Pam and Fred's grandparents owned a modest, older home, with possibly an acre of land around it, in Tustin, a few miles from our house in Orange. Their son, Jimmy, was in the Army but soon to return. Willis Wood, Willene's dad, promised to give Pam and Fred a silver dollar for each inch they each grew while their uncle was away. He paid up when Jimmy returned, measuring the two of them against a wooden beam holding up the front porch, comparing them with their previous heights notched a couple of years before. Though Ann and I were not part of the original agreement, Grandpa Wood gave each of us a single silver dollar so we would not feel left out.
The photo above, and the one directly below, are the only two photos from this era in our lives involving either Pam and Fred or the house on E Lomita. Somewhere along the line, I never got a shoebox of photos that Lorri had preserved for me. No matter. These were dark, unpleasant times for much of our three and a half years living there.
Pam was born the year I was, 1949, but in August rather than September. Fred was born the same year as Ann, 1950, but, again, in August instead of September. For almost every year we lived together, given that our birthdays were closely grouped, Dad and Willene promised that we would all go to Disneyland. Willene would tell Pam, and Pam would surreptitiously relay the promise to the three of us. We'd get our hopes up each time, contemplating the wonders of The Magic Kingdom. It never happened.
Something always came up to prevent the visit from taking place. More often than not, it involved Fred. He and I would get into a fight or something else would occur that he initiated so that we never went as a family even though Disneyland was not that far from Orange.
The building itself
Ann and I have always believed that Dad was only able to buy the triplex with the financial help of Grandpa Sanchez. Our suspicion is also that Willene was never on the title of the property. By having two, two-bedroom rental units attached, each with its own single-car garage, the rent would almost certainly help pay a substantial portion of the mortgage, if not all of it, each month. As with all major decisions or financial information previously, we kids were never told anything. Regardless, at least when Ann and I lived there, neither rental unit was unoccupied for long.
Our family unit in front had a Jack and Jill arrangement for us four kids. Ann and Pam had the front bedroom with the bathroom in between, and Fred and I shared the back bedroom, all on the right side of the house. A modern kitchen on the left and a living room in the center fronted the house. The dining room was directly behind the kitchen, just off of the living room, with a sliding glass door exiting to the patio to the left. (Each unit had its own individual patio; a gate on each end allowed access to each patio, as well as providing a direct path to the laundry room on the left side of the three garages, which were off of the alley in back.) Dad and Willene had their own private bathroom and a short hall leading to a room that Willene could use for sewing or whatever. A pocket door off of the living room to the right could close off our Jack and Jill arrangement in addition to the short hallway that connected the three rooms on that side of the house.
Not long after we moved in, the Honeymoon for us kids was over. Dad put us to work. We two boys especially had to help him dig out rocks and bring in dirt, not only to create the brick flower beds along the front of the house but also the brick edging along the front sidewalk so as to create a level lawn on either side of the cement walkway, leading to the front door from the public sidewalk. As you can see from a more modern photo below, all of the brick work dad did, with our help, in 1960, is still present.
Somehow, once the lawn grew, Fred got the smaller piece in front to mow. I was given the larger segment. In front of the two apartments in back, there were two smaller lawn sections on either side and one larger section between the individual sidewalks to each unit's front door. Fred got the larger, contiguous section. I was given the two smaller sections that had to be mowed separately. We only had a single push mower. Not only was my mowing more complex, I had far more edging work to do with a hand trimmer, along the exterior walls of each unit, in addition to the low fence beside my second patch of grass in back.
Fred usually got up and out the door quickly each Saturday morning, to get his work done. I had to wait until he was finished mowing before I could mow. And I almost always had an audience, and severe critic, of my work. Willene would stand at the window of her sewing room and stare down at me. If I missed a blade of grass, she would tap on the window and point out what I had missed. I would often get an ungrammatical critique as soon as I went back inside, "I seen ya do it," she would remind me. "I stood at the window, and I seen ya do it." I would cringe at her faulty expression.
While the boys would have our yardwork to do, the girls would have housework. Willene seemed to actually have very little to do. Now that she and Dad were married, she quit her job. They sold her massive old car. Eventually, Dad would buy her a light-blue, British-made Hillman Minx compact car. Unfortunately, after Dad went to work at the Fuller Paint Store in nearby Fullerton, CA, he lost his company station wagon. The whole family was now expected to pack into the compact car, all four of us kids squeezed into the narrow back seat.
Renters
The two rental units were occupied the entire time we lived on E Lomita. Only two families have remained in my memory: The Sundstroms and a younger, newlywed couple.
The Sundstrom father drove a very large, old green and white car, maybe a Dodge, though he kept it immaculate. There were two sons: Danny and Dickie. Danny was the oldest but had emotional and mental issues. In that era, he would have been referred to as retarded. Dickie was always protective of his older brother, comforting him if he got into one of his rages in which he became angry and hit himself in the head. Danny was no threat to anyone else. The four of us would play in the fields that surrounded our house, between the alley next to our fence and N Tustin to the West, and behind the alley between the garages and E Collins to the North. Now there is a smaller L-shaped strip mall between the alley by our fence and N Tustin, but there was nothing there then except an old house that was quickly demolished and removed in the first few months after we moved in. A gas station sat on the corner of N Tustin and E Collins. Today a Stater Brothers Market sits between the alley and E Collins behind the garages. Before we left, an overpass was constructed on E Collins over what would become the route of the 55 Freeway.
We kids would lay out roads and airport runways in the field next to our triplex using the small pebbles and rocks that were endemic to that empty field. Infrequently, Danny would become too upset and have to stop playing and go inside. But we enjoyed their friendship. One day, however, the family moved out and we had to make other friends to play with.
The young married couple was attractive. I know I found the husband quite handsome. He paid Fred and I each a quarter to wash his light-blue Ford Falcon every Saturday. Unfortunately, one Saturday morning we had to leave early and, not wanting to potentially miss out on our 50 cents that weekend, we decided to push his car out of their garage, wash it, and then push it back in. What could go wrong? Well, it started off very wrong when I allowed Freddie to talk me into letting him sit behind the wheel and steer and brake while I pushed. He was a moron behind the wheel. As soon as I got the compact car moving, he unnecessarily turned the wheel sharply. The front bumper caught on the large spring of the garage door and was stuck fast, pulling the wraparound portion away from the car and damaging the paint. We were screwed. We had to confess to our crime and, apparently, Dad and Willene used their insurance to pay for the damage we had caused. But the drama went on for many months after because, although we were not told, they made us pay them back every cent of their $25 deductible. Any time we got money from the Grandparents or from any chore we did, we had to pay it to them. It took what seemed like forever to repay the $25.
The wife's classy, well-dressed mom would visit now and then, and she drove one of those wonderful 1956 or 1957 two-seat Ford T-birds. When we had a Lemonade stand, she bought a cup of Lemonade from us. The young couple was the first we knew to buy a color TV. When the WIZARD OF OZ was broadcast, they said we could come and watch it at their apartment which we did. As a hobby, the husband made Tiki lamps with a stick of bamboo and a colored-glass candle holder. Unfortunately for us, when the wife got pregnant, the handsome husband informed us that he could no longer afford to pay us each 25 cents to wash his Falcon. Not long after the baby was born, they moved out.
Neighborhood friends
When the apartment complex next to our triplex was completed, a single mother and her son moved into one of the back units. He seemed like a nice kid, at first. Eventually, we realized that he was even more dishonest than Freddie. He had damaged something in their complex but blamed us. He lied even more frequently than Freddie, and that was saying a lot. Soon, they moved away.
I became friends for several years, even after we moved away, with Randy Bancroft whose parents owned a duplex across the street. One of his grandmothers lived in the front unit, and Randy and his mom and dad and younger sister lived in the back.
Randy was even more enamored with airliners and model airplane kits than I. And his parents could afford to buy him more than I ever could acquire. He explained that he and his family would fly out of the Orange County Airport (Santa Ana in those days) on Bonanza Airlines, stopping at San Diego, El Centro, and Yuma on their way to visit relatives in Phoenix. Since I had never flown before, I would attentatively listen to his tales of flying Bonanza over the years. He even bought the model kit of the Fairchild F-27 from Ravell, mailed away for the Bonanza Airlines decal sheet, and painted it in Bonanza colors.
Eventually, he created his own carrier, Golden Eagle Airlines, repainting several of his models in those colors. He knew how awful Willene could be, as well as how dishonest Freddie was, so he was a good friend while we lived there.
Another friend lived at the end of the cul-de-sac, E Barkley, that butted up against the empty field behind the garages. His father was away at lot because he flew converted B-17 aerial tankers for the Forest Service. Unfortunately, his father was killed many months later while dropping water on a forest fire in Northern California. His mother, he and his younger sister soon sold their house and moved away.
An airline crash that I followed intently in the newspapers occurred on December 16, 1960, over New York City. A United Airlines DC-8 from Chicago collided with a TWA Super Constellation flying to New York from Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. An 11-year-old boy, close to my own age, initially survived the crash I would read. Unfortunately, I would soon learn of his death in a subsequent newspaper report the following day which greatly saddened me. This was the worst aviation disaster at the time with 134 people in the air and on the ground losing their lives.
Fred
Willene's favorite child was never done any lasting favors when she coddled, lied about, and protected him over the years. He was not an intelligent kid though he was always cunningly dishonest. Willene may have been overly protective of him because he was not very bright, but she refused to stop sticking up for him when he was obviously being deceitful and willfully malicious. He played her and the rest of us for years.
He and I wore about the same size of Levi's, so Willene would buy us identical pairs. I always took care of my clothes and toys. Freddie did not. To differentiate between our new Levi's, she used an ink pen to mark the back leather patch with each of our names. But as Freddie wore his jeans out, and mine stayed pristine, I noticed that the leather patch in back would have my name faded beneath his newly added name. Freddie would take a pen and mark over my name to acquire my pair and give me his. The reverse was true of a now-abused pair that I unwillingly inherited with my name written in over his faded name. At this point, I knew that mentioning the obvious switch to Willene would do nothing because she would hang the good pair in his half of the closet because it now had his name on it.
For one Christmas, we were also given identical red, metal tanker trucks. We'd pull them down the long alley behind the garage. I kept mine in good shape. Freddie's silver, plastic front grill was cracked and broken at this point. Willene had previously put masking tape underneath each tanker truck so we could easily determine who owned which one. One day, after we had pulled them through muddy patches of water in the alley, we left them in the garage and went inside for lunch. When we returned, I walked toward where I had left mine on the garage floor. Freddie cut me off and informed me that that was his truck, not mine. I knew where I had left mine, but when I flipped the truck over to confirm that it was mine, the masking tape label had his name. But rather than put his label exactly over where mine had clearly been--because the muddy splash still outlined where my label had been--it was obvious that Freddie had sneaked back into the garage before we returned from lunch and made the switch. Again, I knew that bringing up the obvious deceitful switch to Willene would not have helped me get my truck back. Dad was useless and would never confront her about her son's dishonesty.
Freddie and I fought all of the time. I hated being cheated and stolen from. Things of mine would disappear, and I would later discover from friends at school that Freddie had taken something of mine to school and traded it for food or money. The continuous fighting got so persistent that Willene and Dad in frustration moved Freddie and his twin bed into the spare, sewing room. I was overjoyed to have our bedroom to myself. That week, the girls had made brownies for us to take for our lunches. (We were given a nickel each day to buy milk, but we took our lunches in bags.) The fresh brownies were kept in a large tin in the kitchen, but they were disappearing quickly, more quickly than each of us taking one per day to school which was all we were allowed to have. Also, Dad continued to suffer from his nervous stomach and bought packs of Chicklets gum which he kept in a dresser drawer in their bedroom.
Unfortunately, the new sleeping arrangement did not last more than a week or two. Again, not being told why, Freddie was moved back into our room. I was crushed. After his bed had been removed from the sewing room, Willene took a broom into the room to sweep up. I happened to walk in when she just began to sweep. I was dumbfounded to see her slowly sweep up a few empty Chicklets boxes and plenty of brownie crumbs from the floor where Freddie's bed had been. It was obvious that Freddie had been sneaking into the kitchen at night and taking brownies meant for our lunches, and that he had been sneaking into their bedroom and stealing boxes of Dad's Chicklets gum from their dresser. Willene made no indication that she noticed the evidence she was calmly sweeping up. I knew it was pointless to mention anything to her.
One summer, since Ann and Willene were often in constant confrontation, Ann was sent to visit our Grandparents in Yucaipa for several weeks. Freddie was enrolled in summer school because he was always academically deficient. Within a few days, it was obvious to me that while Freddie got on his bike and peddled off, he was not attending summer school. He told me he would hang out around the Alpha Beta Market and the adjacent shopping center off of E Collins Ave. and would only return home when he knew that summer school was over for the day. I was forced into a dilemma. If I told Willene the truth about what was happening, she would not believe me, and I would be punished. If I did not tell her what Freddie was up to, and she later found out that I knew, I could still get punished. I kept silent.
When the school term ended, they called and told Willene that Freddie had not attended at all. We other three kids were equally punished even though Ann had not there that summer, and I don't believe that Pam ever knew that Freddie was not attending summer school. This was yet another year that we all did not get to go to Disneyland because of Freddie.
Within a year or so of us moving into the triplex, Freddie decided that he wanted a rabbit. Dad must have helped build a wood and wire-mesh hutch. While the rabbit belonged exclusively to Freddie, the rest of us kids had to help keep the patio and the hutch clean of the rabbit's crap and urine. Of course, the hypocrisy was sorely evident that over a year before, probably because of Willene's demands, I was forced to allow Dad to take my beloved cat, Tiger, and dump him in some field somewhere. I was not allowed to retain my pet cat, but Freddie was able to have a messy rabbit that required extra care and whose hutch took up a section of the patio inside the exterior fence.
Next Year's Summer School
The following summer, all four of us were required to attend summer school, probably to ensure that Freddie actually went. We walked to and from school each day. August 3, that summer of 1961, we were walking past a house on the way to summer school. An excited woman came out of her house to tell us that a Continental Airlines 707 had almost been skyjacked to Cuba in El Paso, Texas, but that the FBI had thwarted the attempt. This failed effort would start off a string of such skyjackings over the next few years.
My teacher kept our attention that summer by reading from THE 13 CLOCKS each day, a short children's novel by James Thurber. He would eventually become a favorite author of mine by the end of the decade and beyond, along with fellow New Yorker magazine writer, E.B. White.
We students also collected candy that term to fill a Pinata what we would bash at the end of the summer. One student contributed a roll of LifeSavers candy, the prize every one of us students hoped to retrieve when the Pinata burst open and spilled its contents onto the playground. When the time came, a few kids were given a chance to be blindfolded and take their shots with a baseball bat. (We were warned to be careful because an earlier incident got a girl struck with the bat because she sought to straighten the batter's blindfold just as he was about to swing, catching her forehead instead of the Pinata.) Soon enough, the effective blow was delivered, the Pinata gushed forth a wealth of candy, and those of us not wielding the bat dove for the brightly littered blacktop. I dove in along with the others; and I instantly felt the long, cylindrical shape of the prized LifeSaver roll. I jumped up in victory, envied by all of the other kids in my class.
One day as we were walking home along E Collins, Freddie got on my nerves. I no longer remember what he said or did; but in complete frustration when he would not let up, I attacked him on a stranger's front lawn. He then did what he usually did, which was to curl up in a ball like a turtle and take the hits. When I tired slightly, he noticed a drawing that I prized lying on the lawn beside him. He grabbed my drawing and tore it in half. I started pounding him even harder. The two sisters were yelling at us to stop. Finally, an angry housewife emerged and yelled at all of us to stop and get off of her lawn or she was going to call the police. Of course, I believe Pam tattled to Willene about what had happened, so this became the second summer when we were not going to Disneyland.
Willene and discipline
Willene never spared the rod. She would use a metal fly swatter with a rubber swat that would often come off when we were being beaten. Freddie would frequently start a fight--he knew which buttons of mine to push--and I would fight back. That would inevitably result in discipline, usually physical abuse. Fred and I would have to stand beside our respective beds and wait to be hit with the metal swatter. Willene would start with Freddie; but as soon as she hit him once, if that, he would start yelling and crying and leaping around the room, often from bed to bed, while staying out of range of the fly swatter. Willene would soon tire of trying to hit him and turn to me. I would grit my teeth and not give her the satisfaction of showing that I hated what she was doing to me. Unfortunately, the rubber end of the fly swatter was usually gone during her futile flailing at Freddie, so she would just use the metal handle on me. It hurt badly, but I would not cry. She was certainly appeared to be even more sadistic when I was her target.
She would use her hands on Ann especially. I once heard a commotion in the girls' room. As I peered inside, Freddie was trying to hold Ann down on her bed so that Willene could beat her mercilessly. I demanded to know what was going on, and Willene responded, "She's trying to kick me, so Freddie is having to hold her down!" I was appalled and said so.
Once, when Freddie and I got into another of our verbal fights, Willene put tape over our mouths to humiliate us. But then we were forced to go on a family ride in the packed Hillman Minx. She allowed Freddie to sit in the back seat with the girls so he could hide out, but she made me sit beside her in the front seat as Dad drove. If I tried to cover my mouth when the car came to a stop and strangers in other cars beside us could see the tape over my mouth when I sat beside the passenger window, she would reach over and push my hand away so that the tape was exposed for anyone to see. Public humiliation was also part of her disciplinary method.
One night, the whole family exploded in a yelling fest. I don't even remember what set it all off, but Willene was lashing out at all of us kids in a total meltdown. Dad tried to calm her down, but she started kicking him in the shines. Freddie began crying aloud and yelling at Dad, "Leave my mother alone!" That was hilarious because Dad was doing nothing but trying to keep her from kicking him. Dad might have been a weak man and husband, but he was almost never physical with anyone. If he did use a belt on Freddie or me, it was usually because Willene goaded him into physically disciplining us. He only wanted peace at home, but she often used his calm demeanor against him.
Also, she often used psychological torment to shame us. I and Pam were often shamed because we were skinny. Ann was always made to feel shame that she was chubby, which she was not. Even though I was a decent student, I was never given any credit for any success I had at school.
Willene often confined me to my room. As the years went by and I grew taller and stronger, she still sent me to my room. One time, I went into the bedroom and closed the door, but instead of lying or sitting on my bed as ordered, I was standing beside the bed. Willene entered the room and demanded, "Sit on your bed!" After all of the years of abuse and humiliation, I calmly replied, "No." She came at me, both fists raised to hit me about the head and shoulders. I deftly grabbed each of her wrists with each hand and held fast, knowing that if I let go, she would really get started smacking me. She repeatedly struggled to free her arms. I continued to firmly hold on. Soon, she tired and backed away as I released her wrists. "Wait until your father gets home," she threatened as she left the room. I believe I may have laughed out loud. Dad was not going to do anything that I could not handle. That successful confrontation broke her hold upon me.
Measles
I was confined to my room once for a good reason: I came down with measles. I don't recall any of the others getting infected, but I had to stay in my darkened room for several days until I recovered. This was sometime when I was 11 or 12.
Lorri
When Dad and Willene brought Lorri Sue Sanchez home from the hospital in late March of 1961, we kids were told to take a look at her in the bassinet in the parents' bedroom. Freddie and I briefly glanced at her--she looked like any other baby asleep--and we immediately returned to playing out of doors. In retrospect, what were Dad and Willene thinking?
Dad was born in 1920, so he was over 40 when Lorri was conceived in June of 1960, over 41 when she was born. Willene was older than her mid 30's, nearing 40 when Lorri was born. They already had four kids between them, and we were becoming increasingly difficult to raise financially now that we would be approaching our teen years. Why did they have a fifth child? Again, we were never told. Willene was pregnant for several months, crankier than ever; and then Lorri was born. That is all we knew.
Some speculation all these years later was that this was Willene's means to cement the marriage to my Dad. She was never going to leave him, but she clearly did not want him to divorce her. Who knows how long she had searched for a replacement to her former husband, Frederick Creed II, who had divorced her and left her and their two kids to fend for themselves? We don't believe that he ever paid child support. And we never were made aware that his parents took any interest in their two grandchildren once her divorce was final. None of them was ever mentioned in those months that we knew them before she married Dad nor especially after. We knew Willis and Stella Wood, Willene's parents, her brother Jimmy and brother Herschel along with his family, and that was it.
Perhaps it was Dad's Catholicism that prevented him from using birth control, but Willene was not Catholic. As mom later explained after she first married Dad in 1947, she secretly used birth control for the first couple of years of marriage before I was conceived and born in 1949. Regardless, we were now a family of seven that had to squeeze into the compact Hillman Minx.
Mom
Mom wasn't the least bit nasty toward Dad's new wife--she avoided her. However, for decades she always referred to her as "Wollene", deliberately mispronouncing her name. And mom did not like it at all that we were being physically and psychologically abused by Dad's new wife. At this time mom lived in a studio apartment on La Reina in Downey, California, in 1960-2, moving to a one-bedroom apartment in the same apartment building later. The two-story apartment complex had a pool, and there were several times we got to stay with her for a weekend now and then.
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This intolerable situation created a bad result when Grandma Breeze visited mom, likely Labor Day weekend 1960. Mom came by the house on E Lomita to ask if she could take Ann and me with her and Grandma Breeze for the day, even though it was not her assigned weekend. Grandma Breeze did not visit from Kansas that often, and we had not seen her since the summer of 1957. Ann and Dad were not home the day mom arrived, but Willene refused to let me go. I was at the door, and Mom and Grandma Breeze began to pull me toward her car across the street. Mom even tempted me with the promise that she had a model kit for me in the backseat--it was a Ravell F-86 Scorpion fighter. I definitely wanted to go, but I knew that my leaving would call forth the wrath of Willene. The immediate neighborhood reacted to the incident. Kids and parents were out, watching the spectacle of Mom and Grandma coaxing me to the car, and Willene yelling at all three of us from the front door. Once I was in the backseat of Mom's Buick, a neighbor kid got in front of the car, to write down the license plate number of the Buick, at Willene's insistence. Once he was out of the way, we drove off.
Mom drove us to the Fashion Island shopping center, to either Buffums or Bullocks department store. I was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts when I got "kidnapped". She and Grandma bought me a nice pair of trousers and shirt and shoes to wear. I had a wonderful weekend. I believe this photo was from that weekend:
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Villa Park Elementary School, Spring 1960
Clearly, E Lomita was a microcosm of the city of Orange experiencing population growth along with new housing construction in the late 1950's and early 1960's. In the months and years ahead, the city would catch up building new schools, but not quite yet in the Spring of 1960. The next-door community of Villa Park already had an elementary school that the four of us would attend until the much, much closer Handy Elementary School would be built for the Fall term of 1960.
We had to take a bus to school each morning that Spring. Looking at a map today, Palmyra Elementary School was just as close, so I am not certain why Ann and I had to switch schools in the middle of the school year. I have no idea today or even back then if Willene made the decision or the city of Orange dictated the arrangement with Villa Park so that Palmyra was not overtaxed by Baby Boomers and no longer an option for us.
Villa Park Elementary School sat amidst rural orange groves, surrounded by Eucalyptus trees. Several of the buildings had been there for years, but many of the classrooms were more recently constructed. The four of us never had the same teacher, but that never stopped me from being asked about my relationship to Pam or Fred, even though they were still named Creed and Ann and I were named Sanchez. This was an era when not that many mixed, post-divorce families existed in a school system. One girl liked me enough to want to "go steady". However, the ritual then was to give her a St. Chrisopher medal to indicate our connection. But they cost a dollar, and she might well have asked for a fortune from me. I didn't have any money. I tried to buy her a horseshoe shaped chocolate confection, but the horseshoe broke before I could give it to her, so I ate it myself. So much for having a girlfriend.
Much of the campus featured pepper trees. I would spend some time in the old library building, checking out books about military aircraft. Some of these books were quite old so that key information about a new bomber like the B-52's performance was labeled Top Secret or Unknown. I had a female teacher that semester. Generally, I got decent grades, not typically A's but usually B's. Comments from her on the report cards usually indicated that I was a bit hyper by early 60's standards when most students, at least in the schools we attended, were overly well behaved.
Each classroom had a wondrous SRA Reader kit. I read from it a lot. No matter what color level I was placed at, eventually after I finished with the most advanced purple level, I soon doubled back and read the more rudimentary color stories. Reading for me became a refuge from the disappointments and the turmoil at home. Because of the girls, at home I would read available Trixie Belden, Donna Parker or Nancy Drew mysteries. Rarely were we boys given books at Christmas or for our birthdays, but the girls got books and I read them. I enjoyed the fact that the characters had close friends and, with Trixie Belden, formed a club with their siblings and pals. Pam actually gave me a paperback book one Christmas that I devoured, THE GREEN CAT MYSTERY. The novel was about a blended family that lived in San Francisco. The mother brought two daughters to the marriage, and the father had two sons. The adventurous mystery made me want to visit San Francisco.
At some point, Fred acquired a used copy of the imaginary tale SUPERMAN comic book where Lex Luthor actually kills Superman. During the imaginary memorial service, three members of the Legion of Super-Heroes pause over Superman's coffin and acknowledge that he was the greatest hero of all. A couple of years later, I would become obsessed with Adventure Comics that featured the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the Legion certainly inspired my writing of my Rainbow Arc of Fire series of novels. But that was all in the future.
At some point, one of my class buddies wanted to join the school choir. I went with him, and both of us auditioned. Oddly, he was rejected but I was chosen. For several weeks during the term, when I sat in the school cafetorium, I would see a sign nailed to one of the Eucalyptus trees, "Dogpatch" with a pointing arrow. Eventually, I would realize that a group of Thespian parents, mostly women, put on an amateur production of "Lil' Abner". We were all there. They used the cast recording rather than their own voices with each song. One woman did not get the message, or ignored it, and we laughed to hear her off-key voice ringing out over the album recording from the stage.
At some point in the 1990's, mom and I visited several places where I had once lived and schools I had once attended, especially in the city of Orange. Here is the photo of Villa Park Elementary School and the classroom on the right end that I had.
Whether it was once a week or once a month, those of us who were Catholic would arrive at an elderly woman's house off campus during the day where a priest would meet us and hold religious instruction during the week. Dad must have enrolled us because neither Ann nor I would have volunteered to attend though it may have been required by the school board. Orange County was the conservative bastion of the state for many years. Protestant, and probably Jewish, students would also meet somewhere for instruction. The school allowed time during the academic day to attend, just not on school grounds. The elderly woman provided glasses of ice water for each of us on particularly warm days because her vintage house was not air conditioned.
Handy Elementary School, Fall 1960 - Spring 1961
During the summer of 1960, one afternoon in late August, I was confined to my room once again. Willene came to the door and explained that my teacher for the fall at Handy Elementary was waiting to see me in the living room. I suppose I was at least as surprised as she and Dad were. I was only wearing a pair of jeans shorts as I turned the corner to the living room. My teacher was a large man with dark hair. I know longer remember his name, but 6th Grade during the 1960-1 term would be different. No teacher in the past had ever visited my home before a school year. He was there to meet me, and all of his other students, as well as examine what kind of family situation existed where each of us lived.
He would have 100-word spelling tests each week. He would expose us to rudimentary algebra. His means of teaching seemed different, pushing knowledge at us every day. To reward the better students, at the front of each row of desks sat the students who had done the best the week before. (I never got to sit in a front desk, and that was true of most of the students in his class.) Four girls--Debbie, Barbara, Charlotte and one other--were perpetually sitting in one of those prestigious desks as row monitors, week after week. As the months passed with little change, the rest of us became envious and then frustrated and angry. In the Spring, we finally rebelled. I am not sure how it started, but somebody called out how the rest of us were being discriminated against. No matter how much we tried, we failed. I know I furiously joined in the angry chorus. We demanded Democracy. We wanted to choose who sat at the head of each row of desks. I don't think our teacher could believe the tempestuous rebellion had such raw emotion behind it. He finally relented and let us vote. Ironically, when given the vote, except for one of the boys in class whom everyone liked, we voted for the same four girls to head four rows of desks as monitors. Hilariously, the class flew into an even greater rage.
The results of the voting were a precursor to what was beginning to happen throughout the school experience this year, but also the years ahead in Junior High as well. Physically, personally, and in appearance (i.e. looks), as we each matured, we Baby Boomers were starting to choose among us who was handsome or pretty and--most importantly--popular. Those whom we envied because they wore the nicest clothes or came from the better families or had some qualities the rest of us lacked were starting to appear among us. These might even be the trendsetters whom we wanted to emulate.
After the election of John Kennedy over Richard Nixon in the fall of 1960, our teacher brought a B&W portable TV to class for the inauguration in late January. We got to hear the poet Robert Frost read his poem for the occasion. We especially heard President Kennedy's "Ask not" speech. I suspect that Dad had voted for Nixon though he would never say, just as he and mom had not told me, when I asked, whom they had voted for in the second Eisenhower-Stevenson election in 1956.
I accumulated many pictures of civilian airliners while attending Handy because they became a hobby for me--American aircraft manufacturers had entered a significant phase with the introduction of major jetliners: Boeing 707, Douglas DC--8, and Convair 880 and 990. I kept the many pictures at school since I did not trust Freddie to leave my things alone at home. They would not fit in my desk, so I kept them in a pile on the floor, below my chair. At some point, the cleaning staff complained to the teacher that my pile of pictures was in the way of their cleaning. I did not have a solution to the problem right away. While I was trying to decide what I ought to do, the cleaning staff simply tossed all of my pictures away. I came to school one morning and they were all gone. I was hurt and furious. I could not trust to leave my possessions at home, and now I could not trust that my valued possessions at school were protected.
Birthday Party with classmates
At some time during the school year, one of the students gave a birthday party at his or her house, and all of us were invited. Sherbet punch and cake were offered. Music was playing and most of us danced. I asked one of the four pretty girls in our class to dance, a simple request, I thought. The four of them talked amongst themselves and informed me that if I danced with Kristine, a large and not particularly attractive German girl who could easily beat up any of the boys at school, they would dance with me. Perhaps they thought I would not accede to their demand, but I did. Kristine and I danced, and I actually found her to be quite a good dancer. After that, I then returned to the bench where the four pretty girls sat to collect. They instead refused. I should have walked away, insulted. However, I grabbed the hand of the nearest girl, to pull her onto the dance floor. We had an agreement in my mind, I had followed through, but they likely never had any intention of honoring their promise to me.
The confrontation escalated. The other three girls helped to hold her on the bench while I was pulling the other way. Soon, I suddenly realized that none of them had had any intention of dancing with me. I let go of her arm and burst into tears, realizing that I had been played by them. I was not one of the popular boys. I was not on their level in their minds. I found a separate bench by myself, put my hands over my eyes and continued to bawl. I was totally humiliated. Unfortunately, my bawling drew a crowd. I could hear the voices of the adults, asking why I was crying. The four girls were trying to explain what had happened and how badly they now felt. A few of the boys seemed to understand my response and gathered around me, expressing support. Now, I did not know what to do. I was almost too ashamed to pull my hands from my eyes, to face the others who were universally expressing sympathy.
Eventually I was talked into rejoining the party. I may have even danced with one or two of the pretty girls who then felt at least a bit of shame at how shabbily they had treated me. Soon enough the party was over, and the one parent who had picked up me and a few of the other students at our homes and drove us to the party was now going to drive each of us home. I was the last to be dropped off. I entered the house, happy to have put the humiliation at the party behind me, only to be confronted by Willene who demanded to know where I had been for the last several minutes. I was surprised, but I explained that I was sitting in the car of the woman who had had dropped off the others first. She refused to believe me and bitingly told me that she had called the party host's mother who explained that I had left awhile earlier, meaning that I must have been doing something else when I should already have been home. I have no idea even now what she thought I had been doing or where I had been except on the way home. I went to bed that night, crushed yet again that I had not even been believed.
In retrospect, my feeling is that Willene was determined to ruin any fun I might have had, not knowing anything about my humiliation regarding the four pretty girls. Freddie had never been invited to a birthday party by a classmate and probably never would be. About this time, Willene had even demanded that our mom could no longer give Ann and me presents unless it was something that could be shared by all four of us kids such as a game or puzzle. Mom found that demand ridiculous. Just because Freddie and Pam's father no longer kept in touch or gave them gifts, why should she not give us gifts meant just for us?
Jim Gendron at Handy
Sometime early in the school year, I became buddies with Jim. We would talk with British accents and pass notes to one another now and then, ignoring what the other kids might think. I suppose in a later time, Jim would be called flamboyant. I was less so, but we did enjoy one another's company, especially during recess, being outsiders of a sort. Eventually I was told by another friend that Jim was getting therapy or had been confined to an institution by his parents. Whatever had happened, he did not accompany the rest of us on to Junior High, and I believe he did not even finish the whole term.
Dave Moore at Handy
Paul David Moore also became a buddy from Handy. But unlike Jim, Dave and I remained even closer friends at Yorba Junior High and beyond.
Dave Moore was my confident and best friend for years. I would spend Saturdays at his house in Orange. We would occasionally save up our nickels from Junior High milk money and buy deserts that we would devour in fields near his housing development. One weekday, we intended to hang out together. He bravely entered the dining room on E Lomita to ask Willene if I could spend the afternoon at his place. She refused, making some lame excuse that I had chores to do or some other lie. She seemed to hate that I had friends while Freddie did not.
When he and then I got cars, we would drive to one another's house and enjoy an art museum or an observatory. One summer when I fell into a terrible depression, he picked me up and drove me to his sister and her husband's house in a quiet valley inland from Oceanside. He stayed at my place when he was living with a cousin who had a baby but was severely struggling financially. I took him to the downtown LA draft building when he got his draft notice. We had visited the famous Chapel on Palos Verdes where I tossed a coin into the wishing well the night before and hoped he would be OK after his physical. (He would be rejected because he had attempted suicide at one point when he was living with his female cousin in Torrance.)
We continued to remain close friends until he joined the Air Force as an enlisted man in the early 1970's, and I lost track of him when I tried to find out where he was stationed when I was at Minot AFB. When I was told where he was by the world-wide Air Force locator, I called his unit and asked about him. The woman who answered informed me that the unit I was asking about, "That's the patient squadron." Psychological or physical? I never could find out. And he was no longer a patient anyway.
Once in a while, I would try Facebook or google in recent years, but there are too many Paul David Moore's. And none of them seem to be him anyway.
Disneyland
At the end of the school year in 1960, one of the family members of a student in Pam's class worked at Disneyland. He was able to get our two 6th grade classes passes to The Magic Kingdom for $1 each. Lorri had been born are couple of months before. Finances were now tight for our family. We were basically told Dad could not come up with the $2 for Pam and me to go with our classmates. Fortunately, as the date for turning in the money arrived, my teacher met with me privately and confirmed that someone else would be able to come up with the $1 needed so that I could go. Same for Pam with her class. It was definitely humiliating in a way to have to accept charity.
One member of my class could not go that day. Greg Steed's parents were flying with him to Hawaii at the beginning of summer on United Airlines later that day. He was at the parking lot of Handy to see us off in the two school buses that would take us. For some reason, I did not pair up with Dave Moore for Disneyland. One of the other boys in class was going to hang out with me for the day. We were all issued red ribbons on our wrists that would allow us to enjoy any ride without needing any of the usually required A, B, C, D and E tickets. Dad did give Pam and me a dollar each for anything we might need that day. I was going to buy a model kit, but since the day was warm, I bought a cold soda instead. That took up enough of the dollar so that I could not afford much else.
After pretty much exhausting the rides we wanted to enjoy, my buddy and I inexplicably fixed upon the circling rockets ride in Tomorrowland. Foolishly, I got talked into riding it seven times in a row. Then, when we wandered into Fantasyland while I was still feeling woozy, my buddy suggested we ride the Teacups. I wonder now if he was trying to get me sick. As we were spinning around and around, I told him not to spin us even more using the control in the center of the teacup. He was afraid that others would wonder why we were barely spinning while all of the other cups were wildly whirling around us. I insisted that I was going to be sick if the ride did not soon stop. Mercifully, the ride ended, and I stumbled toward the exit, certain that I was going to puke momentarily. Our teacher got off the ride at the same time, and when he was told by my buddy that I was about to throw up, he pointed to the low bushes surrounding the ride and said, "He can throw up there." Fortunately, I did not puke but my stomach was upset for several more minutes until my head and body finally stopped spinning.
While I have class pictures from Laural Elementary in Whittier, either the Orange County elementary schools did not take class pictures, or Dad and Willene would not pay for us to have copies of any class pictures that did get taken when we attended elementary schools in Orange. Since the four of us were never in the same classes, it would have required them to buy four separate photos.
Yorba Junior High School, Fall 1961 - Spring 1963
Willene was required to buy me an athletic supporter for gym class in the Fall. Junior High School was going to be an entirely different experience than elementary school, for the good and for the bad. Wearing the latest fad clothing and being a cool, popular kid was now even more important than it had been in 6th grade. Dave Moore and I cemented our friendship even more since neither of us was cool or exceptionally popular. The clothing fad for popular girls around this time was boy's long-sleeved white shirts with boy's suspenders and pleated skirts. Popular guys wore Pendleton shirts with Levi's, probably influenced by the attire worn by The Beach Boys. Surfing was in. Woodie station wagons were in (although nobody in Junior High could drive yet).
However, the school had mandatory dress codes. Girls might be required to get down on their knees so that a female teacher could ensure that the girl's skirt was not too short--the edge of the hem had to touch the sidewalk. One male acquaintance of mine was sent home to change when he wore a pair of pants where each panel, front and back and each side, was a different color: Yellow, Blue, Green and Red. One might want to stand out, but you were not allowed to stand out too much.
Nobody wore wool hats. But Willene would make us two boys wear wool hats on chilly mornings. The girls had to wear warm socks. She would imperiously stand at the sliding glass door which allowed her to look over the fence at the four of us walking to school. (No more taking school buses since Yorba was approximately five blocks away.) We trudged the sidewalks of E Lomita, along N Tustin to E Collins Avenue. Only when we got out of sight along E Collins could we remove the totally uncool wool hats or warm socks. Otherwise, if she saw us remove the hideous apparel, she would accuse, "I seen ya do it. I stood at the door, and I seen ya do it." To us it seemed as if she was less concerned about our health and more concerned with humiliating us with our classmates.
Probably during the 8th grade, a new boy arrived at the school. I thought he was quite handsome. I knew that he was acquainted with a girl in my English class. I asked her how such and such was doing. She looked at me with a withering glance and said, "I wouldn't tell you. I only tell popular kids." Thing was, she wasn't one of the popular kids; but she clearly felt she could insult me to my face because she believed herself to be more popular than I.
Many teachers knew whom the popular kids were and which ones of us were not. One of our rather attractive teachers taught science. One day someone mentioned that my best friend Dave had accidentally worn two different colors of socks to school. The student mentioned it to the whole class and got a big laugh, the popular science teacher with the prominent dimple laughed along with them. Several days later, I noticed that one of the popular kids was wearing his color socks inside out. I mentioned it aloud in class but got hooted down by those same students, with the teacher coldly informing me that we did not have time for this. I had no hole to crawl into now that I, again, learned the brutal lesson that popular kids were funny and got rewarded. Others of us did not. This same teacher confiscated some joke cards I was simply shuffling through at my desk, distracted during a particularly boring lecture.
In an English class with a male teacher I liked, a couple of the class jerks were flicking spit balls at me, balled up pieces of notebook paper wet with saliva. I was having to duck now and again, and the teacher finally noticed. I did not reveal who was doing this, but the teacher knew. He told me to take the two offending boys down to the Vice Principal's office, an overly imposing, heavy-set man with a mean reputation who drove an old black jalopy to school. Any news of a rumble after class and he and a few of the tough teachers would pile into his old car and head off in the direction where the fight was supposed to be taking place. "I choose you off," was the expression that meant you intended to fight someone after school. Usually. the combatants would meet behind the Alpha Beta Market down the street from Yorba to fight it out, or so I was told.
Anyway, I was soon standing just outside of the VP's office when one of the savvy punk kids I was accompanying advised me, "Don't tell Mr. whomever that you didn't do this. He'll get even angrier." So, I foolishly kept my mouth shut and was given detention along with the two clowns who tossed the spit balls at me. As we were about to depart, a teacher I did know well and who did like me saw me in front of the VP's office and chided me for having gotten into trouble. I wanted to tell him that it wasn't me who was in trouble. Even though I explained to the original teacher back in class that I was given detention along with the other two who deserved it, he never offered to visit the Vice Principal and clear up the misunderstanding. I had to endure an undeserved detention as well.
At detention the next day, the teacher whom I did not know was pacing back in forth in front of all of us juvenile delinquents. A girl behind me said something I did not quite understand; she probably made a lame joke. I turned around to look at her but said nothing. When I turned back around, rather than discipline the girl who had actually spoken up, the detention teacher looked directly at me and spat out, "You better shut your mouth, Sanchez, and turn around, or we'll send you back to Mexico where you came from." I was too naive at the time to realize that he was a racist bastard who was trying to insult me in front of this whole group of morons. All I kept thinking in my confusion was, "Why does he think I came from Mexico?"
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962
While I always followed current events, the only impact that I can recall the crisis having upon our home was Willene buying extra cans of condensed milk for the cupboard.
California Governor's election, November 1962
During one of Mom's monthly visits with us, she took us to a toney shopping center for lunch. She had a card in her purse from her Republican women's group (she had always been a staunch, Kansas-born Republican while she lived, unfortunately), indicating that Richard Nixon would be appearing at that very shopping center in Orange Country since he was running for the governorship of California that fall after his defeat for the presidency in 1960 to John F. Kennedy. We decided to wait around and see him. He soon alighted from his limo and shook hands with almost everyone.
He ought to have realized then that he was not going to win because, even in conservative Orange County so near to the election, the crowd was quite small. Mom handed the dated card to Ann who then gave it over to Nixon to sign. We three were inches away from the future president when he finished signing it and gave it back to Ann. I kept that signed card for many years--after his disgraced exit from the White House after Watergate, and even after his eventual death in 1994--until a "friend" took a couple of boxes of my stuff from my condo storage room in Denver, CO, and tossed the contents into a dumpster. I have always wondered what that signed card with the printed date and location of his appearance--confirming its authenticity--might have brought at an auction.
Music, Music, Music
I took a music appreciation class at Yorba. We were listening to a choral LP in class, and I noticed that one vocalist began to sing a different note at one point than all the other singer but quickly stopped. The mistake was almost imperceptible, but I heard it; so when the piece ended, I mentioned it to the class. Nobody else had noticed what I had, so the teacher played the piece again after I explained what I had heard. One by one, other students started to hear the error as the teacher played the passage several times. Soon, the teacher heard it, too. After class, impressed, she suggested that I ought to consider actually learning to play an instrument with the school band.
We actually had an old, discolored trumpet stored in the garage, left over from Dad's brother, Leon, years before. My class schedule was changed, and I slowly began to learn how to play the trumpet. Everyone else had brand new, shiny, purchased or rented instruments. Dave Moore played the clarinet his parents had bought for him. One bandmate had a shiny trumpet but with his underbite, it was too difficult. He changed instruments. I started to write a letter to Mom in my notebook about wishing I had a new trumpet because mine stood out in the band, being so old (I recall that a new trumpet was approximately $100 in those days). I had not finished the letter when Pam needed a piece of writing paper, opened my notebook without my permission, came across my letter to Mom and tattled to Dad and Willene about what I had written. For the only time in his life, Dad sat me down in the bedroom and explained our tight finances, showing just how much each and every item or bill cost him each month. There was no money left to buy or rent a new trumpet. I felt a bit ashamed.
I was made to practice in the garage where it was often chilly in Winter. I practiced most nights but not every single night. Eventually, Willene said that since I was not practicing every single night, I had to quit learning the trumpet and stop taking band practice. Crushed, I had to change my schedule back to the music appreciation class; but because I had not been taking the class for several weeks, I did poorly on the midterm exam. A week or so later, Dad asked me why I was not still practicing the trumpet in the garage. I was dumbfounded. Willene had led me to believe that it was he who also agreed with her that I had to quit band because I was not practicing every single night. He had no idea I was forced, by her alone, to quit. This seemed yet another example of Willene treating me badly because her precious Freddie had no talent, or interest, in doing anything creative.
Speech class
As a student, I hit my stride not in many classes that I took at Yorba except for Speech class, and not even until we got to the segment where we wrote and performed in plays. We were required to write our own versions of one of three Shakespearean plays. The only one I remember was Taming of the Shrew. My version of one of the plays was acceptable but nothing special. However, another student's version of Shrew was inspired. He turned it into Lil' Abner meets the Shrew, a Hillbilly Taming. I was offered, and accepted, the lead. I was coming to be recognized as a decent actor in class. In fact, I was offered parts in all three of the chosen versions of each play. I could only accept two, so I also took the small part of a rejected Southern Gentleman, "Oh, now I have lost you." using a fairly decent Southern accent. We did so well with the Hillbilly Shrew that we were asked to perform it before the entire school during a contest for best performance on a piece on stage. Unfortunately, we lost out to two boys whom I later realized were just performing a well-known Smothers Brothers routine. Their total rip off of the Brothers skit won them first place.
But after my acting success in Speech class, I never took up performing again though the drama class would put on a wonderfully delightful production of Brigadoon at the end of the 8th grade. They even recorded their version on a record album; however, my own acting days were done.
Drafting Class
One semester I had to take a drafting class. The class had so many male students (no girls; just as boys could not take Home Economics classes in those sexist times, girls could not take drafting class, not that any would have back then) that a couple of boys had to use drafting tables just around the corner of the door into the metal shop where I would make a birdfeeder one other semester. I am no longer certain exactly why, but I eventually volunteered to move to one of the two tables outside the door to the drafting room and let one of those guys have my table (maybe I did not care much for my fellow drafting students and envied their isolation out there), I loved it out there because, on warm, sunny days, the outside door was left open. I could gaze out the door and imagine myself elsewhere--I was only a fair drafting student. At some point, the boys in the main classroom acted up. Either it was most or all of them that went goofy. I, of course, being isolated from the rest, had not been a part of the melee; but, as the teacher acknowledged and explained to me, I would still have to stay late that day as punishment.
Alpha Beta shopping center
The excursion started out innocently enough. Freddie and I were asked to walk to the Alpha Beta shopping center to pick up a bottle Worcestershire Sauce. Dickie Sundstrom came with us. Eventually, it would devolve into a crime spree. But I exaggerate.
Paul David Moore also became a buddy from Handy. But unlike Jim, Dave and I remained even closer friends at Yorba Junior High and beyond.
Dave Moore was my confident and best friend for years. I would spend Saturdays at his house in Orange. We would occasionally save up our nickels from Junior High milk money and buy deserts that we would devour in fields near his housing development. One weekday, we intended to hang out together. He bravely entered the dining room on E Lomita to ask Willene if I could spend the afternoon at his place. She refused, making some lame excuse that I had chores to do or some other lie. She seemed to hate that I had friends while Freddie did not.
When he and then I got cars, we would drive to one another's house and enjoy an art museum or an observatory. One summer when I fell into a terrible depression, he picked me up and drove me to his sister and her husband's house in a quiet valley inland from Oceanside. He stayed at my place when he was living with a cousin who had a baby but was severely struggling financially. I took him to the downtown LA draft building when he got his draft notice. We had visited the famous Chapel on Palos Verdes where I tossed a coin into the wishing well the night before and hoped he would be OK after his physical. (He would be rejected because he had attempted suicide at one point when he was living with his female cousin in Torrance.)
We continued to remain close friends until he joined the Air Force as an enlisted man in the early 1970's, and I lost track of him when I tried to find out where he was stationed when I was at Minot AFB. When I was told where he was by the world-wide Air Force locator, I called his unit and asked about him. The woman who answered informed me that the unit I was asking about, "That's the patient squadron." Psychological or physical? I never could find out. And he was no longer a patient anyway.
Once in a while, I would try Facebook or google in recent years, but there are too many Paul David Moore's. And none of them seem to be him anyway.
Disneyland
At the end of the school year in 1960, one of the family members of a student in Pam's class worked at Disneyland. He was able to get our two 6th grade classes passes to The Magic Kingdom for $1 each. Lorri had been born are couple of months before. Finances were now tight for our family. We were basically told Dad could not come up with the $2 for Pam and me to go with our classmates. Fortunately, as the date for turning in the money arrived, my teacher met with me privately and confirmed that someone else would be able to come up with the $1 needed so that I could go. Same for Pam with her class. It was definitely humiliating in a way to have to accept charity.
One member of my class could not go that day. Greg Steed's parents were flying with him to Hawaii at the beginning of summer on United Airlines later that day. He was at the parking lot of Handy to see us off in the two school buses that would take us. For some reason, I did not pair up with Dave Moore for Disneyland. One of the other boys in class was going to hang out with me for the day. We were all issued red ribbons on our wrists that would allow us to enjoy any ride without needing any of the usually required A, B, C, D and E tickets. Dad did give Pam and me a dollar each for anything we might need that day. I was going to buy a model kit, but since the day was warm, I bought a cold soda instead. That took up enough of the dollar so that I could not afford much else.
After pretty much exhausting the rides we wanted to enjoy, my buddy and I inexplicably fixed upon the circling rockets ride in Tomorrowland. Foolishly, I got talked into riding it seven times in a row. Then, when we wandered into Fantasyland while I was still feeling woozy, my buddy suggested we ride the Teacups. I wonder now if he was trying to get me sick. As we were spinning around and around, I told him not to spin us even more using the control in the center of the teacup. He was afraid that others would wonder why we were barely spinning while all of the other cups were wildly whirling around us. I insisted that I was going to be sick if the ride did not soon stop. Mercifully, the ride ended, and I stumbled toward the exit, certain that I was going to puke momentarily. Our teacher got off the ride at the same time, and when he was told by my buddy that I was about to throw up, he pointed to the low bushes surrounding the ride and said, "He can throw up there." Fortunately, I did not puke but my stomach was upset for several more minutes until my head and body finally stopped spinning.
While I have class pictures from Laural Elementary in Whittier, either the Orange County elementary schools did not take class pictures, or Dad and Willene would not pay for us to have copies of any class pictures that did get taken when we attended elementary schools in Orange. Since the four of us were never in the same classes, it would have required them to buy four separate photos.
Yorba Junior High School, Fall 1961 - Spring 1963
Willene was required to buy me an athletic supporter for gym class in the Fall. Junior High School was going to be an entirely different experience than elementary school, for the good and for the bad. Wearing the latest fad clothing and being a cool, popular kid was now even more important than it had been in 6th grade. Dave Moore and I cemented our friendship even more since neither of us was cool or exceptionally popular. The clothing fad for popular girls around this time was boy's long-sleeved white shirts with boy's suspenders and pleated skirts. Popular guys wore Pendleton shirts with Levi's, probably influenced by the attire worn by The Beach Boys. Surfing was in. Woodie station wagons were in (although nobody in Junior High could drive yet).
However, the school had mandatory dress codes. Girls might be required to get down on their knees so that a female teacher could ensure that the girl's skirt was not too short--the edge of the hem had to touch the sidewalk. One male acquaintance of mine was sent home to change when he wore a pair of pants where each panel, front and back and each side, was a different color: Yellow, Blue, Green and Red. One might want to stand out, but you were not allowed to stand out too much.
Nobody wore wool hats. But Willene would make us two boys wear wool hats on chilly mornings. The girls had to wear warm socks. She would imperiously stand at the sliding glass door which allowed her to look over the fence at the four of us walking to school. (No more taking school buses since Yorba was approximately five blocks away.) We trudged the sidewalks of E Lomita, along N Tustin to E Collins Avenue. Only when we got out of sight along E Collins could we remove the totally uncool wool hats or warm socks. Otherwise, if she saw us remove the hideous apparel, she would accuse, "I seen ya do it. I stood at the door, and I seen ya do it." To us it seemed as if she was less concerned about our health and more concerned with humiliating us with our classmates.
Probably during the 8th grade, a new boy arrived at the school. I thought he was quite handsome. I knew that he was acquainted with a girl in my English class. I asked her how such and such was doing. She looked at me with a withering glance and said, "I wouldn't tell you. I only tell popular kids." Thing was, she wasn't one of the popular kids; but she clearly felt she could insult me to my face because she believed herself to be more popular than I.
Many teachers knew whom the popular kids were and which ones of us were not. One of our rather attractive teachers taught science. One day someone mentioned that my best friend Dave had accidentally worn two different colors of socks to school. The student mentioned it to the whole class and got a big laugh, the popular science teacher with the prominent dimple laughed along with them. Several days later, I noticed that one of the popular kids was wearing his color socks inside out. I mentioned it aloud in class but got hooted down by those same students, with the teacher coldly informing me that we did not have time for this. I had no hole to crawl into now that I, again, learned the brutal lesson that popular kids were funny and got rewarded. Others of us did not. This same teacher confiscated some joke cards I was simply shuffling through at my desk, distracted during a particularly boring lecture.
In an English class with a male teacher I liked, a couple of the class jerks were flicking spit balls at me, balled up pieces of notebook paper wet with saliva. I was having to duck now and again, and the teacher finally noticed. I did not reveal who was doing this, but the teacher knew. He told me to take the two offending boys down to the Vice Principal's office, an overly imposing, heavy-set man with a mean reputation who drove an old black jalopy to school. Any news of a rumble after class and he and a few of the tough teachers would pile into his old car and head off in the direction where the fight was supposed to be taking place. "I choose you off," was the expression that meant you intended to fight someone after school. Usually. the combatants would meet behind the Alpha Beta Market down the street from Yorba to fight it out, or so I was told.
Anyway, I was soon standing just outside of the VP's office when one of the savvy punk kids I was accompanying advised me, "Don't tell Mr. whomever that you didn't do this. He'll get even angrier." So, I foolishly kept my mouth shut and was given detention along with the two clowns who tossed the spit balls at me. As we were about to depart, a teacher I did know well and who did like me saw me in front of the VP's office and chided me for having gotten into trouble. I wanted to tell him that it wasn't me who was in trouble. Even though I explained to the original teacher back in class that I was given detention along with the other two who deserved it, he never offered to visit the Vice Principal and clear up the misunderstanding. I had to endure an undeserved detention as well.
At detention the next day, the teacher whom I did not know was pacing back in forth in front of all of us juvenile delinquents. A girl behind me said something I did not quite understand; she probably made a lame joke. I turned around to look at her but said nothing. When I turned back around, rather than discipline the girl who had actually spoken up, the detention teacher looked directly at me and spat out, "You better shut your mouth, Sanchez, and turn around, or we'll send you back to Mexico where you came from." I was too naive at the time to realize that he was a racist bastard who was trying to insult me in front of this whole group of morons. All I kept thinking in my confusion was, "Why does he think I came from Mexico?"
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962
While I always followed current events, the only impact that I can recall the crisis having upon our home was Willene buying extra cans of condensed milk for the cupboard.
California Governor's election, November 1962
During one of Mom's monthly visits with us, she took us to a toney shopping center for lunch. She had a card in her purse from her Republican women's group (she had always been a staunch, Kansas-born Republican while she lived, unfortunately), indicating that Richard Nixon would be appearing at that very shopping center in Orange Country since he was running for the governorship of California that fall after his defeat for the presidency in 1960 to John F. Kennedy. We decided to wait around and see him. He soon alighted from his limo and shook hands with almost everyone.
He ought to have realized then that he was not going to win because, even in conservative Orange County so near to the election, the crowd was quite small. Mom handed the dated card to Ann who then gave it over to Nixon to sign. We three were inches away from the future president when he finished signing it and gave it back to Ann. I kept that signed card for many years--after his disgraced exit from the White House after Watergate, and even after his eventual death in 1994--until a "friend" took a couple of boxes of my stuff from my condo storage room in Denver, CO, and tossed the contents into a dumpster. I have always wondered what that signed card with the printed date and location of his appearance--confirming its authenticity--might have brought at an auction.
Music, Music, Music
I took a music appreciation class at Yorba. We were listening to a choral LP in class, and I noticed that one vocalist began to sing a different note at one point than all the other singer but quickly stopped. The mistake was almost imperceptible, but I heard it; so when the piece ended, I mentioned it to the class. Nobody else had noticed what I had, so the teacher played the piece again after I explained what I had heard. One by one, other students started to hear the error as the teacher played the passage several times. Soon, the teacher heard it, too. After class, impressed, she suggested that I ought to consider actually learning to play an instrument with the school band.
We actually had an old, discolored trumpet stored in the garage, left over from Dad's brother, Leon, years before. My class schedule was changed, and I slowly began to learn how to play the trumpet. Everyone else had brand new, shiny, purchased or rented instruments. Dave Moore played the clarinet his parents had bought for him. One bandmate had a shiny trumpet but with his underbite, it was too difficult. He changed instruments. I started to write a letter to Mom in my notebook about wishing I had a new trumpet because mine stood out in the band, being so old (I recall that a new trumpet was approximately $100 in those days). I had not finished the letter when Pam needed a piece of writing paper, opened my notebook without my permission, came across my letter to Mom and tattled to Dad and Willene about what I had written. For the only time in his life, Dad sat me down in the bedroom and explained our tight finances, showing just how much each and every item or bill cost him each month. There was no money left to buy or rent a new trumpet. I felt a bit ashamed.
I was made to practice in the garage where it was often chilly in Winter. I practiced most nights but not every single night. Eventually, Willene said that since I was not practicing every single night, I had to quit learning the trumpet and stop taking band practice. Crushed, I had to change my schedule back to the music appreciation class; but because I had not been taking the class for several weeks, I did poorly on the midterm exam. A week or so later, Dad asked me why I was not still practicing the trumpet in the garage. I was dumbfounded. Willene had led me to believe that it was he who also agreed with her that I had to quit band because I was not practicing every single night. He had no idea I was forced, by her alone, to quit. This seemed yet another example of Willene treating me badly because her precious Freddie had no talent, or interest, in doing anything creative.
Speech class
As a student, I hit my stride not in many classes that I took at Yorba except for Speech class, and not even until we got to the segment where we wrote and performed in plays. We were required to write our own versions of one of three Shakespearean plays. The only one I remember was Taming of the Shrew. My version of one of the plays was acceptable but nothing special. However, another student's version of Shrew was inspired. He turned it into Lil' Abner meets the Shrew, a Hillbilly Taming. I was offered, and accepted, the lead. I was coming to be recognized as a decent actor in class. In fact, I was offered parts in all three of the chosen versions of each play. I could only accept two, so I also took the small part of a rejected Southern Gentleman, "Oh, now I have lost you." using a fairly decent Southern accent. We did so well with the Hillbilly Shrew that we were asked to perform it before the entire school during a contest for best performance on a piece on stage. Unfortunately, we lost out to two boys whom I later realized were just performing a well-known Smothers Brothers routine. Their total rip off of the Brothers skit won them first place.
But after my acting success in Speech class, I never took up performing again though the drama class would put on a wonderfully delightful production of Brigadoon at the end of the 8th grade. They even recorded their version on a record album; however, my own acting days were done.
Drafting Class
One semester I had to take a drafting class. The class had so many male students (no girls; just as boys could not take Home Economics classes in those sexist times, girls could not take drafting class, not that any would have back then) that a couple of boys had to use drafting tables just around the corner of the door into the metal shop where I would make a birdfeeder one other semester. I am no longer certain exactly why, but I eventually volunteered to move to one of the two tables outside the door to the drafting room and let one of those guys have my table (maybe I did not care much for my fellow drafting students and envied their isolation out there), I loved it out there because, on warm, sunny days, the outside door was left open. I could gaze out the door and imagine myself elsewhere--I was only a fair drafting student. At some point, the boys in the main classroom acted up. Either it was most or all of them that went goofy. I, of course, being isolated from the rest, had not been a part of the melee; but, as the teacher acknowledged and explained to me, I would still have to stay late that day as punishment.
Alpha Beta shopping center
The excursion started out innocently enough. Freddie and I were asked to walk to the Alpha Beta shopping center to pick up a bottle Worcestershire Sauce. Dickie Sundstrom came with us. Eventually, it would devolve into a crime spree. But I exaggerate.
Somehow, once inside the store, Worcestershire sauce in hand, we decided to linger a bit longer and maybe even swipe something. Freddie's criminal tendencies got the better of Dickie and me, I suspect. I fixed upon taking a pack of the newly introduced Fruit Stripe Gum, something I could never likely afford. I don't remember what Dickie or Freddie decided to pilfer. We paid for the sauce and were out the automatic door when a officious looking man came up behind and corralled all three of us. He turned us back towards the supermarket. When asked why he was taking us, he said, "Because you stole something."
Freddie tossed some object into a trashcan on the way back in. "What was that?" he was accusingly asked. "Just a piece of paper," Freddie angrily spat out. We were then herded up to the manager's office, high above the floor. We could now easily see that he'd had a full view of everything going on in the store below through the wide glass window. I realized how suspiciously I had acted before I finally grabbed and pocketed the pack of gum. I took forever to make my move, as so likely had the other two boys.
We were then ordered to empty our pockets of all the contents, which was very little. I can still see the small, magazine photo I had of a Pan American 707 having inaugurated transatlantic jet landings at Heathrow. And, of course, the single pack of gum. Dickie and Freddie did likewise, and there was very little on the manager's desk.
We were threatened with having the police called on us. We were threatened with having our parents told what we had been caught attempting. In the end, he allowed the threats to linger before finally telling the three of us to go and never do something like that again or we would suffer much more dire consequences. I suspect that our miniscule haul was not worth the effort to escalate our punishment. We were thoroughly chastised as it was. I never shoplifted again.
Next door to the Alpha Beta was a drug store. From the full front glass window, one could see the large magazine rack just inside. One day I noticed a digest sized magazine, Tomorrow's Man. A handsome, muscular man clad only in a brief white Speedo clearly graced the cover in a striking pose. Something deep within me wanted that magazine. I could not explain to myself why. But I could tell that the price was likely beyond my reach, and I was forced to walk away from the drug store. But I kept the memory of that magazine to this day.
The Departure
We had spent a few days visiting with mom, likely during Spring break of 1963. She was then living in a one-bedroom apartment over a three-car garage on Orchard Street in South Gate, California, near the intersection of Firestone Boulevard and Long Beach Boulevard.
Some weeks after that, I was in the bedroom I had shared with Freddie for three and a half years when I heard some sort of commotion coming from the living room. I turned the corner of the short hallway and found Willene angrily standing in the living room and a frustrated Freddie standing in the dining room. Apparently, Willene and Ann had gotten into yet another of their several confrontations and Ann had bolted. I could see her walking across the field beyond the alley and heading in the direction of N Tustin Street. A one point in the months before, Ann had taken off and walked all of the way to Dad's Fuller Paint Store in Fullerton. (I had no idea how she had remembered which direction to take to get there. I would have gotten lost.)
Willene pointed in the direction of Ann and demanded, "You go and get your sister and bring her back." I took one look at each of them with a smile and sternly responded, "Heck no. I'm going with her." I proceeded to exit through the sliding glass door and took off across the same field with the remonstrative voices of Freddie and Willene echoing in my ears behind me.
I soon caught up with Ann and wondered where she was going and what she planned to do. Eventually, we jointly determined that--finally--we had had enough. We decided to call Dad and tell him that we were leaving at the end of the school year in June to live with mom instead. I have no idea how we managed to have, or find, a dime to call Dad at the paint store from a payphone booth off of N Tustin. When he answered, we firmly explained to him what had happened and what we intended to do. He should let mom know soon about our plans and that would be that. We'd given him several years to prove himself a decent parent, and he had come up woefully short. Nothing was ever going to get better.
The night before the school year ended, Dad took me to the performance of BRIGADOON in the Yorba cafetorium. I was sad that I would be leaving my friends such as Dave Moore and Randy Bancroft, as well as all of the kids I had been going to school with since elementary school. But Ann and I could not continue to endure the psychological and physical torment that we had had to face for the previous 3 1/2 years. Dad could not stop Willene from being such a terrible human being toward us. And I wonder all of the years later if she wasn't secretly thrilled that we were leaving.
The last day of school now concluded, we walked back to the triplex on E Lomita for the final time. We packed up our belongings into a station wagon that Dad now had in addition to the Minx. He drove us to mom's apartment in South Gate that evening. I don't believe we said much during the drive. Mom answered the door, looking at each of the three of us with a puzzled look on her face. But she quickly let us in and made a place for me on the Murphy Bed that folded down from a closet in the living room. Ann would sleep with her in the queen-sized bed in the bedroom. Dad helped us unload our possessions and then drove away.
It was only several decades later that mom revealed to me that she had had no idea we were coming that evening. Dad had never bothered to tell her about our ultimatum to him about moving out. I suspect that he thought our threat was an idle one and that we would eventually relent and stay. He had no idea the determination of the two kids he had helped raise over the previous several years. Never for a single second did either of us ever look back.
P.S. A year after Ann and I moved out of the custom-built triplex on E Lomita, they sold it and moved to a single-family residence in Garden Grove. None of the three remaining kids ever attended Orange High School. From when all six of us moved in there in January of 1960, until the five of them moved out in the Summer of 1964, was just four and one-half years. When she heard, Mom speculated that Willene pressured Dad to sell because she was never on the title of the house. Additionally, she was a lazy human being. With two of her four slaves gone, Lorri was too young, and Pam would have had to do all of the housework by herself while Fred would have had to mow the lawns all by himself for several years to come (after high school, respectively, each of the two of them moved out on their own). Willene probably did not want the responsibility of managing the two rental units while Dad was working. Either way, all of the custom brick work outside, all of the yard work to dig up the rocks and grow the lawns was for naught in a very short time.
