Start My grandfather Pablo brought his family to San Gabriel, California from Mexico by train in about the 1920.
My Grandfather had a Hacienda in Mexico.
A Mexican General came to the Hacienda and told my grandfather to leave Mexico or
he and his family would be killed because my grandfather Pablo was related to the Dictator of Mexico Porfirio Diaz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz
My dad Thomas was born in Mexico in 1919 when Pablo moved the family to San Gabriel, California.
My grandfather then went back to Mexico to fight (with) alongside Poncho Villa.
http://ojinaga.com/villa/
I realize that this does not make sense the way it is written but if you read the history of Poncho Villa it does make sense.
I do not know when my grandfather returned to his family in San Gabriel.
After his return Pablo did get a job working for Henry Huntington in San Marino, California.
Where he worked in the Desert Garden until his retirement.
http://www.huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/DesertGard.html
http://www.socalhistory.org/Biographies/huntington.htm
Henry Huntington had worked with Porfirio to improve the railroads in Mexico. I was told that my aunt Edith had written a book about my grandfather. I had asked her about it when I was on leave from the Navy but she kept quiet about it. I have inquired about her daughter and any information about the book with no luck or comment.
Dennis@Home The first thing I remember about my mother is of her giving me a bath in an old gray double sink. The sink was behind a house near my father's parents place, the Pablo Diaz home. You could see a dirt drive going down the left side of the house. In the back yard toward the rear, you could see a very large old oak tree in front of two more apartment houses. Around the base of the oak, there was a wooden bench, a place to talk and enjoy with a friend. A child could play in the light gray dust there. I had the feeling that I was staying in one of those apartment houses. Behind the main house, I have a picture in my mind of my mother giving me a bath, washing my hair, with soap everywhere in this old, double square wash basin. Rosy cheeks and suds on my body and hair. These are the first images I have of my mother.
I had recently called my aunt Jenny Diaz who lives in California and asked about where I had lived in my childhood. She told me of several places around San Gabriel, California. I recounted the story of the double sinks to her and said that this was the first memory of my mother that I could recall. She replied that it was not my mother who gave me a bath in the double sinks, but rather it was her, my aunt Jenny. During this time frame I remember being sent to a foster home in South San Gabriel, on Del Mar Ave. and East Valley Blvd. I remember a big parking lot and some kind of department store to the left of this house. I must have been around three years old. These are memories I do not wish to remember but I try to dig deeper in this mind of mine; hopefully rereading this and touching up a painting, a photo on theses walls in my brain. In a frenzy, kicking and screaming, feeling totally frightened and abandoned, I cried for hours (morning until noon is the time frame I remember). Someone had to come after me. I think it was my dad. It is very difficult to explain the intensity of inner pain I felt in all my longings to understand or explain what was happening to me in these writings. No matter how long I sit and ponder at these words I write, no other memory comes forward. If I could understand maybe I could maybe place my mind at ease. The above statements is all I have of my mother. Although my father showed me a picture of her while living in Alhambra in the Tony Stucky rental (In the 1950's). ***
I am remembering things pertaining to my life, starting at my grandmother's home, my mother's home, Rebecca's home, the place she had called home, the place was my home in Pasadena. This was a two-story house with two apartments, plus our living quarters. My grandparents lived up stairs in this house. An entry room with two sliding double wooden doors with a turning staircase, one doorway blocked some furniture and the other leading to the living room and one double door bedroom was down stairs. Some of their children ( my aunts and uncles) lived there, they were Marta, Raye, Sam, Rudy, and Esther. It was my grandmother who raised me from age three to about seven. Prior to that, I have no other memories other than the scene at the foster home and the wash basin.
I remember climbing the pine trees out back behind the house on sometimes a daily basis. The main house was big like a hotel with two normal size homes in the rear facing another street as rentals. A vacant lot was to to the left of these three buildings and a railroad track to the left of the vacant lot. Across the tracks was the parking lot for the Elite Cleaners. Across Belfountainne was the Elite Cleaners where my grandfather worked at night. Out of the upstairs kitchen window I could see several black fuel storage tanks towering over evreything.with silver X bracing's. I remember my grandmother going to the back upstairs screened in porch and calling "Thennees," her Spanish for Dennis. She also called me Tomas on some occasions. (The name Tomas is my best loved name for my being. Dennis is what family called me and remembers, Tom is what the military tagged me with.) I was the totally spoiled child. I ran and I played. I had all of Pasadena to play in and I did. The neighborhood kids and I would go to a barn on Fair Oaks which was full of bales of straw. These straw bales were used on one of the side streets to place under the horse prior to the Rose Parade. We played king of the hill in that barn. We had tunnels to roam in. It is funny that in a city a child will always find a bale of hay to play in?
We would travel the Arroyo Seco Wash to the Rose Bowl. At that time, it was a jungle and a sewer full of wild animals. Twisting and turning we went places a child should never go into.
We would put pennies on the rail spur next to our house. The cars consisted of just one or two boxcars with a man walking alongside.
I had a cat named Ricardo (I rolled the rrrs). He was black and very friendly.
The kids I played with would ambush each other with our "Hoppy" long cap pistols, knocking each other over the head as we would come around the corner and get ambushed. It did hurt. My Hoppy hat reminded me of all the hats I had during this time ad I wrote about all those hats. It was very thinking about all the hats that I wore in my life. Here a link to that story (email).
I remember going to the store for my grandfather, a steel wire of a man, the size of a
matador. He said to me, "Dennis, will you go to the store and get some milk? It's for you." He handed me a dollar bill and away I went. I ran along the side of the house, across the vacant lot to the tracks, and followed the tracks for two blocks South toward South Pasadena and a half block to the Fair Oaks Boulevard. Across the boulevard was the store. The streets were hot on my bare feet, my usual summer wear. Into the store I went and grabbed a quart of milk from the glass case. I went over to the counter and looked at the cookies and the Mexican bread, those round rolls with that looked like turtle shells with sugar or icing on them. But, my grandfather said milk, to buy milk. I paid for it and walked out the door. The concrete was warm, but the roadway was hot. After crossing the boulevard, I opened the waxed carton of milk and drank about half of it, something a thirsty child would do. I headed back toward the tracks drinking milk as I went. When I finally got home, I tossed the empty carton into our burn barrel in the yard and found something else to occupy my mind. About a half hour later, my grandfather came around the house and asked where the milk was as he didn't see it in the icebox. I said I drank it on my way home. He smiled, gave me another dollar bill, and then sent me back to the store. "Bring it home," he said.
The girls (my aunts) living in the house were always playful and full of joy, and they stuck together. I remember one Halloween when I was about five they dressed me up in a Little Bo-Peep dress and patent leather shoes that belonged to my cousin. My hair was long then in a Buster Brown style. They put a little rouge on my cheeks and away we went trick or treating. They told everyone that I was too shy to get dressed up for Halloween. Those women loved that type of humor and it was a great big Halloween joke that we played on a lot of people and no one caught on. It was great fun and I have fond memories of that Halloween.
Our Christmas celebrations on Bellefontaine Street were always very big affairs. They usually began a week before Christmas and ended on January 2 after our all night stay at the Rose Parade. I remember my grandmother and her sister Mena cooking those two weeks everyday. A big wash tub steaming on the floor filled with sweet and regular hot Tomales. A garage downstairs and to the left filled with beer in an old beer replenishing refrigerator. All my cousins would sleep over during those days, pillow fights and dreaming of sleighs almost every night. Our Christmas trees were huge (it seemed to me at the time) and beautiful. You can imagine how big an event Christmas Day was. One Christmas Day, I made a complete ass of myself because I was a spoiled child. I had asked my grandmother for a black puppy. On Christmas morning, all of Santa's presents were passed out. A large box, which was wrapped with ribbon and a big bow, was brought downstairs. The present was given to me by my aunts, who were all smiling and beaming their happiness. They said, "Merry Christmas, Dennis." When I opened the box, I found a beautiful, brown puppy. But, being the spoiled brat that I was, I promptly told them that I had wanted a black puppy! I now remember my aunts' faces that day, but at the time, I didn't care. All I wanted was a black puppy, not a plain, brown one. I am truly sorry that I was such a wretch of a child.
My uncles Sam and Rudy would hang out at local bars after work. At night they would come home happy or sad depending on the weather. At times I would end up on some drunks lap, this is not much fun to talk about, it wasn't fun. I do not like drink or drunks they give me a headache. These were hard working men and most of the time were very good to me but on those few moments in time when they were drunk left a life long impression on me.
I had three major accidents while I was living in Pasadena. One accident involved a ride I had caught on an Ice truck on that dead end street behind my grandfathers home. I meant to quickly jump off, but the driver picked up too much speed and I jumped forward toward the road. I rolled like a car tire, smashing my mouth on the asphalt as I rolled down the road. I chipped my new tooth and skinned my knee. The tooth was later capped with silver. The horrible nickname "Snaggletooth" was attached to me for years. It was hard enough being Mexican, but I was a rare, wild Snaggletoothed Mexican who was only seen on a few special occasions.
The second time I was hurt was when I was hit by a car. I was crossing the street while I was going to the store on Fair Oaks I have already told you about. I do not remember what happened. One minute I was on the curb accross from the store and I stepped into the street and the next minute I was in the hospital. How long was I in the hospital I do not know. A day? A week? I have no clue and no one seems very worried.
The third accident happened when I was taking my shortcut through the Huntington Memorial Hospital on my way home from school. I was on my small bicycle going at a high rate of speed, with my hair flying and pumping my pedels like crazy. Coming out the back downhill driveway of the hospital at full speed, I swept out into the street into the back bumper of a passing car. My front tire hooked onto the car's back bumper. The driver drove down the street for some time before she realized that she had company. I was lucky. I was just skinned up on that trip.
More Info and Links
Sunday, January 29, 2006
A Celebration
I did not know where my dad was at this time.
He would come and visit me at my Grandmothers home in Pasadena on some weekends. Sometimes he would take me to see my sister who was living with his parent's home in San Gabriel.
My mother was gone during all this time. I had no clue as to why she was not here with me? For some reason, my father did not have custody of us.
Some time later in 1951, my father married Margie, who then became my stepmother. There was a lot of tension in the air at that time and maybe some harsh words were said between the families. I could feel it in the air, although I never heard them discussing the situation. I guess the courts decided to give custody of my sister and I to my father. I left my grandmother's home first and moved in with Margie and my dad. They were living near Narden's Manufacturing Co. on Date Street. My sister Sandy stayed with my dad's mother until she (my grandmother) died in 1952. On Date Street in Alhambra
Being spoiled, wild, and undisciplined, it was hard for me to understand even the simplest ideas or new ways of thinking. Harsh reality became the norm. I was given hard work to do on a daily basis. I was enrolled in a Catholic School where discipline was also the norm. I did learn one thing at this time, the meaning of omnipotence, which led to infinity, infinite shape, infinite size and infinite time. The first paradox was formed in my mind, adding fuel to the confusions of my young mind. There was no more playing. But, when I did play, I played hard. I would stay awake at night wondering why I was in the place I was in. Why me? This confusion continued until 1966 or 1967 when I started to understand my role in life.
But, during my time with Margie and dad, it was difficult. I was emotionally lost, never knowing who I was or why. No answers were given to me. Lessons were learned to work hard. I worked hard, and I played hard. I played with my two cousins, Ron and Gene, on my dad's side of the family who lived nearby, they would always be nearby, no matter where we lived. We would play everywhere in Alhambra. We played tackle football at Story Park. We would go swimming every day at one of the city parks. But, I was still lost, wondering who I was and why. No one gave me answers. When my dad's mother died in 1952, Sandy came to live with us on Third Street. She was very angry and tore at things. Sandy and I both worked hard in this household, Margie would have us practice our music every morning before breakfast. After Breakfast I would polish the floors with paste wax and Sandy would vacumn and dust. Then it was off to school. My dad built a room out next to the garage, and I was told that this would be my room as there was no more room in the house (with) Sandy was moving in.
A Celebration
Our brother Gilbert was born Jan 1952. I knew him only as an infant.
Gilbert was baptized at the San Gabriel Mission. My fathers family grew up and attended this mission, those that live nearby still do. Who attended this celebration, just about everybody in San Gabriel. What I do remember is that I went to the Mission church with Margie, Sandy, Gilbert, and my dad, Tom. Gilbert had a godfather, who I have met from time to time. I think all my dad's family was there. The priest went about his business, saying a prayer or two, and sprinkled holy water on Gilbert's forehead. Everyone hugged and shook hands. Gilbert was now saved from fire and damnation. You can place a question mark here if you like, I did.
What I remember the most was the party held for Gilbert at my dad's father's home. I remember going over there after the baptism.
My grandfather's (Pablo) place was located in San Gabriel near the Mission on Pearl Street. It seemed large at the time, my perspective that of a 10-year-old boy. His lot measured 75 by 200 feet and consisted of 40 feet across for the building and 35 across for the garden space. There were two gardens on the 35 x 200 feet on the East side of the lot. Each garden measured 30 feet by 75 feet. These were vegetable gardens, and my grandfather would be found there at most times. This practice was carried on by my father also whenever he was able to garden. About 20 feet of space in front of his house was devoted to a walk, flowers, and a concrete pond with a bridge over it. My sister Sandy had her picture taken on the bridge when she was around three, dressed in a Mexican dress. The house occupied the next area. Behind the house was a flower garden, cactus garden, winding paths, and big urns planted with flowers. On the West side was a dirt drive and garage. On the other side were the vegetable gardens. Behind all this, there was a side veranda. The veranda was not part of the house. It was measured approximately 25 feet by 45 feet. It was decorated with lattice work and Spanish arches, through which you could enter the veranda from any part except the vegetable garden side. It was painted white with ivy covering most of it. Hanging baskets of flowers were placed everywhere along the sides and some in the center. The concrete floor and Spanish tile made it ideal for entertaining.
When we arrived at Pablo's home after Gilbert's baptism, the men were standing around a beer truck which was parked in the driveway. They were busy carrying cases of beer to the far southern corner of the veranda. I found all my cousins and sister on the veranda. Sandy, my cousins Margaret Ann, Ron, Gene, and some others were there. They were all chopping at blocks of ice with ice picks. We were all proficient at this task. There were tables set up along the short back side of the veranda on the South side. Someone had placed butcher paper on these tables. These tables would later be used by us, the beer servers. The chopped ice was to be placed in four or more wash tubs, and the beer boxes were stacked in the two far corners. Our job after the ice was chopped was to fill each wash tub with beer, then cover the beer with ice to get it very cold. I knew there was soda pop there for those who wished to have some. The smell of beer was in the air.
As we were doing our jobs and having a good time, the band was setting up in the upper right North corner of the veranda. I forgot to mention the band. It was a Marimba band, with congas, violin, guitar, marimba and maybe some other instruments.
The party slowly evolved. As we were setting up, people would come up to our table and ask for a bottle of their favorite beer. Our job was to get the coldest beer and open it at the table. We would then hand them the opened beer. We would also dispose of empty beer bottles, by putting them back in the cases.
Other things were going on at the party. We were totally lost in our pursuit of passing out beers. The band was playing, people were dancing, and the young hoods were talking in the corner. Everyone was having a good time. Throw in a couple of "Hahliskos, Oyes, Ah yebas" throughout the day, a few extra singers, people leaning on friends, and then the party moved on into the night.
Tamales, Indian corn (our staple), rice, and beans were in the kitchen. If I knew my grandmother, she was there in the kitchen.
I do not remember too much more than this, but there were a lot of people there having a wonderful time. On Third Street in Alhambra
1953-1955
Shaboom and Earth Angel were playing on the am radio stations.
Our next door neighbor had a boxer (dog) running free in his back yard.
Their son had a small record collection of early rhythm and blues and he constantly listened to the static filled am radio station.
We were enrolled in a new school, Garfield School in Alhambra. Two things happened I will always remember there. During recess one day the bell sounded, time to come back to class children. As I was making a mad dash back to my class first, I ran into mighty "Casey at the Bat".
You have all seen the famous baseball swing of a batter after a home run. Just picture a young man with his mouth smack against the bat behind the batter. Yes that's me. It split my good tooth length-wise. It was gone the next day. So now next to the snagggle tooth was empty space. I was about to remove one of thr G's in snaggle, I will keep it as a reminder of how cruel people can be to a rare snaggle toothed mexican.
I had a young friend his name was Richard Rodgers and we played together at school and at home at times. He lived a couple of blocks from us, toward the school. Every day at lunch I would come home for lunch. One day as I was going back to school, I saw a police car in front of his house. When I got to school I told him there was a police car in front of his house. He said, " He finally did it!" and ran home. The next day I learned that his dad had shot his mother dead and then killed himself. I saw Richard one other time after that, he was selling newspapers at a newsstand some five years later on one of the corners of Alhambra. I remember you Richard, you have a space in time.
I did not know where my dad was at this time.
He would come and visit me at my Grandmothers home in Pasadena on some weekends. Sometimes he would take me to see my sister who was living with his parent's home in San Gabriel.
My mother was gone during all this time. I had no clue as to why she was not here with me? For some reason, my father did not have custody of us.
Some time later in 1951, my father married Margie, who then became my stepmother. There was a lot of tension in the air at that time and maybe some harsh words were said between the families. I could feel it in the air, although I never heard them discussing the situation. I guess the courts decided to give custody of my sister and I to my father. I left my grandmother's home first and moved in with Margie and my dad. They were living near Narden's Manufacturing Co. on Date Street. My sister Sandy stayed with my dad's mother until she (my grandmother) died in 1952. On Date Street in Alhambra
Being spoiled, wild, and undisciplined, it was hard for me to understand even the simplest ideas or new ways of thinking. Harsh reality became the norm. I was given hard work to do on a daily basis. I was enrolled in a Catholic School where discipline was also the norm. I did learn one thing at this time, the meaning of omnipotence, which led to infinity, infinite shape, infinite size and infinite time. The first paradox was formed in my mind, adding fuel to the confusions of my young mind. There was no more playing. But, when I did play, I played hard. I would stay awake at night wondering why I was in the place I was in. Why me? This confusion continued until 1966 or 1967 when I started to understand my role in life.
But, during my time with Margie and dad, it was difficult. I was emotionally lost, never knowing who I was or why. No answers were given to me. Lessons were learned to work hard. I worked hard, and I played hard. I played with my two cousins, Ron and Gene, on my dad's side of the family who lived nearby, they would always be nearby, no matter where we lived. We would play everywhere in Alhambra. We played tackle football at Story Park. We would go swimming every day at one of the city parks. But, I was still lost, wondering who I was and why. No one gave me answers. When my dad's mother died in 1952, Sandy came to live with us on Third Street. She was very angry and tore at things. Sandy and I both worked hard in this household, Margie would have us practice our music every morning before breakfast. After Breakfast I would polish the floors with paste wax and Sandy would vacumn and dust. Then it was off to school. My dad built a room out next to the garage, and I was told that this would be my room as there was no more room in the house (with) Sandy was moving in.
A Celebration
Our brother Gilbert was born Jan 1952. I knew him only as an infant.
Gilbert was baptized at the San Gabriel Mission. My fathers family grew up and attended this mission, those that live nearby still do. Who attended this celebration, just about everybody in San Gabriel. What I do remember is that I went to the Mission church with Margie, Sandy, Gilbert, and my dad, Tom. Gilbert had a godfather, who I have met from time to time. I think all my dad's family was there. The priest went about his business, saying a prayer or two, and sprinkled holy water on Gilbert's forehead. Everyone hugged and shook hands. Gilbert was now saved from fire and damnation. You can place a question mark here if you like, I did.
What I remember the most was the party held for Gilbert at my dad's father's home. I remember going over there after the baptism.
My grandfather's (Pablo) place was located in San Gabriel near the Mission on Pearl Street. It seemed large at the time, my perspective that of a 10-year-old boy. His lot measured 75 by 200 feet and consisted of 40 feet across for the building and 35 across for the garden space. There were two gardens on the 35 x 200 feet on the East side of the lot. Each garden measured 30 feet by 75 feet. These were vegetable gardens, and my grandfather would be found there at most times. This practice was carried on by my father also whenever he was able to garden. About 20 feet of space in front of his house was devoted to a walk, flowers, and a concrete pond with a bridge over it. My sister Sandy had her picture taken on the bridge when she was around three, dressed in a Mexican dress. The house occupied the next area. Behind the house was a flower garden, cactus garden, winding paths, and big urns planted with flowers. On the West side was a dirt drive and garage. On the other side were the vegetable gardens. Behind all this, there was a side veranda. The veranda was not part of the house. It was measured approximately 25 feet by 45 feet. It was decorated with lattice work and Spanish arches, through which you could enter the veranda from any part except the vegetable garden side. It was painted white with ivy covering most of it. Hanging baskets of flowers were placed everywhere along the sides and some in the center. The concrete floor and Spanish tile made it ideal for entertaining.
When we arrived at Pablo's home after Gilbert's baptism, the men were standing around a beer truck which was parked in the driveway. They were busy carrying cases of beer to the far southern corner of the veranda. I found all my cousins and sister on the veranda. Sandy, my cousins Margaret Ann, Ron, Gene, and some others were there. They were all chopping at blocks of ice with ice picks. We were all proficient at this task. There were tables set up along the short back side of the veranda on the South side. Someone had placed butcher paper on these tables. These tables would later be used by us, the beer servers. The chopped ice was to be placed in four or more wash tubs, and the beer boxes were stacked in the two far corners. Our job after the ice was chopped was to fill each wash tub with beer, then cover the beer with ice to get it very cold. I knew there was soda pop there for those who wished to have some. The smell of beer was in the air.
As we were doing our jobs and having a good time, the band was setting up in the upper right North corner of the veranda. I forgot to mention the band. It was a Marimba band, with congas, violin, guitar, marimba and maybe some other instruments.
The party slowly evolved. As we were setting up, people would come up to our table and ask for a bottle of their favorite beer. Our job was to get the coldest beer and open it at the table. We would then hand them the opened beer. We would also dispose of empty beer bottles, by putting them back in the cases.
Other things were going on at the party. We were totally lost in our pursuit of passing out beers. The band was playing, people were dancing, and the young hoods were talking in the corner. Everyone was having a good time. Throw in a couple of "Hahliskos, Oyes, Ah yebas" throughout the day, a few extra singers, people leaning on friends, and then the party moved on into the night.
Tamales, Indian corn (our staple), rice, and beans were in the kitchen. If I knew my grandmother, she was there in the kitchen.
I do not remember too much more than this, but there were a lot of people there having a wonderful time. On Third Street in Alhambra
1953-1955
Shaboom and Earth Angel were playing on the am radio stations.
Our next door neighbor had a boxer (dog) running free in his back yard.
Their son had a small record collection of early rhythm and blues and he constantly listened to the static filled am radio station.
We were enrolled in a new school, Garfield School in Alhambra. Two things happened I will always remember there. During recess one day the bell sounded, time to come back to class children. As I was making a mad dash back to my class first, I ran into mighty "Casey at the Bat".
You have all seen the famous baseball swing of a batter after a home run. Just picture a young man with his mouth smack against the bat behind the batter. Yes that's me. It split my good tooth length-wise. It was gone the next day. So now next to the snagggle tooth was empty space. I was about to remove one of thr G's in snaggle, I will keep it as a reminder of how cruel people can be to a rare snaggle toothed mexican.
I had a young friend his name was Richard Rodgers and we played together at school and at home at times. He lived a couple of blocks from us, toward the school. Every day at lunch I would come home for lunch. One day as I was going back to school, I saw a police car in front of his house. When I got to school I told him there was a police car in front of his house. He said, " He finally did it!" and ran home. The next day I learned that his dad had shot his mother dead and then killed himself. I saw Richard one other time after that, he was selling newspapers at a newsstand some five years later on one of the corners of Alhambra. I remember you Richard, you have a space in time.
I dipped my brush
We moved from Date Street to Third Street in Alhambra. We were living in a house
owned by Tony Stuppy, a friend of dad's. They both worked at Narden's Manufacturing in Alhambra. 1955
Dad rented the house from Tony. Narden's is on the corner of Date Avenue and Mission Boulevard. Tony later married Margie and raised Gilbert as his own son, Gilbert does not like my dad, Tony is his dad.
One day I came home from school and my dad's clothes were on the porch, piled up like dirty laundry. My dad was thrown out of our home. Margie had thrown him out. I did not know at that time the reason. Some time later that day, my sister talked to my dad on the phone. He instructed us to walk to the corner of Third Street and East Woodward. He said there would be a man in a car there, and he would stop and ask us to get into his car. We complied and left Margie and Gilbert behind.
A Mr. Shattler picked us up and took us to his home in Temple City. When we arrived, we were met by a whole new family. There were three boys and a girl in that family. The oldest boy was named David, and he was my age. The next was Diane, who was Sandy's age. Next were Ron and Jerry, the two youngest boys who were at least five or six years younger than David and I. The woman of the house was Gladys Shattler. I did not know it at the time, but I think my dad was having an affair with her. She also worked at Narden's. Mr. Shattler rarely came back. He returned only to visit the kids or to take us all horseback riding, a pleasure that we all loved very much.
My dad moved in with the Shattlers (or, he had already moved in). I do not know. Being there with another family felt different. It felt better, more relaxed, and not so strict. I had plenty of people to play with and I was becoming a teen. I soon fell in love with my step-sister Diane. It was obvious. This led to more conflict in my mind. Was this right or was this wrong? In my mind there was nothing wrong in my feelings, but the Catholic Doctrine was saying in my mind that I was committing a Mortal sin. It was wrong, but I was hopelessly lost. I had no idea who I was and I was hopelessly in love with my sister. God, what a mess. This created problems, problems, and more problems. Words cannot explain the mush in my brain.
My father had created for himself, by moving in with this new family, a larger family. He had to work two jobs to feed everyone, and Gladys was working also. While living in Temple City on Emperor we decided to take a bicycle trip to the foothills of Sierra Madre nearby.
We decided to go to the mountains, all six of us decided to peddle our bikes up to those foot hills which were about four miles away.
David and I, Diane and Sandy, Ron and Jerry, we always paired ourselves off in groups of age. We rode our bikes as far as we could peddle up Rosemead Blvd. and headed strait to the mountains. After crossing Colorado Blvd. We had to walk alongside our bikes the last mile. When we finally arrived at the foothills, the road ended, all that we saw was some private property. We looked for a neat place to go, there was none. With no park or camp ground nearby, we were disappointed, we talked and discussed our next move. No where to go, it was decided to go back home. It had taken an hour or two to reach the foothills. Coming back home was going to be a breeze, it was downhill all the way. We started back, our bikes picking up speed on our downhill journey, I finally had to take my feet off the peddles and put them on steel brace, my peddles were moving to fast to brake or peddle. I flew through red lights, green lights, amber lights, I could not stop for any traffic. Our hair was flying in the California breeze. I never stopped or thought that our lives were in danger. I guess I was the fool I left everyone else behind, I guess that they did stop at the lights. I finally coasted to a stop, I waited and let everyone else catch up. We were all thrilled about our journey. Our parents never did say anything to us about our trip.
We met Pat and Dennis Finch here in Temple City, their dad worked at some prison up north. There dad said that Little Richard's music would never last and that he should go back to where he came from. At that time I thought that Little Richard was the pure soul of our generation. I was surprised at what he said! Their dad had always been very nice to us all and he was nice all the time that we knew him.
Pat and Dennis had model "A's". Pat had a Blue "A" Pickup, Dennis had a Black Three window "A" Cabriolet coupe. They also had a Cushman motor scooter. There was a vacant lot out back behind their house, with an obstacle course, that they had built. Though I wasn't trusted to ride on my own, we took turns riding the Cushman around and around.
These were better times for me, even though I was confused and not to be trusted. 1956
Duarte Road, Acadia
Hound Dog - Elvis Presley
Long Tall Sally - Little Richard
Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins
Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley
Be-Bop-A-Lula - Gene Vincent & the Bluecaps
Fever - Little Willie John
In The Still Of The Nite - Five Satins
Blueberry Hill - Fats Domino
Please, Please, Please - James Brown & the Famous Flames
Through circumstances beyond my control two families were thrust together by marriage. So our home in Temple City was not big enough for us all so we moved into a very large, all redwood home on about two acres of land in Arcadia on Duarte road across town from Temple City. This place had a one room combination formal dining and living room. This area took up the entire front end of the house with huge 18" x 10" redwood beams that ran the width of the house from porch to porch. They held up the upper half of the entire two-story house with three bedrooms and a small bath upstairs. This place was quite a marvel with no painted surfaces anywhere; everything was redwood and quite ruff.
David and Diane loved to read. I learned to read fiction from Diane and science fiction from David there in those homes in 1956. Before that time period I had been reading out of the encyclopedia at the home on Date St. in Alhambra.
David and I were 15 and Diane and Sandy were 12. Ron (10), Jerry (9), Ron, Jerry, Diane and David were of German descent and Sandy and I were Mexican American. Downstairs in the dining room I played the Fats Domino, Little Richard and Elvis Presley music over and over on our portable record player so much that the steel needle wore those records out.
My best memories are there in that giant redwood of a home clouded as they were. They may differ from what actually happened, I would not be surprised. We went to the beach or to the mountains together about every weekend. We were campers. We saw the ocean at night; we saw the green sand glow in the moonlight. As the waves swept up to greet us, we sat and marveled, enjoying the green glow of the sand. We played in the ocean, we knew about the tides. We watch the seals swim in the ocean, the sea otters work on their backs. We poked the dead seals lying on the beach. We gathered wood and picked up broken glass. We started fires to keep warm on the beaches cool nights. We slept around the fires. Our beaches were Huntington, Tin Can, Seal and Long Beach. Wood and driftwood, tin cans, bottles, broken bottles would always be at Tin Can Beach.
The mountains were just a drive away. The San Gabriel foothills were near. Our parents took us to Shady Oaks, a pay campground. A one room store /payup /dancehall/ judebox/ nightclub. The days at this camp we spent climbing, poking and building. We dammed up the little creak during one year, creating a swimming hole two and half feet deep and thirty feet long. We had very small rapids, just right for one inner tube. We would spin around and bounce our bodies against the smooth boulders.
At night we would go up to the one room store and listen to Fats singing Blue Berry Hill on the jukebox, as the Christmas lights sparkled year round and then back at our campsite we wound gather pine needles and lay a blanket over them, that was our bed under trees and stars.
One year I remember dad carving Gladys & Tommy inside a heart into a tree the with arrow through it. To me living with this family was very comfortable; you may get another opinion from the others. Even though I was quite confused at that time I did love living with that family.
We met Emory Mulchan here in Arcadia; Emory was a loner. A Jewish boy in Temple City, he was the first Jewish boy I had ever met. We were still going to Temple City Schools and I had no clue as to what being Jewish was like until I met Emory. I had read about the World War II so I knew about how Germany treated the Jews. Emery was a Hawk, his own man, completely independent, he did what he wanted to do within some limit; I think the limit was school but mentally he did anything he wanted to do. Completely different than me, I was lost in my internal struggle for understanding and hiding my being from everyone that gazed upon my snaggle tooth grin. David, Emory and I hung out together. Emery had a Hawk on a leather leash with a hood in his home and an Owl in his screened front porch, which turned its head around to see right through us. It is true Owls can see through you. He taught David and I how to use a bullwhip. We spent hours using the whip and throwing daggers. He spent hours at our home learning to play football with us. I played a rough style of football learned from my cousins Gene and Ron. He was in excellent shape and very fast, he spent his full hour of PE doing laps in the pool at Temple City HS. He would do laps until the class was over. He said his parents didn't believe in sports. He out ran everyone on the track and football teams, just to prove a point. They asked him to join; he said no he was not allowed! (I have tried to find Emory but David thinks he is somewhere in hiding.)
I used to practice for hours “place kicking” the football over our giant redwood home. I kicked the football only once completely over the house.
(When our children Eli and Allison were young I took them over to the high school football field to teach them how to kick the ball. I place the ball on the thirty yard line and showed them how to kick a field goal and after a few tries I did manage to kick the ball several times through the posts at the thirty yard line.)
We met Bobby and Eddie Carlson here also; they lived next door across the parking lot behind a First Church of Christ, Scientist, Arcadia. Bobby was heavy set until his father sent him to his grandfather’s farm back east, when he returned he was trim and stout. Bobby was a Magician with a Top Hat and Black Cape (he performed at parties sometimes blowing fire into the air). Eddie was quiet, white haired and wiry. They had a 1949 Light Blue Caddy (primered in spots) and a 1934 Chevy three window coupe (completely primered and without bumpers). The Caddy would run, but the shocks were gone, when David and I rode with Bobby and Eddie we bounced along the highway on three wheels, one tire was always going flat. If you were ever in California during this time you probably saw us. Four boys pushing a pinto caddie and Eddie hopping into the drivers seat driving. We always got our gas at Midnight Auto Supply.
+
My dad always had things for us all to do during the summer. One job he gave Dave and I was to White Wash the fence that divided the back yard from the way back yard. We had helped build the fence made from pallets from Nardens. The paint wash was cheap oil based white wash paint made for fences. David and I started painting the fence, being teens we were not the best painters, but what harm could we do with four-inch brushes? It started out simple, a dip and paint. Somehow a drop of paint came off of Dave's brush. You have to pause and think a little. This is going where you think it is going. Somehow a drop of paint came off of my brush and landed on Dave's arm. Two drops came off Dave's brush and landed on my forehead. Two drop's came off my brush. I saw him dip his brush. I dipped my brush. We looked at each other; we had seen enough of Laurel and Hardy on T.V. to understand what was going to happen next. It evolved slowly; you can paint the picture in your mind. In about a half hour we were both covered from head to foot with paint. It took us a better part of two hours to clean ourselves up. Laughing the whole time. We did finish the fence and a little of the yard.
+
My dad had a pair of sheers for cutting our hair. Sandy and Diane were out back with David, Bobby, Eddie and I. This is the beginning of summer and we are looking for something to do. Some way we thought it would be neat that some day we could get a Mohawk haircut, like some of the other kids last summer. Sandy said well she could do that. We all looked at each other, Diane left. Sandy went and got the sheers and I got the stool, David got a sheet. Dad and Gladys were at work. Bobby said he would go first. Sandy cut his hair in a great double Mohawk, for a young girl of twelve she knew how to cut hair.
I said I would be next, I told Sandy I wanted my hair cut like a clown, bald on top and long on the sides. So that is what she did. I looked like "Clarabelle the Clown". (This afternoon (5-17-99) I came in after working in the garden, I had a baseball cap on, I went into the rest room to wash the salt and sweat from my face. I looked in the mirror and there was Clarabelle standing before me in the mirror. No matter what the situation, my hair bonkers when I get hot.) Eddie said he was next; he wanted just the opposite of me, so she cut his hair around his ears just like they do nowadays. Sandy looked at David, David looked at us, and David said no way. I'll have to ask Diane what she saw? We got the hoses and cleaned up. We lived close to a mall, just across from the parking lot on the opposite side of Bobbies and Eddies home. We decided to go to the music store in the mall and show off our new haircuts. We all had devilish smiles. Bobby went and got his Black Top Hat. Eddie got his Dad's leather driving cap, with its snap in front. I had a blue and white plaid English driving cap with buckle in the back. All four us donned our hats and walked through all the mall type stores on South Baldwin Avenue, South of Duarte Road, dipping our hats to the ladies. "Good afternoon to you mam". Just like the Musketeers of old. "Good afternoon to you mam" and a bow and a dip as Bobbies Black cape swirled. We would sweep our hats from our heads, bend and dip greetings to the ladies. Everyone had a great time. Very nice and a lot of fun.
That night everyone was getting ready for dinner, the big long table was set, my dad had come home from work, Gladys was already home. Everyone was moving around the table, busy. Finally everyone sat down to eat. The food was on the table. Gladys said," Dennis will you please remove your hat." Everyone was waiting for this, I thought I might slide on by. Gladys repeated, "Dennis will you please remove your hat at the table". I removed my hat, smiles flashed all around the table. My dad looked at me, pointed at me and curled his finger in a come here gesture. He walked outside and told me to sit on the stool, he went and got the sheers, and he finished the job. I was bald. Bobby got to keep his double Mohawk, Eddie ended up bald like me.
+
Gladys has the photos of that home and yard, but not the haircuts, I saw some a few years back, a nice home.
Combination of the Two, 1957
At Temple City High School, there was a 32' Ford Sedan, a Chocolate brown in color,
baby moons on reversed rims with a picture of " Alfred E. Neuman " on the rear trunk,
under which it read, ""What - Me Worry?". It roamed the area after school.
+
We were asked to leave the big redwood home that we rented, it was tore down to expand the church.
Bobby and Eddies parents sold their property adjacent to the church for about 80,000 thousand dollars (1957) Quote " They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
***
Young minds need to be the given time to understand life. In my case, no time was understood to be given. I was a space eating us out of house and home. I was a rebel with no directions, leathers, belts or black bike. I was without control, mentally, saying what I pleased without regard to anyone. A foul mouthed, smart assed, "I don't give a damn" ,"don't sweat it!" young man under the umbrella of Atomic bombs. I looked rather neat and normal with a good work ethic. Inside my mind was crying for love and help. Confusing inputs into my brain spelled doom for understanding. It was not until my late twenties when help did arrive. The free flower children of the sixties were more than eager to help me.
Parents need to watch and nourish the child at your feet, don't let ms-dos teach your child values.
I am using the computer to let you know, a paradox.
***
Where does the rebel begin? At Temple City High School I refused to do my home work. I failed everything. What created a creature that refused to do his home work. Was it a fear of being not as bright as the next fellow? No one was answering the questions I wanted answered. I didn't ask, I should of
asked. Who? I was lost in a world of turmoil, internal turmoil. I was creating my own rules deep in my mind, rules that did not apply. No one was answering questions that were not asked.
I was lost in the shuffle, a child pushed along with the crowd, passing the doorways and grabbing at straws.
At an early age I found comfort in the rhythms of Bo Diddley.
While others are hawking and selling their software, we are cutting and pasting our dreams.
***
We moved to La Puente where my dad bought a tan stucco 4 bedroom home on Fieldgate.
I muddled through schools, totally lost, not knowing who I was or what in the world was going on. Things came to a head when I quit going to school. By this time, we were living in La Puente. I was becoming a terrible problem with my smart ass attitude. I never was very good at learning in school. I was always mentally somewhere else from first grade to eleventh grade. In grammar school, they would pass me because I was getting older. In the eighth grade, I had to go to summer school with counseling. In the ninth grade, I failed everything but band and physical education. In my sophomore year of high school, I had Freshman English, Sophomore English, Freshman Social Studies, Sophomore Social Studies, ands other courses.
I failed them all.
My Junior year at La Puente High School was no better.
I was totally lost with no direction, in love with my sister, which was a sin.
What a pisser! Someone had had enough!! It sounded like everyone to me.
1959
My father was told to do something, so he had me enlisted into the Navy as what you would call a "Kitty Cruz".
Photo of Dennis & David
The Navy did not put up with any bull. They gave me no time to think. They worked me hard, and I was able to work hard. I never had a problem working hard. I had no time to feel sorry for myself. I forgot my past. At that time, the Navy didn't give a shit about my past. The wanted a body, a body to behave and do what it was told. Period! I did not grow up in the Navy. I grew older with no time to think. I met some nice people and some assholes, although I liked the nice people better. I rediscovered that if you hang out with nice people, it rubs off. I met William Hermann , a German from Minnesota. He was a good man who rarely made a mistake. He was good, pure, and simple with a brain. He was clean and neat like Margie. He was smart like Diane and he loved to read like David. I never loved this man. I just learned from him. He was a sailor and so was I, so we worked together as a team. He went home and our ship moved across he ocean to Hawaii. Hawaii was my new duty station. Clear air, rain every day. Tropical sized insects and plant life. A wonderful place to be. We stayed in Hawaii six months and then the ship sailed to San Diego. In that port I was transferred over to another ship and after a few days it sailed south toward the equator. We crossed the equator in hundred mile circles as the government blowed up small islands with its new Atomic Bombs. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words. So seeing these explosions maybe can save a million lives. Like an ant looking up at human, I looked up at that mushroom cloud and was amazed at it's size. The television set can show you it exploding but it can not show you how immense that mushroom cloud is. I am completely unaware of the kind of damage such power can do.
"Ship ahoy, mate" went the Kingston Trio. I was moving into rowdy songs and then into jazz as we sailed in circles. We headed back to San Diego and it was time for me to leave the service. After my discharge I went home to Los Angeles and stayed with my parents in La Puente where the smog burned my eyes. I realized that Los Angeles was not the place for me. I had just sailed the tropics and the clarity of the skies and air was great for my being. The Los Angeles air was filthy, brown and unhealthy for me.
1962
It was time to leave Los Angeles and I headed for San Francisco. A Navy friend lived there, and he said to look him up when I got out of the service. I did, but he was busy painting new homes and I went about my business of finding work. I was there with a new goal. Get a job and settle down. At the first job interview, I was asked, "Do you have a high school diploma?" No? Sorry. This continued day after day at each job site and I realized that I must keep trying and make myself dependable and in the line of sight of my interviewers. I kept trying and I finally got a job cleaning floors with a space agency. They sent me near a clean room to clean up. You need a college degree to clean up in the clean room. I have hope. I have a good paying job with a space agency. The future is here. I was wearing suits and looking good.
School was out of the question even though I knew I needed a least a GED to move forward in this society. I went to the library and checked out math books and studied some some Algebra. I remembered that Algebra was used in my studies at Sonar School after boot camp. But it soon became a big chore remembering those formulas, I was back to square one. As I was I never even bothered to get any help knowing it was a waste of time. Where do I place a young man like this, I know now where he is but I knew nothing then. The world was wrong to categorize me and I was wrong to go along with their thoughts. I know now that there is a place for me but back then I was lost.
*** I lived in San Jose, worked at Lockheed in Sunnyvale near Moffett Field and visited San Francisco on weekends. One weekend I went to see Cal Tjader a jazz musician I had heard in La Puente. (When we moved into the stucco on Fieldgate, two things were left behind in the room that David and I were to share. One was a red 33 1/3 LP of Cal Tjader with a gold yellow cover of a bull fighting arena and the other was a 20" aluminum eagle holding a swastika.) There was a section of San Francisco that catered to jazz. This one club, "The Blackhawk" on the corner ( 200 Hyde St. ) was black outside and inside. I would see Cal one weekend and Dave Brubeck the next weekend. Every weekend I would spend my time hanging out at these night clubs. Cannonball and "the hungry i " were close by, but I loved the music Cal and Dave better. I would sit lost in their sounds and rhythms, nursing my drink. Drinking was not pleasureable for me so I nursed my rum and cokes during these times.
Somewhere in here. I do not know the time frame. I read all of the John Steinbecks books that I could find, I went from book to book eagerly soaking up the characters. Lamenting every time some poor man was cheated, abused or taken advantage of.
I met my next door neighbor at my apartment in San Jose. We talked, had fun, and drank. Three months later he said to me, "Ya ever been to New Orleans?" I said no. He said, "I'm going, ya want to come along?" I said why not and went off to New Orleans with him. We had a good time on the road. When we got there, we moved into a trailer. Then his wife moved in and I moved out. I didn't know he was married. She was already there in New Orleans. When I started looking for work, a problem emerged. If you're white, you're a boss in New Orleans. If you're black, you work for the boss. There was nothing in between. After two weeks of looking for work, I was down to a few dollars, and I realized it was time to leave. But where? California was too far away. Hey, my sister lived in Kentucky, I thought. I left New Orleans with three dollars in my pocket. It took four days to get to Kentucky and my sister's place. The trip was not pleasant. I ate fruit off trees along the way. Sometimes a trucker would feed me a bowl of chili in a diner. I noticed that when we went through Birmingham, Alabama, no one was on the streets after six P.M. At that time, I did not know what was going on. A young couple was singing "Mockingbird" on the radio.
+
Get this; I went over to Yahoo maps and figured out how many miles per hour I traveled from Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, La. to Cynthiana, Ky. in 1962 or 63. I had no job in New Orleans; I did not know what dropping out was? I had three dollars in my pocket with no future of any money coming in. I had to go somewhere and Kentucky seemed like the easiest place to go.
My sister had just moved there from California.
It is 789 miles from Lake Pontchartrain to Cynthiana. It took me four days with three dollars, some kind help and a lot of apples to get to Cynthiana. That is eight miles per hour with barking dogs in the middle of the night moving you away from barns and homes.
I caught rides when I could but mostly I walked.
+
I arrived at Lexington, Kentucky on a Sunday morning. I found the directions to Cynthiana, Kentucky, where Sandy and her husband Jimmy lived and headed that way. My first ride said he knew my sister's husband and he took me to my sister's mother-in-law's house. When I arrived, everyone was having Sunday dinner. I arrived starving and happy to be somewhere. We said our hellos, glad to meet ya, sit down, have some dinner, tea? To say the least, Mrs. Hatcher, Jimmy's mother, was one of the nicest women that I had ever met to that point. (My Aunt Lucy was the same way. She would fuss over you, smiling, and saying have another piece, I'll just have to throw it away.) That is what happened when I arrived at Mrs. Hatcher's house in Cynthiana and what happened every Sunday while I was living in Kentucky. This was an example of true Southern hospitality. I would have dinner there every Sunday and she was always the same. She was the women everyone wanted as a parent, she is one of the reasons I came back to Kentucky. Women like that stand tall, they give the fall colors meaning, they give the spring flowers a wonderful fragrance.
This is the first time in my life that I get to see first hand the changing of the seasons. The seasons on the calendar really mean something here in Kentucky. I realize now that others states transform in this way but back then is was something emotionally greater than color that stepped through that door; it was the meaning of the word "seasons". The beautiful fall colors, the wet leaves matted in layers, waiting to be turned by the worms and creatures of the earth. the pumpkin and cushaw pies, warm on the mantel of thanksgiving. The winters of white snow, green firs covered with snow, a picture post card outside the window, the snowman with a nose of corn, acorn eyes, straw hat and a jellybean smile. The new spring growth, warm spring rains washing the new green leaves and minds. The hot dry summer turning the country roads into four inches of dust, caking your eyes, blinding your eyes and clogging your sinuses. The hot humid summer, so wet and air so heavy that you have to lay on the ground to breathe. Lemonade and coke so cold that when you drink it in huge quenching gulps, you eyes and body water.
My favorite time in this ever changing world is the late spring rains that wash the leaves and air of pollution, clean and crisp in colors are these days, fresh air.
Jimmy ( my sisters husband) got me a job working for a plumber, but when winter came around, he laid me off.
I was at one of those plumbing jobs, digging in solid rock, the day that President Kennedy was shot in Dallas (November 22, 1963).
My next job was working with Brother Herron, a Nazarene minister, who also owned a hardware store, sanded floors, remodeled kitchens and baths, installed some storm windows, and performed a few other odd jobs around town. I learned to sand floors from him. He had a three-man crew always working, Summer or Winter. In addition, he had two employees selling in the store. Brother Herron was crippled at a young age, so he walked kind of funny with his hands up to one side of his body. He could look so pitiful that people would always buy something from him. Needless to say, he was a wealthy man.
I lived with my sister most of the time I was in Kentucky. There was a brief time that I lived in one of the rooms in the old building behind the Nazarine church.
***
On our way toward Paducah, Ky. Laurel said, "What is that man doing?". She pointed to a field at the edge of the Cumberland River (bottom land). It had just rained five inches of rain and this man was walking in a muddy plowed field, with his hands in his pockets. I knew exactly what he was doing. When I first had arrived in Kentucky in 1962-63, I had lived with my sister in Cynthiana, Ky. with her husband Jimmy. Jimmy was an avid sportsman, good enough to try out or play for the Cincinnati Reds. Jimmy had a collection of arrowheads displayed in his living room. I had asked Jimmy where he had gotten them,
he explained each arrowhead is called a point. He pulled out a worn and tired book. The book separated time into periods of time. Times that Indians wandered and hunted with spears, bows and arrows. He showed me mortars and pestles, axes, spears, clubs, bird points, fish hooks made out of bones. I said,” Jimmy where did you get all this stuff?” He said, “Dennis, after a hard rain, go to a new plowed field and walk. The flint will shine and sparkle in the sun. Most will be just broken flint, but if you look carefully, you will find tons of arrowheads.” Kentucky is surrounded by rivers, The Cumberland River to the west and south, The Licking and Kentucky Rivers to the east, and the Ohio River to the north.
The Mississippi to the west. The land adjacent the rivers were called bottoms, this land moved/washed toward the Gulf of Mexico. That is why these rivers are muddy and the bottoms are quite fertile. Indians roamed Kentucky, it is a glorious hunting ground with these fences of water. Bison, bear and deer roamed these areas, before that mastodons, as eagles, owls, falcons, heron and ducks fly overhead.
James (Jimmy) Hatcher
***
I loved my stay in Kentucky. People would say hello to you, something new to a city boy. Yeah, they would say hello even if they didn't like you.
I heard the Beatles on the radio, "I want to hold your hand" was playing.
1963
The colors in Kentucky are only matched with the colors in Hawaii, it is that beautiful.
I left Kentucky in the Fall, with wet rain coming down and cold, around 45 degrees. I left because I again was too trusting. Some guys that I was running around with wanted me to host a party in my room behind the church. Somebody called Brother Herron and said that there were three cars behind the church and it wasn't Sunday. Anyway, the shit hit the fan and I left for California. It took all my money to get to Needles, California. I had to hitch rides the rest of the way. When I got home to La Puente, I stayed for a week or two, then found a job in Alhambra. My cousin Ron said that if I put his name on the job application that I would get a job at FTF (Fittings-That-Fit).
When I went to FTF to apply for a job, I was interviewed by John who was the foreman there.
He looked at my form, made small talk, said that if and when they had a job opening that I would be considered.
As he was looking at my job application for the third time, he noticed Ron's name on the form.
He asked whether this was the same Ron that so and so?
I said yes. He said, "You can start on Monday."
This man knew that Ron was a fun guy.
A smile to be around.
If you're going to be with someone, it might as well be Ron.
Ron could make you laugh, a pleasure to be around.
***
We did not know James Brown, but James, Ron and I would glide across the floor....
"He ain't no drag.
Papa's got a brand new bag
He's doing the Jerk....
He's doing the Fly
Don't play him cheap 'cause you know he ain't shy
He's doing the Monkey, the Mashed Potatoes, Jump back Jack, See you later
alligator."
Lyric by James Brown
The Story continues at Tomas 1967
We moved from Date Street to Third Street in Alhambra. We were living in a house
owned by Tony Stuppy, a friend of dad's. They both worked at Narden's Manufacturing in Alhambra. 1955
Dad rented the house from Tony. Narden's is on the corner of Date Avenue and Mission Boulevard. Tony later married Margie and raised Gilbert as his own son, Gilbert does not like my dad, Tony is his dad.
One day I came home from school and my dad's clothes were on the porch, piled up like dirty laundry. My dad was thrown out of our home. Margie had thrown him out. I did not know at that time the reason. Some time later that day, my sister talked to my dad on the phone. He instructed us to walk to the corner of Third Street and East Woodward. He said there would be a man in a car there, and he would stop and ask us to get into his car. We complied and left Margie and Gilbert behind.
A Mr. Shattler picked us up and took us to his home in Temple City. When we arrived, we were met by a whole new family. There were three boys and a girl in that family. The oldest boy was named David, and he was my age. The next was Diane, who was Sandy's age. Next were Ron and Jerry, the two youngest boys who were at least five or six years younger than David and I. The woman of the house was Gladys Shattler. I did not know it at the time, but I think my dad was having an affair with her. She also worked at Narden's. Mr. Shattler rarely came back. He returned only to visit the kids or to take us all horseback riding, a pleasure that we all loved very much.
My dad moved in with the Shattlers (or, he had already moved in). I do not know. Being there with another family felt different. It felt better, more relaxed, and not so strict. I had plenty of people to play with and I was becoming a teen. I soon fell in love with my step-sister Diane. It was obvious. This led to more conflict in my mind. Was this right or was this wrong? In my mind there was nothing wrong in my feelings, but the Catholic Doctrine was saying in my mind that I was committing a Mortal sin. It was wrong, but I was hopelessly lost. I had no idea who I was and I was hopelessly in love with my sister. God, what a mess. This created problems, problems, and more problems. Words cannot explain the mush in my brain.
My father had created for himself, by moving in with this new family, a larger family. He had to work two jobs to feed everyone, and Gladys was working also. While living in Temple City on Emperor we decided to take a bicycle trip to the foothills of Sierra Madre nearby.
We decided to go to the mountains, all six of us decided to peddle our bikes up to those foot hills which were about four miles away.
David and I, Diane and Sandy, Ron and Jerry, we always paired ourselves off in groups of age. We rode our bikes as far as we could peddle up Rosemead Blvd. and headed strait to the mountains. After crossing Colorado Blvd. We had to walk alongside our bikes the last mile. When we finally arrived at the foothills, the road ended, all that we saw was some private property. We looked for a neat place to go, there was none. With no park or camp ground nearby, we were disappointed, we talked and discussed our next move. No where to go, it was decided to go back home. It had taken an hour or two to reach the foothills. Coming back home was going to be a breeze, it was downhill all the way. We started back, our bikes picking up speed on our downhill journey, I finally had to take my feet off the peddles and put them on steel brace, my peddles were moving to fast to brake or peddle. I flew through red lights, green lights, amber lights, I could not stop for any traffic. Our hair was flying in the California breeze. I never stopped or thought that our lives were in danger. I guess I was the fool I left everyone else behind, I guess that they did stop at the lights. I finally coasted to a stop, I waited and let everyone else catch up. We were all thrilled about our journey. Our parents never did say anything to us about our trip.
We met Pat and Dennis Finch here in Temple City, their dad worked at some prison up north. There dad said that Little Richard's music would never last and that he should go back to where he came from. At that time I thought that Little Richard was the pure soul of our generation. I was surprised at what he said! Their dad had always been very nice to us all and he was nice all the time that we knew him.
Pat and Dennis had model "A's". Pat had a Blue "A" Pickup, Dennis had a Black Three window "A" Cabriolet coupe. They also had a Cushman motor scooter. There was a vacant lot out back behind their house, with an obstacle course, that they had built. Though I wasn't trusted to ride on my own, we took turns riding the Cushman around and around.
These were better times for me, even though I was confused and not to be trusted. 1956
Duarte Road, Acadia
Hound Dog - Elvis Presley
Long Tall Sally - Little Richard
Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins
Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley
Be-Bop-A-Lula - Gene Vincent & the Bluecaps
Fever - Little Willie John
In The Still Of The Nite - Five Satins
Blueberry Hill - Fats Domino
Please, Please, Please - James Brown & the Famous Flames
Through circumstances beyond my control two families were thrust together by marriage. So our home in Temple City was not big enough for us all so we moved into a very large, all redwood home on about two acres of land in Arcadia on Duarte road across town from Temple City. This place had a one room combination formal dining and living room. This area took up the entire front end of the house with huge 18" x 10" redwood beams that ran the width of the house from porch to porch. They held up the upper half of the entire two-story house with three bedrooms and a small bath upstairs. This place was quite a marvel with no painted surfaces anywhere; everything was redwood and quite ruff.
David and Diane loved to read. I learned to read fiction from Diane and science fiction from David there in those homes in 1956. Before that time period I had been reading out of the encyclopedia at the home on Date St. in Alhambra.
David and I were 15 and Diane and Sandy were 12. Ron (10), Jerry (9), Ron, Jerry, Diane and David were of German descent and Sandy and I were Mexican American. Downstairs in the dining room I played the Fats Domino, Little Richard and Elvis Presley music over and over on our portable record player so much that the steel needle wore those records out.
My best memories are there in that giant redwood of a home clouded as they were. They may differ from what actually happened, I would not be surprised. We went to the beach or to the mountains together about every weekend. We were campers. We saw the ocean at night; we saw the green sand glow in the moonlight. As the waves swept up to greet us, we sat and marveled, enjoying the green glow of the sand. We played in the ocean, we knew about the tides. We watch the seals swim in the ocean, the sea otters work on their backs. We poked the dead seals lying on the beach. We gathered wood and picked up broken glass. We started fires to keep warm on the beaches cool nights. We slept around the fires. Our beaches were Huntington, Tin Can, Seal and Long Beach. Wood and driftwood, tin cans, bottles, broken bottles would always be at Tin Can Beach.
The mountains were just a drive away. The San Gabriel foothills were near. Our parents took us to Shady Oaks, a pay campground. A one room store /payup /dancehall/ judebox/ nightclub. The days at this camp we spent climbing, poking and building. We dammed up the little creak during one year, creating a swimming hole two and half feet deep and thirty feet long. We had very small rapids, just right for one inner tube. We would spin around and bounce our bodies against the smooth boulders.
At night we would go up to the one room store and listen to Fats singing Blue Berry Hill on the jukebox, as the Christmas lights sparkled year round and then back at our campsite we wound gather pine needles and lay a blanket over them, that was our bed under trees and stars.
One year I remember dad carving Gladys & Tommy inside a heart into a tree the with arrow through it. To me living with this family was very comfortable; you may get another opinion from the others. Even though I was quite confused at that time I did love living with that family.
We met Emory Mulchan here in Arcadia; Emory was a loner. A Jewish boy in Temple City, he was the first Jewish boy I had ever met. We were still going to Temple City Schools and I had no clue as to what being Jewish was like until I met Emory. I had read about the World War II so I knew about how Germany treated the Jews. Emery was a Hawk, his own man, completely independent, he did what he wanted to do within some limit; I think the limit was school but mentally he did anything he wanted to do. Completely different than me, I was lost in my internal struggle for understanding and hiding my being from everyone that gazed upon my snaggle tooth grin. David, Emory and I hung out together. Emery had a Hawk on a leather leash with a hood in his home and an Owl in his screened front porch, which turned its head around to see right through us. It is true Owls can see through you. He taught David and I how to use a bullwhip. We spent hours using the whip and throwing daggers. He spent hours at our home learning to play football with us. I played a rough style of football learned from my cousins Gene and Ron. He was in excellent shape and very fast, he spent his full hour of PE doing laps in the pool at Temple City HS. He would do laps until the class was over. He said his parents didn't believe in sports. He out ran everyone on the track and football teams, just to prove a point. They asked him to join; he said no he was not allowed! (I have tried to find Emory but David thinks he is somewhere in hiding.)
I used to practice for hours “place kicking” the football over our giant redwood home. I kicked the football only once completely over the house.
(When our children Eli and Allison were young I took them over to the high school football field to teach them how to kick the ball. I place the ball on the thirty yard line and showed them how to kick a field goal and after a few tries I did manage to kick the ball several times through the posts at the thirty yard line.)
We met Bobby and Eddie Carlson here also; they lived next door across the parking lot behind a First Church of Christ, Scientist, Arcadia. Bobby was heavy set until his father sent him to his grandfather’s farm back east, when he returned he was trim and stout. Bobby was a Magician with a Top Hat and Black Cape (he performed at parties sometimes blowing fire into the air). Eddie was quiet, white haired and wiry. They had a 1949 Light Blue Caddy (primered in spots) and a 1934 Chevy three window coupe (completely primered and without bumpers). The Caddy would run, but the shocks were gone, when David and I rode with Bobby and Eddie we bounced along the highway on three wheels, one tire was always going flat. If you were ever in California during this time you probably saw us. Four boys pushing a pinto caddie and Eddie hopping into the drivers seat driving. We always got our gas at Midnight Auto Supply.
+
My dad always had things for us all to do during the summer. One job he gave Dave and I was to White Wash the fence that divided the back yard from the way back yard. We had helped build the fence made from pallets from Nardens. The paint wash was cheap oil based white wash paint made for fences. David and I started painting the fence, being teens we were not the best painters, but what harm could we do with four-inch brushes? It started out simple, a dip and paint. Somehow a drop of paint came off of Dave's brush. You have to pause and think a little. This is going where you think it is going. Somehow a drop of paint came off of my brush and landed on Dave's arm. Two drops came off Dave's brush and landed on my forehead. Two drop's came off my brush. I saw him dip his brush. I dipped my brush. We looked at each other; we had seen enough of Laurel and Hardy on T.V. to understand what was going to happen next. It evolved slowly; you can paint the picture in your mind. In about a half hour we were both covered from head to foot with paint. It took us a better part of two hours to clean ourselves up. Laughing the whole time. We did finish the fence and a little of the yard.
+
My dad had a pair of sheers for cutting our hair. Sandy and Diane were out back with David, Bobby, Eddie and I. This is the beginning of summer and we are looking for something to do. Some way we thought it would be neat that some day we could get a Mohawk haircut, like some of the other kids last summer. Sandy said well she could do that. We all looked at each other, Diane left. Sandy went and got the sheers and I got the stool, David got a sheet. Dad and Gladys were at work. Bobby said he would go first. Sandy cut his hair in a great double Mohawk, for a young girl of twelve she knew how to cut hair.
I said I would be next, I told Sandy I wanted my hair cut like a clown, bald on top and long on the sides. So that is what she did. I looked like "Clarabelle the Clown". (This afternoon (5-17-99) I came in after working in the garden, I had a baseball cap on, I went into the rest room to wash the salt and sweat from my face. I looked in the mirror and there was Clarabelle standing before me in the mirror. No matter what the situation, my hair bonkers when I get hot.) Eddie said he was next; he wanted just the opposite of me, so she cut his hair around his ears just like they do nowadays. Sandy looked at David, David looked at us, and David said no way. I'll have to ask Diane what she saw? We got the hoses and cleaned up. We lived close to a mall, just across from the parking lot on the opposite side of Bobbies and Eddies home. We decided to go to the music store in the mall and show off our new haircuts. We all had devilish smiles. Bobby went and got his Black Top Hat. Eddie got his Dad's leather driving cap, with its snap in front. I had a blue and white plaid English driving cap with buckle in the back. All four us donned our hats and walked through all the mall type stores on South Baldwin Avenue, South of Duarte Road, dipping our hats to the ladies. "Good afternoon to you mam". Just like the Musketeers of old. "Good afternoon to you mam" and a bow and a dip as Bobbies Black cape swirled. We would sweep our hats from our heads, bend and dip greetings to the ladies. Everyone had a great time. Very nice and a lot of fun.
That night everyone was getting ready for dinner, the big long table was set, my dad had come home from work, Gladys was already home. Everyone was moving around the table, busy. Finally everyone sat down to eat. The food was on the table. Gladys said," Dennis will you please remove your hat." Everyone was waiting for this, I thought I might slide on by. Gladys repeated, "Dennis will you please remove your hat at the table". I removed my hat, smiles flashed all around the table. My dad looked at me, pointed at me and curled his finger in a come here gesture. He walked outside and told me to sit on the stool, he went and got the sheers, and he finished the job. I was bald. Bobby got to keep his double Mohawk, Eddie ended up bald like me.
+
Gladys has the photos of that home and yard, but not the haircuts, I saw some a few years back, a nice home.
Combination of the Two, 1957
At Temple City High School, there was a 32' Ford Sedan, a Chocolate brown in color,
baby moons on reversed rims with a picture of " Alfred E. Neuman " on the rear trunk,
under which it read, ""What - Me Worry?". It roamed the area after school.
+
We were asked to leave the big redwood home that we rented, it was tore down to expand the church.
Bobby and Eddies parents sold their property adjacent to the church for about 80,000 thousand dollars (1957) Quote " They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
***
Young minds need to be the given time to understand life. In my case, no time was understood to be given. I was a space eating us out of house and home. I was a rebel with no directions, leathers, belts or black bike. I was without control, mentally, saying what I pleased without regard to anyone. A foul mouthed, smart assed, "I don't give a damn" ,"don't sweat it!" young man under the umbrella of Atomic bombs. I looked rather neat and normal with a good work ethic. Inside my mind was crying for love and help. Confusing inputs into my brain spelled doom for understanding. It was not until my late twenties when help did arrive. The free flower children of the sixties were more than eager to help me.
Parents need to watch and nourish the child at your feet, don't let ms-dos teach your child values.
I am using the computer to let you know, a paradox.
***
Where does the rebel begin? At Temple City High School I refused to do my home work. I failed everything. What created a creature that refused to do his home work. Was it a fear of being not as bright as the next fellow? No one was answering the questions I wanted answered. I didn't ask, I should of
asked. Who? I was lost in a world of turmoil, internal turmoil. I was creating my own rules deep in my mind, rules that did not apply. No one was answering questions that were not asked.
I was lost in the shuffle, a child pushed along with the crowd, passing the doorways and grabbing at straws.
At an early age I found comfort in the rhythms of Bo Diddley.
While others are hawking and selling their software, we are cutting and pasting our dreams.
***
We moved to La Puente where my dad bought a tan stucco 4 bedroom home on Fieldgate.
I muddled through schools, totally lost, not knowing who I was or what in the world was going on. Things came to a head when I quit going to school. By this time, we were living in La Puente. I was becoming a terrible problem with my smart ass attitude. I never was very good at learning in school. I was always mentally somewhere else from first grade to eleventh grade. In grammar school, they would pass me because I was getting older. In the eighth grade, I had to go to summer school with counseling. In the ninth grade, I failed everything but band and physical education. In my sophomore year of high school, I had Freshman English, Sophomore English, Freshman Social Studies, Sophomore Social Studies, ands other courses.
I failed them all.
My Junior year at La Puente High School was no better.
I was totally lost with no direction, in love with my sister, which was a sin.
What a pisser! Someone had had enough!! It sounded like everyone to me.
1959
My father was told to do something, so he had me enlisted into the Navy as what you would call a "Kitty Cruz".
Photo of Dennis & David
The Navy did not put up with any bull. They gave me no time to think. They worked me hard, and I was able to work hard. I never had a problem working hard. I had no time to feel sorry for myself. I forgot my past. At that time, the Navy didn't give a shit about my past. The wanted a body, a body to behave and do what it was told. Period! I did not grow up in the Navy. I grew older with no time to think. I met some nice people and some assholes, although I liked the nice people better. I rediscovered that if you hang out with nice people, it rubs off. I met William Hermann , a German from Minnesota. He was a good man who rarely made a mistake. He was good, pure, and simple with a brain. He was clean and neat like Margie. He was smart like Diane and he loved to read like David. I never loved this man. I just learned from him. He was a sailor and so was I, so we worked together as a team. He went home and our ship moved across he ocean to Hawaii. Hawaii was my new duty station. Clear air, rain every day. Tropical sized insects and plant life. A wonderful place to be. We stayed in Hawaii six months and then the ship sailed to San Diego. In that port I was transferred over to another ship and after a few days it sailed south toward the equator. We crossed the equator in hundred mile circles as the government blowed up small islands with its new Atomic Bombs. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words. So seeing these explosions maybe can save a million lives. Like an ant looking up at human, I looked up at that mushroom cloud and was amazed at it's size. The television set can show you it exploding but it can not show you how immense that mushroom cloud is. I am completely unaware of the kind of damage such power can do.
"Ship ahoy, mate" went the Kingston Trio. I was moving into rowdy songs and then into jazz as we sailed in circles. We headed back to San Diego and it was time for me to leave the service. After my discharge I went home to Los Angeles and stayed with my parents in La Puente where the smog burned my eyes. I realized that Los Angeles was not the place for me. I had just sailed the tropics and the clarity of the skies and air was great for my being. The Los Angeles air was filthy, brown and unhealthy for me.
1962
It was time to leave Los Angeles and I headed for San Francisco. A Navy friend lived there, and he said to look him up when I got out of the service. I did, but he was busy painting new homes and I went about my business of finding work. I was there with a new goal. Get a job and settle down. At the first job interview, I was asked, "Do you have a high school diploma?" No? Sorry. This continued day after day at each job site and I realized that I must keep trying and make myself dependable and in the line of sight of my interviewers. I kept trying and I finally got a job cleaning floors with a space agency. They sent me near a clean room to clean up. You need a college degree to clean up in the clean room. I have hope. I have a good paying job with a space agency. The future is here. I was wearing suits and looking good.
School was out of the question even though I knew I needed a least a GED to move forward in this society. I went to the library and checked out math books and studied some some Algebra. I remembered that Algebra was used in my studies at Sonar School after boot camp. But it soon became a big chore remembering those formulas, I was back to square one. As I was I never even bothered to get any help knowing it was a waste of time. Where do I place a young man like this, I know now where he is but I knew nothing then. The world was wrong to categorize me and I was wrong to go along with their thoughts. I know now that there is a place for me but back then I was lost.
*** I lived in San Jose, worked at Lockheed in Sunnyvale near Moffett Field and visited San Francisco on weekends. One weekend I went to see Cal Tjader a jazz musician I had heard in La Puente. (When we moved into the stucco on Fieldgate, two things were left behind in the room that David and I were to share. One was a red 33 1/3 LP of Cal Tjader with a gold yellow cover of a bull fighting arena and the other was a 20" aluminum eagle holding a swastika.) There was a section of San Francisco that catered to jazz. This one club, "The Blackhawk" on the corner ( 200 Hyde St. ) was black outside and inside. I would see Cal one weekend and Dave Brubeck the next weekend. Every weekend I would spend my time hanging out at these night clubs. Cannonball and "the hungry i " were close by, but I loved the music Cal and Dave better. I would sit lost in their sounds and rhythms, nursing my drink. Drinking was not pleasureable for me so I nursed my rum and cokes during these times.
Somewhere in here. I do not know the time frame. I read all of the John Steinbecks books that I could find, I went from book to book eagerly soaking up the characters. Lamenting every time some poor man was cheated, abused or taken advantage of.
I met my next door neighbor at my apartment in San Jose. We talked, had fun, and drank. Three months later he said to me, "Ya ever been to New Orleans?" I said no. He said, "I'm going, ya want to come along?" I said why not and went off to New Orleans with him. We had a good time on the road. When we got there, we moved into a trailer. Then his wife moved in and I moved out. I didn't know he was married. She was already there in New Orleans. When I started looking for work, a problem emerged. If you're white, you're a boss in New Orleans. If you're black, you work for the boss. There was nothing in between. After two weeks of looking for work, I was down to a few dollars, and I realized it was time to leave. But where? California was too far away. Hey, my sister lived in Kentucky, I thought. I left New Orleans with three dollars in my pocket. It took four days to get to Kentucky and my sister's place. The trip was not pleasant. I ate fruit off trees along the way. Sometimes a trucker would feed me a bowl of chili in a diner. I noticed that when we went through Birmingham, Alabama, no one was on the streets after six P.M. At that time, I did not know what was going on. A young couple was singing "Mockingbird" on the radio.
+
Get this; I went over to Yahoo maps and figured out how many miles per hour I traveled from Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, La. to Cynthiana, Ky. in 1962 or 63. I had no job in New Orleans; I did not know what dropping out was? I had three dollars in my pocket with no future of any money coming in. I had to go somewhere and Kentucky seemed like the easiest place to go.
My sister had just moved there from California.
It is 789 miles from Lake Pontchartrain to Cynthiana. It took me four days with three dollars, some kind help and a lot of apples to get to Cynthiana. That is eight miles per hour with barking dogs in the middle of the night moving you away from barns and homes.
I caught rides when I could but mostly I walked.
+
I arrived at Lexington, Kentucky on a Sunday morning. I found the directions to Cynthiana, Kentucky, where Sandy and her husband Jimmy lived and headed that way. My first ride said he knew my sister's husband and he took me to my sister's mother-in-law's house. When I arrived, everyone was having Sunday dinner. I arrived starving and happy to be somewhere. We said our hellos, glad to meet ya, sit down, have some dinner, tea? To say the least, Mrs. Hatcher, Jimmy's mother, was one of the nicest women that I had ever met to that point. (My Aunt Lucy was the same way. She would fuss over you, smiling, and saying have another piece, I'll just have to throw it away.) That is what happened when I arrived at Mrs. Hatcher's house in Cynthiana and what happened every Sunday while I was living in Kentucky. This was an example of true Southern hospitality. I would have dinner there every Sunday and she was always the same. She was the women everyone wanted as a parent, she is one of the reasons I came back to Kentucky. Women like that stand tall, they give the fall colors meaning, they give the spring flowers a wonderful fragrance.
This is the first time in my life that I get to see first hand the changing of the seasons. The seasons on the calendar really mean something here in Kentucky. I realize now that others states transform in this way but back then is was something emotionally greater than color that stepped through that door; it was the meaning of the word "seasons". The beautiful fall colors, the wet leaves matted in layers, waiting to be turned by the worms and creatures of the earth. the pumpkin and cushaw pies, warm on the mantel of thanksgiving. The winters of white snow, green firs covered with snow, a picture post card outside the window, the snowman with a nose of corn, acorn eyes, straw hat and a jellybean smile. The new spring growth, warm spring rains washing the new green leaves and minds. The hot dry summer turning the country roads into four inches of dust, caking your eyes, blinding your eyes and clogging your sinuses. The hot humid summer, so wet and air so heavy that you have to lay on the ground to breathe. Lemonade and coke so cold that when you drink it in huge quenching gulps, you eyes and body water.
My favorite time in this ever changing world is the late spring rains that wash the leaves and air of pollution, clean and crisp in colors are these days, fresh air.
Jimmy ( my sisters husband) got me a job working for a plumber, but when winter came around, he laid me off.
I was at one of those plumbing jobs, digging in solid rock, the day that President Kennedy was shot in Dallas (November 22, 1963).
My next job was working with Brother Herron, a Nazarene minister, who also owned a hardware store, sanded floors, remodeled kitchens and baths, installed some storm windows, and performed a few other odd jobs around town. I learned to sand floors from him. He had a three-man crew always working, Summer or Winter. In addition, he had two employees selling in the store. Brother Herron was crippled at a young age, so he walked kind of funny with his hands up to one side of his body. He could look so pitiful that people would always buy something from him. Needless to say, he was a wealthy man.
I lived with my sister most of the time I was in Kentucky. There was a brief time that I lived in one of the rooms in the old building behind the Nazarine church.
***
On our way toward Paducah, Ky. Laurel said, "What is that man doing?". She pointed to a field at the edge of the Cumberland River (bottom land). It had just rained five inches of rain and this man was walking in a muddy plowed field, with his hands in his pockets. I knew exactly what he was doing. When I first had arrived in Kentucky in 1962-63, I had lived with my sister in Cynthiana, Ky. with her husband Jimmy. Jimmy was an avid sportsman, good enough to try out or play for the Cincinnati Reds. Jimmy had a collection of arrowheads displayed in his living room. I had asked Jimmy where he had gotten them,
he explained each arrowhead is called a point. He pulled out a worn and tired book. The book separated time into periods of time. Times that Indians wandered and hunted with spears, bows and arrows. He showed me mortars and pestles, axes, spears, clubs, bird points, fish hooks made out of bones. I said,” Jimmy where did you get all this stuff?” He said, “Dennis, after a hard rain, go to a new plowed field and walk. The flint will shine and sparkle in the sun. Most will be just broken flint, but if you look carefully, you will find tons of arrowheads.” Kentucky is surrounded by rivers, The Cumberland River to the west and south, The Licking and Kentucky Rivers to the east, and the Ohio River to the north.
The Mississippi to the west. The land adjacent the rivers were called bottoms, this land moved/washed toward the Gulf of Mexico. That is why these rivers are muddy and the bottoms are quite fertile. Indians roamed Kentucky, it is a glorious hunting ground with these fences of water. Bison, bear and deer roamed these areas, before that mastodons, as eagles, owls, falcons, heron and ducks fly overhead.
James (Jimmy) Hatcher
***
I loved my stay in Kentucky. People would say hello to you, something new to a city boy. Yeah, they would say hello even if they didn't like you.
I heard the Beatles on the radio, "I want to hold your hand" was playing.
1963
The colors in Kentucky are only matched with the colors in Hawaii, it is that beautiful.
I left Kentucky in the Fall, with wet rain coming down and cold, around 45 degrees. I left because I again was too trusting. Some guys that I was running around with wanted me to host a party in my room behind the church. Somebody called Brother Herron and said that there were three cars behind the church and it wasn't Sunday. Anyway, the shit hit the fan and I left for California. It took all my money to get to Needles, California. I had to hitch rides the rest of the way. When I got home to La Puente, I stayed for a week or two, then found a job in Alhambra. My cousin Ron said that if I put his name on the job application that I would get a job at FTF (Fittings-That-Fit).
When I went to FTF to apply for a job, I was interviewed by John who was the foreman there.
He looked at my form, made small talk, said that if and when they had a job opening that I would be considered.
As he was looking at my job application for the third time, he noticed Ron's name on the form.
He asked whether this was the same Ron that so and so?
I said yes. He said, "You can start on Monday."
This man knew that Ron was a fun guy.
A smile to be around.
If you're going to be with someone, it might as well be Ron.
Ron could make you laugh, a pleasure to be around.
***
We did not know James Brown, but James, Ron and I would glide across the floor....
"He ain't no drag.
Papa's got a brand new bag
He's doing the Jerk....
He's doing the Fly
Don't play him cheap 'cause you know he ain't shy
He's doing the Monkey, the Mashed Potatoes, Jump back Jack, See you later
alligator."
Lyric by James Brown
The Story continues at Tomas 1967
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