Vietnam, Part 1

It got very quiet on the airplane when the stewardess (now we call them flight attendants) announced that we were beginning our descent into the Cam Rahn Bay Airbase. The flight had been a long one and it seemed at times like a pretty good party. We were flying on a World Airways charter (Military Airlift Command [MAC]) from McCord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington to the Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon, Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Now we were on approach to Vietnam, but to the wrong airbase. Then she announced we had been diverted to Cam Rahn Bay because of a rocket attack at the airbase at Tan Son Nhut.

As I looked over the men on the flight during the hours we were together in the DC-8, I saw that there was a pretty good mix of combat hardened veterans who were returning for a second or subsequent tour, and soldiers like myself who were newbie’s and making their first tour to the combat theater. None were particularly scared, but at the same time, none were anxious for the airplane to land.

In mid-November, 1969, I arrived at the replacement station at Fort Lewis to begin processing for deployment to Vietnam. At the Air Traffic Control School at Keesler AFB I had worked hard to be in the top ten percent of my class so I would go to Germany rather than Vietnam. At least that was the rumor. Apparently it was just a rumor because I was the third highest in class, on the Commandants List, and processing for deployment to Vietnam. The actual Army term and acronym is Process for Overseas Replacement or POR. I arrived with everything the Army issued me … four sets of fatigues, a set of dress greens and two tan uniforms, boots and low quarter shoes. Except for the dress greens which I was wearing, everything else was shoved into my duffel bag.

The first order of business was to sign in. I had copies of my orders and found the orderly room and the CQ (Charge of Quarters) signed me in and assigned me a bunk. I found my bunk, changed into fatigues, and got comfortable and waited for someone to yell “FALL OUT!” I didn’t have to wait very long. I never saw a place that had so many formations a day. I guess that with the number of people moving in and out of the Replacement Center it took a lot of formations for accountability. The formations were for different purposes. Some were for assigning details, some were for uniform issue, some were for chow and some were shipping formations. My first was to go get new uniforms. After we fell out for the formation, names were read and if our name was read we moved to another location and formed up into another formation. The drill sergeant told us to go get our s#%& and fall out in 30 minutes.

At the appointed time I fell out with my stuff and we marched over to the uniform issue point. Behind the counter, all along the counter were large cardboard bins into which we tossed the appropriate uniform item –IE– Dress green coat, dress green trousers, fatigue shirt, fatigue trousers. By the time we got to the last bin, we were standing in our BVD’s, and sox. Then we moved to the next station where the supply specialist handed us four sets of jungle fatigues and two pair of jungle boots. We quickly put one set on, signed our issue and turn in documents, and fell back out into the street, in formation. The entire process took about fifteen minutes.

The next formation was for details. I was assigned to guard the supply warehouse over night. So after chow I went over to the supply warehouse. The supply sergeant was not very happy to see us and used some very colorful language about how he keeps telling those @#%&*$ %^&#@%& not to send any detail people. So he told us to jump upon the piles of uniforms, grab a blanket and get some sleep. A little later he had us move some boxes, and then he sent us to the chow hall to get midnight supper. When we came back we crawled back upon the uniform piles and slept until about 0530 when he woke us up and told us to go eat and have a nice day.

The next formation for me came at 0900. We were exempt from the earlier formations because we had “worked” all night. At the 0900 formation we were told about our flight to Vietnam. We had to form up at 1300 to be bussed over to McCord. At 1300 we fell out, bag and baggage, and boarded a bus. At about 1400 we arrived at the terminal and got off the bus. We processed in and were told to find a seat and wait until our manifest was called. And wait we did. We waited; and waited; and waited; and waited …………………………..! And our seats were not the nice seats you see at DFW …. although there were some of those, but they were already taken. So I found a spot on the floor and cuddled up to my duffel bag. I got out a book and commenced my wait for our manifest to be called. About 10 hours later we heard the speaker crackle and our manifest number was called.

Our World Airways DC-8 was sitting on the tarmac. We moved to the assembly area and turned over our duffel bags. The bags were taken on a cart to be loaded and we walked out on the tarmac to the stairs leading into the airplane. There was no first class section, all economy. I found a seat with a new found friend and buckled up and waited for departure. Soon the doors were closed and we began rolling to Vietnam.

Our route took us to Honolulu where the aircraft was refueled, restocked, and change flight crews. One would have thought we would have gone to Hickam AFB, but we pulled up to the terminal at Honolulu and we were deplaned. We were there about an hour. While we were waiting, a girl came up to us and was handing out orchids. Not everyone took an orchid, but I did. Now I had this flower and I didn’t know what to do with it. As we boarded the plane the new stewardess commented on the flower. Teasingly I told her I got it for her and handed her the orchid. She said that when a boy gives a girl a flower in Hawaii he had to kiss her on the cheek. So I kissed her on the cheek and she put the flower in her hair. Boy, everyone was hooting and hollering over that. I tried to play it off, but I don’t remember when I had ever been so embarrassed!

It was dark when we took off and we flew quietly along. A couple of hours later the stewardesses began serving a meal and a party like atmosphere began. People were out of their seats talking and laughing. It was getting pretty loud and most everyone was having a pretty good time. One of the stewardesses, without a flower in her hair, asked me what I did in the Army. I told her I was an Air Traffic Controller. She asked me if I wanted to go up into the cockpit and talk to the flight crew. I said sure I did. She had to clear it with the captain. A few minutes later she came back and escorted me to the cockpit. I sat in the jump seat and was there for about a half hour or more. I think I was the only one who got that tour. Before I left the cockpit, the captain told me to look carefully at the horizon. The lights on the horizon were from Vietnam. When I returned to my seat, the “party” was still going strong. A few minutes the announcement was made and everyone took their seats and withdrew into their own thoughts. Talk about a downer! What a contrast.

We landed without incident and taxied to the terminal. The deplaning began. Senior Officers first, followed by other officers. Then it was the E9.s followed by E7’s and E8’s. After that, everyone else got off. I was a lowly E4, but soon we were all off and formed up for accountability. Sometime later our duffel bags were brought out and we boarded busses to the replacement company. We got off the bus and were told to go into the billets and find a bunk. Inside I found a bunk and a friend. One of the guys I went to ATC School with had arrived just a few minutes before me. He had flown out of Travis AFB. Having both been thru the experiences we had getting out of the States and being low men on the totem poles, we decided it was time to take matters into our own hands. Although we had turned our orders in when we signed in, the NCOs conducting formations were replacements themselves, like us. We knew that they had no idea who was in the formations, so we promoted ourselves to sergeants. When it came time for details to be handed out, we fell out with the sergeants and were given charge of squads. My friend, Leonard Richofski and I were assigned to the same detail. Ski and I were in high cotton being in charge. I don’t remember the detail, but I remember we didn’t do much but stand around and watch. Finally the day ended and I got back to my bunk. It was quite and then I heard the guns. I knew that before morning we would all be killed as the VC overran our position. Turns out what we heard was artillery …. ours. And later I would learn how to tell the difference. The shelling taking place was probably 25 miles or more away from us. We could hear it at night because noise travels further at night.

The next morning we fell out and found ourselves in a shipping formation. I got my stuff and boarded an Air Force C-130 for our flight to Tan Son Nhut. Arriving an hour or so later we were bussed to the Army base at Long Bien. The replacement company processed me and I was sent just down the street to the 165th Aviation Battalion (ATC), 1st Aviation Brigade. Now we were home. No longer just an E4 with a detail to perform. We were part of the Company … our own unit. This was a band of brothers to whom we would trust our very lives, who would look to make sure we all made it home to our families.

I had to in process into the Company, which took a couple of days. I in processed thru personnel and supply one day. The next day I in processed thru finance. Then off to operations to get my assignment. I had been talking to some of the old timers (been in-country at least a week) and found I wanted to go to the H-3 heliport at Tan Son Nhut. The two places I wanted to avoid were Cu Chi and Tay Ninh. Both were hot beds. Cu Chi was west of Saigon and Tay Ninh was right on the Cambodian border, right where the Ho Chi Minh Trail meandered. All I had heard about on the news back in the States was Da Nang and places up north. Cu Chi and Tay Ninh were in the Southern part of the country, west of Saigon. The ops sergeant asked me where I wanted to go! Could this really be this easy? I told him H-3. He laughed and told me I was going to 362nd Aviation Detachment (Provisional) in Tay Ninh.

Tay Ninh! They just got hit with a huge mortar and rocket attack the other night. Great. “Are you sure you want me to go to Tay Ninh?” The sergeant told me I would like it there, and it was better than some of the other sites. Some sites were on Landing Zones (LZ’s) which were the hot spots during most of the conflict. So early the next morning I got my orders and things and boarded a C-130 for Tay Ninh. We landed at Cu Chi. What is with this country? So far I have yet to land where I was supposed to go. The flight to Tay Ninh didn’t leave until noon the next day. I was told by the Sergeant Major to go directly to Tay Ninh, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I was not to go to any replacement training along the way. My weapon would be issued when I got to the unit. Now I was stuck in Cu Chi and no one to call and no bed to sleep in. Someone told me I could get temporary billeting at the Holiday Inn East, the transit quarters and replacement training station.

I went to the Holiday Inn East (not that Holiday Inn). I got checked in and found a bunk in the open bay. I was tired. It was dark so I went to bed. The lights in the building were on, but there was no air conditioning and no fans. The doors were propped open and in came the roaches and locusts. Flying thru the air and landing on everyone and everything. I made my bed and climbed under the sheets to keep the bugs off of me. I would come to realize that the bugs in Vietnam were worse than even Mississippi. And the humidity was a killer. And the temperature was as high as the humidity. And I was under the covers to keep the bugs off. Finally about midnight someone turned the lights off and the bugs went away. Hot and sweating I figured I would be awake all night. But as tired as I was, I fell asleep and slept all night.

At eleven o’clock I showed up at the terminal and waited for my flight. An E7 started to talk to me. Then he asked me where my weapon was. I told him I hadn’t been issued one yet. He asked me if I had been thru the replacement training yet. No. He told me to get back over to replacement and go. I still needed to go on two patrols. I told him my Colonel told me to go directly to Tay Ninh and I would be issued everything there. He was livid! An E4 refusing to go to training. Just as he was getting wound up, they called our flight and I headed out to the aircraft. Thirty minutes later we landed in Tay Ninh. We taxied off the runway up to the terminal and deplaned. I only had to walk across the ramp to the unit. It was easy to spot because the GCA radar and the control tower were right there.

I walked into the Orderly Room and reported for duty.

TO BE CONTINUED

PIDGEON FLAT

As I tell this story it is from my personal memory and from some of the things I was told by Uncle Leland. I was sixteen the year Uncle Leland and I went to Pidgeon Flat. We actually never heard of the place, but he knew of the area. Pidgeon Flat was the name of the U.S. Forest Service campground we stayed at that summer. Uncle Lee had a week and we decided to go fishing. We had talked about it most of the summer. Uncle Lee was the “manufacturer’s representative” for Enro Shirts … he sold shirts wholesale to the retailers for Enro. That summer he invited me to go with him to work. My parents had been recently divorced and I think he felt that I may have needed a father figure to keep me on the straight and narrow. So, shortly after school was out for the summer, I went with Uncle Lee. He had to set up a showroom for the San Francisco clothing market. We had a room in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. He set it up as a showroom with all the shirts displayed. My job was to keep everything neat when the clients came in to buy shirts for their stores. I also had to pull the “sold outs” from the line. We stayed at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel for a week, Monday to Friday.

That summer Uncle Lee was thinking of renting an office for a permanent showroom. He and I looked at several offices, but that summer we found an office right across the street from the hotel. The building was old, as most buildings are in downtown San Francisco. This building had an old elevator, and it was shaky and scary. The doors were not normal elevator doors, but looked like a normal door. As the door opened, and other cage door had to be opened to get into the elevator. If the elevator was not on your floor, you couldn’t open the cage door, although the outer door would open. You would just see the shaft and cables, and feel the musty breeze from the shaft. We had the key to the office he thought about renting, but in the end he didn’t rent that office. He ended up renting an office in an office on Market Street that was more modern and housed mostly clothing wholesalers.

I got my first real suit while at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. The rep for Timely Clothiers was in the room next to Uncle Lee. He always got a lot of shirts from the “sold outs” in exchange for suits, pants, etc. This was pretty common. Anyway, I helped the Timely rep unpack his line for the show, and he gave me a suit. Very pretty one … olive green. Uncle Lee did throw in a few shirts, but I didn’t learn of that for over a year. The Timely rep needed some shirts sometime later and came to Uncle Lee and I guess Uncle Lee just gave him the shirts. The rep said he needed more than the couple of hours I gave him unloading his sample cases.

After we left San Francisco we went to Oakland for the show there. I don’t remember the hotel we stayed in, but I remember being introduced to the hotel comptroller when we checked in. Uncle Lee invited him up to our room for a drink as Uncle Lee stayed in that hotel a lot and had a lot of dealings with that gentleman. The comptroller declined the invitation saying he didn’t drink because he was an old Mormon Missionary. Of course, I perked up and Uncle Lee told him I was a future Mormon Missionary. Later the comptroller stopped me and told me he had been trying to give Uncle Lee a Book of Mormon for years. I assured him that he had one and that the family was working on him. We stayed in Oakland for a couple of days and then we departed for Fresno.
On our way out of Oakland we stopped at a Chinese Restaurant. I wasn’t really excited about it because Chinese food just was not my forte. Uncle Lee assured me I would enjoy it. I told him that my mom, Aunt June and Aunt Jean always were having family dinners and served Chinese food. It came form “One Hung Low’s” Chinese Carry-Out. All I ever knew of Chinese food was chop suey, chow mien, and fried rice. He laughed and said they didn’t even have any of that stuff on the menu. He was right and I have love Chinese food ever since.

Because I was sixteen and had a driver’s license, I did most of the driving. We were driving his old 1956 Imperial La Baron. He had the back seat out of the car and he could put all his sample cases in the car, and they were all below the level of the door windows. He liked that because it was not easy to see that the car carried merchandise and he was not a quick target of a burglar
We stopped often for gas as he only put eight gallons of gas in per stop. He said he had an eight gallon bladder and had to stop that often. And he did. Of course, while I was driving he was drinking beer. In those days it was not illegal to be drinking a beer in the car when another person was driving, as long as the driver was not drinking.

We arrived in Fresno late in the afternoon and checked into another forgettable hotel. We ended up staying there just overnight and left mid-morning the next day. That night we went down to a little hole-in-the-wall hot dog joint next to the hotel. (This was before the days of McDonald’s at every corner and all-you-can-eat buffets). The hot dogs were great! The dog and the bun were steamed and served with pickle, lettuce and tomato. I had never had a hot dog served with anything but ketchup and mustard … even at Babe’s Bandstand in Capitola. Those hot dogs always impressed me and the owner told me how and why he did them like that. I no longer remember why, but the “how” is how we fixed hot dogs after that. They became famous in the family as Frank’s Fantastic Franks.

When we left Fresno we were heading back to San Jose. We stopped at a place along the Fresno River to fish a little. It was pretty funny because Uncle Lee had his fishing poles in the trunk, but he had no fishing clothes. We literally went fishing in our business clothes. Well, that afternoon the only biting going on was by the mosquitoes, so we called it a day. But we were close to where Uncle Lee used to go fishing as a boy, and we were not a time schedule, so up into the mountains. I have no idea where we were, but we rented a cabin on a river. The place where we were was above a gorge and the water was very loud. I remember having a hard time going to sleep because the noise was deafening. We arrived after dark and, having eaten earlier, we went right to bed. The next morning we got up and went fishing. We still were skunked, but Uncle Lee showed me all the places he fished as a boy. It was a beautiful area, but I would have no idea how to get back there. All I remember was that it was somewhere near Fresno.

By the time we returned to San Jose the next day we had our week long fishing trip all planned out. We unloaded the car and emptied out two sample cases. We packed the cases with food for our trip. We got Uncle Lee’s old 9 x 9 umbrella tent, our fishing poles, lots of Balls-O-Fire salmon eggs from Pay Less, and we ere set. A couple of days later we hit the road. We drove to Sonora, then up to Dardanelle, and to the base of the Sonora Pass. Our route took us through Madera, where we found some fresh fruit stands. We stopped and bought some watermelons and cantaloupes. We found the campground and there were plenty of open spots. We found ours right next to the river, close to restrooms. The first thing we did was to build a small dam in the river and put our melons in the water to get cold. We set up camp and cooked a little dinner. Then we drove up the road to a store in a place called Kennedy Meadow. At Kennedy Meadow cabins were available for rent in the little compound. We saw a huge family set up with a GP Medium (Army) tent in the middle with smaller tent surrounding it. The store clerk said this family comes up every summer and pretty much stays for a month. Some who had to work would go home to Sacramento, and then return for the weekend. We also saw water points where tap water was available. The clerk said the water was direct from the river. The river was pure and the water was drinkable. Later we talked to a man whose wife made him come up to Kennedy Meadow every day to get water because she wouldn’t drink it out of the river.

The next morning when we got up, our melons were gone! Some kids came up and asked about our melons and told us some raccoons must have gotten them. We just figured the raccoons were of the two legged variety … about twelve years old. As I remember, there were three watermelons and 6 cantaloupes. That’s all that was taken, however. We still had all our other provisions. One of the staples was buckwheat pancake mix. We had buckwheat pancakes just about every morning, along with fresh trout and fried eggs.

On the first night we had just retired. I was awakened when our tent began to shake violently and a lot of noise coming from outside. I woke up, thinking Uncle Lee must have tripped over something. I called out to him asking if he was alright. He was still in his cot! We got up and lit the lantern. We carefully went outside and some of our neighbors were out looking, as well. We never did figure out what it was. Perhaps it was someone trying to get to the restroom and tripped on our tent ropes … or a bear that tripped on our tent ropes. It did appear that someone … human or animal did take a leak on the side of our tent. We were somewhat rattled, but we went back to bed. For years when we talked about Pidgeon Flat, we talked about or bear. It would be years later, when my own son had an experience with a bear in Alaska. I will tell that tale later.

We got up the next morning and looked for bear tracks. Of course, we found none. Didn’t diminish our story any, however. After breakfast we headed out for our first day of fishing. The easiest way was to find the green Fish and Game truck with the fish tank on one the back. That was we knew where the fish were being planted. But lacking any luck there, we just headed down stream. Now we wanted to be able to fish quite a bit, but the daily limit was ten fish, so we decided we would catch half in the morning and half in the later afternoon. We found a pretty place along the river to fish and it took less than an hour to catch our five fish. So we hiked around and watched where others were catching good fish. We found one area where the river went through a gorge, a deep gorge. I tried letting my line down to the water, but wasn’t able to ever get it down to the water. It was not an area you could easily hike into, so I imagine that there were some good sized fish there, but I will never know.

On our second day we got a new neighbor. I believe his name was Jack, although I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it. But, for this narrative, I will call him Jack. Jack and his wife moved in late in the morning while we were still out fishing and exploring. We came back and cleaned our fish and iced them down. While we were fussing around camp, we heard a car motor running, but it sounded like it was missing. The car was Jack’s. So we did the neighborly thing and went over to nose around. Jack was filling his air mattresses. He had a pump that ran on the power of the car engine. The pump plugged into a spark plug socket, hence the sound of the engine missing. We seriously wondered if he was filling his air mattresses with carbon monoxide! Uncle Lee would joke that if Jack wanted to get rid of his wife, all he needed was a well place pin hole!

That afternoon we headed off for the river and more fish. After a few minutes fishing we had limited out for the day. So we headed back to camp the build a fire, clean our fish and fix some dinner. Jack came over and told us he had been fishing the gorge and had some huge fish. We were impressed … after all, hiking into that gorge was a feat! Then we saw his fish. Those fish were no bigger that ours. But, he had 20! His wife didn’t fish, so he would catch his limit, bring it back to camp and then go catch his limit. We decided that next year we were bringing Aunt June and my mother so we could catch more fish! When he told us he had to bring his limit back to camp, we knew that he hadn’t gone into the gorge because there wasn’t enough time to climb into the gorge, fish, hike out and go back in.

The next day we fished and almost limited out. I had only eight fish, so I needed two more. But we were not having much luck in our afternoon locations. So we called it a day and went back to camp. Now Uncle Lee was an old fly fisherman. He missed fly fishing, but used salmon eggs because he figured that these planted fish wouldn’t know what a fly was. But he did bring his fly fishing equipment along with us. Now I have told this story so many times that I feel like I have written it down earlier, but I can’t find it. Right where we were camped next to the river, the river was fast running, crashed over rock and rapids. We had a couple of huge rocks we could easily climb on and fish the rapids. Just below our camping spot the river went wide, shallow and slow. It was a perfect place to practice fly fishing. So Uncle Lee headed over to practice. I headed out onto a rock to try to catch my other fish. Jack came out to clean his fish. He set up next to the slow part of the river near where Uncle Lee was fly fishing. Jack had his twenty fish in a creel and had two pie tins ... one for cleaning and one for the cleaned fish. Now, with all that in mind, put yourself on the rock with me. I had a clear view of all that now was to transpire. Jack had a few fish cleaned and in the pan for cleaned fish. His back was to that pan while he as cleaning a fish is the other pan. As Uncle Lee pulled his line out of the water to recast, he had a small fish on the end of his line. He noticed it too late to stop the cast and as he completed the cast and the line shot forward, the fish came loose from the hook and continued it flight … right towards Jack and his pan of cleaned fish. That little fish landed right in the pan … just behind Jack who didn’t see it. I saw it and motioned to Uncle Lee who looked just in time to see the fish land. I motioned him to be quiet. When Jack finished cleaning the fish, he turned to put it in the other pan. When he saw that little fish jumping in the pan, he jumped straight up and threw the fish in his hand up in the air. He looked all around, but could not figure out where that fish came from. He looked at me, at Uncle Lee, and back to the pan. I was laughing so hard my side ached. He never mentioned it to us, but we laughed for years. The ending of the story would come much later. It turned out that Jack lived near Uncle Lee and would come over often to ask him and “the boy” to go fishing with him. We never did, and we never told him where that fish came from. I am sure he died never knowing.

At the end of the week we packed up and headed home. We had a cooler full of fish. We weren’t sure if there was a possession law along with the limit law, so we hoped we wouldn’t see a game warden on the way out. As it turned out, one followed us all the way to Dardanelle. We were kind of nervous, but he just stayed behind us and tuned as he got into the town. When we got home, we took lots of pictures of our catch, put all the fish on the grill and had a good cookout with our families.

I still think of the Pidgeon Flat and that fishing trip. I hope my own children have some memories of the trout fishing we did in Alaska, much like my memories with my Uncle Leland.

Part Four - For Time and All Eternity

I dialed her phone number, but hung up before her phone started ringing. I dialed her number again, and then hung up again before it started ringing. It was Sunday morning and I was trying to get the courage to call Janet Hawkes (Jannie) to ask her out again. I tried a third time and hung up. I was sure I had scared her off when I told her I loved her the night before. What a dolt! To make matters worse, Evelyn was standing right there laughing at me and egging me on to call her again. “Quit being a chicken and call her. She will go out with you again”, she kept telling me. So once again I called. This time I didn’t hang up. I had no idea what I was going to say. When she answered the phone I stumbled over my words, but shortly we got a small conversation going. I then asked her out for later that afternoon. I had no idea what to do on a Sunday afternoon, but asked her to go with me to the Rosicrucian Museum. I figured a museum was a safe date for Sunday afternoon. Jannie must have figured that it was a safe place…with lots of people around, maybe this guy would cool it with the “I love you” line.

That afternoon I picked Jannie up at her apartment and we drove down the Rosicrucian Museum. We had a nice time and laughed a lot. The museum was operated by the RosicrucianÂ’s, an Egyptian religious order. The museum was full of mummy displays. The gardens were manicured, with a fountain in the center of the courtyard. I think the incident that got us laughing the most happened when we were sitting on edge of the fountain in the courtyard and my coat fell into the water. I actually was wearing the suit coat and the back edge was in the water! We laughed about it for a long time.

I need to go back to the Sadie Hawkins Dance the day before, at the old San Jose West Stake Center (now the Saratoga, CA Stake). I was the Institute President and the Sadie Hawkins Dance was sponsored by the Institute, Latter-Day Saint Student Association (LDSSA), and M-Men and Gleaners. I was a newly returned Missionary, but didn’t have a date to the dance. The Vice President, Bonnie, was my sister’s best friend. She didn’t have a date either. We were not interested in one other, except as friends, but since neither one of us had a date, I suggested that we go to the dance together. On the day of the dance she called me to tell me she would be late getting home from work, so to pick her up later. When we arrived at the dance, we were “fashionably” late.

As we walked in late, we were met at the door by Jannie and Ramona, who gave us a hard time for being late. Bonnie immediately took off to find her friends and I went with Jannie and Ramona. Jannie asked me to dance, and we danced. And we danced every dance that night, except one, as I remember it. That dance involved shoes. All the guys had to take off one shoe and toss it into the center of the floor. The girls had to get a shoe and find the owner and then dance with that person. Jannie swears she tried to find my shoe, but ended up with someone elseÂ’s shoe and I danced that dance with someone who must have been very forgettable as I have forgotten who it was. As soon as that dance was over, I bee-lined to Jannie, and we danced some more.

Then there was the pie eating contestÂ…for which Jannie entered us. The guy had to eat the pie as it was fed to him by the girlÂ….standing behind him, blindfolded. We won the contest, but I donÂ’t think I ate much pie as Jannie smeared most of it all over my face. And she did it on purpose! We laughed a lot, danced a lot, and held hands a lot that evening.

When the dance was about to be over, I asked Jannie if I could take her home. She had come to the dance with Ramona, so she said “yes”. Then I remembered Bonnie. So I needed to get her a ride home. When I found her she said she figured that I would want to take Jannie home, so she had gotten another ride. So Jannie and I left together. I wasn’t in a hurry to get her home, and she was not in a hurry to get home, so we decided to get a pizza. We went to Shakey’s Pizza. When our pizza and drinks came we blew straw papers at each other. I told her my “Polock” joke and we split a gut laughing. This girl was special and I knew right off that I wanted to see her again. I took her home and the “I love you” incident almost ended everything right there. But, as I recounted earlier, I recovered and she went out with me again.

We started dating steadily. But, she already had a date for her StakeÂ’s Gold and Green Ball. She felt bad having to break the date at the last minute, so she asked if I would mind if she went to the Ball with Verne. Her date was a friend, but nothing more, at least on her part. So I told her to go ahead and go, especially since I had to work that night and couldnÂ’t go. And she had a part in the floor show at intermission. On the day of the Ball, my Stake had an M-Men and GleanerÂ’s (now Young Single Adults) beach party at Santa Cruz. She went with me, but we had to leave early so she could get ready for the dance and I could go to work.

The Gold and Green Ball at the San Jose Stake Center started at 8:00 PM. I was scheduled to work until 10. However, it was a slow night and the boss asked who wanted to leave early that evening. I jumped at the chance and was off work at 7:30 PM. I had plenty of time to get to the Ball. I hurried home and cleaned up and was on my way to the dance before 8:30. On my way to the dance I devised a plan to wrest Jannie away from Verne for most of the evening. I needed a cohort in crime to get it done. Ramona was just the right person. I arrived a little after 8:30 and found Ramona. The plan was so simple it was genius! Ramona was to ask Verne to dance and move him to the further most part of the Cultural Hall. Then I would have Jannie to myself for a few dances. It worked perfectly. I had Jannie for the rest of the first half of the dance. We danced until time for the intermission. I reluctantly let Verne have his date back for the rest of the evening. I was going to leave, but Ramona talked me into staying for the rest of the dance. When the dance was over and Jannie and Verne were leaving, I took Jannie’s arm and said I would see her tomorrow. Jannie could have died, but I was sending a message to old Verne. After we parted he said to her, “I think he likes you.” She played it off. And she never dated anyone but me again.

One evening we went to the movies (yes, she actually went to the movies!) at the Garden Theater in Willow Glen to see The Thomas Crown Affair. I had, at that time, been accepted to BYU for the fall semester. We had discussed my going to BYU. But, the more time I spent with Jannie, the less appealing BYU seemed. So, as we stood in line to purchase tickets, I told her that I had decided not to go to BYU as I had more important concerns hereÂ….her. So, I decided to stay in school in San Jose.

We dated for about three weeks….seeing each other almost every day and night. Then one evening we were in the car at the end of the evening, in front of her apartment. It was time to walk her to the door, but I wasn’t ready to end the evening. I had made the decision that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this girl, and I thought she felt the same about me. So I swallowed hard, looked deep into her eyes, and asked her to marry me. She sat there for what seemed like an eternity, then smiled and said she would love to marry me. I blurted out, “YOU WOULD?” I don’t know what I thought she would say, but I was excited! Of course, we didn’t know when, but we did know that we wanted an Eternal Marriage and that we would go to the Oakland Temple to be married. We had been dating for three weeks, and now it is thirty seven years, eight kids, and nineteen grandkids later…so I guess we dated long enough.

When I finally got home I woke my mother to tell her I was marrying Jannie Hawkes. She said, “Oh no you’re not!” Must be a Mom thing with her oldest son. Anyway, I told her I was and that was the end of the conversation. She came around eventually, but it took a while, and a good talking to by Jannie’s father to get her to lighten up.

The next few weeks were a blur. We spent a lot to time together. We picked a date in November. Then I had to meet her parents. They were flying in from Boise and staying with JannieÂ’Pattoner and brother-in-law, Anne and John Patten. On the appointed night I showed up, dressed up to the hilt. I was very nervous. Her dad was a High Priest and older. I figured I could get through the evening. As it turned out, we had a great time. I learned that her dad had mellowed in his old age. I guess JannieÂ’s sistersÂ’ beaus had to under go quite the treatment from Harold Hawkes. But by the time his baby girl was getting married, he softened. I only knew him as a softie.

During the weekend her parents were here, we took them over to meet my mother, who, at that time still stood by her first statement when I told her I was getting married…”Oh no you’re not!” Harold had a good talk with my mother on supporting “our kids”, and by the end of the evening she began to soften. Took a couple of more days, but in the end, we got her support and blessing. A year later, my sister became engaged to Scott Smith. His mother was giving them a hard time, like my mom gave us. My mother wrote me a letter while I was in Viet Nam and said she needed to have Harold Hawkes come down and give the Don and Venna Smith, Scott parents, his talk!

I was going to school at San Jose City College and working full time at McDonaldÂ’s. I was about to begin my last semester at SJCC and having that status, I got to register earlyÂ….when there were still plenty of classes. Remember, this was before the Internet, so we had to register in person, going from table to table to get classes. My boss at McDonaldÂ’s worked around my schedule. When she found out that I was getting married, she offered me a promotion from assistant manager to manager, with a raise, and corresponding increase in hours. To earn $425 per month, I had to work only 48 hours per week. When I told her that I wasnÂ’t interested in working that many hours as I was about to have a new wife and still going to school full time, she agreed to reduce my hours to 45. Needless to say, I left the employ of McDonaldÂ’s.

Fortunately for me, my Dad had become Vice President of Holiday Airlines, and his office was at the Hollywood-Burbank Airport in Burbank, CA. He became friends with the folks who ran Catalina Airlines / Aero Commuter and secured for me a position with that airline at the same airport, if I wanted the job. I wanted the job. However, this did create a problemÂ….leaving Jannie. In the end, I took the job and moved to North Hollywood. My Dad and Audrey invited me to stay with them until I got married. Jannie came down a time or two, and we spent a lot of time on the phone. In fact, so much time that it was getting very expensive in long distance bills. We decided that this was foolish, so we moved our wedding date to August 31, 1968. It was mid JulyÂ…just six weeks away. We had a lot to do. Actually, Jannie had lots to do. I just sort of showed up! I lived in Southern California, after all. I did go out and find us our first house. A small house on Denny Avenue, North Hollywood. I was able to put a deposit down to hold the place, but couldnÂ’t move in before September 1st. The landlord did allow me to move some things in a day or so before I had to go to San Jose and my wedding. So I moved all my stuff from my DadÂ’s house to our house, ready to move in.

I also had to plan our honeymoon. I wanted to spend our wedding night and a couple of days at the Highlands Inn in Carmel, CA. I made reservations for the night of August 31st. Our room included dinner and breakfast each day. We stayed in Carmel for a couple of days. Then we were planning on going to Lake Tahoe for a couple of days, then on to Boise for our reception on August 8. We needed to arrive on Thursday, I think. I had no trouble making the reservations we needed for the Highlands Inn, but couldn’t make a reservation for the Sahara Tahoe Hotel as it was booked. I had forgotten to take in account the Labor Day Weekend. When my Dad came down to the airline to ask me to lunch, I told him I couldn’t get a reservation for the Sahara. He said he would take care of it. He called the hotel manager and told him his kid was getting married and needed a room for a couple of days. Done. Since my Dad was Vice President of Holiday Airlines, and the only destination for Holiday Airlines was South Lake Tahoe, Dad was accorded VIP treatment. When I was about to depart for San Jose, my Dad handed me his Sahara Tahoe credit card and told me to charge everything we did on the card, except gambling. Again, because of my Dad’s status, we were “guests of the hotel” and everything….room, food, shows, even the beauty parlor, were comp’ed to us. We even met the hotel manager when we checked in as we were listed as VIP’s. He reminded me to use the guest card!

On Saturday morning, August 31, 1968, I left my mother’s house early and headed for Oakland. I picked up Jannie’s brother, Craig, and we drove up. We arrived at the Oakland Temple around 7 AM. Jannie had to take out her endowments before we got married. Our session was at 10 AM, and our wedding was at 2 PM in the Sealing Room. If we could do it over, we would have had Jannie take her endowments out a day or so earlier. We had our daughters take their endowments early to make the wedding day shorter. There were a slough of brides that morning and we were towards the end. Finally we had our turn and then we went to the sealing room. We had to wait again. Finally we got into the room and we were married. Then we went outside for pictures. My cousin and her husband then drove us over the South San Francisco to Jannie’s sisters house (Clarice) for a brunch, the was more a “Linner” because it was so late. Then on to San Jose and the Open House.

The Open House was at the 4th and 9th Ward building from 7 to 9 PM. We had lobbied for it to be over earlier, but in the end, with all the delays that day, it needed to start at 7. My dad flew in for the afternoon, but had to leave before the end of the open house to catch the last Air California flight to Burbank. I told him to use my car to drive to the airport and we coordinated as to where he should park. Shortly after he left, our little nephews came up to tell Uncle Frank and Aunt Jannie that our car was gone. JannieÂ’s brothers wanted to do our car, but it was gone. As the evening slowed down, we got ready to leave. JannieÂ’s sisters hid her going away dress, so we were delayed even longer in making our get-a-way. Finally, we got into the Lincoln and Linda and John drove us to the airport. We were followed by everyone tooting horns and hoping to find our car before we did. As we drove towards the freeway with everyone in tow, John swerved to the left at the last minute, changing lanes and leaving the others on the on-ramp to the freeway, heading away from the airport. We got to the airport and our car. Finally, for the first time since, what seemed like a very long day, we were alone!

It was about 10 pm when we left the airport. We were dressed up; Jannie in her red going away dress and I in my one size too small suit (a gift from my Dad and Audrey. They already had the suit and gave it to me for my wedding). As we left San Jose towards Carmel, we had a two hour drive. We were hungry and exhausted. Since we missed our dinner at the hotel, our first meal together as husband and wife was at A&W Root Beer in Morgan Hill. We had hamburgers, in our car, served by a teenage waitress on roller skates. It was a tough drive, but fighting sleep, we made it to the HighlandÂ’s Inn at Carmel.

We spent a couple of days doing the newlywed and tourist thing in Carmel. Then, on to Lake Tahoe. We arrived in Lake Tahoe early in the afternoon and got checked in. Our room didnÂ’t exactly have a lake view, but what do you expect when you have no reservations and are guest of the hotel. It was a nice room and had a king size bed. We had lunch, and Jannie got her hair done at the hotel beauty shop. We toured a lot of Tahoe, and went to a show that night. We saw John Gary in concert. We even played the slots and I won a couple of $50 jackpots. Then on Thursday morning we loaded the car and headed to Boise.

We arrive in Boise that evening. By this time everything was pretty much a blur. Lots of running around getting ready for the reception on Saturday. Finally, we had the reception. My mother, Aunt June and Aunt Dee flew in. Lots of pictures taken and met many people I still have no idea who were. One funny side light. We got a gift from friends of Jannie in San Jose.ThIsaacsonus a cake plate. To show how small the world is, Chad married Kimber Issacson a lot of years later. As we talked, Jannie mentioned the Isaccsons she knew in San Jose, and that they had given us a cake plate for a wedding gift. Turns out the Isacsons Jannie knew was KimberÂ’s uncle! We decided to give the plate to Chad and Kimber, but when we got the plate out, it was broken in half. We had moved this plate in all our Army moves, and then had it her for nearly 30 years, then when we wanted to give it to our kids, it was broken. Go figure.

We left Boise and returned to North Hollywood. We got settled into our little house and began our lives together. We lived there until the following mid February. I was working full time and going to school at Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys. I had transferred there when I started with the Airlines, but because I transferred so late I couldn’t get enough credits to maintain my student deferment from the military draft. Just six months after we were married, I received a letter that started out, “Greetings from the President”. I had been drafted into the United States Army. I later enlisted to “beat” the draft. On February 26, 1969 I became a buck private and began my basic training at Fort Ord, California. TO BE CONTINUED:

Thanksgiving Eve Fun

Here is a little Thanksgiving Eve fun:

YOU MIGHT BE A PRITCHARD IF:

1. You know that the gravy really isn't gray...and you know what that refers to.

2. The only thing you have ever eaten with roast beef is mashed potatos and gravy and corn.

3. Your dream home has a "green room".

4. Your kids can't jump off the diving board without clapping their hands like a seal and yell, "This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy".

5. You understand the term "Brown paper bag ham".

6. Your little kids believe their Grandpa really IS Santa Claus.

7. Your dad's "original" recipe for chocolate cake came from the back of a Hershey's Cocoa can.

8. Your dad claims his recipe for chocolate cake IS original because he added an egg.

9. Waffles is reason enough for a family reunion.

10. You think the cannonball should be an olympic event.

11. You know what just happened when you hear everyone in the house yelling, "UGH!. UGH!, UGH!"

12. You can recite dialog from The Private Eyes.

13. Your Grandmother ever said your oldest brother was no better than Al Gore!

14. You eat Stand-Up fried chicken.

15. You can't eat broccoli without mayo.

Part Two - Monroe Street

Part Two

Monroe Street


By the end of World War II, the economy of the United States was taking off. The military services had released most of the those inducted for the duration of the war, and they were returning home. This time was different than with earlier wars, men were returning home with the GI Bill in their “pocket”. They had the means to buy new homes, go to school and get higher paying job. Some returned from the service with marketable skills learned while in the service. Earlier I mentioned that my dad had become a grocer in San Francisco. After we moved back to San Jose and the Chicken Ranch (no, not that Chicken Ranch!), my dad took the aviation skills he had acquired over his years in the Army Air Corp, and later the Air Force, and took a job with the fledgling aviation industry. He was a flight navigator, and he began flying in DC-4, DC-6 and DC-7 aircraft for Flying Tiger Line, and later, Slick Airways. Both were cargo airlines and charter passenger airlines.

Because of his job, he was able to move his family from the Chicken Ranch (I said, not that Chicken Ranch!) to a new home he and Mom were able to buy on Monroe Street. The house was a tract home, one of many going up almost over night in housing tracts all over the country, and in our case, in San Jose. On my 6th birthday, August 27, 1951, we moved into what would be my home for the next twenty one years at 655 North Monroe Street in San Jose.

When we moved into our house, my family consisted of my parents and my sister and me. I had my own room. It was painted blue. The house had only one bathroom, which I thought was normal, and apparently was in tract homes. We didn’t have central heat, but a huge space heater in the wall between the hallway and the living room. The heater gave out heat on both sides of the wall. I remember on cold mornings that my sister and I would get dressed in front of the heater. Once the house heated up, it stayed warm. Of course, this was California and the seasons were always mild.

Our house had three bedrooms, a kitchen, living room and dining room. Of course, the one bathroom. We had a two car garage, and at times we even put two cars in it! Mostly just the 1950 Ford sedan. My bedroom was at one end of the hall, next to the bathroom. My parent’s room was at the other end of the hall, and my sister was right in the middle. When my brother was born in 1955, he shared a room with my sister! Paid off being the oldest.

We had a huge backyard. Okay, not that big, but it was big to a 6 year old. My dad and the neighbors built privacy redwood fences, so over the years my backyard became Fort Apache. My best friends were my neighbors, Eddie Cutshall and Richie Slider. I was friends with both of them, but I remember that Eddie and Richie didn’t get along. So I usually played with one or the other. The only time we really all would play together was when we had a game of softball or football going in the street. At night in the summers we would play hide and seek, and that usually ended up involving most of the kids in the neighborhood; both boys and girls, and of many ages.

Eddie’s dad and my dad were pretty good friends. Mr. Cutshall was a vice president at a branch of the Bank of America. My dad was a flight navigator for an airline, so they both made pretty good money. The Cutshall’s lived across the street from us. My dad and Mr. Cutshall went fishing a lot when my dad was home. My dad was actually home a lot in those days because of FAA regulations, he could only have so many hours of flying per month. So he usually was home for a week or so at one time. My next door neighbor was Dick Slider. He was an insurance salesman and worked in Palo Alto. I guess he didn’t make much money in those early days, as I would learn from my mother later on. I didn’t see him much because he was gone all day, having an hour or so commute each way to work everyday. Once in a while he would go fishing with my dad and Mr. Cutshall, but not very often.

I guess as kids we didn’t know who had money and who didn’t; I just thought everyone had money. We did and so did Eddie. Our fathers had good jobs and our mothers stayed home. But the Slider’s were really struggling. Mrs. Slider worked somewhere later, but I can’t remember where, or when she actually started. One day I came into our house after being called in for dinner. We were having steak…..again! In frustration I blurted out, “Steak, steak, steak! All we ever have is steak! Why can’t we have beans like the Slider’s are having?” I remember my mom laughed, but until much later I didn’t understand why. But the next day we had ham and beans for dinner.

One of the neat things about our house was the trap door under the house. Our house was not a slab house, but built on a foundation with real hardwood floors. And there was plenty of crawl space under the house. We didn’t have trap door in the floor like in the movies, but it was in the back of the house, outside. My dad put spare lumber under there from his projects in the backyard. As kids, we would dare each other to go under the house. Funny thing is that I remember my friends and I going under there, but I don’t remember ever going under any of their houses. I guess they weren’t allowed. I don’t think my mom ever thought about it, and I don’t remember ever being told not to go under the house.

Shortly after we moved into the house, my dad began working on the backyard. I remember the neighbors all helped each other pour patios and build fences. My dad helped Dick Slider and Jack Cutshall, and other neighbors. And when it was time to pour ours, they were all in our yard helping out. As kids we helped be staying out of the way. My dad was an artist when it came to these types of projects. He designed a large back area and a walking path around the grass and flower beds. At side of the house that is normally neglected, he poured concrete and designed a play house and fort for us kids. That was the place we spent most of our summer days. In those days they didn’t get a big cement truck, but a portable cement mixer. I remember piles of sand and gravel on the driveway, and sacks of cement stacked up. It was a whole days project pouring that yard. Maybe more.

After the yard was poured, my dad began building the flour beds and his barbeque pit. We would take Sunday afternoon drives up into the mountains and gather shale rock that was just lying on the side of some of the mountain roads. Our car would be almost bottoming out with the heavy rock in the trunk. He used that rock to finish his design. He had an arbor covering the whole patio area.

Life was perfect there on Monroe Street. I couldn’t have been happier, and I certainly couldn’t have seen the big changes that were looming on the horizon.

Although I remember starting Kindergarten while in San Francisco, when we moved to San Jose and the Chicken Ranch (not that..oh never mind), I didn’t get enrolled into the Kindergarten program. I started school in the first grade at Benjamin Cory Elementary School. The school was just three blocks from my house. My first grade teacher was Miss Nelly. I clearly remember on my first day of school I was sitting “Indian style” on the floor, talking to Richie Slider. Next thing I knew, whack! Miss Nelly hit me across the knuckles with a ruler for talking! Scared for life! For the most part, the kids I met in the first grade would be in school with me for the next twelve years. Except for Richie, whose parents got divorced somewhere about the sixth grade, and they moved away about the time we moved to Dallas. I would come back to Monroe Street via Los Angeles and Willow Glen, while in the 7th grade, and to most of my school chums.

In the first and second grades I had Miss Nelly. Third grade was Miss Pentny, (be still my heart). The fourth grade was Mrs. Landware and Miss Ealey in the Fifth grade. Mr. Patterson was my 6th grade teacher. Uncle Henry mentioned once that he had a Miss Ealey as a teacher in about the 5th grade. So I asked her if she had had my Uncle Henry as a student. She did, and she remembered him very well! Of course, she was much younger in those days. I remember she was very old, and had a reputation among the kids as being very strict. I was not thrilled to have her as my teacher, but as it turned out she was a wonderful teacher and I didn’t think she was strict.

I remember a lot of events that Cory, but one stands out in my mind and can be a very vivid memory… especially under certain conditions. I was walking to school one day when there was work being done on the school. I believe a new classroom wing was being added. Part of the process of roofing a flat roofed building was using tar. As I was walking by the tar machine the odor hit me just as my stomach cramped up and I had to go to the bathroom BADLY. I ran from the corner gate at the school to the boy’s restroom, barely making it! From then on, for years, I would hold my breath whenever I went by a tar heater. I guess I figured that it was the odor of the tar that made me sick enough to have to go to the bathroom. As a six year old you don’t understand that it was a coincidence. Now, and entire lifetime later, whenever I smell tar in a warmer, my mind races back to when I was six years old and I instinctively hold my breath. When I do, I chuckle to myself. How vivid that memory is more than fifty years later.

On November 10, 1955, my dad came to the school. I was in Mrs. Landware’s class in the portables. He took me out of class to tell me that I had a new baby brother. Henry James. I didn’t get to go home, but I did have a new baby brother. My sister and I ran home after school, but we were met by Aunt Jean, as my mother was still in the hospital. In those days a new mom stayed several days in the hospital. What seems funny, or strange, at least, is that I have more memories of Evelyn coming home from the hospital in Oakland at age three than I do of Henry coming home when I was ten!

My dad put a backboard and basketball hoop above our garage door. Richie, his older brother, Ronnie, Eddie and I played basketball almost everyday the summer he put it up. I think it was the summer my brother was born. We had a big wooden garage door and we also used to play dodge ball. The kid who was it would stand about half way down the driveway (short one) and throw the ball at the kids lined up against the garage. When baseball season was upon us, we would go into the middle of the street and play baseball, or softball. Monroe Street was a wide street, much wider than the other streets in the neighborhood. The city designed the street to someday be a main thoroughfare, and later was one of the busiest streets in the area. But in 1955 the only traffic was the residents. At the end of the street was an orchard. So we played softball in the street for hours at a time…stopping very seldom for a car to pass by.

At the end of Monroe Street was a prune orchard. Signs posted on the trees at the edge of the orchard warned of no trespassing. Of course, to a ten year it might as well said welcome. We would ride our bikes down to the orchard and ride through the trees. Sometimes we took a shovel and built up dirt ramps for us to jump on our bikes. And, although we would sometime find our ramps disked under as the trees were readied for irrigation, pruning or harvesting, I do not ever remember seeing a farmer.

I don’t remember how we learned that the orchard had been sold and that a shopping center was going to be built, but what adventures we had while the orchard was there. And we had even more adventures when the shopping center was being built. As kids we would ride our bikes up to the corner of Monroe and Forest Streets and watch the bulldozers as they leveled the trees and moved dirt. Huge fires burned the trees that were piled up. Almost overnight huge mountains of dirt appeared. Huge, deep holes were dug in the ground. And on the weekends, no one was working. So we would ride our bikes up to the top of the hills and ride down. The dozers always left a path to the top of the hills, so it was easy riding. Once I remember coming down the hill and breakneck speed and hitting soft dirt just where the road turned to the right. I couldn’t make the turn and over the side I went. I was riding down soft dirt and holding on for dear life. In those day there were no such things as bike helmets or pads. Anyway, I rode that bike all the way down and cashed at the bottom of the hill. My pants were torn and my knees bleeding, but I stayed and rode it again. I don’t remember my mother getting mad, but I was told I couldn’t ride down the hills anymore. I did anyway.

Once I was with Richie and Eddie and we were playing on the side of a hill. Some other kids from elsewhere were also there. Why kids try to be tougher than the other guy I don’t know, but soon a rock fight broke out. After a few tosses, WHAK! Right on the side of my head! Blood started streaming down the side of my face. Everyone scattered. Worse than bleeding, I had to go home and see my Mom, who had told me not to go to the hills. She cleaned up the wound, and then loaded me into the car. I had to have four stitches to close the wound.

Soon the hills began to disappear as the Valley Fair Shopping Center began to take shape. We would ride our bikes on the parking lot down the underground delivery areas. We only did that a time or two before a gate was put up. How we never go caught by construction workers or the police I will never know, but we didn’t.

Times were a changing on Monroe Street. With the advent of Valley Fair Shopping Center, came traffic and stop lights. Later the street was painted with white and yellow lane lines. And the quiet Monroe Street of my young life was never to be again.

When I was eleven, early in 1957, we moved to Dallas, Texas. I said good-bye to Richie and Eddie and to my friends at school. I bid Valley Fair farewell and we moved to Big D. My dad had moved a few weeks ahead of us to get us a house and car (among other things he got that I learned about later in life). He flew with us on a Western Airlines DC-7 from Oakland International Airport to Dallas Love Field. In a DC – 7, the flight was longer than a flight across country would be today. I remember the flight being seven hours. I have flown from the east coast to the west coast in 5 hours on today’s jetliners.

When we arrived in Dallas we went to the house my dad had rented. We lived on Amherst Street in the University Park area of Dallas. University Park was, and still is, an upscale part of Dallas. My dad was buying a house just two doors down, but it wouldn’t be ready for us to move into for a few months. So we moved into our first house. Thirty plus years later, on the day Heidi got married to Shawn in the Dallas Temple, my mom and I would go to see the neighborhood again. I had been there several times in recent months. I had shown the street to Brett and the house my parents had bought. But to me something was different. Although I could find the house we owned, I couldn’t find the house we rented. I knew the address, but the house there just was not the house I lived in. When I had my mom there, we stopped and she was trying to orient herself to the house we owned. It had not changed, although the neighborhood was being renovated, with older homes being torn down and new home replacing them. As we sat in our car, a man who lived in the house next to where we were parked came up and started talking. As he and my mother talked, they realized they knew each other. He was our neighbor and remembered when we lived there. He told us the house we first lived in burned to the ground shortly after we moved away. The house now there was nearly thirty years old. We never went into the house, although we thought about it, but no one was home. Funny thing is that I have been to Dallas a lot since that day, but have never been back to Amherst Street since that day.

Across the street from our home on Amherst was a house with a vacant lot next door. On that lot was a huge horse chestnut tree. The tree had one huge limb that was about five of six feet off the ground and was parallel to the ground. As kids we would climb up on that limb with our comic books and sit there for hours. On a hot Texas afternoon, it was fairly pleasant in the shade of that tree. When I took Brett by my house years later, I found the tree, but an old house was right there. As a kid, there was no house, just a vacant lot. And that house looked like it was at least thirty years old. Then I remembered that I hadn’t been there in more than thirty years! Kind of like walking in snow that as an adult comes up to your knees and thinking how much deeper the snow was when you were a child and it came up to your chest! When I went back a couple of years later with my mom, both the “old” house and tree were gone and a huge new multi-story home was being built.

My best friend there was a boy named Steve Solomon. He lived up the street, a couple of doors from the corner, where we caught the bus to school. Steve and I were together all of the time….either I at his house, or he at mine. The Solomon’s were Jewish and I used to kid him at Christmas time because he had a Christmas tree. His mother wasn’t a Jew, so they celebrated both the Christmas and Honokaa holidays. He and I had paper routes and we used to go pick up our papers together. We delivered the afternoon paper, The Dallas Times Herald. One thing I noticed was that Steve never rode the bus to school. Sometimes I would get a ride with him and his dad, but I usually rode the bus. Some years later my mother told me that our neighbor across the street, with whom she was friendly at that time, called her and told her the she shouldn’t let me be friends with Steve, and that she shouldn’t be friendly with our other neighbor because they were Jews. I guess she had never seen bigotry raise its ugly head in San Jose because she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thanked the lady, but didn’t have much to do with her after that. We continued to be friendly with the “other neighbor”, and I didn’t stop being friends with Steve.

When we first moved to Dallas, I was still in the sixth grade. I went to University Park Elementary School. I walked to school as it was about four blocks up the street. I didn’t ride the bus until Junior High School. Evelyn and I walked together. About half way to school we crossed over Turtle Creek. Obviously the creek was at the lowest part of the street, and would toss a rock or two in it every day. The creek wasn’t like a running brook, but a wide, slow creek, dark green. Leaves falling into the creek just sat there as the water moved very slowly. One day we were at school when the rain came and it rained and rained. It was Ark type train, which we have come to know as “a gully washer”. The streets were flooding and school was dismissed. Our neighbor came to pick up her children and Evelyn and me. As I remember, Henry was sick and mom couldn’t come. We couldn’t walk home down Amherst Street as Turtle Creek was flooding over its banks and Amherst had what I have come to know as a “low water crossing”. The street was flooded and closed. We had to walk a longer way and cross over a bridge under which was a rushing and raging Tuttle Creek…..more a river than a creek. After we got home and dried out, we watched the rain. Neighbors were outside and then came fire trucks. My dad told mom to get some things together because the streets was being evacuated as the waters rose. She packed things in the car, but in the end, we weren’t evacuated. The water finally stopped rising two doors down. Finally it stopped raining, and the next morning the street was dry, and Turtle Creek was back in its banks. A couple of days later, as we crossed Turtle Creek our way to school, it was once again a slow, wide, green body of water.



A few days later another storm (spring time in North Texas) came blowing in. I was watching television with Henry when the program was interrupted with a new bulletin. A tornado was on the ground in North Dallas. We lived in North Dallas! My dad was at work at Love Field, and we didn’t know what to do in a tornado. The radio announcer said to get into the hall and close the doors, and turn the radio on. So we did. We didn’t have a battery powered radio then, so mom, very hesitantly, went into her bedroom and turned the radio on to KLIF. The tornado was on the ground in North Dallas and was hitting homes along Amherst Street and Lover’s Lane! We lived on Amherst and Lover’s was one block over! We were gonna die! What we didn’t know until later, the part of Amherst and Lover’s Lane it was on was about three miles away. When my dad got home we drove down to the area. I remember seeing trees down and houses damaged.

That night, and for many months after, I had nightmares about the tornado. I would be in the front yard and the tornado was at my heals. My family was in the tornado shelter, a big moving box, and they were calling to me to run and get in the shelter with them. As I ran my feet wouldn’t move…they felt like each foot weighted a hundred pounds and was stuck in gooey mud. Finally, at the last minute, my dad reached out, grabbed my hand and pulled me into the shelter. Funny thing is all I knew about shelters was I had heard that we needed to get into our shelter, or a hallway. We had no shelter, so I don’t know how a moving box became my shelter. Later, when we moved to the house we bought, we had a cellar, a storm shelter. But we never had another tornado while we lived there.

School was out by the end of May and we were going to go back to California for the summer. We kids thought it was going to be a great time because we were going to be staying in Capitola, at a house my parents had rented. Over the years we have called that house “the other Capitola house.” I write about that house in another section of this narrative. What we kids could not have known was that while the summer in Capitola was to be a great adventure, it was to be a living hell for my mother. I guess that sometime around the tornado, a storm of another sort was brewing. My father was like the proverbial fly-boy…he had a “honey” at every place he landed. In those early days of aviation there were lots of layovers, mostly for him in places like Frankfort, Germany, Tokyo, and Honolulu. The layovers were sometime several days long, and in my dad’s case, “layover” took on a whole different connotation. In the end, he had had a lengthy fling with one of the flight stewardesses named Audrey. Now that Dad wasn’t flying, but in the headquarters in Dallas, Audrey and my dad came to a place they hadn’t been before…. unable to be together on those “layovers”. So my dad told my mother about Audrey. He said that he loved my mother and his children, but also loved Audrey. He wanted to have an arrangement where he could have the best of both worlds. My mother told him, to quote President Harry S. Truman, “not no, but hell no!” So, our summer in Capitola was a trial separation for my parents, so my dad could figure out what he wanted to do.

The summer was fun for us kids, but there were lots of tears for my mother. As a concerned twelve year old I tried to comfort her. She assured me time and time again that she was alright, but just sad because her brother, Uncle Henry, and his wife, Aunt Alberta were getting a divorce. Since I had no reason to doubt her, I believed her. It would be years later that Audrey would tell me the story. I believe it was here in our home when Audrey and my Dad stayed with us for a few days on their way to Costa Rica. In those days my Dad’s work was in Dallas, and Audrey had gone to work for another airline. While we were in Capitola, my Dad and Audrey decided not to see each other anymore. Audrey didn’t like the role of “the other woman”, and my Dad was not inclined to leave his family. As Audrey did not fly into Dallas, they didn’t see each other anymore.

Somewhere in the middle of the summer my Dad took some vacation and joined us in Capitola. He told my Mother that he had broken off his relationship and contact with Audrey and wanted her to come back home to Dallas. She needed some time to think things out and he later returned to Dallas. By the end of the summer, she decided we would go back to Dallas, and she forgave him and took him back. Upon our return to Dallas we had an new home. The home was two doors down from the house we were living in. And this house had a basement, or storm cellar, although we never had any more tornados. I started 7th grade at Highland Park Junior High School. My mother seemed happy. She was doing the “society” things expected of the wife of an airline executive. We had a housekeeper and a babysitter. I remember visiting my cousin Kathleen in San Jose and they had a Voice of Music Hi-Fi…and lots of 33 and 45 RPM records to go with it. That Christmas in Dallas we got our own VM Hi-Fi, and lots of 33 and 45 RPM records. My sister and I would dance and sing “You are my Special Angel”, the popular song of the day. And we had it on a 45. Marty Robbins’ “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation” was also very popular and we had that one, too! Life was good.

Then one day my parents announced that we were selling our house and moving to Los Angeles. It seems that my Dad and Audrey gotten back together again, and in those days companies did not like their executives fooling around. My dad was let go. He always said it was because navigator’s had been replaced by a “little black box” and that Slick Airways didn’t need a Chief Navigator. But in reality, he got fired for fooling around and cheating on his wife. We sold our house rather quickly and moved to Southern California. We ended up in the San Fernando Valley in a town called Sepulveda. I was still in the 7th grade and attended Northridge Junior High School in Northridge. It was while we were there that the end of Raymond and Delsa came. I have recounted this earlier, but my dad left home and my mom and kids moved back to San Jose. Since we couldn’t move back to Monroe Street because the house had been leased, we moved into a rented home in Willow Glen. My mother moved all my dad’s things into the garage when the movers unloaded. I remember him coming to pick up his things and how many tears we kids cried. It was a very hard thing. It hurt more than one can imagine. It hurt for years, and I think it still hurts. It has taken me many, many years to come to grips with this. After my father died in 1996, I could not bring myself to do his Temple work. It wasn’t until 2003 that I finally had it done. And then it was only after I found out that I could have him sealed to my mother and then have Evelyn, Henry and me sealed to them. It shouldn’t have taken that for me to do his work, and I have since repented, but it still hurts.

I was still in the 7th grade. I attended Edwin Markham Junior High School in Willow Glen. I don’t recall a whole lot about that house, or even the street it was on because we were there for such a short time. The renters of our house on Monroe Street contacted my Mother and wanted to know if they could get out of the lease early. A few weeks later we moved back to Monroe Street and home. I was still in the 7th grade and began attending Herbert Hoover Junior High School with all the friends I had grown up with. While in the 7th grade, I attended school in Dallas, Sepulveda, Willow Glen and San Jose. It must have seemed to be along year! No wonder I did so poorly in school that year. I started out with what I thought was a happy family in Dallas and ended up in a broken family on Monroe Street. Gallons of tears were shed by us all. My mother filed for divorce and my dad, now flying for Flying Tiger Line stayed in Los Angeles.

I graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in June 1963. Our graduation ceremony was held in the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. The days in high school were some of the greatest times I had as a youth. I was in the Future Farmers of America and I raised two sheep and three steers. I also had a tomato project where I raised a half acre of tomatoes and then sold them after they were harvested, at least the ones I didn’t eat. The summer between my Junior and Senior years I was hired by the San Jose Unified School District Agriculture Department to run the school farm. I was responsible for irrigating the trees and doing other farm chores. For three weeks I had to drive out to the school animal ranch to feed and care for the animals there. That chore was divided between the high schools and me. I didn’t have to worry about harvesting any fruit because that was contracted out, but I did get to harvest all the peaches and keep them. My mother was planning on canning all the peaches. We really only had a few trees, so it was a doable project. I had planned on harvesting them on a Monday, but when I got to work I found they had been harvested for me over the weekend, but I never saw a peach. Someone had come in and stolen my crop. I later found out who it was, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.

When it was irrigation time I could hire two helpers. One of the guys I hired was a friend who had a summer job working for a family friend who hauled watermelons up from the Imperial Valley. Eddie would show up to work with two watermelons everyday that week. We would put them in the irrigation ditch because the water coming out of the ground was very cold. As the day heated up, so did we. So about ten o’clock we stopped for a cold watermelon break. That was great fun and good eating!

In my freshman year I raised two sheep. In my Sophomore, Junior and Senior years I raised steers. We would harness break the steers so we could lead them. Every week in school we had a field trip out to the animal farm during our Ag. class and we would take care of the animals. Shots, de-worming, grooming, etc was the order of the day. We unloaded hay, fed the animals, cleaned the stalls….not only for our steers, but for the sheep and hogs there, as well. I was smart enough not to raise a hog! At the end of the summer, we prepared to take our animals to the County Fair where we would show them and sell them at auction. The Santa Clara County Fair was always held during the first week of school. Naturally, we figured out a way to have to be at the fairgrounds with our animals the whole week. The fact that the school administration signed off on the deal was a surprise to all of us. I guess they had been doing so for so long that they figured it was supposed to be that way. We were actually only supposed to be out there for the afternoons.

At the fair we worked with our animals getting them ready for show. We wanted them to get blue ribbons so they would get a higher price at the auction. My lambs both received blue ribbons. Except of my first steer, which got a red ribbon, my steers all got blue ribbons. I remember going into the ring and showing my steer. I had bathed the steer, bleached the white parts of the hair so he was good looking. Never thought of putting some cologne on the steer, maybe I would have gotten Grand Champion. After we sold the steers we were no longer aloud to do anything with them, and they were generally taken away sometime that day. I clearly remember the next time I saw my steer after my first auction. We took a trip to the San Jose Slaughter House the day our steers were to be slaughtered. I found my steer, hanging in the cooling locker. It had its ribbon and number attached so I could identify it. Don’t know who bought it, but I hope it made good barbeque!
The summer after I graduated I got a job with the San Jose Parks and Recreation Department as a playground director. The director of playgrounds was an LDS fellow who was in love with my cousin, Linda Sawyer. She also worked for the Recreation Department. So with a good word, I got hired. The summer of 1965 I was the Recreation Leader at one of the busiest school playgrounds in the city. It was in an upscale area so there was lots of kids and lots of money. Twice during that summer we chartered school busses and took the kids to see the San Francisco Giants play baseball at Candlestick Park. Because it was a day game, and very few people in the stands, the Giants let us move from the cheap seats in right field to empty seats behind the backstop. The announcer recognized us, as well as other kids groups, over the PA system The kids loved it. We also took the kids to the public swimming pool once a week. It was there one summer afternoon that my sister came running up me with a letter in her hand. It was from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and contained my Mission Call. I had been called to serve in the New England Mission. My Mission President was President Boyd K. Packer. It was early August, and I had to be in the Mission Home in Salt Lake City in mid September, 1965. It turned out that two of my best friends, Scott Don Smith, (yes, that Scott), and Jamie Ballentine, entered the Mission Home on the same day. I will relate memories of my mission later.

I served two years and then returned home to Monroe Street. I got right into school at San Jose City College. I was called into the Institute Director’s (Brother Glen Stubbs) office and given the calling of Institute President. Since I didn’t really know anyone, I asked him to help me fill the officers positions, which I had the responsibility of selecting. He helped me choose all the eligible female students, hoping I would end up taking one of them to the Temple. I did. As my secretary he suggested Janet Hawkes. It took a few weeks and a Sadie Hawkins dance to get together, but once we did, that was all it took. One of my institute instructors, Brother Harris, who became a close friend, gave a class on love. He taught us that the Greeks had various stages and names for love. Sounded like a good line to me. So on my first real date with Janet Hawkes, I tried using the line. Of course, I botched it all up and just came out and told her I loved her. She about croaked! WHAT? She cried, and I made a feeble attempt to gloss it over. She decided it was time to go in. I hoped I would get a second date. I did, and the rest is history. However, the story of my first date is still told over and over. I feign embarrassment and everyone laughs. Usually at large family dinners, like Thanksgiving. I guess when I die they will tell that story at my funeral.

Just a Note for Tonight

Just a note for tonight. I am working on Part II and I am finding some interesting things about myself and my feelings. I am finding lots of lost emotions about parts of this, and sometimes I am not sure I want to find them. I have burried a lot of feelings over the last fifty years that have begun to surface. It is good, however, to face them and bring these memories to the surface. So be patient with me and I will have more to publish.
Love, Dad

Part Three - The Capitola House

Part Three

The Capitola House

The Capitola House is every kids dream. The house was a half block from the beach, although when it was built it was right on the beach. Later the city added The Esplanade, the street fronting the beach, and the

house was then a half block from the beach. There was a movie theater next door and a grocery store a block away, the source of all our summer candy. Capitola was a small coastal resort town built in the Capitola Cove. Capitola was a Norman Rockwell painting in waiting. It was a safe place, and the rules were “we are leaving for home on Sunday, dinner is at six”. Those were the only rules…and I guess we really didn’t need any more.

The Capitola House was built around1928 by Uncle Tom’s parents. The house was unique for its time, as the second floor is supported by steel cross beams; therefore the downstairs had no support beams. The house was huge and had lots of room for several families at one time, and always had just that. And for a kid in the fifties, it was “neat and creepy”. My older cousins would always have us younger ones scared of the secret passageways they swore were in every bedroom closet. My cousin, Kathy always told us of, “The Inner Sanctum”, after the scary television show of the day. I spent the next several years checking out those walk in closets for the secret doors I had come to believe that were there.

As I think about that old house as an adult, I can fully understand why the house could be creepy for a kid. First, it was dark, and the bathroom had an old claw foot bathtub. Those were the days when Money Maguire, Uncle Tom’s mother, was still alive. After her death the house was completely remodeled; and being modern, was no longer scary. But, in those early days! There were certain rooms that we could not go into, and to a kid who knew that the Inner Sanctum was just inside that closet, that was all it took. Actually , the rooms we couldn’t go into were Aunt Dee and Uncle Tom ‘s room and the Maids quarters, although just before the maids quarters were done away with, and converted into a walk in closet and dressing area, I got to sleep in that room! What made that room scary to a kid was that the door was about half the size of a normal door, and not as tall. Instead of a door knob, it has a small push down handle. By the way, that door was taken out when the house was remodeled and a linen closet replaced it.

As a kid, the best part of the house was the upstairs porch. It had four double beds and all the kids slept out there. As a kid I would go into that porch room and it was like a portal to another world. It could be a pirate ship sailing the high seas, a hotel in the Wild West, an outlaw’s hideout, or any of a dozen imaginary locales. As we got a little older it was just fun to sit on the bed at night, with the lights out and watch the traffic and people as they passed by the front of our “watch tower”. As I was the only boy amongst a gaggle of girls, a sister and 4 cousins, when I reach the age of noticing the differences in the older girls, I was moved to the maids room….by myself!

One of the threads in the fabric of my life is the Capitola House. I cannot remember a time growing up, as a teenager, or even after I got married and had kids of my own, when the Capitola House was not a part of my life. As far back as I can remember we spent every Easter Vacation in Capitola. Later, Thanksgiving Vacation was added. In the early days, summers were not spent there because Money Maguire lived there then, although we visited her often. After she died, however, we spent many summer days and nights there. Aunt Dee would have all her sisters and their families there and we would be ready to go home on Sunday, and be seated at the dinner table at six.

I learned to fish in Capitola. I would go to the pier early in the mornings, about six, and buy a quarters worth of bait; shrimp, if we could get it, otherwise, squid. And I would fish all morning. Sometimes I got some fish, and many times I got skunked. I did better when I had shrimp. My sister and cousins would come out sometimes and I would bait their hooks, and all the other things boys were supposed to do. Once in awhile Uncle Lee would go with me. Sometimes I would be there when the fishing skiffs came in and the fishermen would give me some of the Kingfish they caught. After I turned 16 and had a driver’s license, we would go to Santa Cruz Wharf or the Cement Boat at Sea Cliff to fish. We had determined that there were no more fish in Capitola. One time my dad, Uncle Lee, Uncle Chris and I went out in a skiff to go fishing. I felt pretty special because I was only about ten. We were out most of the day; drank sodas, at least I did; peed over the side of the boat and caught the biggest fish. We were fishing over the rocks and I hooked a Ling Cod. I reeled in the fish got it and we got it into the boat. It was a huge fish, but put up no fight, just a lunker. I can remember how excited I was!

Swimming at Capitola was a daily occurrence. Each day we couldn’t wait until we were allowed to go down to the beach. We would swim in the ocean and in the river. Actually the river was Soquel Creek that had been dammed up to make a nice swimming and boating area for row boats and canoes. One


swimming area was fenced off and was the “kiddy” area. As kids we had to stay in the fenced area until we were good swimmers, then we had the freedom to swim anywhere in the river. We would spend entire days at the beach. No sun block, no tee-shirts and no worry about leathery skin or skin cancer. Many hours were spent at the edge of the river or the ocean making sand castles and sand cities. We used to see how high a pile of sand we could build before a wave would come and wash it away. Later, body surfing, or riding the waves was great fun. An inner tube was great for riding the waves. Because of the cove, there was very little under tow, so we could go out in the ocean and not drift down the beach as we did at other beaches later.

Capitola beach had swings; BIG swings! And we were on them a lot. They were near the river and we would swing high, jump and try to hit the river. We never did…as it was about 25 feet from the edge of the water, so we would have had to jump a long, long way! Sometimes my sister, cousins and I would go to the beach early in the morning just to have the swings all to ourselves.

It seems like when we went to the beach we always put our beach towels and stuff near the ocean. We would always start out swimming in the ocean. The water was always very cold, unlike the Gulf of Mexico or Hawaii. When we had been in the ocean for a few minutes, we would run to the river and jump in. The river, being warmer than the ocean, would seem very warm after the cold. Later, when I had my kids at the beach I put my feet in the ocean and they immediately cramped up from the cold water. I have no idea how we used to just run and jump in! Even the surfers today wear wet suits!

The river had a boat rental dock and for 50 cents we could have a great adventure for 30 minutes. We could be pirates, navy sailors, or who ever we wanted to be. We would go as far up the river as we could and then come back. The best part was having to cross under the Stockton Street bridge and the train trestle. When I was 14 I got bored with the whole

beach scene and got a job for the weeks we were at the beach working at the boat dock. I would get a boat and bring it to the side where the customer would get in. My pay…use of a boat whenever I wanted. Didn’t make a dime, but got to row, row, row my boat.

Aunt June and her family lived in Capitola for several years. When they first moved there they lived in “the pink house”, which was right at the base of the train trestle. From her back yard you could look up and see the train. Sometimes the train would cause little pebbles to fall down from the railroad bed into the backyard. Later they moved to the house on Fan Mar Way, and the train tracks ran right at the back of her backyard! The house actually vibrated when the trains went by. They lived there through some of my teenage years. I believe they moved back to San Jose after Linda graduated from Santa Cruz High School because Tammy went to high school in San Jose. When they still lived in the pink house, Evelyn and I decided to cross the train trestle. I was about eleven and she was eight. This was a “no no” as the trestle was long with no way to get off should a train come along. We headed across the tracks. We were smart enough not to go near the Pink House, but not smart enough to not cross the trestle, so we got on the tracks at the old train station and walked to the trestle, about a half mile. We were about half way across when we heard the train whistle. We had no where to go, so we turned around and ran back to where we entered the trestle. I was holding Evelyn’s hand and pulling her along. WE WERE SCARED! The train was gaining on us and we still had quite a ways to go. We got to the beginning of the trestle and jumped off the tracks and were just a foot or so from the train as it went by, whistle blowing. It was bad enough that we were just inches from the train, we were directly above the Pink House, and in plain sight of anyone who happened to look up. Fate was with us because not only did we outrun the train, no one looked up! It was years later before we ever told anyone! A secret well kept all though our youth.

One summer, shortly after Money Maguire died, we went to spend part of the summer at Capitola. We were staying at the Capitola House. It was early in the summer and I had not gotten any suntan yet. I went to the beach and spent the entire day…again, no sun block, no SPF 25, no tee-shirt…. Just me and the sun. And the sun won! I had the worse sunburn I have ever had in my life, before or after that day! I could hardly move. I was sore! And I was so hot that Tammy and Kathy suggested I stand in the middle of the room and turn in circles to warm up the house! I knew that I had more to face when it started itching! An ITCH it did after a few days. No amount of anti-itch cream would help. I just sat and whimpered and got no sympathy because I knew better. I swore that I would never burn like that again, and as far as I can recollect, I never have.

Tammy and I would get up early in the mornings in the summer and head down to the beach. We tried to get there about 6 am or so. Those were the days before pop top soda or beer cans. Soft drinks and beer came in bottles, and each bottle had a 3 cent deposit refund for those turning in the bottle. If we got a quart bottle, the refund was a nickel. The city cleaned the beach every morning at 7, so we got there an hour before the city and collect all the bottles on the beach and in the trash cans. We would get enough money to buy our candy, soda, and ice cream for the entire day. If we didn’t find enough, then we went to all the summer rental houses and got bottles there, too. Most people just threw them away, so we had no trouble finding bottles.

The merry-go-round was on the small boardwalk area on the Esplanade, right in front of the beach. It was a grand merry-go-round with horses that went up and down, and two benches. For ten cents we could be the Lone Ranger or Roy Rogers, or be riding Black Beauty or be in a horse race for a glorious 2 minutes. And if you had two dimes, you didn’t even have to get off your horse, just gave the dime to the man and we were off once again. The merry-go-round in Mary Poppins had nothing on us! Then one summer there was no merry-go-round. It was just gone. It was a sad day for a kid wanting his steed to take him away. The following year it was back, only in a vacant across the street. Then at the end of the summer it was gone, never to return. When we were older we would go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and there was one of the great amusement park merry-go-rounds, but it just wasn’t the same. If you wanted to ride again, you still had to get off and stand it line. And you had to buy a ticket for a quarter. And while the boardwalk was on the beach, the merry-go-round was in a building. Perhaps it wasn’t any of those things that made the boardwalk merry-go-round seem less than it was. Perhaps, just perhaps it was the lack of our young imaginations that prevented us from riding off into the sunset on a great wild black stallion. What ever it was, no other merry-go-round has ever measured up to the merry-go-round on the little boardwalk, on the Esplanade in Capitola.

One of my best memories was the Ski Ball Parlor. For a couple of bucks, usually handed out freely by Uncle Tom to get the kids out of the house, we could spend hours playing Ski Ball. A nickel a play and you got ten balls. Roll the ball up the lane and into a hole…hopefully the one marked 50 and not 10. The higher the score, the more tickets you got. And the tickets were not coldly spewed out by an automated counter, but the cute girl who worked there came by and figured out how many tickets you got for your score….and if you flirted with her (as only an eleven year old boy could, and get away with it), she gave you tickets with 5s or 10s on them, not just 1s. When the money was spent, you went to the prize cabinet, counted your tickets and looked to see what you could get. And how many more tickets do you need to save up to get the good stuff? It wasn’t an easy decision for an eleven year old….spend now on instant gratification, or save up for some toy you have been eyeing all summer. All you knew was that tomorrow you would get another two bucks and be back.

Right next to the merry-go-round was Babe’s Bandstand. This was my earliest recollection of eating hamburgers…the old greasy kind wrapped in paper with the grease seeping through. It was the precursor to McDonald’s. You could get just about any type of fast food…and I always got hamburgers for 35 cents. Hotdogs were a quarter, although we very seldom got them there. Babe grilled the hotdogs, and we kids didn’t like them that way. Besides, just two doors down we could get steamed foot long hotdogs for the same quarter. And for a kid who got his spending money collecting pop bottles at 6 AM, I was always looking for the bargain. But I usually got a hamburger and fries and an orange drink. Today the Bandstand is till there. It had been completely redone and is an inside, sit down restaurant. I don’t know if Babe’s family still runs it or not. I have not eaten there since it was an open air hamburger stand.

Being the only boy in the family has some advantages. Uncle Tom would feel sorry for me having to put up with all those girls. So every morning he got out a dollar and sent me to the Capitola Pharmacy, the drug store down the street, to get a San Jose Mercury. It cost a dime, and I got to keep the change. So when the two bucks were handed out, I already had ninety cents in my pocket. I don’t know if the girls ever knew. I was an early riser, but not as early as Uncle Tom. So I would run my errand long before the girls were up and about.

In her later years, Money Maguire’s had trouble climbing the stairs. So Uncle Tom had an elevator installed on the front porch. It was off limits to the kids, although over the years we had plenty of rides on it. When I was about fourteen years old, Uncle Tom paid me $25 to paint the elevator shaft. What a sham job. The shaft was not very big, as it was only one floor. It took about an hour for the first coat. I came back the second day and finished up. $25 bucks lasted a long, long time. Lots of bait and lots of stuff at the grocery store. That elevator was in the house the last time I was there….with my kids! And we used the elevator everyday…and I checked out the shaft, and the last time it was painted, it was painted by me.

Thanksgiving at the Capitola House was amazing! All my aunts, my mother, and their families stayed at the house. On Thanksgiving Day the house loaded up with other family members. Because Uncle Chris was in the restaurant business, he always got the turkeys. One year the turkeys still had feathers! He expected my aunts and mom to pluck feathers and clean the turkey, but he was frustrated in his expectations. My mother told him he was out of his mind. So he took the turkeys back to San Jose and the Race Street Market and had them fixed up. That was so funny. He was so proud of those turkeys and the look on his face when he realized that he had to take them back to San Jose was priceless. Perhaps more so now than then, but priceless just the same.

On Thanksgiving morning the turkeys went into the ovens early. Stuffed with Puckett wet dressing in one and Maguire dry dressing in the other. My mother was in charge of making most of the pies….apple, pumpkin, and cherry. Aunt Dee made the pecan pies. There were relish trays with olives to go on little fingers, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, wonderful dressing, and dry dressing (we kids didn't care much for that), and of course, all the turkey you could eat. And people everywhere. The Capitola table was full of adults; card tables all around the living room were full of kids. The tea cart was at the head of the table, behind Uncle Tom and was loaded with food. Another side table was set up for more food and the deserts. Stand in line and take your food. “Not too much now, Frankie”. Right! “I hope there is enough turkey left over to take turkey sandwiches with us tomorrow when we go fishing.” Good, there will be. “I want the apple pie, and some ice cream, please.” “ Not too much pie now, Frankie.” Right! What a feast. Now, years later, as I sit in my dining room, I sit in my dining room, at the Capitola Table, the tea cart against with wall with teapots, cups and a Ming Vase; the “other side table” is in my entry way, and I can smell the aroma of those Thanksgiving dinners…and my eyes tear up with the memories of the Thanksgivings of my youth.


The Jacobs' owned the Capitola Theater. I can remember them being there all my young life. She sold the tickets and he tore them when you went thru the door. We saw the great movies there: Where the Boy Are, On The Beach, Don’t Go Near the Water, Run Silent, Run Deep, Mary Poppins, Fantasia, The Lion in Winter, and even Goldfinger. This was no second run theater, but first run movies. Even advertised in the San Jose Mercury-News. Popcorn, Sugar Babies, Milk Duds, Jujubes, M&Ms, and a big orange drink. And they all were 10 cents to a quarter. The price of admission, 10 cents, and later a quarter. Years later I would go back to the Capitola Theater with my wife. Not to watch a movie, but to buy a hot buttered popcorn and walk on the beach. When I went up to the concession counter, there she was, much older, but still the same lady who sold me Bon Bons as a youngster. Now the days of first run movies is gone, and the Jacobs' surely are gone as well. Today the Theater is an Artsy Fartsy California stage theater that no self respecting kid would ever go to… and they don’t sell hot buttered popcorn. Too much fat.

Right behind the Capitola House was “the hill”. Actually it was the bench above the village called Depot Hill. Stairs went fromthe other side of our driveway to the top of the hill. The original stairs were cement and sea shells. They were small steps and more than a hundred of them. In the early sixties new stairs were poured over the old ones, for the most part, although you could still see the old ones. The new stairs were larger and only were 89 of them. We went up those stairs almost every day. I remember one time, and I cannot say I am proud of it, my girl cousins decided it would be fun to make a trail about half way up and hike to the top of the hill. I was pretty young, about 8 as I recall. I was all for the adventure until I got half way up the hill and got stuck. My cousins had lots of compassion on the fat little kid stuck on the side of a hill, hanging on to a root, swatting away bumble bees, crying and yelling for help. They just left me there. After what seemed to me to be hours, but was only a few minutes, realizing no one was coming to my rescue, I inched my way back to the stairs. Nothing was ever said to our parents, and in fact, I don’t remember anyone ever talking about it again. I just know that for years I would always check out the spot and think how dumb I was for being lured up there in the first place.

I have to laugh as I think about the first time I took Jannie to the Capitola House as my wife. We were just married and were spending the night. Even though we were married adults, we still didn’t get a room. We got the upstairs porch bed, no heat and lots of blankets. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The summer of 1986 we were at stationed Fort Hood. I had gone TDY earlier in the year and “pocketed” lots of travel money, we took leave and went to Capitola for a month. Jannie was getting over pneumonia and the doctor thought a restful vacation would be good for her. We loaded up the van with our eight kids and dog and headed west. Jannie slept most of the way. We arrived in Capitola and moved right on in. We finally got a room! Jannie spent much of the first week in bed and I spent a lot of time taking kids to all my old haunts. The boys and I saw a 1965 red Mustang Convertible and thought it looked so cherry. When we took a walk up to “The Other Capitola House” so I could show them where we lived that one summer when I was their age, we not only found the house, but the red Mustang parked out front. The couple renting the house were a gay couple, and they let us go through the house. I told them of my days in that house and we ogled the Mustang. Then we left. The three of us, Brett, Todd and me, talked about those days and those “boys” all the way home. One day we rented a skiff and the boys, Brett, Todd and Chad and I went fishing. We went after Rock Cod, and fished for half a day. We got quite a few fish, and fired up the grill that night. Good eating. Later we went to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz and went on lots of rides. I went with Bugs and Heather on the Roller Coaster. The Santa Cruz Roller Coaster is one of the original wood roller coasters ever built. We still talk about that ride. We even rode the Merry-Go-Round. Kids had fun and I thought of Capitola.

1986 was the last time we ever stayed in the Capitola House. When Aunt Dee passed away, the Capitola House had to be sold. So the Capitola House was sold to a company who used it as a summer rental. As I said at the beginning, the fiber of my life is made of stands of thread that are the Capitola House. I will always remember that house and I am sad that it had to end the way it did. My mother tried to buy Aunt June’s half, but the attorney talked her out of it. As long as family strife was to continue, the Capitola House would bring peace to no one, nor make any more fond memories. All we have is the memories of our lives in Capitola. To me Capitola will always be a part of me, and I long to return there, if just for a visit. And if I could, I would buy back my house.