FOREWARD
Today, I felt a flood of images from my past hit me. Educed by the tragic story of Dave Peltzer, and the hardships he went through and later published in “A Child Called ‘it’” and “The Lost Boy.” While my life is nowhere near as difficult or demanding as his was I still hear the USA Army commercial replaying in my head: “If someone wrote a book on your life, would anyone want to read it?”
Every time I hear that, I say, “YES!” I felt it was about time to get off my butt and finally write my life story, well, up until age 16 anyway…
CHAPTER ONE
From birth, my life was odd. I was born on February 12th in Glendora General Hospital in Glendora California, a metropolis shoot off of Los Angeles. I still bear the mark of a broken collarbone, due to some kind of complications during labor. From what I know, I was born with Pneumonia and a broken (left?) collar bone… to this day people ask me why that bone is larger than the right one. I just kind of shrug it off with an “I dunno… not wanting to deal with the questions about California.”
Anyway, from piecing together stories from family members and my mother, I have learned that I was brought home to a shack in the back of my grandparents’ home. See, my parents were young, (only slightly older than I am now), and at the tender age of 16, I was their rebellious ticket out of their parents home. They soon realized how cold and harsh the world was outside of the protection of the nest. Our house was a simple shack, one or two rooms, no plumbing, or kitchen. But it was their home. They were proud to be out of the burden of their parents and into the burden of parenting. My father ended up working three jobs trying to support the family. Apparently, Truck stops don’t pay much for general labor.
I feel like a statistic when I say that I occupied the lower end of low-class living. When we finally got our own home, my parents had to juggle bills; knowing one slip of the hand would send our world crashing even harder down upon us. From this time in my life, I hear many, many stories of despair, but two stick in my head most…. They testify to the strength of the not-so-rebellious teenagers in the hard world.
“It’s about that time of month again, the bills have come in. But this time is different than most. My dad has been fired from his 3rd job, meaning he gets more than 2 hours of sleep, but we don’t get any creature comforts. It’s time to choose, we cannot have both Gas and Electricity, so one has to go. Upon much deliberation I watched my mom and dad try to find a way to survive without the basics. They figure that we need hot water to cook and bath, so we decide to keep gas. In a week’s time, our power is out and we area put to the test. It comes when Baby Jonathan needed a bath, so in the light seeping through the window, the tub was filled. As my mother stuck her hand in, she learned the “cold” truth. Our pilot light for the furnace was electric, so we had no hot water OR electricity.
Baby Jon stayed home while his father took a trip to the Public Utilities Department. My father went into the PUD and begged for the department to give his money back. He tried to explain his position, but was harshly laughed out by the middle-class peons inside. They were ignorant and spiteful of those on a lower level than themselves. Such is the way of the world.”
Obviously, we toughed out that period of my life with lot of blankets and cold sandwiches. The months to come didn’t show any sign of stopping the depression...
“All she wanted was a bowl of canned corn, nothing more. Days had gone by and she disciplined herself every time she thought of food. If she expected her son to grow up strong, he must eat first, AND THEN if there was enough money left, she could afford a bite. By day three she had starved herself into tremors. She would shake violently as her body begged for some form of nutrition. Finally, at three o’clock in the morning, she couldn’t block out the pain. In the dark she fumbled through the empty shelves, finally resting her hands on a can of creamed corn. She blindly felt her way to a can opener with tears of joy streaming down her face. No seventeen year old should be put in the position where she must starve herself to save feed her child. She finally managed to calm herself through the tremors and open the can, though the tears came back as she rushed the can into a bowl. As she walked back to her room with her prize, she shook violently, crying with the joy of eating, the pain of hunger, and the sorrow of betraying the food that may cost more than she had. Her tremors only made things worse and she found herself more focused on the food than where she was walking. Suddenly her world came to another violent realization as she tripped, fell, and threw her food all over the living room carpet. Life had just dealt her another Fool’s card. She would not eat tonight, nor would she until the latter day. Her only meal became another stain on the carpet.”
These two stories come from before a time before my memory. I wish I could remember those times. Such a humbling experience makes my life now seem so carefree. I always hear my teenage peers talk about how the miss the carefree attitude of life back in their early youth. I think my past has made me a better person, more aware of what I have and what I could go without.
CHAPET TWO
An endless expanse lies in front of me; I sit snuggly in my car seat, watching out the window only to see a barren expanse of land to my right, the Californian sun had tinted the landscape a harsh brown-yellow color. It seemed to spread its plague like an infectious disease into the horizon, right up into the grimy mountains in the muddled background. I wondered what my fate was in such a foul world.
To my left was lain a bravado of green grass and happy people. It seemed eerily inviting. I longed to play on the large giraffe slide in the center of park. I had wondered what has caused this oasis to be formed in the middle of this hell. I looked between my parents’ seats in the front of the car and saw the road ahead. It surprised me to see that we were the dividing factor in a battle of landscapes. We were navigating the line of scrimmage where neither side dared to cross. Into the horizon, I saw no end to the battle. Both sides seamed to gain no foothold on the road. Both the scorched yellow and luscious green seemed to be in balance. I wondered on what side of the road I would find myself.
Now, at age 16, I look back into the past and see the metaphor. My first memory of life was to paraphrase life far into the future. Life is like that road, take one wrong move, and you’ll be in hell. Be careful not to get too caught up in the Oasis though, because if you meander to far, you’ll lose the road and never find your destination. The memory continues to take my family to a townhouse complex on the yellow-brown side of the road. I remember it well, the guardrail that kept the upstairs portion of the house from my curious hands, the small kitchen, and the quaint living room. I remember the Jeans the lady we went to see, at least the part from the knees down. I must have been too preoccupied to look up at her face.
CAPTER THREE
This part of my life falls around the average kids pre-school/kindergarten years. The three main “homes” here are blurry in my mind. I can picture Peanut easily, I can see my tricycle, I see Max and Quito. Phillip and his brother easy to picture, the house and thanksgiving that year are also easy to see, I remember losing my toy fire truck, and I remember my battle against CFC’s…. But chronologically??? HA! Doubtful J.
Peanut’s
Apartments
Santa Maria, named for the world famous Spanish Ship the sailor Christopher Columbus used to sail around the world. Now it was the name of my home. These were the early times; my mom still hadn’t left her friends from High School. When they all graduated, she cried for them, and for her missed opportunity. How could this 4.0 student end up where she was? She didn’t seam to mind all that much, well, not to me. She was always home as far as I can remember. I would always see and hear from her old friends, they would often play pranks on each other, just to pass the time. Partying was never realty done to extent. I can’t remember seeing my father ever hold anything slightly alcoholic. These were honest kids having “honest” fun. The family they had was tight. I was the newcomer, and widely accepted as the sun of “Gonzo.” My father was affectionately given that name for his huge, crooked (almost hooked) nose. The family was small, and everyone had names. In their numbers were the only “Adults” I knew, Lisa Man, Lisa Lovechick, Amy Mecurio, and Steve Mecurio. The rest were either infrequent enough, or not of any worth, for me to remember (all two or three of them).
The apartments we lived in were small, roach infested, and tinted yellow from the previous smokers who inhabited the room before me. Despite all this, life was good. Amy was a big fan of cats. She must have had 10 of them. I watched in fascination as the mother gave birth to 3 or 4 kittens. My mom and Amy let my take the first pick of cats to keep for myself. I called her “Quito” after I looked over the world map for a cool name. Quito suddenly meant more than “The Capital of Ecuador” to me, it was the name of my cat! I raced home and threw out my little bucket of pet-roaches…I didn’t need them anymore! I had my cat! That cat meant so much to me, and she eventually followed me all the way up until my life in Spokane, Washington.
MORE TO COME AS IT IS WRITTEN!!!!!!
see pics of me here: www.geocities.com/dabomb_69_00/pic/
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