Rules Change when the Ruler Changes

There was no doubt that Dad was the head of the household during my first 10 years on Eagle Street.  He was the provider, the gardener, the building maintenance worker, and the disciplinarian.  I had great respect and love for him, along with a quite a bit of fear.  There were rules I had to follow in order to avoid leather belt on bare bottom. These were the biggies:

1. Never be outside when the street lights are on.
2. Always wear pajamas, not street clothes, to bed.
3. Never drink your milk until you are done with your meal.
4. Don't bring home a detention slip from school.
5. Don't make Mom angry.
6. Don't touch the daily newspaper until Dad is done with it.
7. Don't read at the table while you are eating.

Any of those offenses could get you either yelled at or spanked with the belt, depending on how pissed off Dad already was before we kids made things worse by violating the rules. And I learned about all of these things the hard way. Before he started the discipline, he would always say, "This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you."

In our authoritarian household, we rarely had friends over to play.  Some of the neighborhood kids told me that their parents would not allow them to go inside our house because we were weird. Relatives did not visit too much either.  I never met Dad's mother. I met Dad's sister June once for a minute.  Dad's nephew Guy and a great aunt visited once. 

Dad's nephew, Uncle Guy, visited sometime in '69 or '70.

Aunt Amy and Uncle Ed visited three times from Ephrata, Washington.

Uncle Ed, Aunt Amy, and their daughter Phyllis, with Tammy, summer of '64.

Home Baptism.  Aunt Amy was our Godmother.  I wore this dress for Lynda's wedding earlier in the year

Aunt Amy and Uncle Ed's last visit. 1971.Dad died later this year

And Mom's brother Dick stopped by for about an hour once while he was in San Diego on business.

Mom's brother Uncle Dick, with the littlest kid

 Mom and Dad never packed us up in the car and took a trip to visit anyone either.

We never went out to dinner when Dad was alive.  Dinner was always at home, usually TV dinners or Banquet Chicken pot pies.  Occasionally they would order in from Chicken a Go, and we would have fried chicken and soggy crinkle fries delivered to the house.  Maybe twice a month, Dad would drive up to Hillcrest to Pernicano's Italian Restaurant  and pick up a pepperoni pizza, and we would eat it while watching TV in the living room.

Dad also controlled the number of animals we were allowed to keep.  One parakeet.  One cat. No keeping any of her kittens.  Two dogs:  Tiny, the mutt who had seniority and couldn't be replaced, and Collette, the silver poodle whose puppies were sold for extra income.  When mom brought home a male poodle, dad allowed him to stay until he sired a litter, then he was sold along with the puppies.  Mom sometimes hid animals from Dad until she could sell them.  I remember my brother Darwin hid a baby alligator in the house for a while.

Once Dad was no longer alive, however, the control of the household shifted to Mom.  And suddenly things were different.

Mom started taking us out more. We would eat TV dinners at home and then we'd get in the car and drive up to El Cajon Blvd, which used to be a strong shopping district.  There were new car dealers, like Pearson Ford.  The jingle went like this, " See Pearson Ford they stand alone at Fairmont and El Cajon!" There were also many high end furniture stores there are the time, like Gustafsons. They served cookies and punch, so while mom perused the furniture, looking at things she never intended to purchase, her 3 young hooligans took care of the refreshments.

After we got back from the month-long trip to Aunt Amy's house in 1971, Mom settled in on a meal routine that went something like this:

Mondays:  Dinner at the First Southern Baptist church on Park Blvd.  For a super low price, like a dollar a plate and half price for kids, we got a really decent meal of a beef patty, a scoop of corn or green beans, a tossed green salad, a roll with butter, and a little slice of pie for dessert.

Tuesdays:  All you can eat pizza night at Pizza Hut.  They had 3 different types of pizza sliced up and ready, sitting under a heat lamp.  You could eat until you were stuffed.  Again, really cheap.

Wednesday: Perry Boy's Smorgy, another all-you-can eat place similar to Hometown Buffet.  The novel thing about this place was the drink station, and it was included with the meal.

Thursday:  This dinner depended on whatever coupons showed up in the paper.  If it was Arby's RB sandwich coupons, we had gross processed Roast beef sandwiches.  If it was Der Weinerschnitzel chili dog coupons, we had hot dogs.

Friday:  Pizza from Mona Lisa Pizza, down in Little Italy.

Saturday:  Since mom was usually selling stuff on weekends, we generally stayed home for the phone calls and strangers coming to buy and trade things.  So, dinner was either TV dinners, or leftover Arby sandwiches.

Sunday:  Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Full bucket. Regular, never extra Crispy, no matter how much I begged.  We would either eat it at home, or take it on a long car ride to visit one of the older brothers who was serving time in an honor camp in the Cleveland National Forest.

Most of Dad's rules ceased to exist almost immediately.

The animal collection started to grow in 1972.  Mom didn't really care what we wore to bed.  She didn't care if I read books while eating. She didn't notice when we drank our milk. She didn't care if we brought home detention slips from school. The newspaper rule was gone too.

We still had to be in the house when the street lights came on. That was the only Dad rule that remained. Mom had her own rules.  And you still did not want to make Mom angry, because the corporal punishments did not die with Dad.