An Eighth Part

 

Part VIII, Tacoma was just about done…..

The end result?  Two totaled cars, the Chevy and the Chrysler.  A pretty hefty fine for brother Mike.  I was ordered to get a driver’s license, or more correctly, my parents were ordered to make sure that I get one.  There was a certain irony in this, as I had taken driver’s ed at school (in those days it was offered at no cost, as a elective course and part of the high school curriculum, believe it or not), but had not been able to go for my license exam, since there was either no money, or the old man wasn’t available to take me.

OK, back to the next move……..At any rate, we lost that house late in my senior year, and moved into the “projects”.  The sequence of events was that we had to move out before the old man even got out of Steilacoom, or, possibly he got out one day, and the next day, we moved.  I think this area that we moved to was called Hillside, and later became truly notorious for such violent gang activity that the local police were afraid to enter the neighborhood.  We only stayed there until I could finish high school.  We left there the day after I graduated from high school, moving to a small town (Enumclaw) almost due east of Tacoma, making it southeast of Seattle.  I stayed with my parents mostly because I had no clue as to what to do with myself.  I certainly was never encouraged (or informed enough, for that matter) to look into going to college, so I rather foolishly and desperately looked for work.  If you recall the time, you would realize that I had a monster bulls eye on me that said something about cannon fodder (but, then, that term is probably too old for this era, huh?), since I was ripe for the Draft.  I eventually ended up obtaining some limited training under the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1964 that purportedly had me ready to seek gainful employment as an attendant in a Mental Health facility.  In those days, almost all mental health facilities that were not exclusively private, were State run, and therefore had pretty bad reputations.  Think of the Academy award winning movie, with Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

Meanwhile, we moved yet again, back over to the Eastern part of the state, to Moses Lake, near the boom town (a pretty large area of what had formerly been mostly desert enjoyed something of a boom due to the increased irrigation provided from the nearby Columbia River) of Othello, WA, where my father had gotten a position as a bookkeeper in a frozen food processing plant (peas, corn, etc.).  He got me a job as a forklift operator, and I worked most of that summer.  I was able to buy my first ever car, a 1954 Ford Crestline Skyliner.  I had a choice between this car and a 1952 Cadillac, two door hard top.  The price for the Caddie was something like $150.00, and for the Ford only $125.00.  I bought it and never looked back.  Now, the car did not- ever – look as good as the below photo, but it was not all that bad, either.  Mine was two toned, blue and white, and had been converted from an automatic transmission to a stick.  This resulted in a three speed, on the floor, with a cheap knock-off of a Hurst Conversion, that had been installed backwards (forward should have been first gear, but was actually reverse):

            1954 Ford Crestline Skyliner – note the plexiglass roof (wasn’t called a sun roof).

I finally got smart enough to leave home (or, finally reached the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore) late that summer.  OK, here’s what happened.  While I was working at the plant, I opened my first ever checking account, and that is actually how I was able to buy the car when I did.  My best friend, Rich Oxley, had come up from California, where he was going to college, to spend the summer, and to work with me.  After the plant had processed all the peas in the area, and before it switched over to the next crop, which I think may have been corn, we had a short break, so the plant was closed.  Rich and I took off on the Greyhound to go see some old friends (former neighbors of mine, actually) in Tacoma.  This family had a place on one of the many lakes near Tacoma (I think Spanaway), we stayed with them.  These were the Cresos, mom, dad, daughter, Connie, who was maybe two or three years younger than us, two smaller boys, and another girl, who was our age, who lived with them, and served as sort of a nanny to the little boys.

While Rich and I were there, I got the opportunity to buy that Ford, and I paid for it by writing a check.  Rich decided that he did not want to go back to Moses Lake with me (I wonder why), so I drove back on my own.  Upon my arrival, I first learned that my father had lost his car to repossession (like that never happened before).  He had been driving a ’57 Chevrolet since we had lived in Enumclaw.  Not only had he lost his car, but when I took him and I to work the next day, I learned that my job was gone, and I had been demoted to scraping the spills off the plant’s floor (it seems that the nephew of the plant manager needed my job more than I did).  So, I was, of course pissed at this, and immediately quit.

Next, the old man hustled the management at the plant to help him find another car.  This necessitated a road trip down to Hermiston, Oregon (might have been Umatilla).  So, somehow, I wound up carrying him, my mother, and little brother David in my car down to that place on a Sunday.  The people at the plant had arranged for a dealer in Hermiston to give the old man a car, with the understanding (I guess) that they would stand behind the deal.  He picked out a Rambler station wagon, maybe as new as a 1960 model.  This was actually a pretty decent car, especially for him.  At any rate, we then drove back up to Moses Lake, and the next morning after the old man had left for work, I packed all my earthly possessions into my car, and took off for Seattle.  I hope that I called Mike first, to warn him that I was on my way, but that was the end for me.  I did not see the folks again until I was on leave from the Army, and then, I could only stand a couple of days.  After that leave, I did not want to see them at all.

It was after I moved in with Mike that I learned that the old man had found my check book (the spare checks, anyway) while I was gone to Tacoma.  I guess he had decided that he needed some of my money more than I did, so he wrote a check on my account.  The bank naturally came after me, but since I had one of the world’s worst chicken scratches for hand writing, it was very easy for them to see that someone else had indeed written the check (of course it bounced; my money went for my car).  I did tell the bank to look for him, though.

 Well, as I say, I was fortunate enough to be able to live with my oldest brother, Mike, in Seattle.  I even got a job as a Ward Attendant at the Rainier State School in Seattle, in the early fall.  Unfortunately, I also got my draft notice not thirty days after beginning my new job.

I spent three years in the Army, going from Seattle to Ft. Ord, California, for my Basic Training, then to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, for Advanced Infantry Training, then Ft. Gordon, Georgia, for Field Radio Repair School, then to Korea for thirteen months, and finally, I was stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas, until I was discharged in late 1968.  It was while at Ft. Bliss that I met Blanca, and we were married a short five months after our first date.  Here is where we were married on June 22, 1968:

    Ft. Bliss Main Chapel as it looks today.

We did move to Seattle after my discharge, and I went to work for Boeing as an Aircraft Electrician/Installer.  We only stayed there for about 14 months, before returning to El Paso, mostly because Blanca was miserable so far from home, language, diet, family, and so forth.  So, let’s take a break, until Part IX, which should conclude this thing……..

Part VII, High School Memories

 

Part VII….We’re still on Cushman Ave………

Early in my Senior year, or maybe late in my Junior year, JFK came to town, so they closed all the schools, with the idea that students from all over town were to go to a big rally at Tacoma’s Ben Cheney Stadium (home of the Tacoma Giants, an affiliate of the SF Giants, and a very nice little ball park).  Ben Cheney, incidentally, was some sort of pioneer lumber man, which means a very big deal in that part of the country.  A large group of us decided to go to the beach, instead of the rally, so we spent the day at a State park (possibly Dash Point State Park), over on Puget Sound, and missed our only opportunity to be able to say that we had seen JFK.  Then, on November 22, 1963, I happened to be home sick.  I was listening to my radio in my room, which happened to be in the basement, when they said that JFK had been shot.  So, I got up, went to the living room and turned on the TV there.  Naturally, I spent pretty much all of the rest of that day in front of the TV, getting the live reports, as events unfolded.  I remember that the next night there was to be a party, maybe even at my house (in the basement), and all we did was sit around and feel sorry for ourselves, trying to come to grips with what had happened to us.

I recall one night that Cassius Clay (known at that time as “The Louisville Lip”) defeated somebody important, before he met Sonny Liston (that didn’t happen until Feb. 25, 1964).  We were at someone’s home for another party, and all the guys were crowded into whatever room had the TV, watching that fight.  Cassius Clay, who you all might know better as Muhammad Ali, was truly awesome to watch.  And, the fact that he was such a brash, over confident, loud mouth was part of his charm – especially when he so easily demonstrated that he could do more than just talk.  A weird thing about this recollection is that I have carried this image in my mind for all these years that the fight that we watched that night was the one where he took the title away from Sonny Liston, but that doesn’t add up, as the title fight took place on a Tuesday evening, and we only had our parties on Fridays or Saturdays.  So much for one’s memories.

I have to say that we did party a lot (my friends and I).  We also went to a lot of ‘sock hops’ usually in our own high school gym, and most often held after a home basketball game.  Most guys in my class did not dance, except for slow songs.  But, I was willing to dance to the fast songs, so I was usually busy at parties and the high school dances.  Besides that, I had a group of guys with whom I played poker on a regular basis, either in my basement, or at the home of one or more of the others.  Nothing big, and I usually had to borrow from someone to get into a game, but we really enjoyed it.  It was also a big deal to try to attend all of our football and basketball home games, and even those of our prime rivals, when they weren’t too far away.  Our big rivals were Lincoln High and Wilson High.  I think a new high school opened while I was at Stadium, Mt. Tahoma.  Another important rivalry was Bellarmine High School, the city’s Catholic Boys’ high school.  They usually had a good team, and we all knew some kids over there, ‘cause some of them had gone to Junior High with us. 

I also remember what I think was the single most exciting basketball game I have ever seen, in which the final score was something like 7-8.  This was, I believe an away game for us, against the hated Lincoln High School.  This was obviously in the days before the shot clock, when defense was still an important part of the game, and when ‘freezing’ the ball was a legal and proper offensive tactic.  This involved passing with great skill, from player to player, spread out over their end of the floor, keeping the ball away from the opponent, thus ‘freezing’ it.  Again, obviously, this tactic was employed by both teams on this occasion.   Regarding our main rivals, I no longer recall what their mascot was (we were the Tigers; Gold and Blue), but according to their current web site they are now the ‘Abes,’ and quite frankly, that just sounds too lame for that time and place. 

The minor league (AAA) baseball team that played its home games at Ben Cheney Stadium was the Tacoma Giants.  I got to see more than one of their games, and they were very special to see.  The father of one of my friends, Gary Grenley, had box seats for his business, and whenever it wasn’t being used, Gary and I, and other friends of Gary’s would be allowed to go to the games.  We would take a huge paper bag full of peanuts in the shell, sit right up close, and watch players (just to name a few) like Jesus and Matty Alou, Jose Pagan (my personal favorite, whose name is misspelled in the old stats I was able to find online), Jose Cardenal, Dick LeMay, Julio Navorro, Bob Perry, Manny Mota, Dick Phillips, Gaylord Perry, Dusty Rhodes (by this time, he was a former major leaguer, hero of the 1954 World Series, where he hit very well as a pinch-hitter; he was kind of like our own hometown Babe Ruth), Moose Stubing, Willie McCovey, and a great pitcher, Juan Marichal.  There were others, of course.  This was, after all, a minor league team, and most of these guys either made it to the bigs, or had already been there.  Oh, well, we’re moving (literally, and again)……………..

                        That’s Dusty Rhodes, coming home after hitting a grand-slam in his first ever World Series game, 1954.

 Just when I thought things were going just fine, my old man went from bad to worse.  I never knew any details, but late in my senior year, he ended up in the Western State Mental Hospital’s alcoholic ward.  I have long suspected that this was deliberate on his part for two reasons.  He was indeed an alcoholic, but he never was serious about fighting it, so right there – even then – I had to wonder.  He was in trouble yet again with debt I believe, and had undoubtedly lost yet another job.  With him in the nut house, obviously, there was no way to pay the mortgage, or anything else. 

While the old man was in Steilacoom (an old fort by that name had been turned into Western State Mental Hospital), I wanted to attend one of many parties one evening, and the car was in the garage, but wouldn’t start.  Mike had come home from the Army by this time (actually, I think he most likely ponied up some coin so that the folks could buy that house, in the first place), and was living at home, while working at the Tacoma Public Library (yes, he was instrumental in my having secured a part-time, after school job at the library).  Mike was the proud owner of a 1952 monster of a Chrysler.  I’m talking tank-sized, four doors, and a great big inline six cylinder engine.  His car was running just fine, but he had a previous engagement, likely a date.  There was a light rain falling.  The sun had just set.  Now, he should have known better (after all, he was a U. S. Army Veteran, right?  And, he was over 21 by this time, too!), but neither one of us was thinking very well that evening.  We somehow hooked up his front bumper to the rear bumper of dad’s 1956 Chevrolet (Bel Air, four door, but with that really wonderful 256 cu. inch V-8, for which Chevy received a lot of recognition).  We had to pull the Chevy backwards, up out of the garage, because there was a steep incline from the street down to the garage.

Well, we got the Chevy up onto the street, and pointed along the street, pointing north.  For you younger people who don’t know these things, let me tell you that the windshield wipers on 1950’s cars were not powered by an electrical motor, but by a vacuum motor, that only could work when the engine was running, and able to create a vacuum.  In other words, in case you need more explanation, if the motor wasn’t running, there was no way to move the wiper blades, so as to keep the windshield clear in the rain.  Did I mention that there was a light rain falling?  And, to make matters worse, did I also mention that the sun had just set?  So, no wipers, and no headlights, right?  This is not reason enough, so let me also point out that the Chevy in question had an automatic transmission.  We did not have jumper cables, but we figured that we could get that sucker going on compression, which for an automatic transmission requires a minimum speed of 30-35 miles per hour, pushing or towing.  We didn’t have the necessary chains or rope for towing, so we elected to get this thing running by Mike pushing it with his monster Chrysler.

I would have to freely admit that the primary responsibility for what happened next would be mine, since I proposed to be behind the wheel of the ‘lead vehicle,’ as it were.  We started off, and got up to a pretty good speed, within about 50-60 feet of our starting point, when I realized too quickly to do anything about it, that I couldn’t see two feet in front of my face.  It was raining, and it was dark!  That’s when the Chevy slammed into the rear – smack dab in the middle, too – of a neighbor’s parked car.  And, he was one pissed off neighbor, too.  I don’t think I made it to the party that night.

I hate to leave you hangin’, but hey, this is enough space for one Part…..we’ll see what happened to those intrepid young men when next we meet, in Part VIII……..

There is indeed a sixth part to this little saga.

 

Part VI, wherein we pick up again in Tacoma.  Patty remembers this period in this way:

From there we moved back to Tacoma.  We lived in a series of houses, Dad had a series of jobs, I finally graduated from high school and attempted to do college.  Oh yes, in order to make the move there we had to live with Grandad and Margaret for a summer.  He was a tyrant and Mom and I did lots of cooking and cleanup and Mom had to bake her great homemade bread once or twice a week.  But just imagine them being able to take all of us in? 

I met Mike [her husband] the summer between high school and college and we dated for the two years that I attended.  Throughout all the years our lives were shadowed by Dad’s drinking and certainly Mom’s as well.  Mom was tortured by his abuse and once when we lived in the first house there in Tacoma Dad got involved with another woman and not for the first time.  I don’t think she could handle it anymore and she tried to end her life.  Unfortunately back then she had to spend the night in jail instead of being taken to a care facility.  She never received proper care and during the time we lived in the house on Cushman she had quite a few more problems.  When Mike decided to go back home to Wisconsin to become a cop we married and made the move.  Best thing I ever did!

It was also about this time that Pat got married, and she and Mike Roberts, her husband moved into a small apartment not too far away.  Two things:  Mike had the most gorgeous 1955 Ford, four door sedan, with the sweetest sounding dual exhaust pipes you ever heard.  He had purchased it new, and kept it immaculate.  Blue and white, two-toned paint job.  Dennis had himself a girl friend, and wanted to take her out to something special, and persuaded Mike to loan him his beautiful car.  Naturally, he crashed it, and it was totaled.  This was truly heart-breaking stuff, this.  Mike was getting close to taking his discharge, and he and Pat were already planning to move back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mike’s hometown.  So, now, they had no ride.  Mike picked up a (I think) 1952 Ford that had some engine problems.  I was so impressed then, when he took that old car around back of his apartment, and parked it close to a phone pole in the alley.  He then used several windings of GI commo wire, wrapped around and around one of the metal spikes imbedded in the wood of the pole, to pull that V-8 from his old ’52, so he could rebuild it.  He then proceeded to do just that, and he and Pat had a pretty decent ride to get them back to Wisconsin.  Maybe not as sweet as the ’55, but this ’52 had a nice sound to its exhaust, as I recall.

So, we’re still on Cushman, where my father, during these nearly four years, worked in some kind of mills, and obtained some training at a business school, and then began working as a bookkeeper.

But, nothing was ever stable.  My old man couldn’t keep a job (did I mention that he was an alcoholic?), but also (I suspect) because he couldn’t take direction.  His drinking was not a pretty thing to see, as he became a mean and solitary drunk (as I described above).  He kept his booze (almost always cheap rotgut; I recall his favorite brand for some years was Four Roses, which was known to be a cheap bourbon), in the freezer.  For you young people, who never experienced the refrigerators of the forties and fifties, they all had a main door that opened up from top to bottom.  Then, inside, at the top of the compartment thus revealed, would be a second, smaller lightweight door (some of these were aluminum; some were plastic, and some were a combination of both) that opened to the small freezer compartment.  He kept his booze in the freezer.  It was the old man’s habit to drink his booze straight from the bottle, with a drink of water, for chaser. Before we get to his nocturnal drinking, though, let me ruin your day by presenting you with this truly unforgettable picture:  The old man never wore PJ’s, and didn’t wear undershorts to sleep, just a T-shirt.  He would grab the shirt around back, and bring that through his legs, and then pull the front of the T-shirt to meet the back, and then, hold it together with one hand, if someone else happened along.  He was a truly disgusting sight!  So, now that you’ve got that mental image fixed forever in your mind, now you can prepare yourself for the sound effects: 

At any hour of the night (but, long after we all went to bed) he would get up, snuffling and snorting and coughing and gagging, and snotting, and make his way to the kitchen and the fridge.  So, after announcing his eminent departure from the bedroom in this manner, he would make his way, in the dark, to the kitchen.  Next sound was that of the fridge being opened, then the freezer door, then, maybe some more snorting and snotting, the water running for his chaser, the doors of the fridge and freezer being slammed shut, and then, back to bed he’d go, hacking and coughing, and snorting (and, likely scratching, too).  Let’s not forget that he only had vision in one eye, and this tended to interfere with his ability to judge distance, not to mention the fact that he was stumbling - half drunk - around in the dark.  So, add to the sound effects, the sounds of various obstacles being encountered during his nocturnal journeying, and of course, the truly horrific oaths uttered by him when some part of his anatomy came into contact with things like the corner post of the banister to the stairs, or the little shelf that jutted out from the wall in the hallway (where the single household phone rested).

Yes, we did have a phone on Cushman Ave., but for you young people, I suppose a little bit more information might be helpful.  First of all, the phone was black, with a big round dial.  It had a short cord (maybe three feet long) fastened to a connector in the wall.  It was in the hallway for a specific purpose, and this was common to household telephones, all the years that landlines were the only thing going.  By the way, here is what those phones looked like:

                                            

   

If the phone rang, anyone could answer it, but if it was a personal call, each person was limited to three minutes.  So, phone calls tended to be short and to the point (since most of the calls were bill collectors, anyway, you know it did not take long to say, “No, he’s not here.  I don’t know where he is.  I don’t know when he’ll be back.  I will tell him”).  But, mostly as a result of this early conditioning, up to today, I don’t like to spend much time on the telephone.  “Hello.  How are you?  We’re fine.  Give my best to ……..,” and that is pretty much all I’ve got to say.  You see, I only become long winded when I sit down in front of the monitor.  OK, back to Cushman Ave., circa 1963………

But, first, now that I think of it, here is what the phone looked like when we lived on the ranch back in South Central Washington, near the little town called Roosevelt:

                                     Really!  That’s what it looked like!  Our ‘ring’ was something like two longs and a short.  OK, I can see I need to offer more information here:  What is not visible in this picture is that on the right side of the wooden box was a small hand crank.  When turned very quickly, that crank created a small electrical impulse which traveled along the phone lines.  That small charge was enough to get the bells (seen on the face of the phone) to ring, just a little.  So, to differentiate between one person and another (several families had to share one line; hence, the term party line.  Really!) on the same line, one full revolution of the hand crank made a short ring, and two, quick revolutions made a longer ring.  So, to call the party that was assigned two longs and a short, required than one crank twice, quickly, then pause, then crank two more times, again quickly, another pause, then one revolution.  In theory, everyone on that line then knew that the call was for us, so they were to leave their phones alone.  But, of course, everybody listened in on everybody else’s calls, so there was no way to keep one’s business to one’s self (as if there ever is, in a small town).

(Now, we’re back in the house on North Cushman……….)  I was very happy in this house all the way through my Junior year and most of my Senior year of high school.  I had friends all over the neighborhood, played football on the front lawn of the nearby Junior High, or went down to shoot hoops at Wright Park.  I started collecting records at this time, first 45’s, then albums.  I learned a bit about hooking up multiple speakers to an old time radio, as I had speakers all over the basement where I lived  (thanks to Mike Roberts, who was (as I mentioned before) in the Army at that time, and who even contributed most of a roll of commo wire, I think it was called WD1, or something. 

You see, it was Mike who showed me how to connect the speakers, and it was this simple “electrical” mystery opening up for me that led me to pursue a later – short – career in electronics.  I learned to haunt a Goodwill store on (I think) South Tacoma Ave., at about this time, and found some really special old tube type radios for a buck or two.  I worked part time at the Tacoma Boys Club, so I had a little spending money.  Then, I worked for a short time at a branch of the Tacoma Public Library, until I was fired ‘cause I spent too much time reading, and otherwise neglecting my assigned duties.  Did you ever spend eight hours sorting books, and then putting them on shelves?  At any rate, I had stopped all pretense of part time work by early in my Senior year, so that year of high school found that basement to be pretty much party central for me and a host of friends.

OK, we’re making slow progress, but it is sure…………we’ll pick up again with Part VII….