A Christmas kiss to remember…

Excerpt from Bro. Dick - a remembrance

 

Winter vacation was one of my favorite times of the year. Two full weeks with no school, lots of basketball to be played, and the holiday season in full swing. It was always a special time at our house in Vallejo. My mom would be baking up a storm in the kitchen, making fruitcakes to send to all of our relatives. The house would be filled with the aroma of baking apples and walnuts and candied fruit and spices. I’m sure there were cousins out there who had a small stack of fruitcakes from years past, reluctant to throw them out, and even more reluctant to eat them. Fruitcake is an acquired taste. I, for one, loved my mother’s fruitcake, especially when it was still warm from the oven. No wonder I was a chubby little kid.

The smell of a fresh juicy orange is another thing I associate with winter vacation. Every year, a rancher from the Napa Valley would call and take our order for tree ripened navel oranges, which he would deliver by the case. I’ve never tasted better oranges. We’d go through a case in nothing flat, most of them consumed by me.

Then of course, there was my dad and his homemade Tom ‘n Jerrys. He’d whip up a batch or two during the holidays and fill the kitchen with the smell of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg, not to mention the rum and brandy. It’s a strange thing, but every time I get a whiff of those spices, I’m suddenly a kid again, back in the old house on Russell Street. I still have my dad’s special Tom ‘n Jerry mugs. And I still remember the recipe!

One winter vacation—I think I was about fourteen—I was coming home from playing basketball with my friends and I noticed my mom’s car was gone. My bedroom had been added on to the house and I had my own private door off the patio in back. As I went around past the garage to let myself in, I heard my dog George prancing and whining, anxious to be let into the warm house from the cold garage. I let myself in, tossed my jacket on the bed and went to see who was at home. As I entered the living room, there was my brother, stretched out on the couch, a pillow tucked under his head, sound asleep. The lights of the Christmas tree were on, and he was thoroughly enjoying a cozy afternoon nap. I knew right away what I had to do.

I went through the kitchen, opened the door to the garage and let George in. I quickly removed his collar so that his license tags wouldn’t jingle and wake my brother. Then I led George into the living room and pointed to Bro. Dick. George was so happy to see him! He went into a full-body wag and trotted over to the couch where he promptly stuck his ice-cold nose in Dick’s face and gave him a big slurpy kiss.

I swear my brother elevated three feet off the couch and let fly a stream of expletives that sent George running for cover. Then Dick saw me standing there, laughing so hard I nearly wet my pants. Now the expletives were flying at me, which only made me laugh harder. After a minute or so, Dick was laughing just as hard as I was. It took George a little longer to recover.

Winter vacation was always special—the sights, the sounds, the smells—but this was one I’ll never forget. It is a wonderful gift when you can laugh at yourself. My brother had that gift in spades.

_____

Sam - Memories of a good dog

from Yeah, What Else?

Early in 1977, my wife Barbara and I moved into our new home in Citrus Heights, California. It was a two-story, four-bedroom house with a good-sized lot and we’d watched it being built from the foundation up. It may seem odd, but the first acquisition we made for our new home was a puppy.

It was the era in Sacramento of the East Area Rapist, a man suspected of upwards of a dozen sexual assaults, all of them in the eastern suburbs of the city. I occasionally had to work nights and travel for business, and we decided that we’d feel safer with a dog in the house, preferably one with big teeth.

Barbara watched the ads in the local paper and saw one for German Shepherd  puppies ready for adoption. She drove to the address, checked out the litter, and brought home a beautiful little female with black and tan markings. We consulted with my daughters, Kim and Cheryl, and decided that a right and proper name for this new member of the family would be Samantha. And so, Samantha it was, which we immediately shortened to just plain Sam. (Of course we couldn’t know that thirty-five years later, we’d have a beautiful granddaughter named Samantha.)

I’d grown up with a pet dog, a terrier mutt named George, but this was a first for Barbara. She and Sam formed an immediate bond. Sam wasn’t pure bred—I suspect there was some Husky in her bloodlines—but she was a smart little puppy with a sweet and loving nature.

One of the first things Sam learned was to fetch the newspaper for me. I’d open the front door and she’d run out on the walk and bring in the paper. What a good dog! But it was too good to last. One morning, she picked up the paper, turned and looked at me, and then took off running down the walk and across the street. I was in close pursuit, yelling at her to stop, and she made it only as far as the neighbor’s yard before she plopped down and waited for me to reach her. Unfortunately, my neighbor had recently planted his lawn and it was just beginning to sprout. Sam wouldn’t budge, so I had to walk out onto the new lawn, leaving giant footprints, to retrieve her. I think Sam came to associate the incident with the words “bad dog,” because she never again retrieved the paper.

Sam was a healthy puppy. There were only a few occasions when we had to take her to the vet. She was spayed at the appropriate time and came through just fine. She picked up a bad case of kennel cough once when we boarded her for a weekend. But the illness we’ll never forget was the vaginal infection.

We could tell that she wasn’t herself, so we took her to the vet. He diagnosed the infection, prescribed some pills, and also gave us a tube of salve. We were supposed to insert the extended nozzle and squeeze the tube to apply the medication. Sam was nearly full-grown at the time and she was having none of this. Can you picture trying to pin down a seventy pound German Shepherd to administer this treatment? After what seemed like an hour (it was probably fifteen minutes), in a full sweat and with a cloud of dog hair around us, we finally gave up. The infection went away without the salve.

Sam was very intuitive and quick to pick up on our clues. We planned a camping trip to Bodega Bay one weekend and as I backed our Pinto station wagon into the driveway and started to load the gear, Sam jumped into the back of the car and refused to get out. There was no way we were leaving home without her. It was an interesting trip. Every noise outside the tent at night—be it a raccoon, a bird, or a lizard— would set Sam off barking. We didn’t get much sleep that weekend.

As she matured, her watchdog instincts really began to develop. I would say, “Sam, what’s that?” and she would take off barking at every door and window, using her best big-dog voice.

One weekend, my mom came to stay with us. In the middle of the night, Sam suddenly started barking like crazy. I sat up in bed and saw someone standing in the hall just outside our bedroom door. I jumped up, grabbed a baseball bat I kept under the bed, and in a very shaky voice said, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” The figure replied, “Charlie, I just have to go to the bathroom.” It was my mom.

After things calmed down, I said a little prayer of thanks that it wasn’t a gun I had stashed under the bed.

In the fall of 1978, we learned that Barbara was pregnant—with twins! We had also realized in the time Sam had been with us that we were allergic to her fur. Now with two little babies on the way, we decided some changes had to be made. I would build a dog run for Sam in the backyard and we would convert her to being an outside dog. The dog run turned out quite nice—large, partially covered, paved, with a shepherd-size dog house. Only one problem: Sam hated it. She just didn’t understand why she couldn’t be in the house with her people.

One of our neighbors had a beautiful tan Boxer named Hosang who was about Sam’s age. Hosang would come over to play and he and Sam would romp and tumble and race around the backyard until they were both exhausted. But as soon as she had to go back into that dog run, she was miserable. She spent most of her time biting the dog wire, trying to chew her way out.

Our twins, Matt and Rachel, were born in May 1979. When they were nearing their first birthday, we learned that Barb was pregnant again. Gabe would be born when the twins were eighteen months old. It would be like having triplets. All of our energy and attention would be going into caring for three little ones. We knew that we were not giving Sam the care and attention she deserved. We started to talk about trying to find a good home for her.

Then fate intervened.

I was working for Roseville Telephone at the time and the company newsletter hit my desk containing a notice from an employee who was looking for a good dog. Her name is lost to memory, so let’s call her Mrs. Parker. I called her and told her I thought I had just the dog she was looking for. We chatted for a while and she told me that she and her husband had a five-acre parcel of land, what was called “horse property” in our area, and that they had two other dogs. The dogs had free run of the property. From our conversation, I could tell she was a true dog lover.

Then she asked her big question: “Is she a barking dog?” I thought, Uh oh, this could be a deal breaker. Should I tell a white lie and say Sam was a nice quiet little lady, or should I tell the truth? I took a deep breath and told her all about Sam’s watchdog instincts and that, yes, she was a barking dog. Mrs. Parker said, “That’s exactly what we’re looking for.”

We made a date for the Parkers to come over on Sunday and meet Sam. I told them we were having friends over for a barbeque, but to just come around to the gate on the side of the house and I’d let them in. It was understood that if they liked our Sam, they would take her home.

Sunday arrived and we were relaxing on the patio in back of the house when I heard a car pull up out in front. I heard doors slam and I figured it was the Parkers come to see Sam. I said, “Sam, what’s that?” and she charged for the gate barking furiously. I took her by the collar and calmed her down, then let the Parkers in. I could see them nodding their heads and smiling at each other. They were sold.

We visited for a while and then they were ready to leave. Barbara hadn’t realized that they were taking Sam with them, thinking they would talk it over and call us later. Now she had about five minutes to say goodbye. She sat down on the patio and took Sam in her arms, tears streaming down her face. And then the Parkers clipped a leash to Sam’s collar and led her away.

About a month later, I was out at our Citrus Heights central office facility for a meeting. I parked in back of the building near the loading dock and walked over to the fence that bordered the property. It turns out the Parker’s five acres were adjacent to the Company’s land. I looked out across the field and there were three dogs playing along the fence on the west side. One of them was Sam. I gave a shrill whistle and yelled “Sam!” She stopped dead still and turned to look at me. Just then, her companions took off running at full speed down the fence line. Sam stood for a few seconds and then turned and sprinted after them.

It had been a long time since I’d seen her so happy. For love of Sam, we’d done the right thing.

_____

 

The following is an excerpt from a short story about summer love. The setting is South Lake Tahoe, around Labor Day, 1959:

 

Tahoe Blue

from Children of Vallejo

They hiked carefully on the path beside the river, avoiding the rocks and roots and willow branches that guarded the trail, heading steadily upstream in search of a picnic spot. This would be their last day together; Sandy and Becky were heading back to the Bay Area in the morning. Darin and Nick had a few more days to fill. They’d decided to spend the day picnicking along the Upper Truckee River near the cabin where the girls were staying.

Darin couldn’t believe how fast the days had gone by. The four of them had found good reasons to be together every day and most of the nights, and since that night parked at the beach, he and Sandy had always found time to be alone together. He realized that he was addicted to the smell of her hair, the taste of her kisses, and the way she felt when he held her in his arms. He was not ready for summer vacation to end.

They came upon a promising stretch of sandy riverbank and Nick and Becky elected to stop there. Darin had a particular place in mind that he wanted to show Sandy, and so they continued on the path. They rounded a bend and there it was: a long, deep pool with a lovely stretch of white sand. At its head, a great pine tree had fallen across the stream, its giant root base exposed on the west bank. They spread an old blanket on the sand, dropped the beach bag that held their lunch, and walked carefully out onto the fallen tree to a point about mid-stream. There they sat peering down into the dark water below the massive trunk.

“Just watch for minute, until your eyes adjust,” Darin said. “You’ll see. There! See them?” Darin pointed down into the pool where two large trout were swimming lazily by.

Further downstream, a fish broke the surface and glinted in the sunlight, disappearing back into the dark water, concentric waves moving out across the pool. They sat on the log watching, waiting for more of the brightly colored trout to pass by.

“This pool is too perfect,” Sandy said, standing up and heading for the beach. “I’m going in!” She reached the blanket, stripped off her khaki shorts and unbuttoned her sleeveless blue cotton blouse. “Don’t worry,” she called, “I’m not going to get naked.” She waded into the stream up to her knees, wearing a white cotton bra and briefs, and then dove headfirst into the quiet pool. “Oh!” she yelped as she came to the surface, “this water is freezing!” She swam downstream with a smooth, well-practiced breaststroke, did a neat kick turn and started back.

Darin was waiting for her on the sand when she stood up and stepped out of the water. He handed her a beach towel from the bag and watched her dry off quickly, goose bumps breaking out all over her body, her teeth chattering.

They sat down on the blanket while she dried her hair, combed it smoothly, then pulled it back and fastened it in a ponytail. “Oh, look,” she said, glancing up at the sky.

They laid back on the blanket, side by side, gazing up into the cloudless blue sky. High above them, a tiny silver dot marked the progress of a jetliner heading east, a long white contrail trailing behind. The tall pines surrounding the stream formed a rustic picture frame and the silver plane was the lone subject.

“If I was on that plane …” she began, pausing to consider, “I’d be on my way to Paris … and I’d wait tables in a café on the Left Bank at night … and write short stories and work on my novel all day … and I’d prowl through the bookstalls and sit in the sidewalk cafes and watch the tourists go by … and I’d meet Ernest Hemingway and he would become my dear friend and mentor … and I’d call him Papa and he’d call me The Kid … and we’d motor out into the countryside through the beautiful little villages … and we’d stop for a fabulous meal, with a different wine for every course … and when we got back to the city, there would be a cable waiting to tell me that my latest story had sold … and soon, I could afford to quit my job and write full-time.” She finished emphatically, waited a few seconds, and then turned toward Darin. “How about you?”

“Me? If I was on that plane … I’d be on my way to New York … to see the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium.”

Sandy laughed out loud. “Oh, how romantic! You and I are like oil and water.”

“No, listen … I’m not through. You’ll be with me, and we’ll go to the stadium, ‘the house that Ruth built,’ and I’ll show you the monuments in centerfield to The Babe and Lou Gehrig and all … and we’ll have seats behind the first base dugout, and we’ll see all the great Yankees—Casey, Mickey, Yogi, Whitey, Moose, Hank, and Don Larson … and I’ll teach you about the offense—when to steal, and when to bunt, and when to hit-and-run … and the defense—how it sets up for different hitters, and how the shortstop and second baseman turn a double play … and I’ll teach you to keep score, and you’ll sit with your pencil and your scorecard, wearing your Yankee cap … and you’ll love the game as much as I do.”

She looked at him, studying his face. “Okay,” she said. “But do I have to wear the cap?”

They laughed as she stood up to get dressed, stepping into her shorts and picking up the blue blouse. He stood in front of her, folding the wet towel, preparing to stuff it into the beach bag. Then she took his right hand in hers and placed it on her left breast.

“See … my bra’s nearly dry.”

He could feel her nipple like a little stone in the palm of his hand. She took his hand away and put on her blouse.

“Come on, let’s go find Becky and Nick.” She looked at him and saw that he had something to say. “What? What is it?”

“You were wrong,” he said.

“About what?”

“You said your butt was too big and your boobs were too small … wrong, on both counts … and I’m never going to wash this hand again.”

Sandy laughed out loud, and Darin laughed with her as they headed downstream to find their friends….

***

Darin turned the letter over and over in his hands, admiring the familiar handwriting, so graceful and precise. He and Sandy had stayed in touch for a while, but this was her first letter in several weeks, and when he called, she was never in. He had a pretty good idea what was inside. He made his way to his bedroom at the back of the house, flopped down on his bed and ripped open the envelope. As he suspected, it was a classic “Dear John” letter.

“Darin,” she wrote, “my boyfriend David and I are together again, he decided not to go east for school, we’re both at Stanford now, and we realized ours was a serious and committed relationship. I will always cherish our time together last summer, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t want to string you along either. And so, this will be my last letter. I hope you’ll understand.”

Darin locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, her letter resting lightly on his chest. He wasn’t hurt, or even disappointed, just a little blue. He had already taken the summer of 1959 and stored it away carefully in a place for special memories. He knew that at any time, he could close his eyes and she’d be there, swimming smoothly across that deep still pool, sunlight reflecting from her body, white gold in a Tahoe blue setting, perfect forever.

_____

The reviews are pouring (trickling?) in...

Foster …and other stories is a real treat which provides a range of stories and emotions, all of them told in a sensitive, warm, human way. It’s a great read and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys reading.

-Casey Dorman, author of Ezekiel’s Brain, The Oedipus Murders, Murder in Nirvana, I, Carlos, contributor to The Truth That Can’t Be Told 2, and more.

 

A fast-paced, engaging, heart-tweaking novella that captures the essence of what happens when ‘bad things befall a good kid.’… If you’re looking for everyday heroes, you'll find them in Foster, and in the bonus selection of short stories that follow the novella. There is a thread of the quiet hero in every one of C.W. Spooner's stories – ordinary people doing ordinary things with a degree of integrity and high-mindedness, qualities that seem to be what we're all longing for in this particular moment of history.

-Billie Kelpin, author of Falling Idols, Lucky the Left-pawed Puppy, Polly and the Measuring Stick, contributor to The Truth That Can’t Be Told 2, and more.

 

A beautiful look at how we hold onto hope when the world has consistently let us down. Readers will delight in C.W. Spooner’s gift for showcasing the humanity of his flawed yet charming characters.

-Cassandra Rendon, author of The Good Bad Lands, All the Ways You’re Important to Me, contributor to The Truth That Can’t Be Told 2.

_____

Read complete reviews here >  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL43MRH/ref=tsm_1_tp_tc

Foster ... Chapter 1, the adventure begins...

 

Trick or Treat

 

Gray pulled into the parking lot and skidded to a stop, the brakes on the old pickup screeching.

“Stay in the truck and keep the engine running,” Todd snapped. He slammed the door and headed for the liquor store entrance, his brother Tim close behind.

“Hey, wait, I gotta take a leak,” Gray shouted.

“Just stay there, damn it!” Todd barked over his shoulder as he and his brother barged through the front door, stumbling drunk.

It made sense for Gray to keep the motor running on the beat up ’51 Ford, twenty years old with a sticky float in the carburetor. Shut it down and he’d have a hassle getting it started again. That didn’t change the fact that he had to go—bad! There was a dumpster at the side of the building, just a few steps away. He opened the door and ran around the large metal box, unzipped his pants and let fly.

POP! POP! The sound came from inside the store. POP! Again. What in the hell? The bell attached to the door rang wildly, followed by Tim and Todd’s shouts.

“Come on, get in the damn truck!”

“Ow, my leg, Todd, he shot me in the leg!”

“Just get the hell in. Hey, where’s Gray? I told that sonofabitch to stay here.”

“Ow, my leg—”

“Did that bastard take off? I’ll kill him!”

Doors slammed, the engine roared, and wheels screamed as the Ford tore out of the parking lot. Gray zipped his pants and peered around the dumpster. Jeez, what just happened? He walked around the corner of the building, along the front of the store, the plate glass window full of old Nixon-Agnew stickers. He pulled the door open. Behind the counter, flat on his back, a man stared at the ceiling, a neat hole in his forehead, blood pooling on the dirty linoleum floor. Oh my God, they shot the clerk! Shot him dead. The man held a gun in his right hand. He’d fought back and lost. Gray recognized the dead man. Holy shit, it’s old man Antonelli. He couldn’t remember the man’s first name. Gray looked around. The store was empty, but it wouldn’t be long until somebody walked in, found the body, and called the cops. And who would believe Gray? A foster kid, no parents, no family. Just a foster kid—with a record. He had to get out of there…

_____

Feedback welcome: cspiggidy2@hotmail.com

Click to buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL43MRH/ref=tsm_1_tp_tc

 

Time to say Thank You...

 Acknowledgements

 

Foster ...and other stories has been in and out of the proverbial drawer for several years. Many times, I threatened to leave it there, an artifact for my grandchildren to discover. The fact you are reading this is due to the support and encouragement of several collaborators.

Billie Kelpin read the opening chapters when they were new and very raw, offering nuanced and insightful suggestions that colored everything to follow... Lee Milton and Don Brunelle read later versions and provided much needed encouragement... Tom Campbell, a go-to guy through several of my books, stepped up once again with valuable feedback and support... I thought the work was finished until Cassandra Rendon read the manuscript. Her in-depth review and excellent suggestions sent me into a major rewrite… If Foster is a “good read,” I have all those trusted readers to thank.

Officer Jon DeLiema of the Huntington Beach Police Department served as my firearms consultant, though he probably didn’t realize it at the time... Diana Huang created the cover design and was a joy to work with. This is the third cover she’s done for me, and this one required extreme patience… Billie Kelpin (yes, her again!) shared her experience and expertise in formatting the edition you are reading.

I included seven short stories in this volume, all published during the heart of the coronavirus pandemic. They are here simply because they need a home on the shelf. There is no assurance they will have brothers and sisters to fill out a volume of their own. If you enjoyed just three of the seven, it means I batted .429. I’ll take that any day.

Finally, a huge thanks to all you faithful readers. I hope you found yourself somewhere in these pages.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL43MRH/ref=tsm_1_tp_tc

_____

 

Sociology 1A

A Memoir of the Sixties

Part 2 of 2

 

 Sleep was hard to come by at home. It seemed you were always in transition, from sleeping during the day, to sleeping at night on your days off, and then back to the night shift routine. Somehow in the transitions, you lost a day and half of sleep, or so it seemed.

Your wife did the best she could to keep the kids quiet and occupied. This included your two vivacious daughters and the little boy she took care of, a nervous little bird named Donnie. He was nearly two and still in diapers and he cried a lot. You could hold him and comfort him and calm his crying, but smiles were hard to come by, and laughter just wasn’t part of Donnie’s personality. But the thing that made Donnie unique, that set him apart from all of his peers, was the fact that when he pooped his pants the smell was unbearable. It was so bad it could trigger your gag reflex. You had to tie a bandanna around your face like a cowboy in order to change his diaper, and even that didn’t help much. You found yourself asking What the hell is your mother feeding you?

Your shift at LRL ended at 8:00 a.m. There was a great donut shop (it reminded you of Scotty’s in Vallejo) on the north edge of the campus, right on your way home, and now and then you’d stop and pick up a mixed dozen for the family. Generally, you were home in bed asleep by 9:00 a.m. and wide-awake around 3:00 in the afternoon. Then it was time to get up and help take care of the kids.

You’d pray Donnie would hold his fire until after his mom picked him up.

_____

 

Several evenings each week and most Saturdays, you drove up Highway 24, through the Caledecott Tunnel and on to Walnut Creek, to sell shoes at Grodins. Fred was the department manager, a great guy who became a good friend. Freddie had a line of malarkey that was perfect for talking a customer out of his old shoes and into a new pair of Florsheims. Years earlier, when he first applied for a job at Grodins, the store manager asked him What do you know about men’s clothes? Freddie said Well, I’ve been wearing ‘em since I was fifteen. The manager cracked up laughing and hired Freddie on the spot. Brash, cocky, funny, and a pretty good golfer, too—that’s Fred.

The Bay Area stores were covered by the Retail Clerks Union, so you were paid a flat hourly wage, or six percent commission, whichever was greater. Walnut Creek was a good store and you always made commission. Actually, you made out pretty well for a part-time job.

Occasionally they’d assign you to work at the Grodins in Berkeley, on Telegraph Avenue just south of Sather Gate. That location was dying a slow death because most of the students shopped at the local Army-Navy Surplus store. You’d stand around and watch the colorful scene out on Telegraph Avenue, watching the clock tick slowly toward closing time, wishing you were back in the Walnut Creek action.

Or home in bed asleep.

_____

 

It was a bright January day and you were going through the mail, and there it was: the envelope from Merritt College with the grade report for the fall semester. You opened it and saw that you had earned an A in the class you completed. And then on the next line you read: Sociology 1A – Incomplete. Holy crap! John Lennon didn’t turn in a drop; he gave you an incomplete.

After work the next morning, you headed for the Merritt campus to take up the issue with the front office. The lady at the counter listened sympathetically and then told you that only the instructor could change the grade report. Unfortunately, Mr. Lennon wasn’t teaching a class in the spring semester and wouldn’t be on campus. So, she looked up his phone number and gave him a call; the phone was disconnected. You stressed the urgency of the matter, that you had to submit your application to Sac State and you needed this corrected ASAP. She thought about it for a while and then said I’m not supposed to do this, but here is the last address we have for him.

You jumped in the car and headed for the address on Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley, which turned out to be an apartment building that had seen better days. You found his apartment and rang the bell and he answered with a hearty Hi, how ya doin’? like you were a long lost friend. You explained the importance of changing his grade report from an incomplete to a drop, and he immediately launched another attempt to change your mind. Tell ya what, I’ll give you a book, you’ll read it and give me a couple-page report and I’ll give you a grade. Whataya say? You said Thanks, but no thanks. You didn’t add that his proposal offended your sense of ethical behavior. He finally gave up and promised to phone in the change. Then he grinned and waved and wished you well as you hurried away to your car.

That’s that you said to yourself—again. But this time you didn’t have much confidence.

_____

 

For the most part, your experience at Merritt College had been positive. You’d completed all your general education requirements, maintained a 3.8 GPA, taken all the computer science classes you could squeeze in, and generally enjoyed the experience.

Over the course of several semesters, you’d come to know a couple of guys you enjoyed hanging out with during class breaks. One was a CHP officer, the other a guard at San Quentin. Both were Black and though they were farther along in their careers than you, it was amazing how closely their lives paralleled yours. They were concerned for their families, looking to find homes in clean, safe neighborhoods, looking for good schools for their kids. They were just like you and you looked forward to chatting with them every week.

When Martin Luther King was assassinated, suddenly it seemed like a wall had sprung up between you. You felt a decided coolness, as though you weren’t welcome in their circle anymore. Even though it was understandable, it hurt, and you never really got over it. Maybe you tried too hard, or said the wrong things? Maybe they just needed to process this devastating loss in their own way? With time, you could have fixed it, and perhaps they’d be your friends to this day; but your time there was running out. It remains one of the few bad memories associated with Merritt College.

Another bad one was the night the Black Panthers came on campus and locked the Faculty Senate in a meeting room, refusing to let them go until they agreed to the hiring of more Black instructors and the development of an African-American studies curriculum. There was a rumor Angela Davis was with them but you could never confirm it.

You cut class that night and went home. All you wanted to do was hug your kids.

_____

 

As the spring of ’69 progressed, so did The Plan. You moved your family from Alameda to the house in Fair Oaks near Sacramento. Your wife went to work for Allstate Insurance, and your mom lived with them during the week to take care of the kids. You continued to work at LRL, living during the week at your mom’s home in Vallejo and commuting to Berkeley. Your application to Sac State was in the mail, along with a copy of your transcript. According to plan, you would start the fall semester in Sacramento and work part-time at the Grodins located in Country Club Center.

One morning, you decided to call the Merritt College office and check on that grade report, just in case. The woman who answered the phone made sure you were authentic and then went to pull your records. Sociology 1A? Ah yes, you got an A. After you picked up your jaw, you thanked her and hung up the phone.

So, John Lennon had changed the incomplete to an A. You had to think about that for a minute. Should you call back and go through the nosebleed of trying—yet again—to get the record corrected? Or not?

You thought about your life. Did it not range from the pristine suburbs of Alameda to the ghetto campus in Oakland, from the radicalized scene at UC Berkeley to the upscale shopping malls of Walnut Creek? In your daily travels, didn’t you move in and out of various layers of society, through institutions both revered and reviled? Did you not rub shoulders with stoners, barbeque purveyors, future scientists, and Black Panthers? Isn’t sociology the study of society, its systems and institutions, and wasn’t your life a field study in progress? If anybody deserved an A in sociology, most certainly it was you.

Damn the ethics! Full speed ahead!

_____

 

It wasn’t long after that when The Plan began to fall apart. The coup de grace came in the form of a polite letter from Sacramento State College, advising that they could not accept you for the fall term due to an enrollment glut. The letter suggested you apply at Humboldt State in Arcata, way up north, where the application volume was less impacted. Unfortunately, you now lived in Fair Oaks. Arcata would be a hell of a commute. And so you found a job in the Sacramento area and settled in to work and care for your family, your college dreams deferred for the time being.

That was a long time ago. At the age of eighty, it’s good you remember all the people and places, the sights and sounds and smells, and especially what it was like to be so young and alive and lucky, to run down Grove Street with an old man’s laughter at your back, sprinting toward a future that would fill your heart, then break it, then fill it again. And all of those memories triggered by a simple line on a transcript:

 Class: Sociology 1A / Semester Units: 3 / Grade: A

_____

 

 

 

Sociology 1A

A Memoir of the Sixties

Part 1 of 2

 

Cleaning out a closet one day, you opened a box and there on the top of a stack of papers was your transcript from Merritt College in Oakland. You hadn’t seen it in forty years. You scanned the list of classes you completed and, lo and behold, there it was: Sociology 1A. And you could not help but smile at the memory of those hectic days long ago.

You remember the first night of class—was it fall semester ’68?—you were late as usual. You parked on Grove Street, a couple of blocks from the campus and took off on a flat-out sprint, just as you had so many nights before. You ran by the barbeque joint where an old Black man was standing outside, taking a smoke break, and he called to you Hey, Lickidysplit, you late for class again? Ha ha ha! Without breaking stride, you shouted back You got that right. See ya later. And he said Not if I see you first! Ha ha ha! The laughter followed you down the street and you promised yourself someday you’d stop there for barbeque because it smelled like heaven.

You bounded up the steps of the main building, up the staircase to the second floor and into the classroom. You grabbed a desk at the back of the class. The instructor was reading aloud from a text of some sort and twenty-some-odd students were hanging on every word. Is he reading from the textbook? you asked the guy sitting next to you. No, it’s a poem. I think he said it’s by Robinson Jeffers. You checked out the instructor. He was wearing a plaid wool shirt, jeans, motorcycle boots. Perched on his nose was a pair of round granny glasses. His hair was long and shaggy. He looked like John Lennon gone to seed. He finished with a line that said something about life crawling out of the primordial ooze onto dry land. He closed the book with a thump, then fake-stumbled off the desk where he’d been sitting and said Now that is heavy! The class gave him a round of applause.

You sat there wondering what the hell this had to do with sociology. The instructor launched into a discussion of the class syllabus and the text that was required. He said to buy it used; don’t waste money on the new edition. And in less than an hour, it was class dismissed. Maybe it was because you were tired, or stressed out with too many things to do, but you started to think about dropping this class. You were trying to take two classes a semester, but it was too much. You needed to drop a class and this one, with the John Lennon wannabe, was the prime candidate.

You started to go forward to speak to the instructor, but he was surrounded by eager students, most of them girls who thought he was way cute, and so you decided to give it one more week. You would see how the next class went and then you would decide. At least he was letting you out early and you could go home and read bedtime stories to your girls, maybe catch a catnap before heading to work at midnight. 

In a minute, you were down the stairs and back out on Grove Street.

_____

 

Ambition came to you late in life. At first you thought all you needed was a job, any job, to put food on the table and a roof over your head. And so, you got married and got that job and two beautiful daughters came along. And then you realized food on the table and a roof over your head wasn’t enough. You were working for bosses who were no smarter than you, but they had something you didn’t: a degree; the magical piece of paper that says you are an educated person. No, just a job was not enough. Not nearly enough. Plus, you wanted the world for your kids. So, you hatched a plan. Go back to school, finish your second year of college, do it on the cheap at a community college, make sure your classes were transferrable. You were working and living in the East Bay so Merritt College in Oakland would do just fine. Then you would transfer to Sacramento State College, move the family to Fair Oaks, take over a house there that your brother had offered to you. Your wife would work, you would work part-time, your mom would watch the kids. And in three years or so, with any luck, you’d be finished. You would be that educated person. There would be no stopping you. What a plan!

So there you were, working as a computer operator at Lawrence Radiation Lab—UC Berkeley, working the graveyard shift because it paid a fifteen percent differential, working part-time for Grodins Men’s Wear selling Florsheims in their shoe department, your wife earning extra money providing daycare for a working mom.

You didn’t know it then, but what you needed was a Plan B.

_____

 

Berkeley, California. The People’s Republic of Berkeley. Berserkeley. Scarborough Faire. Call it what you want, in the mid- to late-sixties it was an interesting place to be. You were hired at LRL Berkeley in the spring of 1965, just in time for the denouement of Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement. He stood in Sproul Plaza and declared victory over the UC Administration and then said Hey, don’t leave yet. We’ve still got a war to stop. And so, the FSM morphed into the anti-Vietnam War movement and things went from interesting to radical.

There were nights driving to work when you got off the freeway at University Avenue and were greeted by a police barricade, an officer shining his flashlight in your face asking What’s your business here? You knew then that another demonstration had gone out of control. You remember the night you came to work and the guys on the evening shift described the helicopter that hovered over Sproul Plaza and dropped teargas to disburse the demonstrators. Then there was the night some radicals (terrorists?) bombed a tower on the power line feeding the Lab and you sat in the dark until dawn, the only light in the building coming from battery powered lanterns mounted on the walls, half of them inoperative due to neglect.

And down in Oakland, not far from the Merritt campus, was the headquarters of the Black Panther Party, where a couple of off-duty Oakland cops drove by and shot out the windows. The Black Panthers scared the hell out of you—then. It was only later that you and most of your friends read Soul on Ice and you all wore “Free Huey” buttons and Tom Wolfe coined the phrase radical chic. Thankfully, you were gone by the time the Symbionese Liberation Army showed up and kidnapped Patty Hearst.

The majority of students on campus wore the non-conformist uniform: faded jeans, boots or sandals, battered old shirts or sweaters (preferably black), long shaggy hair, and lots of facial hair. And those were the girls! (Just kidding.) But you weren’t part of that. You had other priorities. You had a family to support, and you had The Plan, and by God you were sticking to it.

May you live in interesting times. Is that a blessing or a curse?

_____

 

Sundays were beautiful. It was your day off. No work at LRL, no classes to attend, no shoes to sell—except during the Christmas season. Sundays were family days. You’d take the bicycles from the patio, buckle the kids into the seats mounted on the back and hit the streets of Alameda. You lived at the north end of the island, close to the Naval Air Station, but the city had a fine system of bike lanes and bike-friendly neighborhoods to ride in. Alameda was a small town set down in the middle of a teaming metropolis. Your favorite thing to do was to ride out past the Southshore Shopping Center to the beach that faced San Francisco Bay. The kids could play in the sand for hours while you kicked back with a book or enjoyed an adult conversation with your wife. Off to the northwest you had a great view of the Bay Bridge and the skyline of downtown San Francisco, a city that you’d always loved. And then you’d load the kids back onto the bikes and head for home, through the beautiful neighborhoods, wondering how much those homes were worth and if you could ever afford one.

Maybe it was something you could add to The Plan.

_____

 

The second class session of Sociology 1A wasn’t much better than the first. The instructor held forth, displaying his snappy sense of humor, soaking up all the laughter, and generally enjoying the spotlight the classroom afforded him. Again, you wondered what the hell this had to do with sociology and you were glad you hadn’t purchased the text. You made it through to the break without walking out. You approached Mr. Lennon and told him you had to drop the class and he began trying to talk you out of it. Hey, stick it out. It’s not going to be so bad. No papers to write. Whataya say? You told him you couldn’t do it and would he please just turn in a drop for you and finally, reluctantly, he agreed. He shook your hand and wished you well as you headed for the door.

That’s that you said to yourself. Yeah, right.

_____

 

Working at LRL was a good gig. The computer center, situated in the Admin building way up on the hill behind the Berkeley campus, supported the Physics Department and graduate students who were assigned to one of several groups. The physics groups were headed by some of the best-known scientists in the field of high-energy particle physics, men like Dr. Luis Alvarez. By the mid-sixties, there were six or seven Nobel laureates associated with the Lab.

The mission of the computer center was to process all the data collected in experiments conducted utilizing LRL’s Cyclotron (invented by Dr. Ernest Lawrence), a particle accelerator that sent beams of protons crashing into target mater and recorded the results when atoms split and sub-atomic particles went spinning off through a bubble chamber.

You also worked with the grad students as they learned to use the large-scale computer systems. They studied FORTRAN and other languages and wrote programs to perform dubious functions, all in the name of higher learning. You got a kick out of seeing the new students arrive each fall, neatly shaven and trimmed, wearing their sport coats and ties, their wingtip oxfords shined to a high gloss. You’d take bets on how long it would take them to don the Berkeley uniform: jeans, sandals, shaggy hair, beards. It didn’t take long—about three weeks, max. You wondered what their families thought when they went home for the holidays.

But it was a good gig. You worked with lots of great guys and the occasional great gal. (Let’s face it: sexism was still rampant in the job market.) There was Hugh, a hard worker and a true friend, an older version of you: in his early forties, married with two daughters, working two jobs to make ends meet. There was Roger B, a smart-mouthed, cocky kid, always fun, always funny. There was Brian, who spent most of his free time tracking down his pot connection; needless to say, a very mellow guy. There was Roger G, who had moved on from grass to LSD and was evangelical on the benefits of chemical mind-expansion.

On the graveyard shift, midnight to eight, things got very quiet around 3:00 a.m. You’d fire up the long jobs that processed all that experimental data and then do your best to stay awake. One good thing to do was to step out onto the balcony that looked out across the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge. God, what a view! It was ever-changing and you never tired of it. The best, the one you’ll never forget, was the full moon hanging over the north tower of the bridge, a river of yellow light streaming across the bay to the Berkeley shore. San Francisco was off to the left, with the Top of the Mark and the lighted elevator shaft that reached the Crown Room at the Fairmont perched high up on Nob Hill. Standing there, looking out across the bay, you were absolutely certain anything was possible.

Wasn’t that the way a guy in his mid-twenties was supposed to feel?

_____

Coming soon, Part 2. Did the instructor turn in the promised drop? How did The Plan work out? Watch this space for the chaotic conclusion.

_____

 

 

Who’d You Get Today?

from Yeah, What Else?

“Who’d you get today?” That was the standard summer greeting when you saw your buddies. Not, “What’s up?” or “How’s it goin’?” Simply, “Who’d you get today?”

It referred to our summertime hobby during the mid- to late-fifties, which was collecting autographed pictures of Major League baseball players. The way it worked was this: we would walk up to the branch post office on the frontage road along Highway 40 and buy a stack of two-cent postcards. Then we would hunker down and write cards to all of our favorite players, addressed to the stadium in the city where they played. For example:

 

To: Mickey Mantle

C/O The New York Yankees

Yankee Stadium

The Bronx, New York

 

Dear Mickey:

You are my favorite player and I am a big fan of the Yankees. Please send me an autographed picture of yourself. I hope you win the triple crown this year, and that the Yankees win the pennant.

 

Off in the mail would go fifty to one hundred postcards at a time. And then we would wait every morning for the mail to arrive. Sure enough, within a week or so, back would come the requested product in the form of a picture postcard. If you were lucky, the postcard would be autographed personally by the player. In many cases, the autographs were preprinted on the card. It was a never-ending quest because each year the teams would prepare a new set of postcards, so you were constantly trying to get the current year’s edition.

There were several challenges to overcome. First, some players seemed impossible to get. These, of course, were some of the game’s great stars who I’m sure realized that their pictures and autographs had significant value to collectors. I don’t think I was ever successful in getting Stan “The Man” Musial, though some of my friends actually made that catch.

Second, there was the problem of the preprinted autograph. We got around that by writing letters to the players and enclosing a self-addressed postcard:

 

Dear Mr. Ted Williams:

I think you are the greatest hitter of all time. Please autograph the enclosed self-addressed postcard and mail it to me. I hope you hit .400 this year.

 

You might ask what was the genesis of this little hobby? If memory serves, the credit goes to Bobby Morenco, one of my friends from Little League. I believe he was the original collector. Don Decious, who lived across the street from me, was also an avid and innovative collector. He went so far as to create scrapbooks with all the cards and autographs mounted neatly, preserved for posterity. I had a mediocre collection, but I was in the game, as least enough to shout out the standard greeting to my friends throughout the summer months: “Who’d you get today?”

Then came 1956, the year of The Great Hall of Fame Breakthrough. Somehow, someone—was it Morenco or Decious?—obtained a list of the mailing addresses for all living Hall of Fame members. Wow! Out went the letters with self-addressed postcards enclosed:

 

Dear Mr. Ty Cobb:

I think you are the greatest hitter of all time. I hope your record stands forever. Please autograph the enclosed postcard and mail it to me.

 

And back they came, those priceless postcards, autographed by the likes of Carl Hubbell, Frankie Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Bill Dickey, Jimmy Foxx, Mel Ott, Ty Cobb, and Joe DiMaggio, to name just a few. I couldn’t believe it. Ty Cobb held my postcard in his hands and signed it with a bright green marking pen! Joltin’ Joe, The Yankee Clipper, actually wrote a few words on my card: “Best Wishes from Joe DiMaggio.” I’m nearly eighty now and I still get chills every time I hold those cards.

As I said, my collection wasn’t much. It certainly couldn’t compare to Don or Bobby’s. Along about 1959, I began to lose interest. My cards were bound with a rubber band and stored away in an old shoebox. Later, I gave them to my then-brother-in-law, Rick Beaver. Years later, he returned them to me, which was a very thoughtful thing to do. When my sons reached Little League age along about 1987, I found the old cards and shared the history with them. Now the cards are back in that shoebox waiting for me to do what I should have done many years ago: mount them properly in a scrapbook and make sure they are passed along to future generations.

That scrapbook is definitely on my “to do” list, along with several other things. But my list is notorious as the place where projects go to die. At least I got as far as sharing the story with all of you.

It’s funny, but I can still hear my buddies calling just like it was yesterday: “Hey Charlie, who’d you get today?”

 

PS: I finally got the cards mounted in a scrapbook. Check that one off the “to do” list.

____

 A Place Nobody Ever Heard Of

from Yeah, What Else?

 

“Ohmygawd!” Danny came barging into my room clutching a copy of the Minneapolis Tribune. “Did you see this? Johnny Cash is going to be at the St. Paul Auditorium tomorrow night. Johnny Cash!”

“Oh yeah?” I replied. That’s about all the enthusiasm I could muster. I liked Johnny Cash well enough. I was just not a big fan of country music. Now if he’d said Miles Davis or Dave Brubeck, then I’d have responded with an Ohmygawd of my own.

“Oh, man, it’s tomorrow night,” Danny continued. “I’ve got to find a way to get there. Where the heck is the St. Paul Auditorium anyway?”

“I think it’s in St. Paul,” I cracked. I couldn’t resist the set-up. “You know, Orville has a car. Maybe you can talk him into going.”

Danny brightened at that prospect and hurried off to find Orville.

It was late March 1962 and I was in Minneapolis to attend Gale Institute, a trade school that promised to train me for “…a high-paying job in the airline industry.” I had completed the correspondence portion of the Gale program over a period of several months and was just beginning the four-week residence course. There were four of us living at Mrs. Olsen’s boardinghouse, just around the corner from the school in the Hennepin-Lake district. It was a large two-story home with a couple of bedrooms upstairs that we shared, and it had a full basement that had been converted into a kitchen. There we could store all the staples of bachelor survival: frozen dinners, peanut butter and jelly, milk, and the essential bag of Oreo cookies.

My housemates were an eclectic bunch. Jerry, my roommate, was from Waverly, Iowa, and was simply a great guy, full of mischief and laughter. I swear I could have picked him up out of his family’s farm in Iowa, set him down in the neighborhood where I grew up, and he would fit right in.

Danny was from Waterloo, Iowa, and though he was a good guy, we didn’t quite click. Maybe it was because (with apologies to Donnie and Marie) he was a little bit country and I was a little bit jazz. More likely it was because he enjoyed taking shots at my hometown. He’d never heard of Vallejo, California, and he was sure nobody else ever heard of it either. I told him all about our rich heritage and our contributions to the U.S. Navy via Mare Island Naval Shipyard. And I pointed out that Waterloo wasn’t exactly The Big Apple. None of that slowed him down a bit. Needless to say, I was glad that Jerry was my roommate.

Orville, Danny’s roommate, was from somewhere in Ohio. I’m not sure he ever told us where. He was older than the rest of us, mid-twenties I believe, and painfully shy. It was hard to get a word out of him. We’d prod him and needle him a little, trying to get him to loosen up, but it was no use. We couldn’t get him to react. Oh, once in a while he’d furrow his brow when something caused him concern, but most of the time he just smiled a very benign smile.

I had arrived at the Twin Cities airport on a Sunday night in the middle of a blizzard, lucky the flight was not diverted to Chicago or Milwaukee. I took a shuttle to downtown Minneapolis where I had a reservation at a hotel that turned out to be one step up from a flophouse. From my room on one of the upper floors, I looked out the window at the driving snow that was blanketing the city and wondered what in the hell I was doing there.

Actually, it was Part 2 of a four-part plan that went something like this: (1) marry my high school sweetheart; (2) finish the Gale Institute training; (3) land that high-paying job with an airline, preferably somewhere in Northern California; and (4) live happily ever after. Part 1 was completed and my bride of just two short months was waiting for me back in Vallejo. Looking out the window of my room, I don’t think I’ve ever been so lonely. And that was day one!

The next morning, I found my way to the school, and from there to Mrs. Olsen’s house, and once I met Jerry, things started to look up. It was hard not to smile when he was around.

So, the three of us—Danny, Jerry, and I—went to work on Orville, trying to convince him that we should find our way to the St. Paul Auditorium to see Johnny Cash. Jerry liked Johnny’s music, so it was easy to get him onboard. I pitched in because an adventure in the wilds of St. Paul was preferable to sitting around the house feeling homesick. As it turned out, Orville was a pushover. He agreed to come along and provide the transportation in his four-door Chevy Corvair.

Mrs. Olsen gave us directions and we lit out for the St. Paul Auditorium with plenty of time to spare. It was bitter cold that Friday night, with snow piled in three-foot high drifts along the streets. But the snow ploughs had done their job and the pavement was clear and dry. The directions were good and true and we found the auditorium with no trouble. It was a very large brick structure, built to house a variety of events, from concerts and plays, to basketball and hockey, to the Ice Capades and the occasional tractor pull. On this particular night, it was set up as a dance hall, with tables and chairs arranged all around the outer edge of the dance floor and a bandstand set up on one side.

As we came in, many couples were on the floor, dancing to recorded music. I would guess the crowd was no more than two hundred and fifty people. We found a spot close to the bandstand and waited for Johnny’s show to begin. Finally, the announcer came to the microphone, made a few public service announcements, and then said, “And now…please welcome…Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three!”

Johnny and his band mates bounded onto the stage and launched into their first number. I was shocked to see how thin and gaunt he looked. I attributed it to the rigors of life on the road. Later, of course, we’d learn that Johnny was in the middle of a very dark period in his life, when he was addicted to prescription drugs—uppers and downers—and to alcohol. He looked very nervous and jumpy, and he seemed unhappy with the sound system. Still, the band plunged on and I had the sense that they were giving us the best they had to give despite the cavernous room, the iffy sound system, and the small crowd.

The set rolled on, and though I don’t remember all the numbers they played, I do remember “I Guess Things Happen That Way,” which is a terrific song. Throughout the set, Johnny would periodically cup his right ear with his hand. It seemed an odd gesture and I wondered if there was a purpose, or if it was just an affectation. At one point, he paused to introduce the band. The only name I caught was that of the drummer, “Fluke” Holland. Johnny said he was the drummer on the legendary recording of “Blue Suede Shoes.” That drew a respectful round of applause from the crowd. After about forty-five minutes, Johnny said that they were taking a break and would be back soon for the second set.

During the break, Jerry and Orville headed off in search of a cold drink. Danny and I started to join them when suddenly, Danny yelped, “Hey, there’s Luther Perkins!” Standing off to the side of the bandstand, smoking a cigarette, was the thin, laid-back guy I recognized as the electric guitar player. Danny grabbed my arm and we hurried over to say hello.

Danny could barely contain himself, gushing to Luther that he was a great fan of their music and generally acting the way most of us would when standing face to face with one of our heroes. Luther was very friendly and accommodating, as though he welcomed this impromptu meeting. I asked him why Johnny kept cupping his right ear. He said that in a huge space like this one, the sound tends to get lost. Cupping his ear allowed him to hear his voice and judge how he was coming across.

We chatted a little longer and then he said, “Where are you guys from?”

Danny jumped right in. “My name is Danny and I’m from Waterloo, Iowa. And Charlie here is from a place nobody ever heard of—Vallejo, California.”

“Vallejo?” Luther said. “Oh, we’ve played there many times, at the Dream Bowl out on Highway 29.”

I looked at Danny and saw his jaw drop about three inches and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Luther finished his cigarette, shook our hands, thanked us for coming out, then headed off to regroup for the second set. I think Danny was still in shock and I managed to slip in a few zingers about a place nobody ever heard of. It was good fun.

We stayed through the second set, watching the Tennessee Three and their star giving it their level best. The song I remember from that set was “The Rebel…Johnny Yuma.” After Johnny said thank you and goodnight, we headed back out into the cold for the long drive back to Mrs. Olsen’s.

On the way home, Danny held forth on all things Johnny Cash. How Luther Perkins is credited with creating their distinctive “boom chicka boom” sound. How Luther and Marshall Grant, the bass player, were originally the Tennessee Two. Then W.S. “Fluke” Holland joined the band and they became the Tennessee Three. And the recording of “Blue Suede Shoes” that Fluke played on was the Carl Perkins original, before Elvis covered it. And Carl Perkins, who wrote “Blue Suede Shoes,” was no relation to Luther, though some people think they are brothers. And on and on…

We took Danny’s word for all of this, and at the end of the day, I knew more about country music than I really wanted to know. Of course, there were many things that were unknowable on that cold night in late March, a night when the Minnesota winter held on tight and refused to give way to spring. I could not know, for instance, that at the end of the Gale program, I would accept a job with Northwest Airlines and ask my bride to pack everything we owned and move to Minnesota. I couldn’t know we would live there for three years and our two beautiful daughters would be born there, or that we would meet wonderful people who would become our dearest friends. And I couldn’t know happily ever after was not in the cards for us. All of that was in the future.

At that moment, riding home through the bleak streets of the Twin Cities, I was happy and even exhilarated. I felt somehow I’d scored a victory for my hometown. Thanks to a major assist from Luther Perkins, it was Vallejo 1, Waterloo 0.

_____