Too Much Stuff

 

There is a web site that is probably national, maybe even international, called Nextdoor.  I think of it more accurately as KarensNextdoor, or something along those lines, because it is certainly chockful of posts from worried citizens warning their neighbors about suspicious cars in the area, or suspicious people, and missing or wandering dogs or cats.  And, of course, it is already dominated by paid advertising, so you have to click a lot of links to actually see your neighbors’ posts.

Lately, I have seen a number of posts bemoaning or reporting stolen cars or personal possessions being stolen from parked cars, either on the street in front of somebody’s home, or even in their driveway.

These posts, about cars and possessions being stolen, remind me of a few other things.  First of all, of course we have all heard, seen, and read, long and long ago, that we should not leave personal possessions in sight in our cars, and we should always lock our cars, and like that, right?  So, my first questions are these:  Was your car locked? Were your possessions in sight?

But my next questions are like, why was your car parked outdoors?  Why was it on the street?  Because, you see, my observation over the last twenty or thirty years is that new homes are built with garages, but for some reason, most folks don’t bother to use their very convenient and safe garages.  Why?  Because, all too often their garages are full of stuff.  Too much stuff.

Now, we’ve all heard all there is to know about decluttering, such as go through all your stuff, and pick each item up one by one.  If it gives you joy, keep it; if not, toss it.  Or, better, go through all your stuff, wherever it may be, in the junk drawer, in the garage, in the storage shed, wherever.  If you find an item that you have not touched or used or needed within the past six months, toss it.  But, none of us can do this, can we?

So, the next thing to try is to consider all your stuff, say all of that stuff crammed into your garage.  Is it worth more to you than your car?  After all, it is just stuff, and your car is so much more.  What deserves to be in the garage?  Your very valuable car, or your stuff?

I’m betting, if we’re honest, the only thing that belongs in the garage is your car.  I know that we have a lot of stuff around our house.  Hell, I can’t get into most of the closets because of all the stuff my wife has crammed into them.  But you know what?  Both of our cars are in the garage all night, every night.  Along with a lot of stuff, including the washer and the dryer!

In short, my best recommendation to alla y'all is to use your garage as per design, and let's stop trying to keep so much stuff!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBYVRERVf8Q

Part X of my little Memoir: Fun and Games in El Paso's Lower Valley

 

We then drove around the neighborhood looking for the thief, but saw nothing.  Later that morning, we learned that some neighbors – who had also been burglarized – did chase him down, and beat him up before letting him go.  They did recover their stolen items, but we never did see the missing car stereo.  The police speculated that he had someone waiting nearby with a car, and they likely got away clean, albeit the one guy had to take his lumps.

During these years, we still struggled, but we had a good time.  I learned/taught myself how to work on cars, as I had to do my own maintenance, and many repairs.  In reality I became a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, and an all-around handy man, as I replaced water heaters, evaporative air coolers, electrical things of all kinds, and pretty much kept up with all of our homes, over the years.  I also continued with electronics as a sort of paying hobby, repairing and installing car stereos for friends and family for many years.  We also, from the time we lived on Valley View, made many trips to Chihuahua, Mexico, where Blanca had a lot of family, and where my best friend lives.

Our kids all remember the rush to load the car with them, an ice chest (for the beer, of course), a few clothes, whatever we were taking to whoever had asked for it, as soon as we got off work on a Friday afternoon.  Then, four hours on the road, where the kids had to listen to Dad’s tapes of the Beatles, Billy Joel, Atlanta Rhythm Section, etc., while I smoked my head off, all the way to the home of our friends, or Blanca’s Aunt and Uncle, or a cousin, and a weekend of partying.

We lived on Moses from June of 1986, until we sold it and moved to Tom Ulozas Drive, on El Paso’s East Side, in December of 1993.  By this time, our two oldest had left the nest.  Arthur graduated in 1989, and went off to UT - Austin, never to return, except, of course, for visits.  John, Jr. graduated a year later, and first went into the Army, then moved to the Denver area, before returning to the El Paso area, in late 1993.  Since Blanca was teaching in the Ysleta District, all of our children were able to continue their schooling in the same district, so that they were able to stay with their childhood friends.  Blanca, Jr. (AKA, Ikis) graduated from Ysleta High School, then took classes at UT, before coming back home to attend El Paso Community College, and work at a number of jobs.  Andrew, our baby, changed schools in his senior year, to Hanks High School, which was much closer to home, and then graduated from that school.

We were very happy in this house (me, mostly because it had a swimming pool, so a lot less grass to cut; never could get any of the kids to help me out with cutting the grass…), and our first grand daughter was born while we were there.  Bryan, our oldest grandchild, spent most of his weekends with us, and a lot of his summers, after his parents divorced.  After he started school, while he lived with his mother, I drove across town every Friday afternoon to pick him up, and he spent his weekends with us.  There were some job changes during the years we spent on Tom Ulozas, for both of us, until Blanca reached a point where she felt that she could not find a decent job in El Paso.

So, in the summer of 2004, we went to visit Blanca, Jr., in Arlington, and while there Blanca landed a job with the Dallas ISD.  I didn’t really want to leave El Paso by this time, but while in Arlington, I went online and found a job during the four days we were there.  So, I returned to El Paso, gave notice at my job, packed a few things, and returned to Arlington, where we both began new jobs in the first week of August.  Once we were there, I first worked as a Telephonic Case Manager, with a commute from Arlington, all the way up the Dallas North Tollway, almost to Plano (nearly forty miles, one way).  This was doable, but I really didn’t like the work, and hated the commute and the odd hours (I went in at 10:00 AM, and got out at 7:00PM), so after only four months there, I changed to doing a Medicare fraud investigative thing for the insurance company that serves as third party payer for Texas Medicare.  This still involved a long commute, in very heavy traffic, but the hours were a little bit better.  While there, I was approached by a head hunter to go to work for a company that wanted a bilingual RN Case Manager.

I had never been recruited for any job, and have to say that I did enjoy the experience.  I kept refusing, and they kept raising the offers, until I couldn’t say no.  Meanwhile, Blanca was doing fine with her job, but then, she had a fall on MLK Day in early 2005, and she broke her left wrist.  She received pretty crappy care, and had to go to a second specialist after coming out of her first cast, because the first Orthopedic Specialist never set the broken bones.  The break healed crookedly, leaving her wrist with a permanent disfigurement.  She had to have an Open Reduction, Internal Fixation procedure in March, after coming out of the first cast.  The surgery by this second specialist involved placing pins and plates, and some metal screws, and of course, then they put her in a bigger cast.  All together, she spent something like five months in casts, and then had many weeks of Physical Therapy, with the end result that her wrist has lost a lot of movement, and even looks crooked today, more than five years later.

By making the move to Arlington, we were able to immediately accelerate our retirement plans.  We stayed with our truly darling (yeah, I know.  I don’t talk this way, do I?) daughter and her girls for just over one year, then bought a house in Farmers Branch, located between our two work locations.  We stayed there until our move to Costa Rica, in early 2009.

I began drawing a small pension from the state of Texas when I turned sixty, and that income became the basis for our application to live in Costa Rica as pensionados.  Blanca then retired at the end of the 2007-2008 school year with something like 21 years’ service as a classroom teacher.  I continued working mostly because we had a mortgage and knew that this was not a time to be trying to sell a house.  This part of our life all ended rather abruptly when I was suddenly laid off on Jan. 5, 2009.  I had been very ill, in bed over the New Year holiday, and I remember at one point, sometime around the first of the year, in the midst of all the sneezing and coughing, I got up to go to the bathroom, and discovered that I had developed double vision.  This was, to say the least, a bit off-putting, which is just a way to avoid saying that it scared the podwaddin’ right on out of me.

I had to wait a day or two, until Friday of that first week of the new year, to get to the doctor, and he immediately arranged for me to see an Ophthalmologist (that same day), and scheduled me for an MRI, which was then done on Tuesday evening, the 6^th of January. 

The Ophthalmologist said that something was causing pressure on the fourth cranial nerve (a condition usually associated with high blood pressure, or Diabetes, but I had neither), and this pressure was causing the double vision (dipoplia). This condition usually lasts for six to eight weeks, and then gets better on its own, depending on the root cause. The temporary fix was that I had to find a pair of glasses with plain lenses (after four years of no glasses), not an easy thing to do, and then, upon returning to his office late that afternoon, his staff affixed a plastic ‘prism’ lens to the inside of the clear lens (I later learned that this is what is known as a Fresnel lens, and if you want to know a little something more about a Fresnel lens, read Jimmy Buffet’s charming book, Salty Piece Of Land).

The weirdness was just beginning: It was my Right eye that was focusing wrong, by the way, but it was to the left lens that this prism was affixed. This bends the light before it gets to the retina, causing that eye to match (more or less) the weak eye. Not comfortable, and not really clear vision, but it is better than double vision. I could at least watch a little TV, but reading was pretty much out of the question.

Now, comes the bad news part of this little episode:  I called my boss on Monday morning, January 5, 2009, to let her know what I had learned, and to bring her up to date with what I considered a potentially serious personal health issue.  Coincidentally (I’m with all those TV detectives, in that I don’t believe in coincidence in situations like this – and, yes, the pun is intended), not two hours later, I received a conference call from the big boss, my boss, and a third party, informing me that at an unspecified point during the previous year a ‘business’ decision was reached in regards to the “Texas Market” (blah, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, yada), and my position had been eliminated, effective Jan. 16. It was supposedly also decided that previous year to hold off on informing me until after the holidays, so as not to spoil my holiday. Very generously, they “offered” me a three-month extension of COBRA, in addition to paying me through the end of January, provided that I sign a waiver saying that I wouldn’t sue them, or talk about them.  Well, the company is called Coventry Health Care, so I guess you can easily surmise that I did NOT sign their frickin’ chicken$hit waiver.

Well, I got over it (obviously), but it was still a very low blow.  In the wake of this sudden job loss, I decided it might be the better part of valor to just go on ahead and move to Costa Rica at that time, rather than to continue working for a couple more years.  So, in February I put in for my Social Security, since I was already 62, and arranged for a mover, and we got everything packed, took a final, farewell tour of Texas to say goodbye to kids, grandkids, and family, and flew on down there on April 29.  The rest, as they say, is history.  OMG, that was more than 12 years ago!  And, that is just about where I began writing my Blog, aptly (I thought so, anyway) named "Grumbles from Arenal."

Basically, if you want to know what came next, you can go back through the links in today's Blog, and find all of my entries from our three years in Costa Rica, through to today.  I must admit, however, that I have become very lax in posting to this thing, name change and all, since our return to the States.  We basically lead a very boring retired life in the middle of the Covid pandemic, just trying to stay afloat.

Part IX……..out of the Army, and the newlyweds arrived in Seattle…….

We did buy our first home on North 36^th Street, in what was known as the Fremont area, in early 1969.  Here is what that house looked like in approximately 2019 (Thanks, Google Maps):

 

And, here is what it looked like in 1937, according to the Fremont Historical Society:

 

I have no idea who Denny + Hoyt’s refers to, but I did see that caption on some other photos located on the web site for the Fremont Area Historical Organisation.  And, finally, this is the only photo of it from our time there.  That is Blanca standing on the little porch (you can see the overspray from the paint job we - Mike, David, and I- did) :

 

After a short 14 months or so in Seattle, we decided – literally overnight – to move to El Paso, mostly because Blanca’s parents arrived mysteriously for a visit, the very day after I had gotten fed up and quit my job at Boeing.  It just seemed somehow convenient to have their assistance with loading our things into a U-Haul, and to make the drive back down to Texas.  (Yes, there is another story here, but I think I’ll save it for the novel).

El Paso was a struggle at first, but we did manage to find work, and even were able to buy a house within about three months of our arrival.  The struggle continued from 1970, until a friend prevailed upon me to finally use my head for something besides a hat rack (“Use the GI Bill, fool, before it’s too late!” he said).  We already had two children when I started college, and by the time Blanca finished her university, we had four.  We spent many years on the brink of disaster, living from paycheck to paycheck, never seeming to get ahead.

All of the above having been said, I am reminded that this was supposed to be a more positive piece, uplifting, as it were, as compared to what I usually write.  So, to get back on track, let’s focus on some of those more positive things.  Eventually, as the kids grew up, our careers advanced, and we not only made plans for our eventual retirement, and (despite some adjustments along the way) we ultimately reached a point where we felt we could end our working lives, and begin our new life here in Costa Rica.

This is not to say that our lives begin and end here in paradise, because we certainly have many fond memories of people and places.

We had many great times while living in El Paso’s lower valley (8153 Valley View) where all the kids were born, and launched on their educational paths.  We lived there for some sixteen years, and these are just a few of the highlights:  Arthur, the oldest, was born in 1971, started Head Start, and attended Pasodale Elementary, Ysleta Junior High, and Ysleta High School – we moved from this address in about 1986, when he was going into his junior or senior year of high school.  John, Jr., was born in 1973, and followed the same path, with the possible exception that he may have missed Ysleta Junior High (correct me if I’m wrong, John).  Both of them were able to graduate from Ysleta High School.  Blanca, Jr., our darling daughter, was born in 1977, and was able to graduate from Ysleta, but had to go a year or two to other schools (one year in the Socorro District, and another year of Junior High with her cousin, Melissa).  Andrew, the baby, was born in 1979, and started school in Ysleta, but switched to Socorro District when we moved to the edge of El Paso, very close to Socorro, in 1986.  He did attend Ysleta High School, like his siblings, but graduated from Hanks High School.

We moved from the Ysleta area, to the very edge of the city of El Paso, almost to the town of Socorro (we found ourselves located about three houses from the city limits, on Moses Drive) in 1986.  We had decided it was time to move when our home was burglarized while on one of many trips to Mexico (Chihuahua) over Easter Weekend in, I believe 1986.  This new neighborhood was a very different kind of neighborhood, with the homes on our block being owner occupied, mostly owner-built, but we were surrounded by lower class developments, and two street gangs (Los Ortiz Bros and La F Troop).  This was a fantastic home, with some 2400 sq. ft., four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a living room, a den, and a room that had been converted from what was originally intended to be a garage, into a play room, and a huge yard.  We had a pool table there, with a wet bar and a beer fridge (that actually stayed with me from Valley View, up until we moved to Dallas many years later; here’s another side story.  I bought it used from Bertha, Blanca’s sister.  It started life as one of those milk dispenser fridges you see on the back counter at a diner, like Denny’s.  It is still working today, in the garage at Bucko’s house in Austin.  I foolishly gave it to him while we were in Dallas because I bought a new, slightly bigger fridge that I then sold before we moved here.  I shoulda kept it).  We’re off to Pt. VIV…..

The time spent there (on Moses) was, overall, very good to us, but it was marked by a frequent sound of actual gunshots, followed by the sirens of the police and ambulances, and accompanied by the police helicopter, with high intensity searchlight sweeping the night sky looking for whatever gang members were responsible for the latest violence.

Oddly enough, we only had one incident while living there, where a thief from Mexico came into our yard, took clothes off the clotheslines, and stole a stereo from my brother-in-law’s motor home that had been parked in our driveway.  What made this even more odd was that Blanca happened to get up early that morning (a Sunday, I think), and had gone into the yard, maybe to bring in the clothes, and encountered the thief, carrying a bag and some sort of implement in his hands (maybe bolt cutters).  They were both so startled that neither reacted in a manner one might expect.  Blanca told the guy, in Spanish, that he was on private property, and walked him out the front gate, and he left.  Then, we discovered that some things were missing.  The clothes were found on the ground near the back fence, as if he had moved them there to pick up later.  The gap in the dashboard of the motor home (where the stereo used to be) was not noticed until sometime later.

So, we’ll leave you now, while the hunt for the thief continues………..

Las Orquidias – Costa Rica’s Best Kept Secret

 (Note: This article was originally posted on Monday, May 10, 2010, and was edited for one previous update).

"If the divine creator has taken pains to give us delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is prepare them well and serve them with ceremony".
(Fernand Point – (1897–1955) was a French restaurateur and is considered to be the father of modern French cuisine).


I have mentioned my favorite restaurant in the world, on other websites. Years ago, like at least five, maybe more, I remember posting a report on the guest list for Pura Vida Hotel, in Alajuela, about this restaurant. (Which, by the way, is another very special place; check it out: http://www.puravidahotel.com/info.html ).
Now, Ticos have told me for years that the best cooks in Costa Rica are Colombians. I do believe this, based solely on our experience at this place. The owner, chef, headwaiter, and all-around very nice guy is Don Alfonso Restrepo, who has been at the same location for as long as I've been coming to Costa Rica. And, he is from Colombia.
As I hope you already know, we live between the village of Aguacate de Tilaran, Guanacaste, and the small town of Nuevo Arenal, on the highway (highway is a very overblown term for this little road, but it is designated as such – actually, Ruta 142 – by the highway department of Costa Rica) that runs around the north side of Lake Arenal, between Tilaran, county seat of the Canton by that same name, and La Fortuna, Alajuela, county seat of another Canton, in that other province. Off this highway is a side road, that goes right up the mountains, over them, and down again, to the town of San Antonio de Guatuso, Alajuela. After the first 50 meters of cement, this road is mostly rocks - big ones - and at certain times of the year, a lot of mud, as well.
About 8 or 9 kilometers up this road is the village of Cabanga, a really interesting place. At one time Cabanga was noted for leather work, with at least two different families operating little store fronts, with saddles, belts, hats, just about anything you could ask for made of leather. It also had some renown for wood work, and one of the best native cabinet makers around is still there (Danilo, the guy who did our kitchen cabinets and all of our doors, plus my bread making table, and Blanca's sewing desk). There is, of course, a small pulperia, and one bar, Napos, a real rustic, less than sanitary place, that rarely has more than one or two beers in the whole place, and maybe one general gaseosa (soda pop), besides mostly the local guaro (cheap cane sugar liquor, refined much less than rum). (Ed Note: There is now a second bar, on a side street, off to the right about 250 meters, very close to the soccer field).
There is a town salon (like a ball room/meeting place), the requisite soccer field, a small school, and a number of Tico houses scattered about. And, of course, there is Las Orquidias, a restaurant bar that is on the main road, and reached by walking through the car port of the owner's home, down to the back. The restaurant features two levels, open on the west side, and the north, to a truly panoramic view, that, on a clear day, allows you to glimpse Nicaragua, way off in the distance to the north. The north wall of the upper level is screened, with a large variety of orchids placed all over the screen. The lower level is overflowing with potted plants, now featuring a wide variety of African Violets. The bar features a beautiful wood bas relief depicting a typical Costa Rican scene, and a surprisingly extensive selection of booze.
As to the menu at Las Orquidias, usually there isn't one. I think the only times I have ever been offered a menu have been those occasions when he was not there. The routine we have followed for some years is this: As we enter, we greet any and all who might be present. This being Costa Rica, that does not usually mean very many people. If there are customers present, we usually seat ourselves. If not, then we go straight to the kitchen door, and greet Don Alfonso, his wife, Yadira, and her mother, whose name I don't remember. If he is busy, then, a bit later, as soon as he gets the chance, he will come to our table, and we will exchange abrazos, and expressions of good will, bonhomie, and generally nice things. If he has run out of my favorite beer, he immediately begins to apologize, and lets me know what is available that day. I can even drink Imperial, as long as it is very cold (poured over ice), and as long as it is served by him.
Once we have our beers, he comes back to our table, where we visit for a bit, before we get down to business. This means, it is time for him to tell us what he has available that day. Generally, he can offer beef (best would always be the Filet Mignon, with a mushroom sauce guaranteed to go right to work creating more plaque in your arteries), pollo (chicken), usually grilled, but he does one of the world's best Cordon Bleu's, with another sauce that makes my mouth water, just thinking about it, and usually either Tilapia or Corvina that he can bread and fry, or grill, with a garlic touch. I still remember a shrimp dish he prepared for me one time that had my mouth watering for weeks afterward (a sauce that I just knew had gone straight to the walls of my arteries, but what a journey). He almost always will suggest a preparation method, or an entrée that is just a bit different from the normal, and his suggestions are usually well worth listening to, and even heeding. He also makes a great ceviche, usually with tilapia, but shrimp is also available.
Beyond the simple fact that his food is always exquisite, Don Alfonso's old world manner, and his charm are guaranteed to impress you. He always makes our dining experience special, with his welcome, and his concern for our pleasure. We make it a point to take all of our visitors up there, and we try to get up there more than once a month, whether we have visitors or not. You should know that I have seen him handle a group of 14 people, with total aplomb, not allowing the sheer numbers to upset him in the least, and his skill is so great (long practice, no doubt) that he timed the preparation of all those different requests, so that everything was delivered to our table at the same time, with universal acclaim. That's not to mention that every single plate was thoroughly cleaned by all and sundry.
The reality of eating out in Costa Rica is that most places are comparable in price to eating establishments in the states (i.e., not really cheap any more), so it should be no surprise that a meal for two, with at least two beers does run about $25-30. However, what we get for that with Don Alfonso is the pleasure of his company, the opportunity to watch a master chef at work, a spectacular view, and some of the best food anywhere. More important, Alfonso and his wife, Yadira have become our friends. (I have told you about our first 'date' in another post about a live music event in December of 2009).

Now, for the bad news: The ongoing, and now, long-standing, financial crisis has begun to take its toll on this fine establishment. In years past, despite the truly awful road up to Cabanga, some few people did manage to trek on up this way. Now, however, Don Alfonzo tells us that people just are not coming up the mountain. Business has fallen off so much that he has found it necessary to take a job in a restaurant in nearby Guatuso, meaning that he is no longer able to be present in his own place most of the week. The food is still great, but there is now a very real danger that he may have to close his doors, and/or move his operation to Guatuso. This would be a very serious loss to those of us who like good food. So, if you are within driving distance of Cabanga, please go see these nice people, and enjoy a great meal in their presence – before it is too late!

Our Monopoly is Heard From

 

I just got this email this morning, and have made some comments about it: Dear EP Electric Customer, You may have heard that El Paso Electric (EPE) has filed a "rate case" that may result in rate increases for certain EPE customers. We have received many questions about what a rate case is and our reason for filing it. We hope this information helps answer those questions. A rate case is a regulatory proceeding during which a utility requests a review of its expenses and an adjustment to customer rates in order to recover costs on investments that have already been made to serve customers. Unlike other companies, we can't raise our rates unilaterally even if our costs have gone up and even if we have spent significant additional funds on serving our customers. To get compensated for those investments, we must make a regulatory filing to prove those expenditures were reasonable and justified. Texas also requires every electric utility to file a rate case with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) every four years. For EPE, the last rate case filed was in 2017*. Accordingly, our next rate case had to be submitted in 2021. Rate cases are lengthy processes and the submission is the first step followed by many hearings and discussions. At the center of these discussions will be whether EPE should be allowed to include the nearly $1 billion spent to upgrade our infrastructure and meet the increasing energy demands in our rates. We are confident that we made these investments to reliably generate and deliver power to your home and business and to position our region well for economic development opportunities. However, the ultimate decision on our rates will be made by our regulators. We would expect that decision to be made by early 2022. In the last few years, we have -and we hope you have-seen the value of our investments. For example, while the rest of Texas was without power during the recent winter freeze, we were not. When the rest of Texas was dealing with curtailments during extreme heat, we were not. We - the customers and the Company - benefited greatly from the investments to weatherize our equipment and develop diverse generation, among other actions**. Our responsibility to make sure you are safe and secure with the energy you need for your life and business is something we take seriously. We work hard to surpass the level of quality and service every year. Whatever the outcome is, we will continue to provide you the energy needs you have come to expect and deserve. You can count on us, every day and in every type of weather, to not only deal with the challenges of today, but to prepare for the growth of tomorrow. Kelly A. Tomblin President and CEO El Paso Electric

*The notice of rate increase that I received made no mention of these funds already having been invested.  And, again, if these expenditures were indeed investments, doesn’t that mean they were spent in anticipation of a return through normal income?

 

    **Re:  His claim that we did not experience the outages that the rest of the state suffered is true.  But what he fails to mention is that we did not have temperatures as low as the rest of the state, or did they persist for as long a time period.  Nor, does he admit that EPE serves a tiny number of customers in comparison to the Texas grid.

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……..