Seward's Folly -- Part II

We dreamed of a large, comfortable house with a bedroom for each kid and spacious common areas to serve for family gatherings and parties. The reality was an all-consuming monster that ate our family.

The first few years were filled with dreams, plans, foundations, and hope. Then, years passed, and little progress was made on the new house, while the old house continued to deteriorate, as did our family.

My mother slowly settled into drinking more and doing less. From time to time, she seemed to bob to the surface and show some signs of life, learning to drive, taking Spanish lessons, joining a garden club, or leading a Bluebird troop for my sister, Valery. But, for the most part she became more reclusive, spending hours in her rocking chair, smoking cigarettes, working crossword puzzles, or playing solitaire, sipping on bourbon and soda, and taking long naps.

She had a set of household tasks she performed religiously. She always made her bed when she got up in the morning, started the coffee, and prepared breakfast for the kids. Each morning she made sure her kids went off to school with a hot breakfast in their tummies, and a  brown paper lunch bag filled with a sandwich, homemade cookies, a piece of fruit, and a paper napkin.

Every night, we ate dinner together in the dining room. Rarely, was anyone missing, and it was just as unusual to have a guest. The table was carefully set for seven people; dinner plates, salad plates, paper napkins, and silverware were laid out in Emily Post-perfect order. The silverware was sterling and we always used salad forks as well as dinner forks. Our mother brought the food to the table in serving dishes which were passed around, so we could each serve ourselves. Ritual was infused in our meal practices, but not until recently did I view them as offerings of love by our mother who was not able to demonstrate love in ways more easily understood by children.

I set the table until Valery was old enough to take over. Then, I was promoted to salad maker. Those were the only two chores that were ever assigned in our household. No one but our mother ever did the dishes. I never understood that, but she didn't want us doing them. And, of course, this was before every kitchen had an automatic dishwasher. We never ate out during those years before frozen meals and takeout. And I don't remember my mother ever being ill or missing a meal, except when she went to the hospital to have a baby.

She seemed almost possessive about meal preparation and dishwashing, unwilling to let the kids do any of it. Laundry was the same. In 1953, we got a brand new automatic Westinghouse front loading washer and a dryer that played the tune to "How Dry I Am" at the end of the cycle. They were installed against the far wall of the back room, their bubble glass doors looking across the room like a gigantic pair of eyes.The washer and dryer were in constant use, but nothing ever got ironed or put away. A mountain of clean clothes was piled on a nearby table. We pulled what we needed out of the pile and ironed it ourselves, if necessary.

The back room was an unfinished room, about 20 feet square, attached to the house by a breezeway. It served as my father's office as well as laundry room. It also had a toilet, but not a full bathroom. His drawing table was positioned under a north-facing window; it couldn't have been for the light, I don't believe that grimy window was washed once in the twenty years I knew of.

The back room was the repository for his not-so secret bottle of wine. He never left the house without a stop in the backroom, ostensibly to use the toilet, but he always left the room drawing the back of his right hand across his mouth and and emitting a breathy mahhhh sound. His left hand would reach into the front pocket of his trousers and withdraw a tube of lifesavers. Removing one peppermint circle from the tube, he would blow tobacco shreds from the center of it before popping it into his mouth. Then he was ready to hit the road.

 I left home to begin married life in 1959 and my brother Mickey joined the Air Force a couple of years later. Neither of us would return to the family home. So, instead of five, there were now three chicks left in the nest.

The house progressed slowly. Beautiful blue-green granite stones were purchased for the large fireplace in the family room and slate for the floor of the entry way. Framing and roof joists began to give the structure a three-dimensional aspect. The fireplaces were installed and the chimneys rose through the roof line. And I remember joining in the family prayer for a dry October as preparations were made for the installation of the roof, a large flat surface of crushed white marble. Windows and siding were added and the house was enclosed.

My father in his weekend uniform, wifebeater shirt and baggy khaki pants, 

Christmas, 1968, still in the old house,

By Christmas 1968,  the oldest two of the Blair children, brother Mickey and I, had produced five members of a new generation. They gathered under the Christmas tree, which was, as usual, placed in front of the door to nowhere. At that time, brother Ken was a sophomore at UC Berkeley, and Valery was finishing high school. Mickey, Ricky, and I were all married and living in our own homes. The marriage and the very lives of my parents were on unstable ground, The new house was at a standstill and all resources of cash and internal fortitude had been tapped out. 

My mother complained to me on the telephone that my father never did anything but pace around the unfinished interior of the new house and that she was going crazy living in the tumble-down old house. And, in fact, I believe she was going crazy. At one point, she disappeared for several days and no one knew where she was. She had taken their beloved German Shepherd, Jody, with her, so my father felt reasonably sure she was not suicidal. She loved the dog so much, he felt she would not take the adored animal into a dangerous situation. In retrospect, I believe she was suicidal, but I was so wrapped up in my own life, I took what my father told me at face value and didn't doubt him. She was drinking very heavily on a daily basis and when she was alert, she raged at her youngest daughter, Valery. 

My father complained that he didn't know what to do with my mother. Her drinking was going to be the ruin of him and he just couldn't stand it anymore. I was helpless, caught in the middle, and suggested to each of them that they leave the other. Each reacted the same way, as though I had blasphemed, "I could never leave your mother/father! How dare you even suggest it!"

A last draw on his inheritance, and probably more refinancing, produced a final infusion of cash. At last, in 1971, after all five children had left home, eighteen years after moving into temporary quarters in the tumbledown Victorian, my mother and father moved into the dream/nightmare house. It wasn't entirely finished, bricks still lay in piles around their ultimate destination as a decorative element on the exterior of the lower story. The downstairs pool room and workshop walls were unfinished, and parts of the exterior lacked paint, but a certificate of occupancy was issued, and the old house was emptied and demolished.

Demolition of the old house. The kitchen sink is to the left, my bedroom to the right. The only bathroom, with a tub and no shower, was in between the kitchen and my bedroom.

Preparing to topple the chimney of the old house

The house was torn down, all but the back room, left standing and visible in the picture above, with my father standing in front of it. It still held his drawing table, building material catalogs, architecture textbooks, drafting tools, probably the bug-eyed washer and dryer, a supply of empty wine bottles, and in all likelihood, some unfolded laundry.

My daughter, Colleen standing on the felled chimney, you can look across the debris field to the new house.

Six grandchildren and the first Christmas in the new house, 1971

Just as construction was being completed, my mother's mother (Mimi) died, leaving  a bunch of cash and telephone company stock which was promptly liquidated to provide funds for furnishings. My mother entered a gloriously productive sober period and went into a decorating frenzy. She attended a class on interior decorating, sewed curtains, bought and arranged furniture. The youngest two children, Kenny and Valery, were at that fledgling state in their lives where they bobbed in and out of the nest for a brief while. But, for the most part, the nest was empty and my mother and father had the roost to themselves.

In 1973, my father's mother died and he collected the remnants of his inheritance. For the first time in twenty years, it wasn't necessary to pour all available time and money into the new house. My parents used the money to travel the world. They made friends in the UC Berkeley alumni association, and they entertained. I think the years from 1973 to 1984 may have been the happiest in their lives. The kids were all grown and independent, the soul-eating behemoth was placated, and they were free, free at last.

Of course, the story doesn't end there. My father died on April 1, 1984 of a sudden heart attack after a night of smoking, drinking, and dancing. He was 71 years old, and my mother was a widow at 65. For the first time in her life she was entirely alone.

And Then There Were Five

On October 18, 1949, Kenneth Lee Blair was born and I was ten and a half years old. I remember answering the phone (a heavy black bakelite phone with a rotary dial and a springy cloth-covered cord), when my mother called from the hospital to announce, "It's a boy!" and I remember being very disappointed I didn't get the baby sister I wished for. But, I rebounded as soon as I held my sweet new sibling in my arms. I felt as though he was my own real live baby doll. I kissed him and cuddled him, dressed him, took him for walks,and thought he was the cutest, most perfect being on the planet. Changing his diapers and feeding him were duties my mother gladly yielded to me and I considered them a privilege.

I remember pushing him in his Taylor Tot down to the new Lucky's Supermarket where an old lady stopped us to fuss over the baby. She looked up at me and asked, "Is he yours?" 

Her question filled me with pride, but I told her the truth, "No," I said, "How old do you think I am?"

She replied, "Oh, I don't know, they have them so young these days." I wished he were my baby and maybe in a way, he was. I had a maternalistic bond with Ken that endures to this day, even though he died in 1993 and I felt the loss as deeply as the loss of a child. 

The picture below was taken in April of the last year we lived in the Athol Avenue house. That July, when my mother was five months pregnant with her fifth child, we moved to 5501 Leona Street, to a tumble-down Victorian era farmhouse on an acre of land in the Oakland Hills. My parents had visions of living in that house only as long as construction of their dream house was under way. But, that's a story for another day.

Easter 1952

In 1952, my mother finally delivered the baby sister I waited for so long. Valery Joan Blair was born October 25 and again I remember answering the phone call from the hospital. "It's a girl!" announced my mother.

"I knew you could do it!" was my response. 

And like for brother Ken, I had lots of opportunity to practice my child care techniques. From the time I was five years old and told to keep an eye on Mickey, until I left home, I always had a hand in caring for my younger siblings.

With Mickey, I felt an intense sense of displacement and sibling rivalry. I didn't have the same issues with my second brother. When Ricky was born, I was nearly five. My job was to keep Mickey safe and out of the way while our mother took care of Ricky. Ricky had a few health struggles when he was young: asthma and a milk allergy as an infant, and a severe case of whooping cough when he was about five. I was too young to be directly involved in his care, but I felt he was very special and needed to be protected.

Because I was involved in the hands-on care of both Kenny and Valery, I felt very maternalistic toward them. At the same time, they grew to be very close to each other with frequent escapes into a fantasy world created by the beautiful and creative mind of Ken. 

As they grew closer, I grew more distant, moving into my own world filled with girlfriends, boyfriends, and plans for a future formed by my past.

Christmas, 1954

In Sickness and in Health

These are real events as I recall them. After August 20, 2015, when Logan goes off to college, I will again veer off into my fantasy road trip.

Much of my adult life I've been harshly critical of my mother because of her alcoholism. I'm sad and angry that it removed her from active participation as a grandmother in the lives of my children. Today I put that aside and remember the selfless, tireless, beautiful young mother I had as a child.

She was  just twenty when I was born, two years after her high school graduation from Oakland High School in 1937. She and a group of her girlfriends had formed a sorority they called the Maddi Kappi; they hung out together and met a bunch of architectural students from Cal (UC Berkeley) and that's how I came to be.

She was a student at Heald's Business College, but she didn't finish the program. She worked one Christmas season wrapping gifts at Hale's Department Store in Oakland, the only job she ever held. According to Social Security, her lifetime earnings were just over $200. And then, she became a mom.

I always thought she looked kind of like Lauren Bacall. She was fun, flirty, loved to dance, and loved to sing, always humming under her breath as she went about the housework. I was proud of the way my young mother looked and felt sorry for the kids with fat frumpy older moms.

My father was a student when my parents married and he worked part time for Standard Oil as a draftsman. He graduated from Cal a year after I was born. Shortly thereafter, he went to work for Owens-Illinois as a draftsman and then later as an architectural engineer. He remained in that position until his retirement. His salary was always just a little short of what we needed to get by, so he supplemented it by spending hours at the drafting table he set up in our dining room, drawing house plans for all the executives at the glass factory. He designed several homes which are still standing in Piedmont, the Montclair district, Orinda, and Oakland. He further supplemented his income with a series of loans from his mother, drawing down on any future inheritance.

In those days, the only inoculations available for kids were DPT and they weren't mandatory, so we didn't get them. These were also the days before health insurance, so any doctor's visit was an unplanned expense and our household had no room in the budget for unplanned expenses. Only maternity care was allowed in our household. 

I don't remember my mother ever being sick, or even slowed down by her pregnancies -- five of them (although today I'm writing about a time before the youngest two were born). I have vivid memories of the times we were sick and the wonderful loving care she bestowed on us.

Measles, we called them the red measles, the two-week kind, were epidemic among kids from about five to eight years old. And we caught them serially, so for six weeks a fevered child lay in my mother's bed. The shades were drawn because of the risk of eye damage, I don't know if darkness really did anything to prevent damage, but we also weren't allowed to read for the same reason. I remember running a fever of 105 degrees and my mother getting almost. but not quite, worried enough to call the doctor. In lieu of a doctor's house call, my father called Dr. Bensinger, the plant doctor. He became our de facto family physician.

When we were sick we slept in our beds by night, but in the daytime, we rested in our parents downstairs bed and we were treated royally. Mom read to us, sang to us, brought meals in on a tray, and bought treats like comic books or ice cream bars. When she left to walk down to the corner store, we got out from under the covers and jumped on the bed. Being sick had lots of perks. 

In addition to the measles, chickenpox and mumps won us time in our mother's bed. For some reason, we never caught rubella, known to us as the German measles, the black measles or the three-day measles.

Brother Rick (the little guy in the pictures), and I had the whooping cough. I had what was probably the world's lightest case, I barely coughed with a slight whoop for six weeks and felt fine most of the time, but I had to stay out of school. They said whooping cough was two weeks coming, two weeks there, and two weeks leaving, comprising the six week quarantine period. Rick had a terrible case. Every time he coughed, he vomited. He coughed until the blood vessels in his eyes broke. He became very thin and we were all very worried about him. He was given special drinks to keep him hydrated and fed lots of Popsicles. I think Popsicles were a universal cure, at least in our household. 

But the worst, the very worst, was the ringworm. My father had taken in a stray kitten. We loved it and cuddled it and fought over who would get to hold it next. And then I began to itch on my chest, right where I snuggled the kitten. Soon both my brothers were itching in the same spot. This time my parents took us to the doctor. The first diagnosis was impetigo. When we returned to the doctor in even worse shape with the condition spreading to our arms and legs, the diagnosis became scabies. Finally when the eruptions settled into the characteristic round shape of ringworm, the accurate diagnosis was made, and the kitten was identified as the source of our malady. Sadly, by that time our other household pets, my beloved cat, Dingle, and our sweet cocker spaniel, Duchess, had to be put down. 

Not only did we lose our household pets, but all our stuffed animals were burned. By this time our entire bodies were covered including the scalps of my brothers. Their heads were shaved, but my scalp was spared and I had to wear my hair tightly braided and pinned to the top of my head. Ours were the worst cases of ringworm the doctor had ever seen. He referred us to the dermatology clinic at the University of California Medical School. There, a half dozen dermatologists peered at us and photographed us for medical journals. 

The outbreak began in June just as school was letting out for the summer. The treatment called for rigorous cleanliness and isolation from any other kids. Our parents were absolute saints during this time. I'm sure they felt enormous guilt for bringing this plague into the house, but the effort they put forth in caring for us and entertaining us was superhuman.

 Like every household in 1949, we had only a wringer washer, Our mother washed and line-dried our bed sheets every day. We bathed morning and night and had a salve called Salinadol smeared over all our lesions. My hair was shampooed daily, greased with the gooey salve, braided, and pinned up out of contact with the eruptions on my neck and forehead. Gallons of Hexol were used in cleaning every surface of the house. My mother worked to keep the bugs at bay from dawn till she fell in bed at night.

The picture below was taken two months before ringworm turned our beautiful skin into a repulsive mass of sores. It sat on my mother's dresser where she would look at it and weep, wondering if her children would ever be beautiful again.

Our parents went to great lengths to entertain us and compensate for our cloistered summer. My father built wonderful toys, using cardboard and wood liberated from the stock piles of the glass factory. He built a 5/8 scale stage coach with doors that opened and shut, seats inside, a seat outside for the driver and a side kick. Horses heads also made from cardboard fit over our heads and rested on our shoulders. My grandfather (Bobo) gave us a regular full-sized pinball machine that we operated using slugs instead of coins. Both the stage coach and pin ball machine were in a garage we used as a rumpus room. Mimi bought us books; we couldn't contaminate library books. We had homemade stilts and a constant supply of new comic books.

Our mother sang to us and our father told us stories. He made up a stories about the Whiffenpoofs, a family who had ringworm, but were able to put them to good use. They would scrape them off and use them as tires on their cars and take wonderful trips. And we did take wonderful day trips. We explored the entire bay area, took the ferry to San Francisco, or had picnics in many of the wonderful East Bay Regional Parks, and went for walks in the woods.

By the time summer was over and school was ready to start, we were cured. We didn't miss a day of school and our exhausted mother had a chance to rest.

School Days

Another installment of reminiscing prompted by my trip to Oakland. These too, are true so far as memory allows.  

I started kindergarten at Cleveland School in January 1944. At that time, kids could start mid-year because of a semester system that divided each grade into "high" and "low." I think it is a good system; a child who wasn't quite ready for school in September could start in January and not have to wait a whole year to begin. And my mother loved it. She still had two more little kids at home; the nest was getting a little crowded.

I was a mid-year kid until I skipped the high third grade, going directly from low third to low fourth grade. My mother cautioned me, "Don't go thinking it's because you're so smart, it's just because your class was too crowded." But I was immediately placed in the top groups in reading and arithmetic (we didn't call it math until the fifth grade).

The desks we sat at like those in the picture were mounted on wooden runners. I remember running the edge of the sole of my shoe along the runners and along the grooves in the pine floors. The smell of the oiled floors mixed with that of chalk dust and the ink in our ink wells created a particular school room perfume which is lodged in olfactory memory. Third grade had a special rite of passage. When we had satisfied Mrs. McNary we had mastered the Palmer method of cursive handwriting, we were issued pens and blotters and our inkwells would be filled. We dipped our pens in the blue-black liquid and carefully scratched out the final copies of our compositions. 

Mrs. McNary's classroom was in one of the portables. Being assigned to a portable was a special honor because they were heated by coal-burning stoves. Not only did we have blackboard monitors, but some lucky boy was also chosen for the highly esteemed position of coal monitor, charged with keeping the coal bucket filled, and stoking the fire as needed. Girls could be blackboard monitors, but only boys were allowed to be coal monitors.

When I was in about fifth grade, a boy just a grade behind me died by hanging in the basement of his home. We were told it was an accident and I never doubted it. Even though these were the years polio was rampant, and several friends had been crippled, it had never occurred to me that a child could die. Another tragic event was the murder of the mother of a classmate. His brother had bludgeoned their mother with a hatchet in a ferocious rage in the basement of their home. My classmate continued at school, but I could never bring myself to talk to him after that. Even looking at him was difficult and made me wonder if my brother were capable of such a thing. I couldn't bear the possibility of losing my mother. And I feared tragedy was contagious. 

Clayton Wright was my first boyfriend. One day our fifth-grade substitute teacher caught us passing love notes in class. She called both of us to the front of the classroom and while holding me in a hammerlock, squished against her ample bosom, she forced me to read the note aloud to the class. I'm not sure why it bothered me so much, everyone had opened and read the note as it made its way across the classroom, there was no secret within. But I still remember the mortification and the smell of that woman: a mixture of Vick's Vap-O-Rub and gardenia perfume. However, my love for Clayton was undiminished by public shaming. 

Clayton gave me a chocolate-covered marshmallow heart for Valentine's Day. The tinfoil wrapping was all wrinkled because he had unwrapped it to enclose two dimes so I could meet him for the Saturday matinee at the Parkway theater.

I was more excited about having two dimes than the prospect of going to the movies with Clayton, so I rounded up a couple of girlfriends and we headed for the school store. The school store, located just behind the school on Brooklyn Avenue was in the downstairs corner of the house pictured below with an entry right on the corner. Inside, was a fabulous assortment of penny candy, Mary Janes, sugar dots on paper, wax lips, wax bottles of sweet syrup, several kinds of licorice, lollipops, and both Fleers and Bazooka bubble gum. I bought a little of everything and shared it with my friends. Fortunately, I was able to beg 20 cents from my father to keep my date with Clayton, In fact, the entire fifth grade class kept our date. They sat in a solid line in the row behind us. I was so annoyed that I got up and moved to a seat by myself. As near as I can recall, that was our last date.

The map above illustrated the approximate boundaries of our free-range territory. It is about a three-mile square area, with Lake Merritt as its main attraction. The red X marks the location of our house. I know as young as nine years old, I borrowed a friend's bicycle and rode all around Lake Merritt, a distance of 3-1/4 miles. My mother never knew about it. When I was ten, I got a beautiful Schwinn bicycle for my birthday and frequently rode around the lake. So long as we appeared for meals, we never accounted for our whereabouts.

The year I was in fifth grade, I got a violin for Christmas. It was a wretched piece of equipment; the tuning pegs would never hold, and it was constantly slipping out of tune. The fact that I was a terrible musician compounded the horror. Even worse, I loved playing the violin and practiced relentlessly while my mother would beg me to please, please, please, use the mute. You can probably tell by my awkward pose that I simply had no feel for the instrument. 

In the picture of the three little musicians, you can barely make out built-in cabinets on either side of the fake fireplace. The one on the left housed my Story Book Doll collection. Although I never played with dolls, I loved getting new Story Book Dolls to add to my collection every birthday and Christmas. My parents, grandmother (Mimi), and Aunt Helen all helped my collection grow until I had around thirty dolls. When I grew a bit older, they were boxed up and stored in my closet. I noticed one day they were missing and later learned my brother had given them away to his girlfriend. My parents did nothing to help me get them back and he was never held accountable for taking them. I've worked really hard over the years to let go of resentment toward my brother, but this one surfaces from time to time and I'm still mad.

The War Years

This is more reverie stirred up by my visit last week to my childhood haunts. Again, so far as memory serves, this is true.

World War II is a backdrop to all my earliest memories. I'm told my brother and I were at Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco with my parents, Bud and Ruthanne Blair, and my aunt and uncle, Helen and Bill Millward, on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, while the Japanese were dropping bombs on Hawaii.  I see no traces of war worries in our Christmas photo. I see my beautiful mother who hung tinfoil icicles on the tree one strand at a time so that they would hang gracefully. My talented father had graduated from UC Berkeley a year and a half previously with a degree in architecture and was working as a draftsman for Owens-Illinois Glass Company. My brother, Mickey was fifteen months old.

Christmas 1941, just 18 days after Pearl Harbor.

 Our 1944 Victory Garden

Among his many talents, my father was a wonderful gardener. He mixed sand into the adobe soil, fertilized with compost he carefully tended, and watered religiously when he got home from work. Several of our neighbors benefited from his green thumb.  

Summer of 1944. My Grandmother, Minnie Blair, holds Ricky while I stick out my tongue and Mickey prepares to spit.

Grandma visited to see her new grandson, Ricky, and to say good-bye to her youngest son as he went off to war. I cannot begin to grasp the agony of her conflicted feelings as she sits with new life in her lap and contemplates the dangers and possibility of the death of her own dear son, but I think it is written on her face. That year marks the beginning of the time she seemed like an old woman to me. 

My father, me, and my father's brother, Bill Blair, Summer 1944

Uncle Bill came to visit just before leaving for his assignment in the South Pacific as an Army Air Corps B-24 co-pilot. He returned safely after flying 49 missions in the "Red-Headed Woman." As of this writing, he is still living in Pasadena, California and now enjoys WWII memories with many of his fellow WWII vets who meet together regularly. 

In the picture above, my father patriotically smoked a Lucky Strike from a package adorned with a red circle instead of the older-style pack with a green circle, because, according to the slogan, "Lucky green has gone to war." In front of the fence grew asters, zinnias, and cosmos, while behind the fence were dahlias, more products of my father's prodigious gardening skills. 

My father never went to war for reasons that remain vague to me. I remember hearing something about "flat feet" and "too many kids," His contribution was serving as the neighborhood Air Raid Warden, which as nearly as I can recall, meant when the sirens sounded and there was a blackout, he patrolled the neighborhood, wearing a special vest and a helmet, pulling a canister of water mounted on wheels while checking to make sure everyone had drawn their blackout curtains. It was never clear to me what he was supposed to do with the water, but I knew it was important.

My parents made another contribution by hanging out in bars (Oscar's down on Park Boulevard), drinking with war wounded, and bringing maimed service men home for a meal. They all seemed to be missing a limb. I remember one with a black glove over a useless rigid prosthetic hand, another had a claw he could hold a cigarette with. One who was missing a leg walked with crutches while his pinned-up empty pant leg swung back and forth. Some of the intact service men were mess cooks stationed at Camp Shoemaker. They were a convenient source of scarce and rationed food. Butter, sugar, and eggs were available in our home while the corner grocery shelves were empty.

Ice skating is all mixed up in my memories of the war years. I know my parents were both good skaters and enjoyed ice dancing. My mother was particularly fond of a sailor named Matt who was a wonderful skater. In later years, my father, perhaps after having had too much to drink, told me more about Matt. Apparently, he and my mother intended to run away together, taking my brother Mickey and leaving me behind. The rent money was missing around that time, I don't know if it was part of the runaway scheme, or if any one our guests had stolen it. My mother also revealed a dark secret years later while under the influence. She told me she had an abortion after the birth of Mickey and before Ricky. That would have placed it around 1942-1943, the same time she was planning to run away. I don't know how to connect the dots in these scant pieces of information, but I do know they cast a long shadow over their marriage.

Knowledge of these secrets reinforced feelings that had been developing all my life. I saw my mother as flawed, weak, and flighty: my father as a long-suffering noble hero. And I felt unloved by my mother, thought she saw me as competition and perhaps, I was. My father understood me at a level she could not. I held these feelings for most of my adult life and have only recently come to challenge and change them. In my later years my mother emerges in my mind as something of a martyred heroine.

This Old House

These reflections on my childhood are true, subject to the frailty of memory.

Before setting out on my great adventure, I took a trip to Oakland to revisit some scenes from my childhood. 

This old house, built in 1914 at 570 Athol Avenue, Oakland, California is the warehouse for many of my childhood memories. I lived there from 1944 until 1952, from when I was five years old until the summer I was thirteen.

I slept in the house during the night, but most of my memories are outside in the backyard, in the streets, on the sidewalks, roaming the neighborhood, and beyond. We were free-range children. I don't know if that was the norm for the day, or if it was because my mother was always busy with the baby -- I was the oldest of five children, so there was always a baby. Perhaps she was settling into her alcoholism, or just, as she said, "Too nervous to have us underfoot." But, as nearly as I can recall, unless we were at school, it was raining, or we were sick, we were turned out to play.

Sometimes we played in the backyard. My father was very clever at all kinds of building, and made our backyard into a great playground. There was a nice lawn, beautiful flower beds, a 15 x 20 foot playhouse constructed as soundly as any house with cement foundations, wood framing on 16" centers, solid wood sub floors over sturdy beams, an eight foot ceiling and a pitched roof with exposed rafters. It served later residents as a studio, He had constructed a swing set from salvaged pipes, and an enormous sandbox filled with sand liberated from the glass factory where he worked as an architectural engineer. When glass furnaces were rebuilt, used bricks became available for reuse and showed up in our backyard as a barbecue pit on our patio (pronounced PAH-tee-oh, by him).

But, the front yard, the streets, the neighborhood and beyond were also part of our range. In the front yard, we played jacks, or rock school on the front steps. In rock school, one kid was chosen to be teacher and stood in front of the students who sat on the steps. The teacher hid a small rock in one of her closed fists. The students started in Kindergarten on the bottom step and if they guessed which hand held the rock they would be promoted. The first kid to the top of the steps became the teacher and the game started over. I loved rock school.

The street was great for jump rope, kite-flying, hide-and-seek, kick the can, Red Rover, Mother May I, Simon Says, and an infinite variety of tag games, like freeze tag, blind man's bluff, and stoop tag. On really hot days, we liked to squat down in the middle of the street and pop the tar bubbles that formed. We would also pull up a patch of the sticky stuff and chew it like gum. If we were really lucky, someone in the neighborhood would be having a roof repaired and there would be a truck pulling a tar pot parked in front of their house. We could then get a fresh, "clean," chunk of tar to chew on. If we got thirsty, we drank from the hose, anybody's hose, in the front yard and we might accidentally squirt one of our friends.

We knew all the neighbors, if not by name, by ethnicity: the Brazilians on the corner, the Filipinos next door, the Jews on the other corner, the Chinese on the other side of the block, the Greeks who ran the grocery down the street. Mrs. McCarthy could always be depended on for a cookie if we knocked on her door and asked; Mr. Green always called his car his "machine." The Amundsen's across the street still had an ice box and had ice delivered twice a week. If we were out front when the ice man came, we could get a chunk of ice to suck on. And the Lukes had the first television on the block, making their live-in granddaughters, Sandra and Claudia, very popular.

Large Queen Anne style Victorian -- missing witches hat tower roof

The architecture of the neighborhood was eclectic. Older Victorians stood next to Maybeckian shingled houses, Craftsmen-style cottages, '30s deco and Spanish-style houses filled in some of the gaps and a '50s moderne occupied the last-to-be-built corner lot.

Maybeck-style

More on the old neighborhood tomorrow.

A Tomb With a View

This installment of my saga is true.

When my big trip is under way, I will have lots of time for reflection and meditative thought while driving. I love the way my mind takes off while the car follows the open road. Wanting to shore up the foundation for my musings, I drove to Oakland yesterday to visit places that loom large in my thoughts and to clarify some cloudy memories of my first twenty years. The grave site of my grandparents was my first stop. 

                         

Ruth H. Anderson was my maternal grandmother. John J. was her husband, but not my blood grandfather. My paternal grandfather, Franklin Howard Hatch and Ruth were divorced in 1920, she became Ruth H. Anderson the next year when my mother, Ruthanne, was around two years old. He was the only father my mother knew and my grandfather in every way but blood.

The grave of my grandparents (Mimi and Bobo to me) sits at the highest point in St. Mary's cemetery in Oakland, California, literally beyond the pale of the adjoining and more beautifully kept Mountain View Cemetery. In fourteenth century Ireland, the pale was a line of fences that separated the part of Ireland that fell under English rule.  In Ireland, it was pickets that followed the contours of the land. Here, in the cemetery, an unattractive cyclone fence ranges up and down the hilly landscape. The ghosts of the Catholics stick to their own kind in Oakland, while the interdenominational, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and atheistic remains lie in integrated society.

                                     

On a clear day, you can see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate through that break in the trees. During the course of their stormy, passionate marriage, Mimi and Bobo lived in a house with a similar view. Their first home was built for them in the '30s and was located on Cochrane Avenue on a steep and sparsely populated hillside. The astounding view from their living room and dining room looked out on the unbridged San Francisco Bay. Later, they watched as construction of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges added a new dimension to the vista.

They sold the house during a tempestuous passage in their marriage and then lived in a series of rental duplexes, a tract home in Concord, and finally in another home they built on Wilding Lane just off Broadway Terrace. And I know they always mourned their Cochrane Avenue home and the beautiful view.

He was an Irish immigrant, one of the middle children in a large brood who had fled poverty to make better lives for themselves. I believe fear of poverty was a driving force throughout his life. She was a flirtatious woman, strongly influenced by the glamour of Hollywood. They were always either passionately in love or on the brink of homicide.

When Mimi died in 1970, he continued to live in their home on Wilding Lane until it was destroyed in the Oakland firestorm, October 19, 1991. He and his girlfriend came to live with me from then until his death February 3, 1993. At the time of his death, he was worth just about a million dollars; thrift and prudent investment had lifted him out of poverty. I was the executor of his estate, most of which he left to various Catholic charities, but there was one very interesting and revealing bequest. He left a sum of money to "Kenneth Nielsen, the son of Kathryn Nielsen, a former secretary at P G & E." To distribute the estate, the attorney located Kenneth Nielsen. Kenneth in turn contacted me and we had an interesting, but not altogether surprising, conversation where Kenneth revealed that he was the illegitimate son of my grandfather. We further agreed to meet for lunch.

Kenneth wanted information about who he was. I brought about twenty photos of Bobo through the years and a copy of a brief biography my brother had written about him.

Kenneth was very pleased with my offerings and with any information I could provide. Then I asked him to tell me his side of the story.

He told me he had experienced "Uncle Jack" being a part of his life from his earliest memories until he was about twelve years old. Then he abruptly vanished and except for one brief conversation, was not heard from again until the will, about twenty eight years later, . When Kenneth was in his early 20's, he and his mother were drinking wine together and truth was revealed. Kenneth was told Uncle Jack was his father. Apparently during Kenneth's younger years, Uncle Jack was a regular in his life: often bringing toys, clothing, taking him to ball games, and just hanging out with him. However, one day Kenneth complained to his mother that he didn't like Uncle Jack's sloppy kisses: they made him feel uncomfortable. I could understand this. All my siblings and I shared a horror of those wet kisses (they weren't salacious, just gross). Kenneth's mother, in turn, reported this to Uncle Jack who apparently got his very tender feelings so deeply wounded that he abruptly ended all contact with the boy.

So, years passed, and when Kenneth learned the truth about the identity of his biological father, he confronted him via telephone, saying, "I understand you're my father." This occurred just about the time my grandmother was hopelessly ill from a heart attack and stoke. My grandfather was consumed by his love for her, fear of losing her, and the burden of her care.

 His response to Kenneth was,"I don't know what you're talking about. That's the craziest thing I ever heard." And he hung up on him.

Kenneth was crushed, but did nothing about it and just lived with his wound for the next 23 years until contacted by the attorney and meeting with me.

When I heard Kenneth's story, I was enraged. It took me a long time to come to terms with the terrible behavior of my grandfather. I could not believe this dimension existed in a man I loved, respected, and grieved: the man I had taken care of in his terminal illness. I too, felt betrayed. And yet, of all the adults in my life, he's the only one I ever heard tell me, "I'm proud of you." He made me feel beautiful and smart. I struggled to balance this out. All I have been able to do is realize we all have a dark side and we can only know the part of a person that is presented to us. I knew a different facet of a smart, loving (to me, anyway) accomplished man. That is still imprinted on me.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Here's a recent Facebook post in which Dianna Genteman says she would like to read an example of something I consider good writing and something bad. I thought I'd throw in something ugly, just for good measure and because I think I have something that fills the bill.

The Good: This little piece was written in 2002 as part of an application for a residency at Norcroft, a Writer's Retreat on the north shore of Lake Superior, near Grand Marais. I like it because it feels so true. It may not be of great general interest, but it worked, I was granted a two-week residency at a time in my life when it was desparately needed. I reread the piece today as I contemplate applying for a residency at Hedgebrook, also a retreat for women writers, I see that little has changed, little has been accomplished and I still write beneath the portraits of my female ancestors in a sunny south-facing room.

Pianisssimo, Please

     I write for illumination. I come closer to seeing what I know and what life has taught me when I try to express it. I write to be clever. I write to record something I know that someone else might want to know sometime in the future. I write to repay the written gifts of my predecessors. And most often, I don't know why I write, I just do; it's part of my biology. I've always done it.

     I've collected two bookshelves of my journals. These take the form of written and photographic essays, diaries or travelogs, depending on the year and my mood. They are bound, loose-leaf, or on scraps of paper in manila envelopes. In the past five years, I've felt compelled to bring some of this material together in a way others would want to read. Struggling to determine what would make my life seem interesting to others, I investigated other interesting lives. Hundreds of wonderful women writers including Patricia Hampl, Barbara Kingsolver, Amy tan, Anne Lamott, and Sylvia Plath inspire me. Motivated by great teachers like Lisa Schlesinger at the University of Iowa Summer Workshop and Margo Perin at the University of California at Santa Cruz, I am combining pieces of my life with pieces of my great-grandmother's life.

     But, because of the exigencies of daily life, it is difficult to focus and go into the deep places I must visit. As a 63-year-old single woman raising her orphaned grandsons, my writing time is perforated by the demands of the boys. Meals, chauffeuring, errands, refereeing, and time to love them lend a staccato rhythm to my writing time. I crave largo and pianissimo. My physical energy is exhausted while my mind races. 

     Time at Norcroft will allow me to focus my energy on my work. I can review the material I have written, make some determinations about what is worth incorporating, and decide where I need to go deeper. I will have the solitude necessary to get at those deeper places. Much of what I have written resembles a prose outline I must flesh out.

     I will continue working on my project whether or not I go to Norcroft. I will write for at least a small part of each day in my sunny south-facing room while the portraits of my female ancestors supervise from their posts on the wall. I will shut the French doors and pray that my need for solitude will be honored. My writing may not reach the depth I aim for, and it may take a lot longer to complete. Because of my age, I fear that competing demands for my time and energy will jeopardize completing my work. I worry that I won't finish it vbefore I die. But, I will write, because there is more to tell.

The Bad: Just silly and pointlesss.

Flying - Don’t Tell Mom

      I learned to fly at around six, I can’t remember exactly when, but I know my top front teeth 

had already fallen out and the news ones had just come in. It started kind of gradual, on the stairs in front of the house, the ones made out of railroad ties that ran alongside the steep driveway and led up the hill to our curvy street. 

      I started learning to fly by skipping the bottom step every time I came down the stairs. It 

didn’t quite seem like I was jumping, because I landed real gentle in the leaves from the oak 

trees that covered the hillside. It was more like floating. I found I could skip two steps, then 

three and then four. Five got a little tricky. By trial and error, I learned that a little scissors kick 

in the middle of my flight got me safely to the landing, and by reaching out and catching myself 

on the tree at the bottom, I could keep my balance. Soon, I discovered that with three kicks, I 

cleared the whole flight of fourteen steps, without touching down even once. Still, I didn’t yet 

think I was flying. I just thought it was a little trick I could do, something that would probably 

come in handy, but something I had better not tell Mom about. There were some things she just 

didn’t seem to want to know. Like about the man who parked his car on the street a few houses 

away every afternoon and drank beer. She didn’t want me to talk about him.

     When I learned to fly back up the stairs, I knew I had a special secret. Because the street was 

uphill from our house, I would go up there and practice safely out of sight of Mom. I discovered 

I could fly higher by flapping my arms and faster by kicking my feet. It was a lot of work, but as 

it turned out it probably saved my life more than once.

     One time when I was just about to practice, the man drinking beer got out of his car and 

started to chase me. The way he looked at me nearly scared me to death. I started to fly away, but 

I couldn’t get high enough. He caught the heel of my black patent leather shoe with his hand, and 

he was looking up my dress. I knew it was wrong and that Mom wouldn’t like it. But I kicked 

my shoe off anyway and flew up just a little higher. Mom made me go to my room for coming 

home without my shoe.

     Another time it was real scary when there was a big fire at an empty barn near our house. I 

don’t think I started it, but it burned in a circle all around me and I had to fly over the flames to 

get away from it. Mom was real mad when I came home with the edges of my dress burned. She 

made me promise not to tell anyone what had happened.

    One evening, it was getting dark and I heard Mom call me. I didn’t think she could see me as 

she stood on the front porch calling, so as I ran down the steep driveway, I decided to fly just a 

little. I put my arms out and reached for the sky. As I ran faster and faster and jumped a little, I 

could feel the wind sweeping my hair back. I tried swinging one arm around in circles. I pulled 

my sweater up behind my shoulders like a Batman cape. And then I fell and broke my new front 

teeth. I never flew again.

 

The Ugly: This doesn't need explanation, it's just ugly.

Living in an Old Woman’s Body

Some parts don’t work;

Some have retired.

The womb is still,

No blood flows,

A blessing for sure.

Desire survives,

But few believe it.

Dried up old woman

Tits to the navel.

Wrinkles and creams,

Mirror as enemy,

Reflects my mother, not I,

Turkey as kin,

Botox is my friend.

     

The Rock, I and II

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a rock, the same rock you see pictured above. A long time ago it was much smaller and it lived on a hillside west of where it now rests. It's larger now because it is covered with a painted coat of many colors somewhere between six and twelve inches thick judging by the depth of the fringe of paint drool at the bottom.

The rock, as it is eponymously known, was born on a grassy hillside just above what is now El Dorado Hills Boulevard during God-knows-what geologic era, created by some mysterious formative event. It began service as a community bulletin board sometime in the 1980's, after the opening of Oak Ridge High School in the unincorporated population center known as El Dorado Hills.

Over the years, the rock was decorated with either spray paint or by brush to celebrate holidays, birthdays, athletic competitions, and occasionally other personal events. At some point in the late 90's a decision was made to construct an apartment complex on the spot nature had for eons claimed as home for the rock. The community was advised that the rock would be smashed into pebbles and distributed on the hillside. The unincorporated, but not disorganized, community banded together and raised such a fuss that Doug VeerKamp, descendant of El Dorado County pioneers, and all around good guy, in tandem with the El Dorado Hills Bowman's Association, came to the rescue. With land donated by the archery association, and lots of heavy equipment available to Doug through his family's construction firm, the Volkswagen-sized rock was saved from what seemed like certain doom and transported across the street to a safe and convenient site. It was a fine moment for a community that wasn't even officially a city or a town.

Once safely ensconced on its new resting place, it resumed service announcing birthdays, victories, tragic losses, and all the momentous events of life. And then 9/11 happened. The rock was beautifully outfitted with a glorious and patriotic rendition of the stars and stripes. So momentous was the event and so beautiful the work, that no one dared paint over it. It stood for many days as testimony to our shock, sorrow, and patriotism.  The muted community struggled to come to terms with the world-shattering events and secondarily, mourned the loss of use of the iconic rock as a bulletin board.

Again, Doug VeerKamp came to the rescue. Another similarly-sized rock was found and planted on the hillside a respectful distance north of Rock I. Rock I could now continue to commemorate 9/11 while Rock II took over community service. A noble concept, but it didn't last long. Before long, both rocks were painted regularly with personal messages, announcements, and declarations. Some locals were outraged, but the need for more messaging space was genuine. By this time, El Dorado Hills had grown from about 5,000 to around 20,000 people who had many things to announce, more than could be contained on a single rock.

And so, Rock I and Rock II continue to announce and celebrate special events. The community is divided into two kinds of people: those who have had their name painted on the rock and those who wish they had. And two other kinds: those who had painted the rock and those who intended to do so. I belonged in the second category in both cases. Because my Very Special Grandson, Logan, was turning 18, I seized the opportunity to join the ranks of the painters. I enlisted the help of my Very Special Grandson, Bill, and we planned to paint the rock. We learned much that is of probable interest and value to would-be rock painters. Here are some guidelines:

• Choose a simple design and simple color scheme.
• Do it in the daylight on a dry and wind-still day.
• Use spray paint, not buckets and paintbrushes.
• Plan on four cans of paint for the background and one each for any secondary colors.
• Allow two hours to complete the project, more if picnicking or drinking is involved.
• Wear old clothes. If more than two people participate, they will get overspray all over themselves.
• Take lots of progress pictures.
• Be nice when your masterpiece is painted over., 

 In the picture above, you can see the last salmon-colored remnant of the previous display. Very Special Grandson, Bill, and Doting Grandmother, Melody, have nearly finished applying a new white base coat over the earlier masterpiece.

 VSG finishes up while DG seeks shelter from the wild wind-driven overspray.

 VSG has completed the preliminary outline of the Polar Bear (never mind what it looks like, it's a POLAR BEAR!)

 VSG, Logan, AKA Polar Bear, lounges on a convenient ice-floe, and politically incorrectly enjoys global warming.

Rock II is on the left, Rock I reads HAPPY 4TH B-DAY (I didn't notice a name).

Notice the stalactites of paint formed at the bottoms of the rocks. On the right you can see weeds growing in the sheltered area near the fringe of paint. On the left you can see paint on the ground which has formed a thick solid coating. In some places you can break off chunks and see all the colored layers. I wish someone would take a core sample of both rocks so we could see just how thick the paint is.

Just in case anyone is interested, my birthday is April 18th, turquoise and purple are my favorite colors.

Note: this is my 500th blog post!

The Railroad Paper Caper

Executing Phase I of my retirement plan, I sold my Silicon Valley home and moved to El Dorado County, the land of my gold rush ancestors. I planned to telecommute until I could officially retire. On an evening late in May 1996, I was supporting local agriculture by sipping a glass of Boeger’s Zinfandel, reflecting on how satisfied I was by the move. I loved everything about the area, the landscape, the produce, the history.

From my recliner, I saw a young man approach my front door. Setting down my glass, I got up and opened the door in anticipation of his knock. Casually dressed in khakis and a plaid shirt, he carried a large envelope under his arm. “Mrs. Moore.” He said it assertively; it was not a question.

I acknowledged that I was Mrs. Moore. He handed me the package and when I had it in my hands, he identified himself as a process server for El Dorado County and told me to sign the summons he held before me.  I signed with an unsteady hand. I had never been served a summons before. Frenzied crazy thoughts began racing through my mind. Did this have something to do with the sale of my house in San Jose? Was someone suing me? Before I could ask the young man anything, he had turned and was headed back to his car. His job was done and I was on my own with whatever I held.

Retrieving my glass of wine, I moved to the dining room table. I picked up the bottle for good measure; it was a very thick envelope.

Using the blade on my corkscrew, I slit the envelope open and spilled its contents on the table. I quickly determined it had nothing to do with my real estate dealings, but it did have something to do with land. The State of California, Department of Transportation (DOT), had summoned me to a hearing scheduled for August 1 in Placerville. No longer worried, but increasingly intrigued, I put the wine aside and began to sift through the documents. The official complaint, property descriptions and copies of old maps were spread out on the table. Ancient handwritten property records gave the documents the appearance of a treasure map. My great-grandfather’s name, James Blair, came into focus and my interest grew.

I learned some property near Forni Road had been condemned to build a freeway overpass. The State was now trying to determine who should receive the $33,700 held in escrow. I first thought, why me? And then, why not me? Could it really be mine?

The papers spread out before me hinted at the answers. I learned the new overpass would be anchored on property that had served as a railroad bed in 1888 and for many years after. The 1887 records revealed three parcels of land had been transferred from their previous owners to the partnership of James Blair, H. S. Morey, and A. Meirson of Placerville. The partners paid each of the sellers $1 for adjoining parcels creating a long strip of land 100 feet wide. The deeds carried the condition that the land was to be used for the construction of a railroad to be completed by the first of June 1888 or else title to the land would revert to the sellers.

My first reaction was one of bemusement and mild interest. I loved hearing from my great-grandfather in this way. I knew he had owned a lot of property and was very active in the development of Placerville. As far as I knew he had founded Sportsman’s Hall and operated it during the Pony Express and Civil War Days, owned and managed a lumber business, held a partnership in a hides and tallow business, and kept a ranch in Galt. And now a railroad. Could it be that fate had protected some of his wealth from his profligate children?

I was curious about the other two men. I knew their names from Placerville’s history. Morey was a banker and Meirson was a foundry man. The partnership seemed logical: supplying lumber for ties would benefit Blair, while Meirson could provide the rails and spikes, and Morey could put the deal together.

My mind lept ahead. How long was this railroad? How many parcels were there? The DOT was only concerned with a small portion of it, but surely it was much longer than that. Frankly, $33,700 divided among God knows how many heirs wasn’t really worth going after, but the railroad probably reached all the way to Sacramento or at least Folsom. I knew it extended down through Latrobe. And how many heirs are there? If the DOT thought three parcels belonged to the heirs, then we probably owned the whole railroad line! What could it be worth? Maybe I would be able to retire soon. I needed some advice.

I calmly waited until the next day to call my friend Ralph, an attorney for CalTrans. He suggested I call the DOT right-of-way agent in Marysville and gave me her phone number. She was familiar with the situation and cheerfully provided the information I sought. She told me they found one Morey heir and three Blair heirs. No Meirsons. She also volunteered that the Morey heir was an old woman near death in Rancho Murieta. Her only child decided they would not pursue the matter. Okay, I thought, more for me.  I began to plan a second story addition to my home, and possibly a new car.

I was obliged to respond formally through an attorney if I planned to attend the August hearing. By this time, I determined to go for it. So, I contacted my Blair co-heirs, a cousin in Placerville, and an uncle in Southern California. We agreed to a partnership and planned to split attorney’s fees, up to $1,000 each, and see what we could learn.

I attended the first hearing in August in a feebly air-conditioned conference room in the El Dorado County court house on Main Street. Also attending were my cousin, our attorney, and the presiding judge. The DOT and Southern Pacific participated by telephone. SP stated they felt they had a claim to the money because they had bought the railroad. Our attorney countered his opinion that they probably had an easement on the land and that the easement expired when the railroad ceased to function and the land reverted to the heirs of the Placerville partners. That sounded logical to me.  We could hear indistinct mutterings from the Southern Pacific contingent. They then asked for an extension to get the facts together. The matter was continued to November.

In November, I showed up at the courthouse and the meeting lasted five minutes. SP asked for a continuance. My confidence and spending plans grew. Clearly we had them on the run, they were scrambling. I dreamed of a family vacation in Hawaii.

By this time, I had calculated the strip of land in question was probably 33 miles long and 100 feet wide. What was it really worth? A million, three million? What could be done with it? The longest strip mall in the world? Another railroad? Didn’t the Sacramento Placerville Transportation Corridor Joint Powers Authority think it was theirs? Had SP sold it to them? Would they buy us out? What about the property owners around it? How about recreational use? Bike trails, equestrian trails, skateboard parks? Now I was becoming altruistic. We would think of some noble cause to honor my great-grandfather’s memory.

February’s hearing was rescheduled till April. In April, the Southern Pacific lawyers produced a deed that appeared legitimate. It conveyed forty-six parcels to the Northern Railway Company. Following our attorney’s advice, we gave up, and I returned home to a new bottle of zinfandel and dreams of Lotto winnings.