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I Started Out as a Child

4/5/2020

At Abuelita's house

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted to my blog, so I thought I’d start at the beginning again.

I started out as a child.

I was born one fine June morning on San Juan Island in what was then called Puget Sound.

Modern day geographers now call the part of the great inland sea that runs from Olympia, Washington to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound. Now the whole sea, which runs way north into Canada, is called the Salish Sea, but in those days, we didn’t have the benefit of all their education.

San Juan Island is the largest island in the San Juan chain. It’s snuggled between Washington to the east and Vancouver Island to the west. It is the second most northern point in the Continental United States.

I won’t tell you the story of my birth because that’s a whole other blog and it’s a chapter in Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With my Father. I hope you’re interested enough to read it. If I get enough reader feedback from this post, I may tell it here for you again.

We lived on a dairy farm, but when I was three years old, we picked up and moved back to Costa Mesa, California to be near Abuelita. Mama couldn’t stand to live so far from her family…

[Sorry for the interruption there. I was cooking bratwurst and my glasses were so greased up I couldn’t see. I cleaned them so we can go on with the story]

… Papa traded our farm for a big steel fishing boat, the Amy D. He loaded all our earthly possessions in the hold of the boat and he and my uncle Santos took the boat down the coast to Southern California.

Mama loaded my sister, Quita, and me into the Packard touring car and down the coast highway we went. Every few miles we saw a boat out on the water and, if it was heading south, we were sure it was Papa.

I remember the first day we arrived at Abuelita’s [If you haven’t figured this out yet, she’s my Grandmother.] tomato farm on Goat Hill (now Costa Mesa, California). All the family was there. No, I mean all the family lived there.

Uncle Juan and Aunt Anna had a house across the long driveway from Abuelita. Uncle Paul and Aunt Mellie had a house behind Abuelita’s. Uncle Carlos and Aunt Ester had their house behind Tio Paul’s. In a few years, Uncle Santos would build a house between Tio Paul’s and Abuelita’s.

Mama, Quita and I slept on mattresses on Abuelita’s living room floor. Cousins Jenny, Virgie, and Weinie thought it was such fun that they came over from Tio Juan’s house and we had a big pajama party. Cousins Tony and Cheleko were too macho to participate in any such girlie activity.

After several days, Papa and Tio Santos arrived in the Amy D. It only took a few days for Papa to find us a house at 2000 Anaheim Street in Costa Mesa.

Quita was five and all grown up. She started Kindergarten and I had Mama all to myself all day. By the time Quita was in the first grade I was tired of being a little kid and wanted to go to school too. Besides, my brother Jonny had come along, and I didn’t have Mama to myself anymore.

Everyday after school Quita set up a classroom in our bedroom. She had tiny chairs for all her dolls and stuffed animals and a chalk board on an easel. I took a chair with the other dolls.
She taught us what she learned that day. I knew the alphabet and how to read long before I went to Kindergarten. I also knew math. Quita was really, really smart (She never got less than an A in any subject in her short life) and I was a sponge.

My first day of kindergarten was memorable. Mama took me to school, in a little building across the wide playground from the higher grades and dropped me off. I was terrified. I had been around Mama’s family all my life and wasn’t used to Anglos. There were kids there with yellow worms growing out of their heads. I later learned this was blond hair. They were so pale and had blue eyes. It frightened me. I was the only dark skinned, brown haired kid in the class. I felt so alone.

At recess everyday, Quita came over to the kindergarten to check on me. That got me through the day.

We had an older lady for our teacher in kindergarten. I don’t remember her name, but she was the nicest lady. When I was promoted to the first grade, I has Miss MacGregor for a teacher. She was young and pretty and the daughter of one of my father’s fishing buddies. I don’t know how I learned anything that year, because instead of looking at the books, I spent my entire day watching this beautiful creature. I knew her every move, how she walked, how she covered her mouth with a lace handkerchief when she sneezed, what the different tones of her voice meant.

Then there was Alice. [What can I say, I was infatuated with the fairer sex early in life.] She was Charlie Brown’s Little Red-Haired Girl. We became fast friends. We hung out at recesses, we worked together when Miss MacGregor paired us up for projects. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I look back, I realize one of the reasons I liked her was that she was smart and could keep up with me. We got A’s on everything.

Then came the classroom chores. Miss MacGregor decided that part of our education was to learn responsibility, so she made up a list of classroom chores. We all had to volunteer for one of them. If we didn’t volunteer, we got whatever was left over that no one else wanted. Alice wanted to take care of the Guinea pig, so we volunteered. I think Miss Mac took us because we were both far ahead of the class and it wouldn’t hurt us if we missed a little class to care for the animal.

It was not what I expected. Caring for the Guinea pig meant that Alice played with the critter while I cleaned the cage. I was not especially fond of cleaning up Guinea pig poop.

When time came for us to choose new chores, Alice immediately volunteered for the Guinea pig again. In my passive/aggressive way, I did not. She got stuck with some other schmuck.

She was so mad at me that she couldn’t speak. When she did get her voice back, I liked the not talking part much better. After unleashing her Irish anger on me, I don’t remember if we ever spoke again. All I remember is that we were never friends again.

Halloween 1954

Then comes Papa’s favorite first grade story. We were given a test in class. The next day I was pulled out of class with a few other kids to take another test. It was so easy it was a joke. The following day, I was pulled out of class again to speak with two people.

He was an older man in a brown pinstripe double breasted suit with wide tie. She was a pretty young woman in a flower print dress. I remember that she was blonde, therefore must have been a superior human being.

They spent an hour or so talking to me. They asked me all sorts of easy questions, then asked me to explain my answers. It wasn’t really that much fun, and the other kids were going to recess, and I got antsy. Finally, they let me go.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mama pulled up to Papa’s job site full of consternation. “Shalres, you have to come with me.”

“What’s going on, Mama? I can’t go, we’re in the middle of the workday. I can’t just leave.”

“It’s Penny. I don’t know what happened. The school called and said they needed to see us right away.”

That was it, Papa loaded his tools into Rag-a-Muffin, his work car, and followed Mama to Rand McNally Elementary School.

When I got home that day, Papa was sitting in his chair enjoying a beer with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face. This was unusual. Papa was never home when we got home from school.

“Well, Penny,” he said. “I hear you had a test at school today.”

“Yeah, it was real stupid. They asked us all kinds of silly stuff.”

He leaned forward, toward me. “What kind of questions did they ask?”

“I don’t know. Dumb stuff.”

“Like what?”

“They asked me who wrote Romeo and Juliet.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Well, Julius Caesar, of course.”

Papa couldn’t have been prouder. The school principal told him “You son is a genius, a national treasure. The Soviets just launched Sputnik and we’re far behind them in the sciences and technology. You need to expose Penny to as much math and science as possible.”

Well, we all know how that one worked out.

That’s a long start for today. Next week the story continues. We will see how I got my lifelong love for baseball.

I hope you are all well and would love to hear from you. Drop me a line from the Contact Penn page to let me know what you thought or share some of your experiences. Who knows, maybe I’ll publish some of your stories.

Oh, yes. My marketing guru says I have to ask for the sale at least twice in every blog. Click here to check out my books and see if you find one that piques your interest.

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Father's Day

6/14/2019

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The calendar has turned over again, and it's Fathers Day. I started the tradition of posting the Fathers Day peon to my father, Blue Water Charlie, some years ago. I want to share it with you again, so hang on for a sentimental read.

June is busting out all over. If you live in most any part of the country besides the West Coast, that means blue skies and sun. In San Diego, May and June are usually the worst months. We have gray skies and chilly temperatures. They call it the May Gray and June Swoon.

Along with June comes Father’s Day and my thoughts turn to my own father, Blue Water Charlie. If you want to read about Blue Water in detail, click here to find a copy of Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father.

There’s a tremendous difference between families with fathers and families without fathers. Just Google it. There is no question that children that grow up with a father figure make better citizens.

My father was not a perfect man. He was a bigger than life commercial fisherman. A complex man, full of contradictions, he laid down the law for us like some Olympian God and never explained his reasons. Just because he said so was good enough.

When I had kids of my own, he once told me that “raising kids is a lot like breaking broncos.” He should know because that was his first job, growing up in West Texas. “Show them who is boss, then treat them with kindness.”

When I was little, he often left us to go adventuring. Around the time I was nine years old, Mama put her foot down. When he was about to go off on one of his escapades she told him “If you go, when you come back, the children and I won’t be here.” He gave up the sea to raise his children. He worked every day at a job he hated so that he could put frijoles and tortillas on the table.

Papa and Quita, circa 1950

Papa, circa 1945. Always the adventurer.

But that didn’t mean he gave up his thirst for adventure. As we grew older, he took us with him camping, traveling, exploring. I’m so grateful that he instilled that sense of adventure in me.
He always showed us kindness, even when administering discipline. I can’t remember how many times he said “Now Penny, you know that I don’t enjoy this, but you need to be taught a lesson. I’m doing this for your own good.” Was it good that I couldn’t sit down for a week afterwards? But I learned my lesson.

The lesson I learned was to logically decide if what I wanted to do was worth the punishment. I never got away with anything. My mother had the ability to read my mind; she could see through walls. She always knew what I was going to do before I did it. I learned early on to gauge if what I was contemplating was worth the penalty. If it was, I went ahead and did it, if not, I abstained. That way, if I was going to misbehave, I always got my “spanking’s worth.”
Papa taught us lots, both by what he said and what he did. He was a stickler for manners. He grew up in the south and was a southern gentleman. He also was an Army officer and learned US Army style manners. He passed these on to us. I won’t take a bite until the hostess is seated and can’t abide someone wearing a hat to the table.

He taught us grammar and the value of education. To this day hearing “where’s it at?” or “Me and Bill” it drives me crazy. We learned about human rights and civil rights at his feet. But most importantly, he taught us to question everything and never settle.

But he settled for the sake of his children. He loved us so much that he gave up what he wanted
to do to be with us. This brings me to the question of what is love?

Although he never told us he loved us, the fact that he sacrificed his desires for his family was the ultimate act of love. Aristotle said that love is “to will the good of another.”

Putting the interest of your children ahead of your own interests is certainly an act of love. Even though Papa tried to plan our entire lives and we sometimes disappointed him, he reveled in our successes.

For all of his flaws, Papa was a good father. He set an example for us to follow. He made me want to be a better father than the one I had. I could not be who I am or have accomplished what I have accomplished without him.

When his grandfather, Pendleton Carroll, died, Papa held his father’s hand at grandpa’s grave site. His father told him that grandpa, “was much of a man.” I guess it’s hereditary. Papa was much of a man.

Now for the unabashed commercial plug. I’ve written an entire book about Papa. To learn more about him, or order your copy of Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father, click here.

Happy Father’s Day to all of you dads out there, and all of you who have dads

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Papa and Huey Newton

2/14/2019

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Papa on his boat

I was in high school at the time, so it must have been in the late sixties.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in 1966, at the height of the civil rights movement. I read about them in the papers and saw them on the Huntley-Brinkley report almost every night, but I never dreamed they would come to Eugene.

I need to take a moment to explain about Eugene, Oregon. It was lily white. In my high school we had one black kid, one Asian kid and two Latinos. There were fifty black families in Eugene.

I never expected that we would become a center for civil rights activism.

But Huey was booked to speak at a rally at the University of Oregon.

The day of the big event, Papa went down to El Sombrero, my family’s Mexican restaurant, to open up as usual. He started a pot of coffee and put out a tray of pastries for anyone who wandered in. There was a cup next to the coffee pot for people to pay for their purchases, he was busy in the kitchen preparing for the day.

Huey Newton - Founder of the Black Panther Party

He heard a big commotion in the dining room and rushed out to see what was going on.

Two large black men dressed all in black with black leather jackets and black berets burst through the door. They surveyed the room, nodded to someone behind them, then in came His Imperial Majesty, Huey Newton.

Behind Huey were two more body guards.

Papa immediately recognized the famous civil rights leader. “Huey, welcome to El Sombrero.”

Huey looked at Papa with disdain. “Hey, Whitey, you got soul food here?”

Papa, being an avid supporter of the civil rights movement, choked down his anger at being treated so rudely. “No. This is a Mexican restaurant.”

“Why you got no soul food? Don’t you server blacks in here?”

‘This is a Mexican restaurant. We serve Mexican food and we serve anyone who walks through the door, including rude civil rights leaders.”

Soul Food

One of Huey’s body guards pulled out a chair and Huey sat at a table.

“Would you like coffee?” Papa asked.

“Yeah,” one of the bodyguards replied.

While Papa was pouring five cups of coffee, Huey spoke up again. “Man, we been subject to three hundred years of slavery. Don’t you think you owe us something for all that?”

Papa lost it. He slammed down the coffee tray on the table. “Have you ever been a cotton slave?” he challenged.

“Huh?”

“Have you ever been a cotton slave? Have you ever tended the fields, picked the cotton, dragged a hundred-pound sack of cotton behind you down the rows in hundred-degree heat?”

“Well … ah … no. I ain’t never been a slave.”

“Well, I have. When I was five-years old my daddy cut the handle off a hoe and handed it to me. He said, ‘As long as you’re going to be in the cotton fields, you might as well get some work in.”

Huey picked up his coffee cup.

“For the next eight years, I tended the fields, picked the cotton, worked along side the black laborers. I learned their language, shared in their jokes, ate their food, sang with them while they worked. I’m more of a cotton slave than you’ll ever be.”

The room, which had acquired a dozen or so onlookers by then, went deathly silent. The body guards looked to Huey, awaiting the signal to tear Papa apart. No one ever stood up to Huey Newton.

Huey looked Papa up and down. “Well, mister cotton slave, why don’t you pour yourself a cup of coffee and join us?

The room let out a collective breath. Papa grabbed a cup of coffee and took a chair.

Chile Relleno - Mexican Soul Food

They sat and talked for the better part of an hour. When Mama arrived to set up the dining room, the restaurant was packed. People were standing in the aisles to listen to Papa’s stories of the old cotton fields back home.

Papa fixed Huey and his friends a Favorita dinner, a chile relleno, enchilada, beans and rice, for lunch. When Huey tried to pay, Papa compted it.

Papa offered to make Huey and his friends soul food for dinner. When they came back, he had side pork, collard greens, corn bread and okra ready for them.

Huey left Eugene with a new friend and Papa sang in the kitchen as he worked.

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2018 in Review

1/18/2019

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Our intrepid author at a book signing on Coronado Island

Every year I write something about how fast the past year went by. Not this year. Sure, we’re all a year older now, but the best is yet to come.

I ended 2017 with having my left knee replaced by a titanium joint. December and January were recovery months.

It took Kaiser three weeks to find me a physical therapy appointment. In the meantime, I worked the hell out of my knee in our apartment complex’s gym. I worked out every day and crawled home hurting.

When the three weeks were up and I at last went to physical therapy, the therapist asked, “What are you doing here?” I had already exceeded all their parameters for recovery from the surgery.

I went home fat, dumb and happy.

Things were not as rosy as they appeared. In January I had some kind of relapse; the knee got infected and swelled up. I couldn’t walk on it. Three more weeks of bed rest and antibiotics.

I’m finally back on my feet. The recovery from surgery was painful and I still don’t have full use of my knees, but would I do it again? You betcha. Before I had to use a walker to get around. Now I can walk like a normal person.

Lilly checks out the new car

February brought a new change to my life. My book sales dropped off so badly, I needed to do something to supplement my income. I don’t know what happened, but in 2018, I couldn’t give away a book. Do not despair though. So far in January, sales seem to be recovering.

To solve my cash flow problem, I started driving for Lyft. Because my truck is too old, I had to rent a car to use. This was expensive and I had to hustle to make enough to pay for the car and still put money in the bank.

I had a minor incident where I side swiped a pylon and put a little scratch on the passenger side door. My bad. Then I got hit by a drunk driver and really smashed up the car.

Hertz (from whom I was renting) said enough. I can’t rent a car from them anymore.

While I licked my wounds, Dawn and I had a serious discussion about my driving. We decided that it made more economic sense to buy a car to drive.

We found a 2012 Nissan Altima in really good shape and I became a professional driver. With my own car, I could ad Uber to my repertoire. And away I went…

I have a few whoppers to tell about ride share driving, but I’ll same them for later. They are for mature audiences only.

Dawn and Lilly are doing great. In October, we all went to a doggie Halloween Party. Dawn dressed up as Cruella DeVille and Lilly went as a Dalmatian (remember, she’s black and white). While Dawn was going through a box of Halloween decorations, she found an old vampire costume of mine. I remember the costume, but I don’t remember when I wore it. Anyway, I was your friendly neighborhood vampire.

The party was great. It was held at Maverick’s Bar, the hottest spot in Pacific Beach. Dogs of all sizes and shapes were there in the most innovative costumes. The grand prize winner was Donald Trump with his parents dressed as secret service agents.

I worm my costume while driving and my passengers loved it. When they got into the car, I welcomed them to my automobile with my best Boris Karloff imitation. Then I offered them a bowl of candy for trick or treat. We had a blast that weekend.

90% of my riders were in costume and going from bar to bar or to parties. Have I mentioned that in San Diego, when the young ladies “dress up” to go out, they wear hardly any clothes? Halloween was no exception. I saw an awful lot of skin over the weekend.

Christmas on board the Victory

That brings us to Thanksgiving. Mama originally planned on coming down to San Diego for the holiday and we were all going to drive up to Orange County to have Turkey Day with my cousins. Unfortunately, Dave, Mama’s husband, fell ill and she couldn’t come.

Revising our plans, we decided to spend Thanksgiving with Dawn’s brother and parents. Joyce and Wes sold their home in Panama (curse them!) and moved back to the States. They bought a motorhome and are touring the country. In November, they landed in San Diego.

For Christmas, I flew up to Portland to see Mama. Dawn and Lilly stayed home and had Christmas with her family. It was a great trip. Mama turned 94 over the holiday and looks great. She constantly complains about her aches and pains, but she still drives, shops and does most all of her regular activities. I tell her she has nothing to complain about. Most people her age are dead.

She’s not looking forward to spending another cold, wet winter in Portland, so I invited her to spend it with us in warm, sunny San Diego. I seriously doubt that she will take me up on the offer, but I tried.

As usual Dawn decorated the apartment for Halloween and Christmas. I love the trimmings and traditions. We had a great tree too.

Dawn has been working her tail off at three jobs. She still does the catering gig, but she also drives for Uber when I don’t have the car. In her spare time, she volunteers at the Humane Society. The HS just took over pet control from the county and are hiring right and left. Dawn hopes that through her volunteering, she will have a fast track to getting a permanent job with the Humane Society.

Scary, huh?

Okay, we’ve gotten through the year. So, what awaits us in 2019? I published Cyberwarfare in December, the worst month of the year to release a new book. Sales have been okay, but not the block buster status we had with The Chinatown Murders. I’m working hard on marketing and selling the book.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to read it. Almost every week there’s some news article about cyber-attacks or hacking. Cyberwarfare is about a terrorist cyber-attack on the U.S.A. C’mon folks, get your copy today.

As soon as Cyberwarfare was published, I started work on the new Catrina Flaherty novel. I’m using the working title of The Panama Murders. It’s about a serial killer at work in the Bocas del Toro archipelago off the northeastern coast of Panama. As usual, it’s based on a true story.

When we were in Panama housesitting for Joyce and Wes, the serial killer had just been apprehended. It was all anyone could talk about. I thought, with a serial killer on this remote island, it had to be a Cat story. I had two other books I had to write before I got there, but here we are now. Hopefully, I set up the story well enough in The Chinatown Murders and Cyberwarfare, that people will have to buy the book to see what happened to Cat.

I'm looking forward to April. I will be teaching a class on writers groups for the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild. I’m going to make more of an effort to teach at SoCal writers conferences this year. I have an inside contact with the La Jolla Writers Conference I need to peruse and many others.

In the meantime, I was appointed to the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild board of directors to fill an opening for a director that had to resign for health reasons. I’m enjoying the work and am working on the SDWEG’s 40th anniversary gala. We’re presenting the Odin Award for lifetime contribution to the writing community in San Diego. I’m hoping that we can build an Oscar-like atmosphere into the event.

I’ve rambled on forever. I’ll sign off for now, but a happy and prosperous New Year to everyone.

If you haven’t read The Chinatown Murders yet, click here.

The Chinatown Murders

If you haven’t read Cyberwarfare, click here.

Cyberwarfare

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Merry Christmas, Chief

12/10/2018

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Happy Holiday Season all.

In our family, we celebrate Christmas. We've had many memorable Christmases so I'm sharing a couple of stories of Christmases long, long ago.

This week we start with one of Mama's stories. I hope you like it as much as I do.

I'm flying up to Portland to celebrate Christmas with Mama and my brothers this year. I hope you all have a great time.

Making tortillas the old-fashioned way

That Christmas Eve day in Eugene, Oregon, when my husband Charles and I had been in the restaurant business only three months, we had just begun to learn what must be common knowledge throughout the restaurant industry: restaurant inspectors – whether they be fire, health, sanitation, maintenance or agriculture – always show up at noon, when your place is full and you are the busiest. Then, of course, you are supposed to stop operation and give them your full attention.

Ours was a Mexican restaurant, and another thing we learned that year was that a tortilla machine looked about as familiar to our local Oregonians as an other-world alien.

A tortilla machine is a big, steel, Rube Goldberg-like monster. It has a dough cutter, three roller conveyors, three sets of gas burners and an oven. After mixing the dough you push it through the rollers, which work it through the cutters, and onto the first conveyor, which carries the cut tortillas over the first set of burners and cooks them on one side. When the tortillas reach the end of the first conveyor, they drop onto the second conveyor, where they are cooked on the other side. Then to a third conveyor, which cooks them a little more on the first side, and then rolls them onto a receiving table. Where an attendant spreads them on a metal racks to cool.

To give you an idea of the strangeness of this machine, one day a lady who had heard about our tortilla machine, called to ask if she could buy five dozen tortillas for her Christmas party. I assured her that she could. She came the next day, walked in and looked around the restaurant for the machine. She had brought with her twenty-five quarters to insert in the machine. I took her to the tortilla room and introduced her to the monster. Looking at it in disbelief for a few minutes, she asked weakly, “But where do you insert the quarters?”

A much more modern version of our tortilla machine

The first fire inspector came right in the middle of the noon rush, demanding that I light the machine, so he could check it for safety. Being too busy to stop, I told him that I was the only person in the place that could – and would – light it for him. I suggested that he come back after lunch, when, I told him, I would be glad to light it for him. He shot me a dirty look, then proceeded to inspect the machine. It was obvious that he had no understanding of what he saw, and he finally left without saying a word.

The following day, a different inspector from the Fire Department came – again, right in the middle of the lunch rush. Looking the machine over, he asked me how it worked. “If you’ll come back after lunch,” I told him, “I’ll show you. Right now I’m busy and can’t take the time.” I rushed off with a pile of hot plates in my hand.

He followed me down the aisle, right to the table where I delivered the food. “Mrs. Wallace!” he said in his most authoritative voice, “I’ve come here to inspect your tor . . . tortila machine. You can’t operate one in Eugene unless it is inspected. It’s the Fire Department’s responsibility to see that every machine in the city is safe.”

“If you’ll come back after lunch, I’ll show you. I’m just too busy right now,” I replied, as I hurried off to collect more plates that were piling up at the pickup counter. Several hours later I realized that he was gone.

The next day, right in the middle of the lunch rush, a third inspector walked up to me. “I want to talk to Mrs. Wallace,” he demanded.

"I’m Mrs. Wallace – may I help you?” He looked down at me from his great height, looking astonished that I should be Mrs. Wallace. “I have a report here from the Fire Department. You have a tor . . . tor . .. taco – how do you say it – machine, in this restaurant? I am the third inspector to come out here to inspect it. All our reports must be in tonight, and if we don’t check your machine, you can’t operate it any more. You have been very uncooperative, and the machine is not inspected yet.” He sounded disturbed.

"Oh!” I protested, “I have been very cooperative! I’ve offered to demonstrate how the machine works, if you’ll just come in after the lunch hour.” I was swamped at the moment, running all over the place, trying to do the work of three people. “Look, Mr. Inspector, you’re the third one that comes here, right in the middle of lunch rush. I will not take time to light the machine right now! If you want to do it yourself, go ahead, but do it at your own risk!” I walked off.

Inspector number three walked into the tortilla room, stared at the machine for a few minutes, scratched his head and left.

The next day was Christmas Eve. We were planning to close right after lunch, so everyone could go home and get ready for our Christmas Party, which we were going to hold in the restaurant. We had all brought our pretty, wrapped gifts that morning, and being short of space, we stacked them on top of the tortilla machine. Packages covered the machine; there was a piñata filled with candy; and surplus Christmas decorations were strewn all over the tortilla room. The ‘monster’ was invisible, completely covered with gifts and goodies of all kinds.

As usual we had a big lunch. The employees and customers were wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. There was joy everywhere. It snowed the night before, and right now the phonograph played Christmas carols. It was the perfect Christmas Eve, with happiness all about. And wouldn’t you know it? -- right in the middle of the busiest part of the lunch hour, a big red fire engine stopped in front of the restaurant, and His Highness the Fire Chief Himself, followed by two courtiers, strode into the dining room. He was tall, dark and handsome, with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was dressed to the hilt (for the party to come, no doubt) with gold braid on his cap, gold buttons on his coat, and heavily decorated with medals. He marched straight towards me.

“Mrs. Wallace, I am Fire Chief Blah Blah, and I am going to inspect your tor . . . tor . . . tamale – or whatever you call it – machine.”

“Mr. Fire Chief, these are hot plates I’m holding. If you can’t wait until after lunch, go ahead and light the machine yourself. You’re the Chief.” I walked off with my load of hot plates, and in a moment forgot about him.

I stood by a table taking an order when the blast came. The entire building shook. Black smoke and the smell of gas poured out of the tortilla room. Someone shouted, “The Russians are coming!” – but I knew what had happened and was afraid to look. I ran to the tortilla room, and there on the floor lay the Fire Chief and his two helpers, half covered with Christmas wrappings and ribbons. The Chief’s hat had disappeared, the buttons on his coat had blown off, and his hairy chest was exposed. His beard was singed, as were his hair and eyebrows. He looked like a minstrel. Everything in the room was torn to pieces. There was a shoe on the window sill, and another shoe in the sink with the dirty dishes. The piñata was nowhere to be found, but there was candy everywhere. Quickly I reached over the prone bodies and turned off the gas. Then I was seized with laughter, and I ran to the restroom where I became hysterical. By the time I had control of myself, Charles, who is much braver than I, had revived and dusted off the Fire Chief and his assistants.

With all the nonchalance I could muster, I said, “And now, Mr. Fire Chief, this is how you light it.” I lit a match and held it to the pilot lights. When they were lit, I pushed a button, and the conveyors started moving in their rhythmic pattern. Then I pushed another button and all the burners lit at one time. “There,” I said, “that’s how you do it.”

Someone found the Chief’s clipboard under a pile of torn packages and handed it to him, then gave him a pencil. He stared at the machine, then at me, and signed the paper.

We offered the Chief and his entourage some Christmas cheer. “WE don’t drink on the job,” he replied, “but this has never happened before.” Even as he talked, they were reaching for the eggnogs.

That was the beginning of the Christmas party that year. The firemen stayed until late that night. The last we heard and saw, a fire engine with its siren screaming blasting down Thirteenth Avenue, carrying three bedraggled looking firemen, singing in Spanish, “Noche de Pas, Noche de Amor."

Special bonus picture of Diego Rivera's woman making tortillas

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The First Thanksgiving

11/25/2018

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This is one of my favorite Mama stories. This week I give her the reins and away we go...

The First Thanksgiving
By
Victoria Ayala Pantoja

My first attempt at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner was during World War II. This was a time when my Mexican-American brothers and sisters and other male relatives, and friends, were slowly awakening to the realization that enjoying the privileges of a bountiful American brought with it responsibilities, as well as certain changes in attitude. Several Mexican-American families, who had received “Greetings from the President of the United States,” had already sent their sons off to war. As for myself, having been raised in a strict Mexican tradition, I felt it was also time to experience something of the American tradition. And what better time to start than on Thanksgiving Day?

Or so I thought.

Not many of the Mexican families that I knew celebrated Thanksgiving. I had learned about roast turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy – and the Pilgrim Fathers – in the history books at my school in Costa Mesa, California. I told my parents about Thanksgiving Day (my parents knew nothing of U. S. history, expect that California was once part of Mexico). I told them about the Pilgrims, and about the Indians, and how they had all sat down at the same table to eat roast turkey, in 1621, at a place called Plymouth Rock. With the all-knowing wisdom of the typical Mexican head-of-the-family, my father replied, “Our family had nothing to do with this Plymouth Rock, or Thanksgiving, or Pilgrims. Our heritage is Cinco do Mayo and the 16th of September.”

That’s how it was that all through my childhood. I listened to the American kids talk about their turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, and I vowed that when I grew up, I would have a turkey feast on Thanksgiving Day.

Finally, the day arrived. I was a young lady now, married and on my own; it was time, I thought, to begin the American tradition. By this time, all of my brothers and sisters had large families. I made arrangements with our mama to invite all the family. I would bring the dinner – our first Thanksgiving family dinner.

How excited I was in those last few days before Thanksgiving! I bought the biggest turkey in the store, along with all the ingredients to make the traditional American dinner. I read American recipes until I was tired of reading. This feast was to be just as it had been for the Pilgrims and Indians.

At last, Thanksgiving Day arrived. After much planning and labor, the dinner was prepared. My husband and I transported the huge dinner to the home of my parents, where all my sisters and brothers and their families had already gathered. Since I told them that it would be a traditional American dinner, excitement and anticipation ran high.

When Mama and I sat the beautifully browned turkey on the table, I’m sure the “ahs’ and “ohs” must have been heard all over Costa Mesa. There was sage dressing, mashed potatoes and giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, green peas and fruit salad. On Mama’s cabinet, sitting in a row, were five golden brown, tantalizingly plump pumpkin pies.

The children were beyond themselves with excitement. They had never seen, much less tasted, such attractive food. Oh yes, they had eaten turkey before, but it had been just small pieces, smothered in mole sauce. But here, in the center of their grandparents’ table, was the festive bird in its entirety – just waiting for a drumstick to be carved. The children devoured the food with their large dark eyes.

My husband undertook the job of carving and serving the turkey – no small job, considering the number of hungry children, and their impatience to be served.

Turkey in mole

At last, everyone was served, but something wasn’t quite right. Looking around, I saw a disappointed look on everyone’s face. It was such delicious food – what had gone wrong? But no one spoke. Was all the planning and all the work – to say nothing of my dreams of a traditional dinner – to end in disappointment? It appeared so, because it was obvious that no one liked it.

We nibbled at the food for a few minutes. From the corner of my eye, I could see the children looking to their mothers for help, and the mothers threatening the children with stern looks. It was a tense time and it seemed that an explosion would burst at any moment.

Finally, it happened. Little Angelina couldn’t stand it any longer. Looking pathetically up to Grandma, she said in her most pleading voice, “Aubelita! No tortillas? No frijoles?”

Then Juanita, to her mother, “Mama! No tortillas? No Frijoles?”

Now it was Virginia’s turn, “Mama! No tortillas” No frijoles?”

Then baby Margarita, whose vocabulary was limited to three words, “Mama, tillas? . . . joles?”

I looked around the table. Everyone’s eyes were on Mama. She looked at me, and our eyes met, and we both knew and understood. As always, Mama was the salvation. Rising from her chair, she went to the cupboard, where, miraculously, there was a pot of warm beans and a large basket of fresh tortillas. She set them on the table next to the turkey, along with a molcajete of chile verde. One by one, smiles lighted the troubled faces of the children, as the frijoles and tortillas were passed around to take their places beside the American Thanksgiving food on their plates.

That long-ago Thanksgiving, during World War II, was the first time I ever saw a roast turkey smothered with chile verde. Mama praised it, and Papa grudgingly admitted that “mole Americano” (American gravy) was pretty good. The children, who liked Grandma’s tortillas and frijoles the best of all, wrapped their turkey and frijoles inside the tortillas.

After dinner we talked abut the first Thanksgiving dinner in Plymouth in 1621. We all agreed it was an interesting story, but not nearly so exciting as the stories told by my father about the Aztecs and the Spaniards – of whom he was a descendant – and about his childhood in Mexico.

That Thanksgiving dinner, with turkey smothered in chile verde and wrapped in tortillas, was the very first that my entire family enjoyed together. Since then there have been many more traditional Thanksgiving dinners for my brothers and sisters and their children and grandchildren – but, for me, none so memorable as the one when I first realized that my family was a people in transition between two heritages.

The Wallace family on Olivera Street, LA. Circa 1059

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Halloween is going to the Dogs

11/16/2018

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Cruella DeVille

I had the most fun on Halloween this year than I’ve ever had in my life. Dawn found a box of Halloween decorations from my house in Seattle in the storage locker and decided to decorate the apartment for Halloween.

In that box was an old Dracula costume. I forgot I even had it and don’t remember when I wore it, but it was familiar.

With the stage set, I decided that I needed to wear the costume and we needed to find a party.
In San Diego, no problem. Dawn, of course, dragged me to a doggie party when I had a more adult party in mind. I wore the costume while driving for Uber on Friday and Saturday nights.

It was great. As passengers got into the car, I said, in my best Boris Karloff accent, “Velcome to my au-to-mo-bile.” Dawn prepared a bowl of candy for me, so I turned to them and said, “Vould you like a trick … or a treat?” We had a great time. Both nights felt like one big party in my car. On Saturday, out of the sixty or seventy people I gave rides to, three weren’t in costume.

We went to a doggie Halloween party at Maverick’s bar in Pacific Beach. I guess I had a party with dogs and kids in mind. I know Maverick’s well, because I pick up and drop off passengers there all the time. This is the hotspot in PB. On Fridays and Saturdays, there may be a line of a hundred or so people waiting to get in. So we ended up at an adult party after all.

If you're a regular reader, you all know how I feel about dogs. After a couple of Margaritas, some hot wings and a plate full of tacos, I was totally at ease.

We got there early and there were only a few dogs in costume. As the evening wore on, dozens of dogs appeared. Most of their owners wore complementary costumes with the dogs, but there were a few spoil-sports that dressed up their dogs and just came in street clothes.

Dawn dressed up as Cruella Deville and Lilly put on her Dalmatian costume. They were great.

As the night wore on and people had a few drinks to loosen them up, the dogs got free. There were costumed pooches running around all over the place.

The best costume prize went to a dog dressed up as President Trump and his owners dressed as secret service agents with black suits, dark glasses and ear buds.

Some of the other really great costumes were a Doberman dressed up with a white collar and cuffs as a tuxedo dog, a corn cob, the ubiquitous hot dog and a dog with a saddle and Woody riding her. There was a SWAT dog (owner in uniform) and a couple of prisoners in black and white stripes (the owner and the dog). I asked them if black and white was the new orange. One of my favorites was a basset hound with a cowboy hat and bandanna. Then there was the Chihuahua dressed as a ghost with a larger dog wearing a Ghost Busters costume.

Now Halloween is behind us and Christmas is rushing towards us. I can’t believe that the day after Halloween the stores have their Christmas decorations up. Have they no respect for tradition? Christmas decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving.

But speaking of Christmas, Dawn has scoped out eight to ten doggie Christmas parties she wants to go to. It’s going to be a busy season

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Uncle Kenneth and the Devil

10/30/2018

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By Victoria Ayala Pantoja as told to Pendelton C. Wallace

My uncle Kenneth died when I was nine years old. He was a paratrooper in World War II and Mama is convinced that his parachute jumps led to the failure of his kidneys.

Mama told me the story of Kenneth and the Devil when I was little. I asked her to re-tell me so I could record it, so here is Mama speaking:

When I was little we lived on Pamona Street in Costa Mesa on the hill that went down before it went up. In those days Costa Mesa was know as “Goat Hill” for all the goats the Mexican families raised. This was long before it became bustling American community.

On the corner of Pamona and Seventeenth Street my father had a huge corn field that was over fifty acres. He grew “field corn,” the kind used for cattle feed.

In late summer the stalks grew high with lots of ears of corn and leaves. Soon the corn would be harvested. It was dark and scary in the field, and we children made up stories of bad things that happened in there. Once the corn was grown, my mother warned us not to go in. This was during the Depression and sometimes hobos slept in the corn fields. If we went in there we might step in the poo-poo they left as their calling cards.

We walked by the corn and tomato fields everyday. As we walked by the corn field we dared each other to go in. “The devil lives there,” I told my siblings and we’d run home as fast as we could.
“If you call three times, ‘Devil, come and get me. Devil, come and get me. Devil, come and get me,’ he will come and take your soul to Hell,” my mother warned us. The priests and old ladies always threatened us with Hell to make us behave.

My brother, Kenneth, four years younger than me, was “muy macho,” even at that age. He wasn’t afraid of anything. One day that summer, as we passed the corn field he bragged about how brave he was. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he kept saying and pounded his chest with his fists.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I bet you’re afraid of the Devil.”

“Are you kidding? I’d stomp him into the ground if I ever saw him.”

We passed the field where the tallest corn grew. It was dark as night among the corn stalks. There were black birds, the Devil’s messengers, flying over, eating the corn tassels and making squawking noises. We knew that witches lived in there, my mother told us so, and she taught us to cross ourselves as we went by.

“If you’re so brave, I dare you to go in there, to the middle of the field and call the devil three times.” I knew that even Kenneth wouldn’t dare.

Kenneth stood up tall, threw his chest out, pounded it with clenched fists and said, “I’ll go.”

He straightened up as tall as he could and marched into the corn field. The rest of us dropped to our knees and started praying. The Padre Nuestros and Ave Marias intermingled with the rush of corn stalks and the blackbirds’ calls.

Kenneth stomped off into the field. At first, he marched with purpose, but as he got further and further into the corn, his steps became more tentative. He stopped to listen to the sounds, the cawing of the birds, the movement of the wind through the corn. What was that? Did he hear someone moving through the corn towards him?

But he was brave. True to his word, he crept silently towards the middle of the field. Finally, he’d gone far enough. The day turned to night inside the field. It became very still. The birds fell silent and the wind stopped its endless rustling. Kenneth’s heart stopped. Sweat broke out on his brow.

“Devil,” he whispered, “come and get me. . .” Nothing happened. Heartened, he cried a little louder. “Devil, come and get me.” Still nothing. No Devil, no black birds, no sound in the world. “Devil,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, “come and get me.”

Behind him he heard a stirring. He whirled and there he was. The Devil. His eyes like glowing coals; fire and smoke flared from his nostrils. Red, brown and white feathers covered his body. He had a fiery red cockscomb and a huge, round body. His beak opened and closed and his head bobbed up and down. The Devil looked like a giant chicken.

“Bawaaak!” the Devil shouted at Kenneth.

“Aiyeeee!” Kenneth yelled and stared running.

It seemed like he had been in the corn a long time, but probably was only there a few minutes. We heard a rush of leaves, Kenneth’s desperate cries. We stood as the sounds came closer and closer. Kenneth, white as a sheet, his hair standing up, running for his life, flew past us with the Devil chasing him. As he passed us, we saw his beautiful green eyes, big as cow’s eyes. We yelled at him to make the cross and pray but he just kept running, the devil still behind him. When we saw the devil emerge from the corn field, wings spread, fire blasting from its nostrils, we took off after Kenneth. At home, my mother immediately started praying those special prayers she knew. She sent someone to get Doña Louisa, the curandera.

They put Kenneth to bed, where he lay babbling and shivering.

“He has susto,” Doña Louisa said. Susto means that you have had a fright. “Go gather some eucalyptus leaves.”

Doña Louisa and my mother worked together for days, saying prayers, performing ancient rituals, to rid Kenneth of the susto. They stripped him naked and rubbed his body with oils. They made the sign of the cross under his bed and on his blankets to protect him from evil spirits. Finally, after several days, Kenneth began to speak again. He began to eat, and he got out of bed.

It took weeks before he started playing with the other boys again. We all gave him a lot of room, because we knew that he had seen the Devil. He was never the same. He was no longer the brash braggart that wasn’t afraid of anything.

But he had met the Devil and lived to talk of it.

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La Bruja, Doña Louisa

10/22/2018

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Grandma’s tomato farm was on Placentia Street. The next street over was Monrovia Street. Dona Louisa lived on Monrovia Street in an unpainted two-story house. There was always a ladder against the wall at Dona Louisa’s house and a broom leaning against the ladder.

Dona Louisa was a curandera, the Mexican answer to a witch doctor. Curanderas healed the sick and warded off evil spirits. When a gringo doctor failed, the Mexican community turned to the curandera to figure out what was wrong and how to cure it.

Usually the problem was a curse placed upon the patient by someone else. The curandera used a mixture of magic and Catholicism to exorcise the curse and return the patient to full health. Usually, the curandera prepared a potion of herbs, said prayers, and performed ancient rituals.

The knowledge of curanderas was passed down from generation to generation. You don’t just decide to become a curandera, it’s not like making a career choice. You were chosen. God grants special powers to special people, usually women but not always. If the curandera sees that someone has been chosen by God, then she takes them under her wing and teaches them the ancient healing arts.

Dona Louisa was a curandera, but she was also a bruja (witch). Every child in the community knew why there was always a ladder against her house. At midnight, she grabbed the broom, and climbed the ladder to her roof, then she took off and flew through the night sky on her broom. Being a witch, the little children knew, she ate small children. When Mama was little, whenever she had to walk past Dona Louisa’s house, she ran so that the old bruja couldn’t catch her. She didn’t want to be the honored guest at dinner.

Grandma was also a curandera. She didn’t like it; she didn’t ask to be one. She was given the power by God and she had no choice, but the power scared her. She was frightened of her supernatural abilities. She hid her gift from her children and from the neighbors.

But there is no way to hide anything from your children. They knew. Late at night strangers came to their house and begged Grandma to help. She always sent them to Doña Louisa. Occasionally Doña Louisa would not be available and Grandma was honor bound to help.

Late one night when Mama was six years old there came a knock at the door. A young woman stood at the door with a baby in her arms. The baby howled in pain.

“Doña Roberta,” pleaded the young woman, “my baby is sick. You must help me. The gringo doctors can’t do anything for him and I fear that he is dying.”

“No,” said Grandma. “You must take him to Doña Louisa.”

“But señora, Doña Louisa is not at home. Her neighbors say that she is out of town. Please help me; I fear that my baby will not make it through the night.”

Grandma relented. She could not refuse to help so desperate a case.

What is wrong with the baby?” she queried.

“I think he has empacho, or susto,” replied the woman. Empacho is colic, susto means that someone has scared you.

Grandma took the baby and laid him out on the table in her kitchen. She removed his diapers and examined him. “No,” she said, “he has ojo.” Ojo is the evil eye. Someone had looked at this perfect little baby and wished it was theirs, now it suffered from their envy.

“You go home and pray,” Grandma told the young woman, “and bring the baby back just before midnight. Don’t be late mind you; if we are to save this baby, we must act at precisely midnight.”

While the woman was gone, Grandma set about gathering her herbs. She lit a kerosene lantern and visited her herb garden. Then she wandered to the forest of trees along the edge of their farm and hunted for the special plants that she needed to heal the baby.

When she returned to the house, she checked to make sure that all her children were asleep. She didn’t want them to witness what was about to occur. Mama, who was awake and was watching her mother through the window, saw the light returning to the house and dashed for her bed, which she shared with her sister Ester. She dived under the covers and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep as Grandma opened the door to look in.

Satisfied that there would be no witnesses, Grandma took her molcajete (mortar and pestle) from the shelf in the kitchen and began to grind her herbs and leaves to make a potion. A few minutes before midnight there was a knock at the door. The young woman had returned.

Grandma took the baby and wrapped it in a blanket. She put her supplies in a canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder, then stepped outside with the woman. Mama tip toed from her room to the door to watch.

There was a deep drainage ditch along the road with tulle bushes at least five feet tall. Mama sprinted to the cover of the ditch and followed Grandma and the woman to see what they were going to do. They walked about a half a mile down the road until they came to an intersection.

With every step Grandma mumbled a prayer. She was saying an ancient chant that was old when the Aztecs ruled Mexico. All the while the baby cried. It cried and cried and never relented.

In the center of the intersection, a perfect cross, Grandma painted another cross with lime she had taken out of her sack. Then she put a circle of candles around the cross and lit them, mumbling a prayer as she lit each one. She returned to her cross and covered the lime with eucalyptus leaves.

Grandma then took the baby back from its mother. She removed the blanket so that the baby was naked. She held it up to the full moon and repeated her chant; the baby cried. Then she placed the baby in the center of the cross and knelt on her knees with the mother. She put her hands together and said a long, deep prayer and the baby cried. This went on for minutes. When she was done, she picked the crying baby up again and lifted it to the moon one more time. She repeated the chant, then wrapped the baby in its blanket.

They walked back to the house, Grandma mumbling ancient chants and prayers all the way and the baby crying. Mama followed along in the ditch.

When they returned to the house, Grandma painted a cross on the mattress of a crib with her lime. Once again, she covered the lime cross with eucalyptus leaves. She took the baby from its mother and placed it on the cross. Then she took some of the potion she had prepared and anointed the baby, on the forehead, on the chest and on the shoulders in the sign of the cross.

“En el nombre sea de Dios, y la Santisama Trinidad,” (In the name of God, and the holy trinity) she prayed. She broke an egg into a cup, painted a cross under the crib with lime and covered it with the leaves. She placed the cup with the egg in the center of the cross. Then she turned to the mother.

“You go home now. You can return in the morning.”

The mother went home, and Grandma went to bed. Mama snuck back into her bed and dozed.

In the morning, there was silence in the house. Mama jumped out of bed to see what miracle had happened. As she reached the kitchen, she saw Grandma holding the cooing baby, feeding it a bottle of milk. The baby ate heartily and cooed and giggled. Mama entered the room and looked at the crib with its crosses and the cup with the egg.

The egg had turned a dark ugly green.

“Mama, what happened?” she asked.

“The egg has drawn out the evil spirits. When his mother returns, I must dispose of the egg safely so that they won’t infect anyone else.”

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Traffic Court

9/26/2018

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Lilly and me with our new Altima.

We are doomed.

I just had a lesson in civics that I want to share. It amazes me that our government can function at all with all of the out-of-date systems and bureaucracy.

I got a traffic ticket. I totally didn’t deserve it. I turned left from Broadway to 6th Avenue late at night. I admit that there is a left turn sign on the light pole, but in San Diego, they don’t light their traffic signs.

This was one of the first things I noticed when we moved here five years ago. The city is dark at night. In Seattle, we have street lights and signs are lit. In San Diego, many streets have no lights whatsoever and there is no way to read the signs after dark. I don’t know, maybe it’s because they’re trying to reduce light pollution or save on energy costs. Someone told me that they keep things dark to allow the Palomar Observatory to have a better view of the stars.
Whatever the case, San Diego is the darkest major city I’ve ever been in.

So, I pulled up to the intersection and waited for the light to change. A police car was parked on the other side of the street. I signaled a left turn.

The light turned green and I waited for traffic to clear so I could turn. The officer in the car flashed a light at me. I had no idea what this meant. I got an opening in the traffic and turned. He immediately put his lights on and pulled me over.

“Why did you pull me over?” I asked, having no idea what I did.

“You made a left turn when there is a sign clearly stating no left turns.” (Actually, it didn’t say that. It was one of those pictures of a left turn with a circle and a slash over it, but I get ahead of myself.)

“Officer,” says I, “There is no sign there.”

He assured me there was and wrote me a ticket. No mercy. This guy didn’t have any sense of humor. For those of you old enough to remember the last Ice Age, he reminded me of Officer Judy on the Smothers Brothers TV show. (If you don't remember Officer Judy, you can see a clip here.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yfp-t&p=Officer+Judy#id=2&vid=ae224900f4a406b21235efc9345db1e5&action=click)

“I clearly indicated to you that you couldn’t make a left turn,” he tells me.

“What? How did you indicate to me?”

“I flashed my light at you, then indicated for you to go straight.”

I’ve never had an officer do this to me before. I had no idea what he was talking about. From my perspective, it looked like he was just flashing me. I couldn’t see him indicating I should go straight.

This is my second ticket in San Diego. I’m still learning the rules here. My first ticket was for stopping to pick someone up on Broadway (I hate that street). Three other Uber drivers were stopped with their emergency lights flashing, so I pulled in behind them. The cop pulled behind me and turned on his lights.

When he explained that I was blocking traffic, I said, “Officer, there are three other Uber drivers doing the same thing. I’ll wait while you give them tickets too.”

He also had no sense of humor. “We’ll take care of you and worry about them later.” Of course, there was no later. While he was writing me up, the other drivers picked up their passengers and moved on.

I learned my lesson. Even though every other Uber driver in the city double parks to pick up their passengers, I do not.

Can you see a no left turn sign?

So, the cop told me that the court would send me a notice explaining how to set up a court date or just pay the fine. Time marched on. I never heard from the court. Then I got a notice from a collection agency saying I missed my court date and must pay a $300 penalty in addition to the $250 fine. I tried to talk with someone about it and they said I had to pay it. I missed my chance to explain.

Lesson learned.

I paid the fine and went on about my business. Then I got a letter from the DMV saying my driver’s license was suspended because I hadn’t paid my fine. Since it is impossible to talk to anyone at the court on the phone (they only answer their phones from 8 to 11 on weekdays and you get put on perma-hold when you call) I went down to the courthouse to straighten this out.

They looked up my ticket, said it was paid and to ignore the notice.

Three months later, I got a notice from Uber that my account was deactivated because my license was suspended. It took me two weeks to get this straightened out and cost me $2000.

Your tax dollars at work.

I got the second ticket and immediately tried to set up a court date. The ticket was not in the system. Every week for three months I went online and tried to set up a court date. The ticket was not in the system. A week before the expiration date on the ticket, it finally showed up and I set my court date.

The big day comes. I’m told to be there at 12:45 for a 1:15 court time. I arrive at 12:30, check in and am told to go to waiting area “B.” The waiting area is full, no seats available.

With my bad back and gimpy knees I can’t stand for extended periods of time. I lean against the wall and read from my cell phone.

At 1:15 a bailiff calls us in. I found a seat and he explained how the court works. He said that we will be called in alphabetical order. This was my curse in grade school. Wallace was always last. It is in court too.

I sit and watch sixty other people have their cases heard before me. At 3:30 I got called. This is an arraignment hearing. I either plead guilty or not guilty. It takes less than sixty seconds. Then I’m directed to the bail room to get my court date.

I waited another hour in the bail room to get called. I got my date and left.

Everything in the court system is paper driven. The judge even has two huge law books on her desk to look up the relevant laws when working with a defendant. Paper work is filled out by two clerks who physically carry it to the bail room for processing. In the bail room, the paper gets shuffled around until it gets to the clerk who calls you to the window.

This is the same system they used when Wyatt Earp was marshal. Have they never heard about automation? Being a software engineer, I could design a system that would cut hours out of each defendant’s wait.

I ended up spending my entire day in court to spend sixty seconds in front of the judge and maybe two minutes at the clerk’s window They have no consideration for our time.

Here’s another observation. Of the sixty or so people at court that day, I’d say about six or seven of them were white. 90% of the people in court were people of color. Is that a coincidence? Is it possible that non-white people are worse drivers than white? Or, is this another incidence of police prejudice? Could it be that cops pull over white people, share a joke with them and send them on with a warning? This has happened to me in the past. Or do cops just write more tickets for people for Driving While Black, Brown, Yellow or Red?

Okay, I’ve vented. I hope you don’t have to go through this system, in the meantime, if you do get caught up in the system, be sure to take your Kindle and have one of my books loaded on it. When we got into the court room, they made us turn off our cell phones, so I couldn’t even read.

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I Started Out as a Child

Father's Day

Papa and Huey Newton

2018 in Review

Merry Christmas, Chief

The First Thanksgiving

Halloween is going to the Dogs

Uncle Kenneth and the Devil

La Bruja, Doña Louisa

Traffic Court

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