school drills were absurdly comical. If an A-bomb hit nearby, it wouldn’t have mattered. We would have been incinerated curled under the desk or sitting in our seat. Somehow, we survived the Cuban Missile Crisis but there was fear that one provocation by either side would lead to our annihilation.

Secret agents and spying became the rage when 007 hit the big screen. James Bond was cool, calm and collected as he traveled between the dangerous realms of allies and villains. His arsenal of fancy gadgets always got him out of a tight jam. The Austin Martin he drove in “Gold Finger” was not only fast and stylish, it deployed oil slicks, smoke screens and with a push of a button, machine guns. When he finished dispatching the bad guys he got the very best of Pussy Galore.

On TV there was an abundance of spy-themed shows to choose from. “Get Smart,” “Secret Agent Man,” “I SPY” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” The later two were the best of the bunch. Get Smart was too goofy. Secret Agent Man had a hip Johnny Rivers song to open the show, but not much more. Lines were clearly drawn—Adults watched “I SPY,” kids watched “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” The MFU spies, you have to admit, had the coolest names in the history of TV: Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin.

We were all caught up in the web of intrigue. Besides playing Army or Cowboys and Indians, we now played Spies. Spying was basically an elaborate game of hide and seek. We had our own gadgets like invisible spray to elude capture, laser-ray instamatic cameras and listening devices (cups) to listen through walls. And if you were captured, you had a hidden dagger tucked away in one of our socks. Inevitably you were captured, disarmed and forced to drink truth serum and spill your guts. My sister Karen confessed to passing secret coded notes to a few boys in her class.

Joe’s Dilemma

Kids can be so cruel to each other in elementary and middle school. For my sister, the idea of being humiliated by her classmates was a fate worse than death. My brother Joe felt the same way the day he faced his own terrible dilemma. One of his sneakers ripped out or something like that. Mom happened to spot it as he stepped out the door and dragged him back into the house.

I waited.

There was arguing and a tussle inside, by the sound of it, before Joe was literally shoved out the door. He turned and pounded on the closed door to get back in, but couldn’t. Joe was pretty upset; he had good reason to be.

“I’m not going!” he bawled.

“No one will notice, now get going!” Mom said from inside.

“OH YES THEY WILL!” he screamed.

“Notice what?” I said as I looked down.

I saw it—them, it was an awful sight … Poor Joe was wearing an old pair of my sister Karen’s pointy white sneakers. Talk about cruelty to children! Good Lord, what was he going to do now?

“Let’s get out of here,” Joe huffed and looked frightfully up and down the street.

Whew! Lake Badin was clear and he ran quickly across. I followed. Had there been any witnesses to this atrocity, there would be no question … Joe would’ve had to kill them. Those pointy sneakers would have been the very last thing on earth they’d see. Joe raced ahead then detoured from the sidewalk up to the baseball field and disappeared into a dugout. As I caught up, I saw Joe’s tortured face through a small-screened window in the back of the dugout.

“Leave me alone—just go! I’m not going and you better not say anything! OK?”

“No way, don’t worry,” I answered.

Joe sat all day in that dugout and returned home shoeless when school let out. The sneakers were buried deep within one of a hundred squirrel burrows somewhere out in the field, never to be seen again.

Karen’s Stories

My sister Karen disliked the Spanish teacher, Mr. Kissler, because he was a smart ass- Hijo de puta (son of a bitch) who had a habit of saying rude things in Spanish to you if you happen to be the last kid arriving for class, or would mock you if you mispronounced a word or phrase too many times. Karen was going to be late one day and could not bear the idea of being embarrassed in front of the class, so she skipped school and hid out in the backyard. It wasn’t too bad because Grammy and Ken were visiting at the time. Karen sat quietly below a screened window and enjoyed listening to them talk with our mom throughout the afternoon.

School could be quite awkward when puberty blossomed suddenly and you were looked at and judged on a totally new and unfamiliar playing field. My Mom should have been coaching Karen from the sideline well ahead of time but never talked to her about the things young girls should know. If it weren’t for sixth grade health class, Karen wouldn’t have found out she would very shortly be expecting her first period. Life for a twelve-year-old girl is an awkward time in a number of ways and my sister felt like a geek. She wasn’t really, she was very pretty actually, but didn’t realize it, I guess. Karen didn’t have a bra to wear or “cool” clothes like the other girls. To make matters worse, she had the hairiest legs in the school.

Her sixth grade graduation ceremony should have been a fun and happy memory but it wasn’t. Karen: “I remember having nothing nice to wear for my 6th grade graduation program at the elementary school ... I wore this plain hand-me-down sleeveless pink top (She was the oldest kid so I don’t know who she got the hand-me-down from!) and skirt mom had made. And a pair of white pointy-toed flats and I felt as if everyone was looking at my hairy legs and worn shoes – I couldn’t wait for the ceremony to be over, I did not enjoy it, I just wanted to leave!”

Mercifully they didn’t announce: “Sasquatch Adams” when she was called forward to get her diploma, she would have never gotten over it.

Fortunately, Karen had a few fond memories of her sixth grade year. Her class went to a weekend camp below Mount Palomar in north San Diego County, the home of the Palomar Observatory. They stayed in cabins named after the constellations; hers was “Orion.” The class toured the observatory and peered through telescopes into the Milky Way late into the night with the astronomers.

The magnificent observatory building looked like it had dropped down onto the mountaintop from outer space itself. The whole building rotated and the domed roof split open like a Martian’s helmet to expose the “Big Eye.” The mirrored lens was 200 inches across and took thirteen years to grind down and polish. At the time it was the largest optical telescope in the world. The astronomer, Edwin Hubble, had the honor to take the first exposure with the “Big Eye” in 1949, and many more until his death in 1953. He continues to discover new galaxies through his namesake, the Hubble Space Telescope. Launched by a space shuttle in 1990, it orbits the earth every 97 minutes.

Karen was becoming quite the social butterfly. She won third place in the “Home Economics- Cake Walk Contest” that year. Her winning entry was “The Good Ship Lollipop,” a cake decorated with a colorful assortment of candies. The Shirley Temple song, “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” was the inspiration for her cake. Before heading up to Pershing Middle School for seventh grade, Karen took advantage of the active summer program at the elementary School and learned to dance the Cha-Cha and the 4-step. She could add those to her list of dance steps that included “The Swim” and “The Funky Chicken. Now that she started shaving her legs, she’d have no problem getting asked for a dance.

Karen joined the Camp Fire Girls and earned sacred purple beads doing community service, and in the process learned about Home, Camp and Health Craft, as well as Nature Lore. When you earned enough beads you’d attain the rank of Wood Gatherer. They dressed in ceremonial Indian garb during secret ceremonies where beads, feathers, wood rings and various awards were handed out each month. Part of their credo was to promote social and community services, including the arts. That summer, Karen’s Camp Fire group went to see performances of “Madame Butterfly” and “Peter Pan” starring Mary Martin at the Balboa Park Bowl.

I remember watching the TV version of Peter Pan and was stunned, “—Mary Martin? Wait a second, Mary—a girl is playing Peter? That isn’t right!” I protested.

School Time

For the umpteenth time we were in another school. You never got used to being the new kid in town. It wasn’t easy having to fit in. Everyone else had best friends already, longtime friends or a circle of friends. It wasn’t easy and downright uncomfortable at times to be an outsider trying so earnestly to be one of the gang. It was embarrassing to be hauled in front of the class to be introduced, and asked, “Mike tell us a little bit about yourself.” Like a good navy kid I gave my name rank and serial number and promptly headed for the nearest empty seat. Or, you’d be pointed out in the back of the class as “The Newcomer” and asked to stand up while everyone gawked at you suspiciously as though you were a spy or from another planet. Man, I hated that, but did my best to look cool as I flicked my bangs to the side and waved casual-like at my new classmates.

Girls were always much easier for me to make friends with at first. If they thought you were cute they were very friendly. Although I was extremely skinny, I had my aforementioned Beatle bangs and could flash my dimples on command. There were times then and later when I found myself in trouble for that. Other boys didn’t think it was so cute and I was threatened for looking at someone’s girl friend or talking to his girl. I didn’t even care about having a girlfriend at the time, I just liked being liked, and that’s all. Inevitably in a few weeks at the most, you’d get over that painful hump if you managed to keep your cool, acted agreeable and helped your team win at kickball. Once they got used to you, you made friends with kids you had something in common with.

My brothers, sisters and I liked our new elementary school. For one, it was just across the way and even better; we didn’t have to wear a uniform. We only had to dress up on Sundays now. Public school was considerably more fun and in a California way, much more laid back. The school buildings were one story and spread out in rows with small courtyards between them, each connected by canopy-covered sidewalks. The schoolyard was a huge sandy lot with playing fields partitioned with chalked lines maintained by the janitorial staff. At lunchtime, there could be as many as four kickball games going on at the same time. At the north end was an assortment of monkey bars, a domed jungle gym and swing sets complete with pull up bars and a set of rings.

It rarely rained in San Diego so the windows and doors were open most of the time. I liked that. There were outdoor benches and you could eat your lunch outside if you could get a seat. I enjoyed lunchtime and sampled some interesting food that I swapped for. Kids are finicky and didn’t care for everything in their lunches, so we traded sandwiches and desserts everyday. My mom usually made us peanut butter and jelly or baloney sandwiches. I hated peanut butter and jelly so I always had a baloney sandwich of one kind or another- with mustard, mayo and lettuce, sometimes with cheese, or a combo with all of the above or the classic baloney and ketchup. Sometimes, I swapped for some interesting fare including egg salad, tuna, tongue and Underwood Deviled-Ham sandwiches. I always liked canned meat and there’s nothing more satisfying than a fried spam sandwich. Anyway, some kids had fashionable lunch boxes decorated with popular icons of the time like Popeye, Barbee or the Munsters. One lucky bastard had a Beatles lunchbox. I on the other hand had a simple but functional brown paper lunch bag. That meant my wax paper-wrapped sandwich was mashed into interesting shapes when I pulled it out. They still tasted good. Many of the kids with lunchboxes had a thermos filled with iced soda or still-warm chicken noodle soup. I usually had an orange or an apple or a few crumbled cookies with my sandwich but was usually unsuccessful trading those for a more desirable dessert like a devil dog or slice of cake.

I think I did just fine in school and enjoyed it, especially art class where I could shine. There wasn’t the stiff competition like I had back in Maryland. Not many budding artists in the group except for one kid who was pretty good at drawing Rat Fink driving various hot rods. In December that year my art teacher asked me to paint the three kings on the back wall. She rolled out a six-foot long sheet of heavy paper and pinned it to the bulletin board. I painted the kings on camels framed by tall palm trees and the Star of David glowing brightly in a starry sky.
One of my teachers, Miss Vaughn, was a twenty-something bombshell. She wore tighter, shorter skirts than the other teachers and was stacked. Funny, I don’t seem to recall her face. My friend, Kevin Ferring, and I dropped a lot of pencils to sneak a look at her legs when she sat in thoughtful repose at her desk. I drew lurid drawings of her with our heads lodged between her ample jugs or having one of our eyes poked out by one of them as she passed. Inevitably things would go awry. As it did that afternoon when she noticed a commotion in the back of the room. The drawing was passed around one too many times and she confiscated it. She looked at it without saying a word. She pulled the kid to the side and spoke softly to him. I saw her ask, “WHO?” That panicked little weasel fingered me. I was mortified when she marched over, crumpled the drawing in front of my face and bounced it off my forehead. She bent down to whisper in my ear, “You wish!” Then she spoke out loud, “Now pick it up and throw it in the trash where it belongs! If I find another one of these, we’ll pay a visit to the principle — Got that Mr. Adams?”

Gulp. “Got it!”

In fifth and sixth grade we had Spanish classes. I was called Miguelito… “little Michael” because there was another Michael, a bigger kid in the class, who was called Miguel. Yeah, he was big, a big jerk! I sat near Juan, Bonita, Catalina and Estephan, as we were forced to call each other. Between Hola and Adios, I didn’t retain much. I never had the chance to practice with anyone outside of class. I don’t think I ever met a real Mexican during our stay in San Diego. That was ironic because we were a stone’s throw away from the border. Outside of class the only Spanish we spoke were curse words we picked up out in the schoolyard. If you had the misfortune of getting a ball kicked into your groin, you screamed, “Mierda—Me las bolas!” (Shit —My balls!) Then called the kid who kicked the ball, “Cara de culo!”(Ass face) I also learned another nickname for my penis, El pipi, and one for Mrs. Vaughn’s rack- grande chichi’s.

Sometimes, you did something stupid but not realize it until after the fact. Part One

Joe and I smuggled my dad’s golf bag into the back yard, dug a hole in the top tier of the backyard and marked it with a rag tied to a dowel rod. We practiced pitching up the grade and putting through the long grass into the hole. As always happened when we played, the competition became fierce as challenges flew back and forth. Closest shot to the hole, longest putt, longest shot without going over the neighbor’s fence or best left handed shot with your eyes closed, standing on one foot, stuff like that.

We weren’t very skilled except for shanking the ball, and lost a few as they sliced over the fences or over the roof. Joe smacked a hard hit ball into the patio sliding glass door, shattering it. The ball landed neatly on top of my dad’s favorite chair.

“Oh No, Oh God, Noooo!” Joe moaned.

“Uh-oh, you’re dead!” I sniveled as I fled the scene of the crime.

My mom and the rest of the Adams clan stood in the newly air-conditioned living room, staring out in silence at the reckless soon to be deceased young golfer in the backyard. Glass was swept up and the golf clubs put back in the garage. Joe didn’t snitch on me for being an accomplice and solemnly accepted his fate. He sat alone in our bedroom for the rest of the day and awaited the inevitable. There wasn’t a priest available to perform the last sacraments for him and he turned down a last meal. He would face his punishment like a man- like a very fat man.

We stood stiffly in the foyer, behind the kitchen counter or posed like mannequins by the furniture when my dad walked in. I silently prayed for Joe.

“Bob, now don’t get upset, but Joe…” My mom said, and pointed to the patio door.

“GODDAMN IT!” my father roared. “Where is he? —Joe, get your ass down here, NOW!”

My dad’s hand went immediately to the buckle of his belt. I knew any second he’d whip it off and snap it like a bullwhip. Instead, he waited; we all waited for Joe to show his sorry mug. I figured I’d probably see a dead body finally, just never figured it would be my brother’s.

Click

The bedroom door opened at the end of the hall. A dark shape—a big dark shape, shuffled down the hall as we held our breath. Joe had swollen up like a blimp. The lower half of his body was enormous. The legs of his pants were stuffed with a couple magazines each and a few more protected his rear end, along with a pillow. He looked like the Michelin Man. He waddled down the steps and stopped, looking at the floor. One of my sisters laughed; then we all laughed, including my dad.

“Don’t worry Joe, we have insurance,” Dad said.

Joe, realizing his reprieve, looked up smirking and shrugged.

That was a close one. Thank God, my dad had a sense of humor that day and we had insurance. I don’t think Joe ever golfed again.

1965

The mid sixties were pretty bitchin. Besides skateboards and Schwinn Sting-Rays, muscle cars like the Mustang and the GTO rumbled through the streets. For the maturing baby boomers, Miniskirts, pantyhose, turtlenecks, big curlers and Diet-Pepsi were in vogue. So were Barbie and Ken dolls, Trolls and Superballs. We drank Hi-C, ate TV Dinners, listened to the top forty on AM on our transistor radios and if you were really hip, you had a lava lamp in your house. It was a fun time but there was serious shit happening beyond the perceived safety of the suburbs.

1965 was a transitional year of turbulence that shook the nation. The Civil-Rights Movement was peaking and Vietnam was becoming a quagmire. The Reverend Martin Luther King won the Pulitzer Prize and was declared “Man of the Year” by Time Magazine the year before. In March he organized a protest march from Selma to the state capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama. Police broke up the march in sadistic fashion with teargas and clubs. It was broadcast across the country and shocked everyone including the president, Lyndon Johnson. He proposed a bill that eliminated barriers blocking the Southern Blacks’ right to vote. Congress quickly approved the bill that became the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The war in Vietnam escalated with massive bombings in North Vietnam and 3,500 combat troops landed in South Vietnam, joining 23,000 American military advisers already there.

That summer riots exploded in Watts, a black community in Los Angeles after California Highway Patrol officers brutally beat a black motorist suspected of drunken driving. Hmm, I don’t think that guy said, “Can’t we all just get along?” Six days of riots and looting ensued and was brought to a halt with the help of 20,000 National Guardsmen. South-central Los Angeles was virtually in ruins. Thirty-four people were killed, over two thousand rioters and bystanders were arrested, and 857 left injured.

“There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin.’

Bob Dylan

I was ten years old and never experienced racism, poverty or knew much about war, but I was worried about it some. You couldn’t help but cringe at the terrible images on television. I understood enough to know it was tragic. You could see fear in the people’s faces or terrible anger and feel a sense of dread about what was going on and what was to come.
The only fear I faced was getting a good spanking from my dad. We all got our share of spanking and would have faced the belt more had he not been away so much. It was absolutely legal, ordained in fact, that discipline could be meted out at the discretion of the parent, teacher, Nun, or baseball coach. Cops could beat up on poor black people and get away with it. If someone felt you had it coming, you were gonna get it. I knew about that. At our house, punishment was doled out for a variety of childish crimes including talking back, not paying attention, being a smart-aleck, spilling your milk or getting in trouble at school, fighting with your siblings, breaking something or just being stupid. You could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and be falsely accused. Retribution found you in a variety of painful and embarrassing methods… A swift kick in the ass, a cuff to the back of your head, a swift sharp slap across the face, a body throttle or the dreaded belt. Just as painful was being called stupid or put down like you were an idiot.

Sometimes, you did something stupid but not realize it until after the fact, which was usually the case. My brother Joe got himself into a couple of those predicaments during our stay in San Diego. Before I get into a golf-related story about Joe, we need a little background.

My dad liked sports and was a very good tennis player. He was a competitive college player and had been the champ at a few of the bases we lived at. He was also a bowler. I wondered if he was as good as Fred Flinstone, that was the only bowling I ever watched. Come to think about it, Fred bowled and played golf! He also smoked and drank beer — So did my dad. My father golfed every now and then and kept his bag of clubs in the garage. On weekends he enjoyed watching football games, baseball occasionally, tennis, bowling and golf.

On a folding tray next to his chair sat an ashtray, a cold beer and a huge bowl of freshly popped of popcorn. Popcorn gave him gas, bad gas, the kind that hung like a deadly noxious cloud, usually within a few paces directly behind him. If you happen to walk through it you faced a life or death struggle. You grimaced and your knees buckled as your arms thrashed through the thick of it like a drowning victim struggling to get to the surface for a gulp of precious clean air. That wasn’t the only reason not to go into the room when a game was on. You better not talk and disturb him or walk in front of the TV, that wasn’t looked on favorably. You’d get yelled at or chased away with a threatening glare. Once, I accidentally knocked his beer over and set him off. I was about to get belt until my mom stepped in that one time to save my butt.

When my father was into a game he took his frustration out on the athletes and coaches on TV. Apparently many of them were stupid, morons or idiots, that’s what he shouted anyway, usually followed by a loud “Goddamn it!” I have to admit I do the exact thing myself when I watch the Phillies, Eagles or Flyers … Like father, like son.

How someone could sit through hours of golf on television was a mystery to me. It looked absolutely boring in comparison to the action of football and baseball. No running, facing down a pitcher’s ball, no body contact, getting dirty, tackling or making a game winning play as the clock ran out. Golf announcers whispered as a crucial putt was attempted. … As if the golfer might turn around at any second and chastise them for inappropriate loudness. Polite crowds clapped and the announcers gasped, almost voiding their bowls after a good bunker shot. That year the big three of golf, Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player ruled the greens. To me, they didn’t look like athletes, but rather, rich white guys dressed in sporty sweaters and crisp pleated pants. What was the big deal about golf?

Smokers

Our next-door neighbor, Mike Harper, was kind of a surfer dude in attitude … blond, rowdy and always looking for a good wave. He didn’t make it to the beach that often but could skateboard down a hill like no one in the neighborhood. He also had a cool blue Schwinn Super Deluxe Sting-Ray bike with the chopper style handlebars, stick shift and a 30” sissybar in the back.
That’s not all he had.

Mike was older than us by a couple years but seemed to relish the role of mentor and educated us, and fostered our corruption. He exposed us to the sins and vices of the adult world. In a box hidden under his bed, below a stack of comic books, he kept his contraband, mainly stolen cigarettes and nudist magazines. We puffed on cigarettes that tasted horrible and made us cough. But you eventually became acclimated to the harsh hot inhales and enjoyed that aromatic soothing flavor they talked about in the commercials. Believe it or not, in the early Sixties, you could watch—The Flinstones, the Flinstones …for God’s sake, light up a Winston or pitch beer during the commercial breaks. It was disconcerting to see Fred and Barney leaning back against a prehistoric rock relishing their smokes like it was devil weed. They did this while Wilma and Betty worked their little cartoon asses off in the yard. Even Wilma lit up at the end of the commercial while Fred sang the Winston song: “Winston taste good like a // cigarette should.” That was until Pebbles was born in 1963 and it was deemed inappropriate. In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General declared smoking was harmful to one’s health. I don’t recall getting that message but apparently Fred and Wilma did. After that the Flinstones were hawking Welch’s Grape Juice.

We didn’t give a shit; it was boss.

The magazines we were exposed to were down right obscene by the standards of that time but mildly PG in comparison to the explicit triple-X stuff available in today’s magazines. Mike somehow obtained a variety of skin magazines; the classiest was a monthly issue from that year’s Playboy. We smoked the stale cigarettes like filthy fiends as we drooled over the sun-kissed boobs of voluptuous babes posing proudly as they displayed their wares. … The photography was quite excellent as were the thought provoking articles -ha, ha. I was taken aback to find an interview of the Beatles in that issue but was too preoccupied at the time with the excellent photography elsewhere in the magazine to read it.

The other magazines exhibited pictures of very average unattractive people in nudist colonies. There was usually one nice looking girl, au natural, but somehow she didn’t seem so sexy with her hairy armpits. Maybe it was a French colony. Most of the magazines chronicled nudists frolicking about near a beach or posing awkwardly by a clump of shrubbery. They actually weren’t totally nude all the time. Some wore sneakers or sported just a hat or a tied-on apron if they were cooking by the grill. That could be dangerous because these women were extremely hairy; something you never saw in Playboy. It was gross to see naked men, even worse playing badminton or hanging around with their naked kids. We flipped quickly through those pages to find the best looking babe. Between the cigarette smoke and the contraband magazines we were left dizzy by the experience.

Since I’m on the subject of titillation, there was another kid, who lived behind us. I’ll call him Skip, because I don’t remember his name or really want to. He was obsessed with Sears catalogs in a rather unhealthy way. Not having access to the tantalizing illicit magazines Mike managed to get, Skip settled for black and white photos of women in lacy lingerie, silky panties and bras. Inside his closet, lit by a lamp he pulled inside, was a gallery of torn pages from the catalogs taped to the back of his closet doors. A vast array of women in girdles, panties, nylons and torpedo bras festooned the doors. It was pretty creepy. Having gone through puberty, Skip offered to impregnate my sisters if I could talk them into coming over. I declined that and any future visits to his house.

California Here We Come

California Here We Come!

We weren’t out of Maryland when it began.

“Are we there yet?” Suzie called plaintively from the back seat.

That would be repeated an aggravating number of times by the poor bored souls enduring the torturous ordeal of the back seat. If you were in the front you knew better not say it because you were in arms reach of a hard WAP on the back of your head. I don’t know how we all fit into that car. It was a black and white finned 1960 Plymouth station wagon. Each of us took turns sitting in the front seat between my mom and dad. My mom held little baby John occasionally on her lap or we wedged him between us when he slept, which was most of the time. We were crammed five across in the back seat. Luckily we were all skinny. It wasn’t easy to sit there with nothing to do. You could read a passed around comic only so many times. We learned to control your body functions for excruciating lengths of time or until you threatened to crap your pants, and that was ignored after a while. Looking at the passing scenery didn’t offer much relief until you passed through a few states and the landscape changed noticeably or we passed by an interesting city or a landmark like the Mississippi or spotted something worth seeing like an armadillo. We’d tally the state license plates on passing cars and get excited to no end to spot a car from Alaska, Florida, Maine, or pretend we saw the Holy Grail—Hawaii.

“No you didn’t.”

“Yeah I did! It was that blue car we just passed. The guy looks like Don Ho.”

“Dad, could you slow down, that last car….”

No answer.

There was lively chatter the first hour or two of each day. But the babble would be strangled in the grip of monotony as we faded into a zombie-like stupor. My dad did all the driving and kept one elbow out the window, consequently that arm was about ten shades darker than the rest of him. He was truly an endurance driver and we’d do at least 600 miles a day. This wasn’t a leisurely sightseeing cruise it; was a test of endurance, both of distance and company. We’d drive from morning to night, stopping only to eat, do our business or to get gas, usually in the same stop. The tedium would occasionally be broken when my dad blew his top or the horn and curse out a driver who was going too slow, too fast or cut us off. At least that was entertaining. He was in control of the radio and we’d be forced to listen to a hellish string of songs such as Roger Miller’s hit “Dang Me” followed by “Walk like a Man” sung by Frankie Valli, “… talk like a man?” in that ironic un-manly falsetto? It was never ending… Perry Como, Streisand, Al Hurt or Bobby Goldsboro singing that sappy ditty, “See The Funny Little Clown.” If I had it handy, I’d have pulled out a rosary and prayed for deafness. I thanked God when a Beatles song came on. We knew the lyrics by heart and sung together like merry munchkins in the back seat.

“Are we there yet?”

It was dangerous in the back seat as territorial disputes, shoving matches and random senseless violence broke out. There was a lot of crying. My sister Karen was tough and didn’t take crap from anyone. She’d pummeled you with her elbow or pulled your hair if you happened to annoy her or get on her nerves. I was relentlessly good at that and made teasing her one of my specialties for many years to come.

“Look, a reindeer!”

“There’s no reindeer in Oklahoma.”

“Uh huh, I just saw one, next to an Armadillo.”

“No you didn’t—“

“—Yes I did! OW!”

“Don’t make me pull over.”

“Are we there yet?”

San Carlos

San Diego was beautiful in its own way. Not anything like North East but just as interesting for a young explorer. We lived in temporary housing briefly before we moved into our first real home. Our house on Lake Badin Avenue was the only house my dad was able to purchase along the way. It was a joy to have our own home instead of living in government housing. It was on the lower end of a sloping hill of terraced houses in a brand new development called San Carlos. Our house was a soft green split-level with four bedrooms, a garage and a cement patio out back, covered by a rippled orange fiberglass roof. A tall wood fence enclosed the tiered backyard with two small slopes covered in patches of yellow marigolds.

Across the street was a large scrubby open area of undeveloped land, overrun with sagebrush and ground squirrels. Above that was a baseball field where I would soon play left field three times a week. On the other side of the field, you could see the elementary school we would attend. We could walk to school, that meant an extra half an hour of sleep each morning. Looming above us was a large mountain I couldn’t wait to climb.

For desert country, it wasn’t that hot in San Carlos. Because we were ten miles from the ocean, it was relatively pleasant year round. It could get hot in the summer months when the Santa Ana winds blew in some heat from the deserts to the east but it was in the mid 70’s on average and dipped into the upper 50’s in the winter months. We quickly became acclimated to the drastic consistency of climate. No winter, no spring or the vibrant colors of fall; it felt like summer time all year round.

The contrast of environment was startling. Not a tall tree anywhere, at least not around us. In San Diego proper I saw tall palm trees but in the new suburbs the indigenous oaks were puny. The big trees were maybe twenty feet high but that was the exception. Occasional clusters grew here and there but the land was barren of forest. That’s not to say the desert was barren of life because it was absolutely crawling with it. Bugs, lizards, roadrunners, spiders and snakes were everywhere and quite at home there. Unfortunately for them so were the new suburbs.

San Carlos is a typical middle-class tract-home subdivision cut into the hilly countryside below Cowles Mountain. Cowles Mountain anchors one part of Mission Trails Park and is the largest urban park in the U.S. at over 6,000 acres… seven times larger than Central Park in New York City. It was the only mountain and the biggest natural feature within the city limits of San Diego, if you don’t include the beaches. From its summit of 1,591 feet you can see the vast panorama of the Pacific Ocean to the west. Looking south you can see Lake Murray and all of San Diego County and into Mexico.

We settled into the lifestyle of the mid sixties and suburban living. Joe and I played on the local baseball league and joined the Cub Scouts. Paula and Suzie were in the Brownies and Karen in the Camp Fire Girls. We attended the local Catholic Church faithfully every Sunday and attended Catechism lessons. Everything seemed hunky-dory in San Carlos, but behind closed doors, burning whispers scorched like the Santa Ana winds.

California was much more stylish than the East coast. The Beach Boys and the surfer mentality made a big wave of its own; not like a tsunami, but a big splash nonetheless up and down the coast. Throughout the early sixties Woodies had been back in style, this time sporting a surfboard hanging out the back or tied to the roof. Hot rods soon left them in their dust. Surfing the waves became a phenomena but that was for teenagers with cars and a lot of free time. Kids our age were the first generation of skateboarders. We surfed the sidewalks and streets.