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.
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.
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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