1960 • La Habra ~ A letter to my father: Dear Daddy, I don’t want to live with Carleen any more. I am taking the bus to come stay with you. Please pick me up at the Greyhound station this Saturday. Please. Carleen is mean, and she doesn’t really love me. She just wants me here to be her … [Read more...]
Archives for August 2018
3.19 The Furies
1960 • La Habra ~ Debbie, Randy, and I had daily chores. We made our beds, cleaned our bathroom, and fixed our breakfast. We vacuumed, swept, and dusted. I helped with dinner. Debbie set the plates and Randy got out the silverware. After dinner I washed the dishes, Debbie dried, and Randy put away … [Read more...]
3.18 Gus the Helms Man
1960 • La Habra ~ The Fuller Brush man, the Good Humor man, and the Helms man were regulars in our neighborhood. I loved the Helms man. I loved anybody who brought food around. Bow-tied Gus Gustavito drove slowly up our street, a distinctive hoot-hoot tooting his daily arrival. His mustard-yellow … [Read more...]
3.17 Queen of Hearts
1960 • La Habra ~ My sisters drank pot after pot of Folgers and smoked pack after pack of filters, complaining the whole time how crappy their hands were, bad-mouthing Mother, and bitching about their husbands. I was clear I didn’t like coffee or cigarettes, clear I was not going to grow up and be … [Read more...]
3.16 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes 1960s
Early 1960s • La Habra ~ Sequestered by the murky outline of the San Gabriel Mountains, Orange County had constant smog alerts, sometimes the air so awful they closed the schools. Everyone was told to stay inside; outside was smothered in a pea soup of haze so dense that not even a Santa Ana wind … [Read more...]
3.15 Beach Camping
1959 • Salton Sea, California ~ My least fond memory of that summer is water skiing at the Salton Sea, a huge inland lake in the desolate Sonoran Desert. The place is a forsaken moonscape: saltier than the Pacific Ocean, hotter than blazing cinders, and smellier than rotting catfish. No benches, … [Read more...]
3.14 Waiting, Waiting, Waiting
1959 • La Habra ~ That summer Chuck bought a boat, bringing an end to our Sunday drives. It was a fifteen-foot, white wood-hulled, mahogany-decked Trojan Chris Craft powered by a 50-horsepower Evinrude outboard motor with a 75 lower end. We didn’t visit missions anymore, now we went on camping and … [Read more...]
3.13 Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
1959 • La Habra ~ Chuck wasn’t prejudiced; he hated equally all those he believed were inferior to him. His spewing slurs insulted every race, color, nationality, and ethnic origin. His left middle finger was constantly raised in salute as he angrily cursed the wops, cut off the chinks, and careened … [Read more...]