253 South Oak Street, Orange, CA, June - December 1959

Backdrop

Ann and I sat amidst some of our family's possessions on the covered front porch of the house at 13222 Foxley Drive, waiting for the old moving van to arrive and haul those possessions away.  On a sunny summer's day, with school newly over, our friends were out of doors and playing in the neighborhood.  Not only did I recall feeling sad at our permanent departure, I felt totally separated from the home and that neighborhood we had lived in from June of 1954.  Dad had gotten custody of the two of us during a legal process we were not a part of in any way, and now he was spiriting us toward a new future we were not consulted about.

After the moving van got loaded and was on the road behind us, dad pulled over before we headed onto a freeway (probably the Santa Ana) because the slow-moving van was not keeping up.  Dad expressed his disappointment that he believed the driver was deliberately driving slowly so as to demand more money for the move, charging him by the hour. 

I have no memory of our arrival at the apartment complex on Oak St that day, nor taking my cat, Tiger, with us.  (I had tried to bring him along on one of our weekly visits to Willene and her kids, but a couple of miles from the house, terrified, he peed on me.   We took him back home, and I changed trousers.)  But we all moved into the two-bedroom unit, with Grandma Sanchez soon joining us there.  Dad and I shared one bedroom while Ann and Grandma shared the other. 

Tiger was allowed to roam a new neighborhood.  The only three memories I have of him there is of dad allowing Tiger into the apartment as I was awakened to my buddy padding his way over my bed toward me.  Another was that I entered the kitchen one afternoon after Grandma had left a package of hamburger out on the countertop to thaw but Tiger had clawed through the clear wrapper and was devouring some of the contents raw.  Another morning I noticed that Grandma Sanchez had left cooked oatmeal in a bowl outside for Tiger to eat, though--not surprisingly--it remained untouched.  However, some time that fall, dad gave me the ultimatum of what day he would take Tiger away and dump him in some field. 

Drowning the kitten in the coffee can the year before, disposing of the two white kittens a year or so before that, and now this ultimatum were clearly the results of either peer pressure or my Grandma's refusal to let me have another kitten.  I am convinced that it was Willene, dad's fiancee, who issued the demand to him this time that I could not move into the triplex being built for the combined family with Tiger.  Neither of her two kids had pets.  In the years ahead, she would exhibit a consistent meanness that confirmed her role as the wicked stepmother who treated Ann and me badly.  (Only decades later would we learn from our stepsister, Pam, that Willene treated her poorly, especially after we were gone.)

In retrospect, had her demand been made before we moved from Whittier, it would have been better to have just abandoned Tiger in our backyard there.  He knew the neighborhood and the neighbors.  Someone might have adopted him after we left and fed him.  But since we took him with us, I suspect Willene waited to make this demand after we had moved to South Oak St and not long before their impending marriage after the first of the year, 1960, right after dad's divorce from mom was finalized.       

Mom
 

The above is the only photo I have of any of us at 253 South Oak St.  With the divorce to be finalized by year's end, mom seemed to have been allowed to visit us several times that summer and fall.  I remember once waiting for her on the sidewalk out front of the apartment complex.  As soon as I saw her blue, fast-back Buick turning the corner, I ran to meet her.  She opened the driver's door and scootched over to let me sit next to her.  She would often take us to breakfast, frequently paying by check, something that few merchants or restaurants ever take as compensation in recent decades.  We would also visit a married friend of hers and that woman's family in Tustin on our infrequent days with her.   

Dad

Besides his dumping Tiger who knows where, I mostly remember that dad began to collect original cast recordings from a record club.  I would listen especially to THE MUSIC MAN.  For years to come, I would enjoy musicals, likely based upon dad's collection.  

At some point, he took us to the home of a family that we used to know in Santa Ana.  I played with them in the mudpuddle they'd created in their back yard.  Unfortunately, there were nails hidden in the ground, likely from when their house was built.  I got stabbed on the bottoms of both feet which dad bandaged in the bathroom on S. Oak St after we got back.     

Bad Day at S. Oak St.

The following is context, not excuses, for my reckless behavior that infamous day:  

I had no friends in this new neighborhood during the long summer of 1959, before attending Palmyra Elementary School.  Of course, dad worked during the week and was not around.  Mom did not live with us, and they were getting divorced, of which we were told very little.  While Grandma Sanchez, my sister and I would play card games some days, I don't recall watching much television or reading that summer during the day.  I had become occasional buddies with a much older woman who lived in the end apartment on our side of the complex, but she was my only other regular contact outside my family.  No other kids our age range lived in the complex or nearby whom we knew.  I was likely frequently bored.  Most significantly, I was 8 years old with too much time on my hands and not much to do.

It was a bright, sunny day when I began a distracted walk across the parking spaces in front of the garages that fronted the complex between the sidewalk and the single-car garage doors.  Some renters parked in these spaces instead of always parking within their assigned garages or their guests could park there while visiting since parking spaces on the street were limited.  (One renter owned a red and white 1957 Ford Fairlane hardtop convertible which he parked in his outdoor space.)  No cars were parked in those spaces that day, so it was likely a weekday morning.  I don't believe I deliberately walked through a thick oil puddle in one of the spaces but did leave a few oily footprints on the concrete before I realized what I was doing and wiped my tennis shoes on the patch of grass next to the parking spaces.

At some point, I also walked through a muddy patch near the swimming pool within the complex and left muddy footprints on the sidewalk beside the older woman's apartment.  Seeing the mud on my shoes, I sat down beside the pool and stuck my shoes into the deep end, to get rid of the muddy residue.  (Google maps now shows that the swimming pool no longer exists in that complex.)

Eventually, I headed back into our apartment, oblivious to the ruckus that was about to explode throughout the complex as a result of my irresponsible morning stroll through oil and mud, the crime of the summer if one was to believe what was about to result.   

I was lying on my bed in dad's and my bedroom when Grandma Sanchez and Ann entered.  Grandma asked that I surrender my tennis shoes so that they could confirm if the telltale oily and muddy footprints discovered in those two places of the complex were mine or not.  Shocked that my actions were now being thoroughly investigated, I realized the jig would be up, and I was going to get nailed for this vandalism if my shoes were compared to the telltale prints.  I began loudly crying that I was being accused unfairly.  Grandma calmly explained that they only needed to borrow my shoes to prove I had not done these despicable deeds and to prove my innocence.  However, I refused to surrender them, still crying loudly that I was guiltless, though I knew that to give them up would convict me.  (I suspect that I also could not believe that my oily or muddy footprints had generated such a kerfuffle, but I was now definitely feeling hugely guilty.) 

By the late afternoon, I also learned that a few residents also realized that someone had left muddy residue at the bottom of the pool, so my entire number of capital crimes had been fully revealed.  My older woman friend glared at me as I found her methodically hosing off the now-dried prints from the sidewalk by her apartment.  She clearly knew they were mine and was none too happy with me, and she may have been the one who told me about the speckles of mud discovered at the bottom of the otherwise pristine pool.                        

Palmyra Elementary School

Ann and I began school at Palmyra in the fall of 1959.  I was in the 5th grade; she in the 4th.  Unfortunately, we would only attend that single semester before moving on.  For the first time I had a male teacher.  (I don't even recall that there were any male instructors at Laural Elementary School in Whittier.)

The school was only a couple of blocks away from our apartment, so we walked back and forth each day, crossing the busy S. Tustin St at the stoplight.  I never made any close friends, the kind one would invite home or one who would invite you to his or her home.  But the others were generally friendly toward me.  I recall during one recess that I got laughs for singing, "We three kings of Orient are, tried to smoke a rubber cigar/It was loaded/It exploded...."  The boys certainly laughed.

Unlike Laural, Palmyra had a broadcasting speaker at the front of the class, just below the ceiling and above the ubiquitous letters of the alphabet.  Once a week, the school tapped into a broadcast that verbally described a national park such as Mount Lassen or California natural attraction such as Mount Whitney.  We were then required to create a visual representation using crayons of what we had heard described.  We had to use our minds because we got no photographs or videos of these sites.  I always got a "B" or a "B+" but never an "A".  I finally asked the teacher why I never got a higher grade.  He pretty much explained that I often produced the same picture of a mountain with pine trees partway up the slopes, no matter if it were Lassen or Whitney or any other similar peak.  He had a point.  

We went to lunch out of doors as a class on wooden tables.  Two of us were required to guide the wooden cart with wheels out to the lunch tables--this was where our lunchboxes or bags were stored after we got to school each morning.  One noon time I was to guide the cart out with one of the girls in the class.  She, like a few of the other girls, was taller than most of us boys at this age.  Unfortunately, rather than staying in line (I was at the front of cart), she swung her end parallel with me, to disastrous results when we hit a crease in the concrete.  I tried to warn her but too late.  The narrow cart pitched over and some of the lunchboxes were spilled upon the sidewalk.  One girl's lunchbox broke open and the Thermos of milk inside shattered.  I was adamant that I was not going to pay for a replacement since it was her fault.

Some Like It Hot

I remember pouring through a newspaper one day and came across an ad for the Billy Wilder, Roaring 20's film, starring Marilyn Monroe.  Dad apparently was at work.  And I don't remember Ann going with us.  But Grandpa and Grandma Sanchez and I drove to a huge, old-fashioned theater in Long Beach to see it.  Grandpa parked his Studebaker on the street with a meter, realizing that he would have to leave the theater a couple of times during the movie to feed the meter.  I was enthralled the whole time and likely laughed frequently.  Even at the time I wondered if either Grandparent thought the film a bit too racy for their conservative tastes, but neither said anything.  I am not certain that it made the Catholic Legion of Decency list of films good Catholics ought not to see, or especially take their impressionable Grandchild to see.        

Christmas Vacation 1959

At some point after the school term ended for Christmas Vacation 1959, we moved from 253 S Oak St to the front half of a duplex on East Lomita, across the street and slightly down the block from the almost-complete triplex that we would occupy for the next 3 1/2 tumultuous years with Dad, Willene, Freddie, and Pam (and the 1961 arrival of half-sister Lorri).  Two of the principle players, Willene and Fred, would show their true colors now that dad was about to be hogtied in marriage to Willene and her brood.

The following is a picture of a present I received that Christmas, a Remco Movieland Drive-In Theater that showed short B&W film strips from the projection booth:

In addition to the theater, I had received a car carrier with three cars on the trailer (see the box next to the Movieland box in the photo above).  However, since it was cheaply made, the three cars only remained on the trailer by three rubber bands that came with the set.  Freddie had gotten some rubber/plastic soldiers.  Just a day or two in, and the three rubber bands went missing.  Mysteriously, Freddie had three rubber bands that he was now using to keep his soldiers together.  It did not take me long to realize that Freddie had swiped the rubber bands I needed and that he really did not need.  I started to complain, possibly loudly, at this obvious theft.  Suddenly Willene, who had been listening to my rant from the kitchen, walked out to the living room and smacked me on the side of the head, hard.  She then lied and said that the rubber bands Freddie had were ones she had given him.  (The fact that no additional rubber bands existed in the entire house further indicated that she was lying.)

Not only was I shocked at her sudden physical attack upon me--and I did start to cry aloud--dad was perhaps even more startled that his once-docile fiancee had just assaulted his son over three stolen rubber bands and then lied about it to defend her thieving son.  This would not be the last of her outrageous defenses of Freddy over the years.  

A couple of days later, I also came down with some bug that made me deathly sick to my stomach, requiring a mad dash to the bathroom down the hall to throw up.  At one point while in the living room, my stomach rapidly began turning, I took off in my socks, desperately trying to reach the bathroom in time.  I immediately slipped on the wooden floor and crashed against the wall, landing in a heap and, adding actual insult to injury, I puked on myself.  As I lay there, embarrassed, I started slowly sobbing.  This was only the start of the agony and pain that both Ann and I would soon endure at 1745 E. Lomita Avenue after Willene got her hooks into dad permanently.     

Death

 My best friend of 57 years mentioned a week ago on the phone that he increasingly thinks about death and dying.  We are both now 73 years old.  More and more in the news we read about our cultural icons dead or dying, some of whom are either around our age or younger. 

With the death of Jerry Lee Lewis, nearly all of the most famous music icons from the 1950's are gone (Tony Bennett is one of the lone survivors).  Nearly all of the well-known bands from the 1960's, groups we knew and loved whose singles and albums we regularly bought, have lost more than one member (the Beatles, the Stones, Jefferson Airplane), sometimes only one member survives (Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & Papas).  The TV shows we watched then seem to have been even more devastated of cast members as the years roll by. 

In the 1970's, I read Raymond Moody's LIFE AFTER LIFE and a few books by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the death and dying guru.  Regardless of cultural or national background, the experiences of those who have clinically "died" but came back seem strikingly similar.  Their consciousness (or soul, if you prefer) leaves their bodies.  If hospitalized, they are often able to see and hear, and later accurately describe what they experienced, from those who are not even in their hospital rooms.  In varying combinations, they are thrust through a tunnel and appear on the other side where friends and relatives who have gone before are there to greet them.  They quickly meet a "being of light" who reviews with them the course of their lives, though without judgment.  They are often made to realize that acquiring knowledge is a significant aspect to life on Earth.  (The ancient Greeks believed that sin was a lack of knowledge.)  After they return, they never fear death again because the experience was altogether quite pleasant.

The actor from HAROLD & MAUDE, Bud Cort, told a story about a painful car accident he endured.  He was told by a voice on the other side that he could return but it would be painful.  He did come back, and his injuries were exceedingly painful. 

My own mother, during her second open heart surgery, experienced an extreme reaction to the anesthesia and could have died had the anesthesiologist not recognized her reactions and countered the crisis.  She later told me that she felt she had died but there was nothing but blackness on the other side.  Nobody was there to greet her.

I have been put under anesthesia three times in my life:  when I had my tonsils out at 40, when I had double hernia surgery, and a couple of weeks ago when I had prostate surgery.  I only remember slowly coming to after the anesthesia wore off.  Never was I ever aware of being conscious of what I was enduring.  I was totally out.  Had I died during any of these three surgeries, would I have even been aware of the transition, or would I have simply ceased to think or come out of the surgery?

Does the electrical activity in our brains simply cease and that is all there is of us?  Is death, as A.E. Housman describes in one of his poems, "Night and no moon and no star upon the night"?  I do not know for sure.

I have thought of the W.S. Merwin poem, FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH, when he ruminates, "Every year without knowing it I have passed the day/when the last fires will wave to me".  Each of us will, someday, die upon a single day of the year.  Most of us know the anniversary of our birth; but we have no idea, generally, what day will represent the day we die.  Whether we silently slip away or make a huge splash as we depart, that day will come and go.       

I have always thought that death was like high school dodgeball in gym class.  If the day in Southern California at South Gate High School was persistently rainy, the P.E. classes during each hour would gather in the gymnasium instead of going out of doors.  The ball would be tossed to one side or the other, to be forcefully hurled at members of the opposing team, picking them off one by one.  Our good friend Richard Meyers would always just stand there and allow himself to be taken out of the game as quickly as possible.  He could then contemptuously sit on the sidelines and watch the rest of us scurry from side to side as a disorganized mob, to avoid being taken out for as long as possible.  Everyone but the one winner on one side would eventually be eliminated, and the ball usually stung when it struck any part of your body because our most aggressive classmates were strong and did not hesitate to hurl the ball forcefully.

As this point in the history of our nation, all of the survivors of the Civil War are gone.  The Spanish-American War likewise.  So, too, those of the Titanic disaster.  And then WWI.  Soon enough, no survivor of WWII will exist on this plane.  So many of us Baby Boomers are making our way toward the exits.  By 2040 or 2050, we, too, will likely have departed.  Those who opposed integration or burned their Beatles albums when told to by right-wing media or fled to Canada to escape military service. 

So, Mike has a right to think about death these days. 

Once when we were on the phone back in the very early 1970's, just before Nixon's draft lottery came into being and he was far higher than I (he was 315 and I was 119), he contemplated avoiding military service.  Discussing our impending college graduation when we would finally be vulnerable to the draft, he coolly explained, "A lot can happen in a few months.  I could lose a limb.  I could die in a car wreck.  I'm optimistic."  I have never laughed so hard or for so long at such an unexpected observation.