A year of family comings and goings ~ January 1956 • My maternal grandmother, Nellie Chatfield, at the age of 82, died in Chico, California. She outlived her husband by 14 years along with two of her ten children. Gordon, her sixth child, died in 1948 (the year I was born) from injuries … [Read more...]
Archives for 2018
2.26 Lovebirds
1956 • San Jose ~ Claudia was secretly relieved when Mom said she’d have Bobby shipped out. She didn’t know how to say "no" to him, even though it hurt so bad to have sex. She would marry him when she was older, after she’d finished school, when she'd gotten a job teaching junior high. But Bobby … [Read more...]
2.25 The Great Pretender
1956 • San Jose ~ Betty was part of the older crowd and on Saturday nights she and her girlfriends ice skated at the El Camino Skating Rink. All the cute boys were there, circling the arena, showing off to the girls and skimming across the frozen floor backward to the music of "Rock Around the … [Read more...]
2.24 Hoity-Toity
1956 • San Francisco ~ When they married, Dad was renting a small place on Clayton Street in the Haight. He moved into Irene’s fancy two-story Victorian just two doors up from the flat where he first lived on Belvedere. Her place had soaring ceilings and velvet ottomans, a step up from the Formica … [Read more...]
2.23 High Finance
College Income and Expenses ~ Larry misunderstood the workings of scholarships, assuming one had to be an A student to qualify. There weren't many in those days available anyway. It cost about $1,500 to go to school, and that's how much he earned each year to pay his way. Between his powerhouse … [Read more...]
2.22 Wedding Bells
June 16, 1956, Upland, California ~ Our wedding was at the First Methodist Church in Upland, a lovely brick church my family attended since before I was born. Many supportive family friends from through the years joined us as well as our relatives. The minister, Dr. Lee, said that if I guaranteed … [Read more...]
2.21 An 8×10 Glossy
June 1956 • Upland ~ The first time my parents were together after their divorce was at Larry and Marian’s wedding. I have an 8” x 10” glossy reminder of the occasion: the respective parents are flanking the bride and groom, Marian’s parents to her right, smiling big and happy and Larry’s to … [Read more...]
2.20 Small Holy Cups
San Jose ~ During the time I lived with Mom, I was hospitalized several times for malnutrition and dehydration from vomiting spells. The first time it happened I was five. I only remember a couple of episodes as those recollections are tangled up inside me. It will only hurt for a second. … [Read more...]
2.19 Conversations With God
1956 • San Jose ~ Reading was good company. I read whatever was in front of me. I read all four sides of the milk carton and the Cheerios box and the C&H container. I read the editor’s notes and publication dates and fine print in the front of True Detective and Reader’s Digest and … [Read more...]
2.18 Perms
Carleen always gave us a Toni the day before school pictures; she was making us beautiful. She shampooed our hair, yanked our snarls with a sharp-toothed comb, then sat us in a row at the yellow Formica kitchen table. With old bath towels draped over our shoulders, Betty, Claudia, and I perched on … [Read more...]
2.17 Buttons and Bobbins
San Jose ~ I don’t remember Mom being home much. Betty remembers her buried behind a paperback beneath a cloud of smoke, sleeping with her black eye-mask and feather pillow over her head, yelling at us if we disturbed her. She’d cook herself a rare sirloin steak when none of us were around and if … [Read more...]
2.16.1 Thou Shalt Not Steal
1956 • San Jose ~ By third grade I was in my third school and had lived in over twice as many houses. It made me anxious, moving all the time. It seemed that as soon as I’d figure out how to get back and forth to school or to the dentist or to church, we’d move. I spent a good part of my time … [Read more...]
2.15.1 Grandma Nellie’s Demise 1956
Jan 2, 1956 • Chico ~ Freely extending her opinions and judgments of her ten children (and anyone else in the family), my grandmother never kept secret the litany of sins she held against them, and the lot of them feared her wrath and what she would say. Nellie Belle Chatfield died at her … [Read more...]
2.14.1 From Larry to Gordon 1955
1955 • San Jose ~ Occasionally Larry made the hour drive from San Jose up to San Francisco to take Dad to a show. They went to the Cinerama at the Orpheum Theatre on Market Street a couple of times. Dad was impressed, even though he was never much of a moviegoer. The year before, Larry took him … [Read more...]
2.16 Bless Me, Father
1956 • Willow Glen ~ It doesn’t take much Catholic upbringing to instill one with guilt, especially if the Church gets its hands on you while you’re young. The nuns prepared me for my First Holy Communion, teaching me to be thankful I’d been baptized so I wouldn’t have to spend eternity in … [Read more...]
2.15 Gimme a Bromo
1955 • San Jose ~ He called us Daughter Number One, Daughter Number Two, and Daughter Number Three. Betty figured he called us that because he liked having daughters; Claudia figured it was because he couldn’t remember our names. Mom met Mr. Wonderful in a bar and married him soon after. … [Read more...]
2.14 Mr. Wonderful
August 4, 1955 • San Jose, another letter from Mom to her sister: Dear Verda: Hope you and your family are well as we have been (most of the time). I was married last Sunday in Carson City to Ray Haynie. No, I know you don’t know him but that’s the name. He is a grand person and the kids are crazy … [Read more...]
2.13 Mean Girls
April 1955 • San Jose ~ In April, Claudia came to live with Mom and me, and sometime after she arrived, Betty showed up on the doorstep. Mom wasn’t expecting her as she had chosen to live with Dad after we left Tuolumne. Betty stayed with him in a motel in Castro Valley for six weeks, … [Read more...]
2.12 Jefferson Elementary
1955 • San Jose ~ Jefferson Elementary was like all grammar schools, filled with the noise of kids screaming, whistles blowing, and bells ringing. I paid careful attention to my teacher, Miss Harrison, but when she started writing too many numbers on the blackboard, which was green, my mind … [Read more...]
2.11 Canned Peas 1955
1955 • San Francisco ~ My dad taught me to sew on a button, how to thread the needle and not make the thread too long because it would knot itself and catch in the fabric. He showed me how to wrap the white thread around the end of my finger and pull my finger and the thread through in one … [Read more...]
2.10 The Clue in the Diary 1954-1955
1954-1955 • San Jose ~ On my knees in my flowered flannel nightgown, my blonde head bowed, I leaned against the bed, hands folded together, and said my nightly prayers. Reciting the Our Father and Hail Mary, I ended with “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...” scanning each day, from … [Read more...]
2.09 Toy Soldiers
1954-56 • San Jose ~ Mom was seldom around, and when she was, she wasn’t really "there." She escaped into sleep, her black eye mask blocking out the world, her small feather pillow hiding her head, and her rounded body buried beneath her blanket. The pills she took didn’t help her either, lined … [Read more...]
2.08 “Sprouse as in House”
1954 • San Francisco ~ "Sprouse as in house, Reitz as in right" was the slogan used by the company my dad worked for. Nobody said Reitz right; they rhymed it with Pete’s. I always corrected them. Sometimes Dad drove to San Jose and picked me up to spend the holidays with him, and other times Mom … [Read more...]
2.07 I Could Be Wrong
April 1954, Easter Vacation • San Francisco, California ~ I sat next to him on the #7 Haight bus as it wove through the city to the corner stop near his house. He lived just a block from the five-and-dime he managed on Haight Street, a red fronted Sprouse-Reitz. Together, we read every word in … [Read more...]
2.06 Southern California
March 1954 • Montebello ~ Carleen and Chuck left Sonora and Chuck went to work for National Tapered Wings in Vernon with his cousin Wayne Johnson. They rented a one-story triplex in a pretty tree-lined Jewish neighborhood in Montebello near Wayne and Joan, a tiny Italian spitfire of a woman. … [Read more...]