Comic Con May-Hem, May 26th

We gave away  more Rainbow Arc of Fire 1st Edition books and sold a few of the new 2nd Edition copies at Comic Con May-Hem on May 26th, 2018, at the Agua Caliente Casino Resort and Spa.

A windy day with many enthusiastic fans, most in costume.  I got to meet and have my photo taken with Matt Ryan (John Constantine on Arrow and, one of my favorite series, Legends of Tomorrow, where he will become a series regular this next season).  He's very friendly and generous.  This was one of my highlights, as well as meeting so many comic and super-hero fans who stopped by the booth.

The bottom two photos are of our booth at May-Hem.  We will also be at the Palm Springs Comic XPO June 22nd thru June 24th in corner Booth 315 at the Palm Springs Convention Center.  We will also be returning to the Comic Con Palm Springs event August 24th thru August 26th, also at the Palm Springs Convention Center.  (We haven't been assigned a booth yet.)

For all of you who stopped by the booth and received or bought copies of the Rainbow Arc of Fire series, Thank You!  And if you read a volume you like, a positive review on amazon.com is always welcome.  Remember that every 2nd Edition volume in the series is now available as a print-on-demand copy ($4.50 to $7.00 each, depending on the length of the novel) or as a digital download ($2.99 each) on amazon.com.

The Dunes Family Restaurant and miniature golf course

Top photo:  May 1962
Next three photos:  Mar 1963

Until I was given the shoebox filled with photos from mom that had escaped my photo album project in the 90's, I had found very few photos from 1960-1963.  These almost doubled the input.  I do not know where the top photo was taken, but it was, as with all of the others, with mom's old Kodak camera.

With the help of others on Facebook, I was able to learn that the Family Restaurant (Buffet) in the bottom photo was called The Dunes.  I am not 100 percent certain, but I believe that the building still stands on 574 Glassell St. in Orange, CA, very near to the Holy Family Catholic church (but it's now a Chinese restaurant).  The miniature golf course in the other three pictures was next to the family restaurant.  Today, a large apartment complex sits where the golf course used to be.  In the third photo from the top, I believe that the tower in the background behind the trees is the Holy Family bell tower, which still exists in front of the church.  This trip would have been one of those several Saturdays where mom took us for the day once a month.

What I find fascinating is that this was March 1963, just three months from the night of our leaving dad and Willene and moving in with mom.  They still lived on Lomita in Orange for a couple more years before selling that triplex and buying a house in Garden Grove.

California Pools II

The woman seated in the top photo was a good friend of mom's who must have, with her husband, belonged to a country club that had a pool.  The blond kid with the towel around his shoulders was her son.  She would later become deaf and her friendship with mom eventually drifted apart, her deafness being late in life and mom not knowing sign language or living near her home in Tustin, CA.

Wherever mom would take us on our Saturday once-a-month visits, we often ended up at their house before mom had to take us home.  I remember watching Dick Van Dyke shows there or ballet performances at their house in the early evening.  It was at this pool that I dove off a high diving board for the first time.  Quite a thrill since it was such a long drop.

California Pools I

Top:  Mom at the La Reina apartment pool, June 1961
Middle: Ann and I at the La Reina apartment pool, July 1961
Bottom:  Mom and I at the La Reina apartment pool, September 1960

Our grandmother from Kansas was visiting mom in September 1960, but when they showed up and asked if they could take us two kids for the weekend, our stepmother refused.  (We likely had not seen Grandma Breeze in quite some time.)  Dad was not home.  Between the bribe of a new model kit and cajoling, as well as pulling me toward the car (I wanted to go but knew that Willene would be nasty if I left), I got kidnapped for the weekend.  Since I was only wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt, they took me to Fashion Island Shopping Center and Bullocks Department Store, to buy me a decent shirt and trousers.  Since Ann was too afraid to leave with us, that's why she isn't in the bottom photo.  (When we were forced to move mom to an assisted living situation in 2002, and were going through her things, I came across a court order that admonished mom from taking either of us on other than a designated visiting weekend.)   I had thoroughly enjoyed the weekend away, but dad forced me to apologize to Willene for having left when she told me not to.  (I was not one bit sorry but pretended to be anyway.)

Somehow, the rules must have gotten relaxed after this confrontation because we were allowed to spend more than one Saturday a month with mom as evidenced by the photo a year later with both Ann and me in that same pool.  (I am not sure who the woman is sitting in the chair beside the pool behind us.)   We loved swimming in pools since we did not own one ourselves.

Dad in 1949, Ann in 1953

The top is dated on the back Feb. 24, 1949, which was seven months before I was born.  Dad is in uniform, but I cannot tell where it was taken and mom did not write anything on the front or back of the photograph to give any indication, though dad was stationed at McDill AFB in Tampa, Florida when I was born in September.

The bottom is dated Week of September 14, 1953.  Apparently, the wheels must belong to a birthday present for my sister.

Mom and dad 1947

The top photograph says "Bluebonnets & Geo[rge]" June 18, 1947.

The center photograph says "Summer '47".  But the back is dated April 17, 1947.

The bottom photograph is dated July 1947 by Eastman Kodak Company.

Circa 1951-2

The top photograph is annotated that it was of my sister and me at 1 and 2 years old in Victorville, CA, which would have been circa 1951.  Dad was stationed at George Air Force Base.  (I have no idea what I am carrying in my hand.)  Dad was to be shipped to Korea after the outbreak of hostilities there in 1950.  Since he had been a POW in WWII as a bombardier with the Army Air Corps and whose plane was going to crash after damages received over the Rumanian Ploesti oil fields, the crew bailed out and dad was soon captured by the Germans and sent to a camp in Southern Germany for the remainder of the war (primarily all of 1944 and half of 1945).   He did not want to repeat that experience in Korea and, somehow, was able to leave active duty with the Air Force and return to the states.  (He would remain in the Air Force Reserves for at least enough years to retire with a modest pension.)

The bottom photograph was approximately a year later when we were living on Broadway in Santa Ana, CA, after dad was out of the service.  We would have been about 2 and 3 years old in 1952.  This is likely a photograph taken on the front or back porch at Easter since we appear to be dressed up and it is a (rather faded) color photograph.  (Again, I have no idea what I have in my hands.)  

These were two more photos from the newly discovered shoebox of miscellaneous photographs taken over a number of decades from the 1950's through the 1980's that my mother likely had kept and escaped my organizing project of inserting them all into large photo albums in the 1990's.

"Every boy wants a Remco toy!"

"Every boy wants a Remco toy!"

Such was the 1959 slogan for the Remco Movieland Drive-In Theater commercial (it's on youtube with Patty Duke playing the girl who also wants a Remco toy for Christmas).

The photo above was apparently taken on Christmas morning 1959.  We had spent that fall living with Willene and her two children in one three-bedroom house of a duplex across the street from the triplex dad was having built for this extended/blended family after they were married in early 1960, after dad's and mom's divorce was final.

We had liked Willene and her kids, given that we'd visited them in their Tustin home many times while she and dad were dating.  She'd given us no reason to anticipate a different personality other than the one she'd projected for more than a year.  We were wrong.

In that photo, in the lower right, is a box that contained a car-carrying truck made of rubber/plastic, with three cars stacked on the trailer.  Unfortunately, the cars would only stay in place using three rubber bands, one for each car.  At some point, Freddie took those three rubber bands because his Christmas present had been plastic figures that were now gathered together using three new rubber bands, exactly the same three rubber bands I was now missing and needed.

I was indignant and loudly complained when I realized what had happened.  (We apparently didn't have any more rubber bands, so he was either going to have to fess up to having taken them and give them back, or one of us was going to have to do without.)  Something else then happened that startled and angered me and was a precursor to what would transpire for the next three and a half years.  We would have to put up with this response, living under Willene's cruel thumb, along with barely tolerating the thieving nature of a step-brother who had no conscience.

Willene, also now indignant that I was accusing her precious son of theft, walked over to me and whacked me, hard, across the side of my head.   This was a whole other side to this woman that we had never experienced before but would many times in the future.  What was even worse that she then did--as if to justify her hitting a kid who was not even yet her stepson--was to say when dad protested, "I gave those rubber bands to Freddie!"   She lied.

This was to become the worst aspect of her defense of Freddie's behavior in the years to come--to lie about what had actually happened or to pretend it never happened.  (Which is worse?  That Willene saw the rubber bands I was using and needed but took them to give to her own son, or that she was now lying about having given those rubber bands to Freddie, knowing that Freddie had likely taken them but was fine with lying about what had happened?)

It was a long time ago and I have made my peace with how we were treated so many years ago.  What was most important is that we eventually fought back and finally demanded that we be allowed to live with our mother, a solution that was better for all concerned.  We would eventually no longer allow Willene to "discipline" us, and she would be rid of two kids she never really was willing or able to raise fairly.  

Approximately 1965

During a current move by my sister, we came across a shoe-box filled with dozens of color photos either thought lost or non-existent.  (Back in the 1990's, I had organized hundreds and hundreds of my mom's photos into several large albums when these must have evaded my search.)  The four above represent a visit by my Grandma Breeze and Uncle Robert in which we posed out front of the rental house on Cypress and two on the observation platform above the LAX theme building/restaurant.  The year is either 1964 or 1965.  (We road with Uncle Robert the summer of 1966 to White Cloud to visit Grandma Breeze--and in those photos both Ann and I look older than in these photos.  It's more likely 1965 because we had only moved into the 8940 Cypress house in the early summer of 1964, so it's less likely that it was that year.)