Our Family, Designed to Fit the Narrative

 

Ever since I can remember, I have been obsessed with genetics.  Of course, when I was four years old  I had never heard of the word.  But I was already into making rudimentary family trees with M & M candies.  I instinctively understood the concept of grandparents, great grandparents, and how two brown M & Ms could have a red M & M baby if there were some red M & M grandparents. The importance of past generations seemed imprinted on me for some reason. I simply wanted to know my ancestors. 

 At that time, I did not know that I was adopted, and that I was not genetically tied to anyone in my life.  I wanted to know Mom's family, Dad's family, aunts and uncles and cousins.  Mom spoke often of her family, sharing memories of her childhood and her feelings for her parents, grandfather, and her siblings.  However, Mom's oldest sister Amy was the only sibling with whom Mom maintained constant contact.  Mom had so many brothers and sisters, and there were many cousins,  but they were either never permitted, or never chose, to be a part of our family.  

As I grew older, it became obvious why this was the case.  Mom had many secrets that her siblings probably knew about, and she did not want her kids to know of her past sins. When it came to Dad's much smaller family, I believe Mom wanted them kept far away for similar reasons.  I had no clue that very bad things had happened on Eagle Street during the 50s, before I was born and brought there to live.  I felt the quietly simmering sadness between my parents during the last 10 years of Dad's life, although I did not know what caused it. It wasn't advisable for a 10 year old child to approach her parents and ask them why they never hugged and kissed.  I don't remember ever hearing them even just talking to each other. They never acted out in anger against each other in my presence. They seemed to be living their own separate lives while living under the same roof. It was just a fact of life that they never seemed to want to be in other's company, unless the tv was on and they were watching a program they both liked. The happiness in their relationship, if they ever had happiness, was long gone by the time I was added to the mix.

Dad's mother was still alive in the 70's, living in a far away state.  I would often ask Mom why we never visited Grandma, or why she never visited us. Or why she never sent us birthday or Christmas cards, or even called long distance on special occasions like Aunt Amy did.  Mom told me that Dad's mother didn't like kids.  She told a story of a time in the early 50s, when Dad's only genetic son, Darwin, was a toddler.  According to Mom, Grandma Goodman (Dad's mother had remarried) came to visit, and she did not want her young grandson to toddle around the living room.  She made him sit in his little wooden rocking chair, which upset him. Some of that story could have been true.  Perhaps Grandma visited in the winter, when wood was burning in the fireplace.  Dad had fallen against a potbelly stove and suffered severe burns on his hands as a child.  Grandma could have experienced a bit of PTSD  and didn't want her grandson suffering the same fate.   But I wasn't old enough to think about how Dad's mother might have felt. The picture I imagined in my little kid's mind was that Dad's mother was a mean old lady who hated kids and liked to punish them by making them sit in the corner. Mom was content knowing that I believed Dad's mother did not care about me at all. 

 I remember watching the Waltons as a kid and envying that family, because they had grandparents who lived with them.  I couldn't help but feel that we kids were missing out on something really important.  But Mom did not seem to think it was all that important.  Mom was completely in charge of who we were allowed to know, and she styled her family in the way she felt comfortable.  Even Dad's sister June, who lived in Texas, wasn't in contact.  I remember meeting her one time and being so impressed with her because she was a very good artist.  I didn't know yet that we had no genetic connection, and so I was convinced that I got my love of drawing animals from her.  

Mom, even with all her seemingly old-fashioned values, was definitely not old-fashioned in some ways.  Mom was family fluid. You were either in on her terms or you would be replaced by another person.  Essentially, we were more like farm animals than human beings.  We had to have a useful purpose in order to earn Mom's love and acceptance.  Once we became a nuisance or had nothing to offer, we were out.  And new people could be added to the family if they brought value or usefulness. One thing was certain: we had to fit into Mom's ever-changing story. And it was her story to tell, not ours. We didn't dare tell. 

Mom learned early on that kids were extremely valuable because they ensured a government paycheck. I believe this was one reason why she kept adding more and more kids to the family.  Once a kid left the nest, the social security check went away too.  That kid was now useless, unless they could offer something of value.  Value, such as stolen goods that mom could resell.

When Dad died, Mom immediately shoved his memory into the closet.  She wouldn't allow me to have a photo of him, and started making disturbing statements about how she never was in love with him.  Dad's memory was soon erased from Eagle Street and replaced with a life-long criminal who temporarily became Mom's "love of her life." 

Skippy, her drug-addicted mentally ill and career criminal fifth child, had nothing of value to offer society.  He was crazy, high, drunk, and stole everything he put his hands on.  But he had plenty of value for Mom.  She happily bought the things he stole and resold them.  So even though she would never admit to being his real mom, she kept him in her life because his thefts were a benefit she couldn't resist. 

I knew as a child that my worth was linked to my musical talent.  Mom needed to have what sister Lynda termed, "a show-off kid."  Mom wanted me to become a concert pianist and told me many times that her dream for me was to win the Miss America pageant.  I did not like to perform in public. In fact, it made me physically ill, but mom did not care.  She made me play for company, whether they were friends, relatives, and just strangers who showed up at our house to buy a puppy or a stolen typewriter. To refuse to perform guaranteed me a beating later in the day, so I always complied. I added to my usefulness by learning to groom dogs, type up dog pedigrees, act as a poodle "midwife," and later, juggle and make balloon animals when we kids were forced to work as clowns.

Mom was a shrewd matriarch.  She built her family to serve her purposes, tweaking it from time to time, culling out the useless and adding possible moneymakers.  It was not a nuclear family, although she strived to convince outsiders that it was just your typical Mom, Dad, kids and dogs household. We were like dancing bears in a Russian circus.  In order to keep Mom happy, we had to keep dancing, or else risk being tossed from our engineered family on Eagle Street. So we all danced for her, all in our own ways.

Mom's Jewelry

 Mom loved rings.  She was obsessed with opals, and since the opal is the October birthstone, she always wore at least one, and usually more.  Her favorite local jeweler operated Australian Imports out of a little house in City Heights on Fairmount Avenue.  After Dad passed away in 1971, Mom started taking us kids with her to Australian Imports.  The owner would call her to let her know that he had a new shipment of opals, and that he was holding some of the best ones for her to look at.  We would get in the blue Volvo station wagon and head up to El Cajon Blvd, which had at one time been the major thoroughfare from east to west.  It had been an important business district prior to the construction of malls, which destroyed the old-fashioned ways to shop and resulted in the current blight that is El Cajon Blvd today. 

A drive east on El Cajon Blvd in the 60s and 70s was visually interesting for a kid. First, we drove past Mom's beloved Dr Hunt's office and Hillside Hospital. Then there was the Lafeyette Hotel and Red Fox Restaurant and Bar.  As we continued east towards Fairmount Avenue, we passed by Bekins Moving Company with its huge moving trucks parked everywhere,  San Diego Glass and Paint store, ABC Pianos, and Lewis Colonial Mortuary. It seemed as though there were billboards on every block, most of them advertising the toughness of Marlborough reds or the Koolness of smoking menthols. There were lots of liquor stores and corner bars and gas stations.  All these establishments had vintage neon signs atop their buildings. There were also many fancy furniture stores, banks, stamp redemption centers, and grocery stores. El Cajon Blvd had many iconic restaurants.  I remember the Bob's Big Boy, with the big plastic statue of a fat goofy-looking kid that stood out front.  There was Alfie's Fish N Chips, Bit Of Sweden Smorgasbord (where we all got thrown out for stealing food),  Rudfords Diner, and our favorite, the A & W Root Beer Drive In.

When we got to the Pearson Ford car dealership, we kids would always sing their familiar jingle, "See Pearson Ford we stand alone at Fairmount, and El Cajon!" In the 70s, the dealership had a real-sized plastic pinto horse, rearing up on its hind legs like my familiar Breyer Horse Stallion toys at home. Oh how I wished I could have that huge Ford Pinto horse to put in our front yard!

When we saw the horse, we knew it was time to turn right and head south towards the jewelry store.  Just south of El Cajon Blvd, we drove past houses that were small and old but not yet rundown.  Near the corner of Fairmount and Landis was a plain little house with a big sign that said, "Australian Imports." Mom's happy place.

The tiny living room had been remodeled into a showroom, with a locking glass display case filled with pretty rings, necklaces, and earrings.  When the owner saw us coming, he stepped around the counter and ushered us in with a friendly grin.  We kids sat on the chairs while the owner brought out special stones for Mom to peruse.  

Opals come in many varieties, as I would learn during my many visits to the store.  There were Australian and Mexican stones. The colors varied as well. Mom preferred the white stones that had glints of fire deep inside.  I preferred the dark bluish black stones that had streaks of red showing through.  Mom would select a pretty stone and have the jeweler size her finger.  Then she would select the ring setting and put down a deposit.  The jeweler would call her when the ring was ready to pick up.  

Mom had many opal rings and wore them all.  I don't know what happened to all of her rings, but I do have this one:

                              Set with two tiny rubies, the opal has a big crack in the center.

  One day, after she finished her order, she called me up to the counter to select a stone for myself. I picked a pretty dark stone with lots of colors, and  she had it set into a ring to celebrate my 3rd anniversary of taking piano lessons.   

One day in September 1972, a year after Dad passed away, Mom called me into the living room and had me pose with all of her rings on my fingers.  

Sept 28, 1972, Mom had me pose with all her rings.  There was one onyx amongst the opals

Mom had an old ring that she wore constantly that did not contain any stones.  It was gold, and had some sort of rectangular design that looked like a very old high school class ring.  She had another class ring that she gave to me in the late 70s.  It was obtained under questionable circumstances. Sometime in 1979, Skippy came around asking for money for a bottle of Thunderbird and some Camel cigarettes.  He pulled the ring out of his pocket and Mom gave him $10 for it.  I always wondered whose ring it was and how it got from the owner's hand to Skippy's pocket. Given Skippy's long history of stealing everything he could get his hands on, it wouldn't surprise me if he got it from a home burglary.  But he could have also traded some drugs for it or won it in a card game.   The ring was buried beneath tarnished old necklaces in a box that I haven't even thought about for over 30 years.  Now that I have found it again, I am going to try to get it back to its original owner.  Here it is:

Davis Senior High School, Class of 1975.  The high school is located in Davis, California. There is a blue Devil mascot on the side.  There are initials inside, which should help me narrow it down a bit.

Mom had lots of pretty rings, and wearing them gave her much pleasure.   Opals, come to think of it, are a lot like Mom.  They are fragile stones that crack under stress.  They also have a fiery interior that reveals itself if you get close enough to see it. That's Mom. And that's why when I see an opal, I always think of her and the jewelry collection that kept her happy during her final 15 years of life on Eagle Street.

 

Mom's 10 Year Decline

Mom was afraid of death.  Her fear grew after Dad passed away from a heart attack in 1971. It is perfectly understandable.  Her own father died at age 51, her mother passed away at age 60.    Her brother Dick died at age 50, another brother Ray died at age 60.  Her sister Nina died at age 52. Cancer ran rampant throughout the family, and Mom was terrified that her turn would soon come. 

When I was 3 years old, Mom taught me how to say my nightly prayer: 

 "Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

Then I would ask God to bless Mom, Dad, and my siblings.  After Dad passed away, Mom had me add two additional requests every night:  "Please make Mom thin and healthy, and please let Mom live long enough to see her children grow up."

The nightly prayer for Mom was a constant reminder to me that Mom was not healthy and that she might die and leave me and my two younger siblings as orphans. Mom took lots of prescription medications for a number of health issues. After Dad died, I was given more responsibilities around the house, including helping her to get her maintenance meds.  Mom instructed me to call in her refills and then pick them up from the pharmacy for her, so I remember many of  the drugs she took:  There was hydrochlorothiazide for her blood pressure.  Thyroid pills for her non-functioning thyroid gland. Diabinese to treat her type 2 diabetes, Meprobamate and Valium for anxiety and depression, and anti-nausea suppositories for her nervous stomach.  Sulfa drugs were frequently required to treat her recurrent urinary tract infections. There was always something going on with her health. 

Mom was supposed to check her urine for sugar every day. It was similar to how we tested the pool to maintain proper chemical levels in the water.  She would pee in a cup,  dip a test strip, watch the strip turn color, then compare the strip color with the color key. She would call me to the bathroom to give her my opinion. This was not a good way to measure sugar levels, because color perceptions vary from person to person, and the lighting in the room also seemed to affect the way Mom and I interpreted the test.  The bottom line was that Mom was obese, hypertensive, diabetic, and stressed out.  The reality for us kids was that Dad was dead and Mom was sick.  We picked up on Mom's fear and sadness, and her problems affected us too. It showed in our schoolwork.  My younger siblings had nightly behavioral outbursts.  There was constant shouting and violence during these years. 

Mom was only 51 years old in 1973, but she seemed much older. Dad's empty yellow chair(the chair he died in) was a constant reminder of his absence.

                             In 1973, with a couple of puppies.  Mom had just started her diet.

In 1973, it seemed that my prayers for Mom were being answered.  Mom entered into a relationship with Paris Young, an imprisoned career criminal.  Her giddy, schoolgirl type of love for him had inspired her to lose weight.  During their long distance letter-writing romance, Mom had started watching her diet and became more active. As a result of this lifestyle change, the weight started to drop off.  

Mom started losing weight, and Aunt Amy made her some new outfits, always remembering to include huge Mom pockets.

Over the next 18 months, she lost at least 70 pounds, and her body changed from morbidly obese to a pleasingly plump and curvy shape.  The type 2 diabetes disappeared, her blood pressure normalized, and her energy level rose. Her days were no longer spent in the recliner watching her programs on tv. She started wearing new clothes.  Her hair, which she normally kept very short and plastered down with Dippity Doo, was allowed to grow.  Before long, shiny golden curls softened her appearance. Mom had been continually ill during the sixties and early 70s, so seeing her transform herself seemed like a miracle to me. Mom was indeed becoming thin and healthy. 

                        Mom is looking good in 1974. She started wearing shorter-length dresses.

                          1974.  Mom with Collette and puppies.  Her hair was beginning to grow out. 

Mom started doing her own "Glamour Shots" to send to her boyfriend in prison.  I don't know where this was taken, and I don't know who took the picture.

Christmastime, 1974.  Mom's hair grew really fast.  She sometimes set it in long coils like in this photo. 

Christmas, 1974, at Soledad Prison.  Mom was at her tiniest at this time.  Paris got released the following July and they married.  Their marriage was over by December 1, 1975.

Unfortunately, the transformation was temporary.  After her relationship with Paris reached its disastrous finale in December, 1975, Mom dealt with her humiliation and anguish by settling back into her unhealthy eating.  Soon it was once again pizza, brownies, Chicken in a Biskit crackers,  Mother's chocolate chip cookies, See's Candies and Tab while watching TV all day and evening.  She steadily gained back every pound, and then added more weight to her tiny 4'10" frame. 

In 1976, she became a clown and bought a camper for the truck so that we could go camping. She occasionally exhibited her poodle pups at local dog shows. But soon, she quit clowning, and the only people who slept in the camper were recently released prisoners who used it as a halfway house.  Mom's high blood pressure and diabetes returned, and by 1978, Mom was right back where she started, morbidly obese, taking several prescription medications daily, and asking me to pray for God to make her thin and healthy. 

"Angel" in front of the camper that she bought after becoming a clown. We never did go camping in it. 

            Sometime in late 1976. Mom's puppy won a ribbon at the AKC dog show in Morley Field.

 In 1977, I had my drivers permit, and it came in handy for Mom's many visits to the Kaiser Emergency Department.  Soon she was diagnosed with angina, and was prescribed a tiny bottle of nitroglycerine pills that she had to keep in her pocket, along with Kleenex and Tic-Tacs.  At some point she had a mild heart attack, and that started her down the road to more severe heart disease. 

 Kaiser doctors tried to get her back on the right track.  They enrolled her in a weight loss program, but she was an unwilling participant. She would never go alone.  I had to accompany her to these meetings, and she would keep me out of school on the days she needed to attend the program.  I could see that it was a waste of time.  When it came time for the weigh in, she would not permit herself to be weighed. She would nudge me out of my chair, give me the "you better do what I tell you to do " look, and make me go up to the front of the room to be weighed. I am sure all the overweight women were not amused to see a 110 pound, 17 year old girl getting her weight recorded by the nurse.  Mom was not interested in learning how to prepare healthy meals. She didn't even try. It seemed to me that she had given up on herself. Soon we quit those useless meetings. 

When open season came around in 1978, Mom quit Kaiser and signed up with another medical plan.  Dad's survivor benefits from Teledyne Ryan had changed our health plan to Kaiser, a new-fangled HMO concept, a few years earlier.  Mom had been extremely distressed at having to give up her long-time physician, Dr. Hunt. She continued to see this doctor in addition to the Kaiser doctors. When the opportunity came up for Mom to escape Kaiser she jumped at the chance. The new plan allowed her to officially return to Dr. Hunt, her preferred internal medicine doctor, who had an office on El Cajon Blvd, just across the street from Hillside Hospital.

Mom loved Dr. Hunt.  I mean it when I say that.  He was very handsome, with light silver hair and Siamese cat-blue eyes. He also had a gentle bedside manner and a very soft voice. He would give his patients all the time in the world to sit and complain about their lonely lives and cry about their ungrateful kids. He was also very liberal when it came to prescriptions, which meant that in addition to all the middle aged women who clamored to see him, there were just as many hippies, who knew he would give them the prescriptions they craved. All these attributes came at a cost. Dr. Hunt had so many patients that the waiting room would be full all day long.  If you had a 9 AM appointment, you would be lucky if you were called to the exam room before noon.  He was definitely overbooked.  

But Mom didn't mind the wait.  She hadn't been employed for decades. With her days free, she had plenty of time to wait her turn to see the doctor, get some emotional therapy, and come out with some prescriptions to fill at the Fed Mart Junior on University and 3rd Avenue. Mom's crush on Dr. Hunt was obvious and it embarrassed me.  His daughter was a student at St Vincent's Catholic School, where my young siblings and I had also attended.  Mom would tell me that Dr. Hunt was married to a big fat lady who was way too ugly for him, and that their daughter Mara didn't look anything like him. She was inferring that Dr. Hunt's wife screwed around and got pregnant by somebody else. I didn't even know how to respond to these comments. I could just tell she was very jealous and it wasn't a good look for her. 

In 1983, the Mission Hills-First Congregational Church took photos of its parishioners for a church directory.  Mom rarely went to the church, but we kids did.

During the early 80s, Mom started heading downhill fast.  She had been knocked down by a loose pitbull that was trying to attack her poodle, and the resulting back injury never healed.  After awhile it  became too painful for her to drive and walk.  She bought a couple of electric mobility vehicles and used them to do her neighborhood banking and grocery shopping. She even rode the bigger one all the way up to El Cajon Blvd to see Dr. Hunt. 

Mom went all over Mission Hills and Hillcrest in her vehicles.  She had a sweet little silver Poodle named Gigi who went everywhere with her.

It was sometime in the early 80s that Mom's diabetes changed from type 2 to type 1.  She had to learn how to inject herself with insulin.  Although she was given instructions, she never did it properly.  She left the used syringe sticking in the bottle of insulin in the fridge.  She didn't really test and measure.  If she felt funny, she would go to the fridge and give herself a shot in her leg or her belly.  She never kept track of anything. Her skin got very irritated from the shots, and she had to keep changing the injection sites.   Skippy started stealing her syringe out of the fridge whenever he dropped by. Mom bought a dorm-sized fridge, put it up on the dresser in her bedroom, and installed a deadbolt lock on her bedroom door so he couldn't steal her needles anymore. 

                We took Mom to a Padres game in the summer of 1985. It was her first and last time.  

By the end of 1985,  she had lost all her energy.  She could no longer lay down to sleep, because her lungs would fill with fluid and she would start choking.  It was terrifying to see her this way, with clear water running out of her nose as she struggled to clear her airways.  She was forced to sit up in her gold velvet La-Z-Boy recliner in order to get any rest. She would have to stop to catch her breath many times while walking through the house to get to the bathroom. The doctor prescribed a heart medicine called Procardia. Clearly she was having symptoms of congestive heart failure, and it didn't seem like there was anything Dr. Hunt could do to alleviate her terrible symptoms. 

I visited her twice a day, in the morning when I got off work,  and at night, on my way to work.  I fed the Poodles, rabbits, and birds.  Then I tried to ensure that Mom was eating something.  She was way past the point of embracing a healthy diet.  At this point, I just wanted her to have something in her stomach when she took her pills, so I tried to make sure she had some of her favorite foods, like strawberries, bananas and what she affectionately called "stink bread." I had to do a check of the kitchen every day, because Mom started placing perishables in the microwave oven. On many occasions, I found lunch meat, hotdogs, and cottage cheese that had been outside of the fridge for hours. I would tell her not to put those things in the microwave oven, and she would just discount my concern and tell me they were fine in there. I worried that she was going to get food poisoning, and I was terrified that I would find her dead, drowned in her own fluids. 

 

Late 1985. Mom with her two granddaughters, Samya and Sabrina, and their new baby sister Reva. 

By the summer of 1986, it was pretty evident that Mom did not too much time left. She was by today's standards still young--64 years old.   But she had given up on her body years ago, and now her body was giving up on her. 

The Pool

 Our house on Eagle Street did not start out with a swimming pool. It was built on the edge of a canyon.  We had a nice little patio which was accessed by a door in what was originally the sunroom.  After our family bought the house in 1954, the sunroom became Tim, Skippy and Darwin's room.  As the years passed and kids started leaving, it became Darwin's room, and later, Jeff's room. The door provided access to a rickety, termite-ridden wood landing, with about 10 rotting wooden steps that took you down to the patio.  My faintest memory tells me that the patio had fancy light pink cement paving. Another faint memory is of a high school party for big sister Lynda on that patio when I was about four years old.  

The back of the house was to the west of the patio, the neighbor's garage was to the north, and our garage was to the south.  There was a short brick wall facing the east. The canyon was beyond that wall, and the view was that of a sloping hillside, overgrown with foxtails, Pepper trees, wild daisies, weeds, and rocks. 

The older kids spent many happy days stomping through that canyon during the 50s.  They were permitted to wander all the way down the hill to the canyon floor, where a seasonal creek flowed and if you were lucky, you might see the white deer and hear frogs croaking.  If you were unlucky, you were eaten alive by mosquitoes, and after you climbed a couple hundred feet back up to our patio to get away from them, you had to spend an hour pulling all the foxtails out of your socks and shoes.  My brothers got into quite a bit of mischief in that canyon, and by the time I came along, that backyard wilderness was listed as off-limits to me and my younger siblings.

 I don't remember Mom spending any time on the backyard patio.  There were rare occasions when we kids spent time out there.  One summer we set up our plastic kiddie pool in the backyard.  I think the last time any of us kids played on the patio was the day that little brother Jeff, who was just a toddler, fell and cut his head open on the short brick landscaping wall.  Once my parents brought him home from the emergency room with stitches in his head, the patio also became off limits.  

          1963:  Darwin, Tammy and Fudder cat in our first backyard pool.  A few years later, little Jeff fell against that low brick wall and cut his forehead open.  

                                

Mom loved to swim.  She took us kids down to the Frontier area, now called the Midway district, to a Diver's Supply store.  There was a huge swimming pool inside the building, and I guess there were many types of lessons that went on there, from basic swimming, to scuba training.  I remember going there in 1966 to get my Tadpole swimmer certificate.  Darwin went too, and I remember him whining about the water hurting him.  He ended up getting a face mask or goggles so the chlorine wouldn't sting his sensitive eyes.  Mom taught  youngest siblings Jeff and Tabatha how to swim there.  Her swimming babies were featured on the local news.  The pool was not too cold and not too hot, and I always loved going there to swim.  But Mom wanted her own personal pool.

                                      1966: Mom taught baby Jeff to swim at San Diego Diver's Supply

Mom and Dad started researching the various pool companies.  There were lots of them back in the mid sixties.  We went to visit these businesses to look at their sample pools, which were up and operational.  I always made sure to wear my swim suit under my clothes, so I could try out the pool if the salesman gave me permission.  Mom was very specific about what she wanted.  It couldn't be too deep.  She hated kidney shaped pools and black-bottom pools.  Diving boards were out, but a curved slide was okay. And it had to be heated and completely enclosed.  After many months of looking, Mom and Dad settled on Universal Pools, and the construction of our backyard pool began. 

                                  Newspaper ads from 1968 and 1969 for the company that built our pool

Work began sometime in late1968. It was scheduled to be finished by the summer of 1969.  The interesting thing about our pool construction was that it wasn't a completely inground pool.  It was more like half above, half below ground.  The deck was built up so high that there was no need for 10 steps to get from Jeff's room down to the swimming pool.  This new design was an engineering specialty called cantilever decking.  The pool was hand-dug by a bunch of young guys.  At the beginning, it seemed like things were moving along quickly.  Then everything just stopped in its tracks halfway through.  

                                There was a huge mountain of soft sandy dirt in front of our house for weeks.                                            We three kids played king of the mountain on it.

                                   The pool was built right on the edge of the deep canyon.

                                            There was lots of rebar and gunite, then things stopped.

 When work had stalled, Dad sometimes let us run up and down the big unfinished shell.  That's Dad, me, Jeff, and Tabatha. I bet the stress of this project helped send Dad to an early grave two years later.

Mom called and called, trying to figure out why the work stopped.  There was no answer.  After a few frustrating days, Mom put us in the car and drove out to La Mesa, where I had tried out their sparkling sample pool.  But the doors were locked.  Universal Pools had gone out of business. Now we were stuck with a big unfinished hole, rebar, and gunite. Rainwater collected in the deep end. Dad, who worked nights and slept days, had no energy or patience to deal with this problem.                                            

Mom became a terror and put unnamed people through hell with her fury. It took months of daily calls to someone named Billy Joe before work started up again.  After awhile, little Tabatha, who was not even three years old, took to dialing her rolling Playscool phone and parroting Mom's sarcastic phone voice, "Hello Billy Joe," over and over again.  I don't know who finished the work, but everything was finally finished by Christmas.

                          After many months of delay, the guys finally came back to finish

Although it took way too long, we at last had our pool.  An aluminum structure with lots of windows was built to shelter the pool from canyon animals and falling leaves.  It took all weekend to fill it with water, then another few days to heat the pool to Mom's preferred 90 degrees.  Dad put the chemicals in, and we all waited anxiously to be able to finally jump in.  

                                  A nighttime pool party, with too many kids on the slide at one time.

Jeff and I, in our life belts. The pool room was always very foggy 

                             because the water was so warm. The aluminum ceiling was always 

                              covered with huge drops of condensation.

Mom and us kids swam every single day.  Mom made sure we wore nice formfitting life vests until she was certain we wouldn't drown.  Dad, who was totally terrified of the water and never learned to swim, was not interested at all in trying it out.  He only went in the pool once, in the shallow "Jacuzzi" side, in a huge life jacket.  It is ironic that Mom, who taught people from 3 months to 90 years of age how to swim, was never able to teach Dad.  

Dad took full responsibility for the care of the pool.  Every night before bed, he would go out to the deep end, kneel down with the little plastic test tube kit in his hand and dip it into the water to fill the tubes. Then he would add drops of chemicals to each test tube and then add chlorine to the pool if necessary.   He made sure the pump was working, and did something called a backflush every so often. After he died, we found detailed meticulously handwritten instructions that Dad had taped on the pump in the garage, so that we would know how to maintain the care of the pool.  About 2 weeks after he passed away in September of 1971, I was practicing my piano, which was in the pool room.  For some reason, I turned around and looked out the sliding glass door and there, in his usual spot, I saw Dad, kneeling down and scooping pool water into his test kit.  He looked up at me, and then he disappeared.

                                 Mom skinny dipped every day for years.  In the 80s, she had a little                                                           Poodle named Gigi, who stayed with her constantly, even in the pool.  

After Dad died, Mom supplemented the household income by teaching people how to swim.  She taught babies, kids, and old people.  She quit teaching when she married Paris Young, and never really got back into it after the marriage failed. In the 80s, Mom had solar power installed, in an attempt to save on her utility bill.  It never worked.  Her pool remained freezing cold, and then the filter quit working.  By the final year of Mom's life, the pool had devolved into filthy green swamp.  Mom passed away in 1986, and the house. which had degraded as badly as the pool had, was sold as-is.  The new owners tore out the garage, dismantled the aluminum pool room and drained the pool.  Although it is long gone, that pool will always remain one of the happiest things to remember about life on Eagle Street.  

                     

Ever-changing Truth

 Life on Eagle Street, when viewed by strangers on the outside, must have looked perfect.  Our family's top layer had the appearance of any other middle class family.  Dad had a good job, Mom stayed at home with the children.  The neighborhood was safe.  We went to Catholic school. All of those things were true.  But we were like a nice shiny apple that looked pretty on the outside but was hiding a mealy, rotten, wormy interior. 

I learned fairly early in life that reality can be twisted, changed, and even blotted out, if that is what Mom wanted.  The first lie that I became aware of concerned my older brothers. Two of them were always in trouble--they committed crimes, took drugs, dropped out of school, and ran away from home constantly. They continually caused distress and anguish to Mom and Dad.  I knew that because I heard the late night arguments and crying coming from my parent's bedroom. I also heard them talking about the payments that needed to be made to the County Juvenile Services to cover the detention expenses.

 I remember a teacher from the Catholic high school paying a visit to our house one evening in an effort to rein one of my brothers in before it was too late.  And I remember Mom yelling at the teacher, blaming him for her son's delinquent behavior: "Don't tell me I have a problem!  If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught."  

There was nothing that these two boys did during the 60s that made our family proud.  The stress was so pronounced that even a little kid like me could sense it.  I was relieved when they were gone for weeks or months at a time. But their periodic absences brought questions from neighbors and friends. 

 Mom was afraid I would tell family secrets to outsiders.  I knew lots of things about my older brothers that I wasn't supposed to share with anyone:  One of them wet the bed every night whenever he was home.  One had to get a whipping from dad almost every day because of the evil things he did.  One of them flushed a big wad of grassy-looking stuff down our toilet and caused the gross flood in our only bathroom. And the cops came to our house looking for them quite often.

I was coached to answer any questions about my brothers with as few words as possible.  When asked by nosy people about my siblings, these were a few approved replies that I could give:  "They are not home right now. They are fine.  They moved out." Or simply, "I don't know." 

By the time I was about eight years old, Mom changed the family story about Skippy altogether.  He was no longer the son she gave birth to.  He was the son of her first husband and his previous wife. This story morphed over the months, until the final new truth tossed her first five children under the bus.

As Mom made new friends, her family narrative changed to suit her needs.  I would sit quietly and listen to her as she spun her tale to a sympathetic and shocked audience:

Mom:  I was young, too young to be a mother to so many children.  But my husband, who was so much older than I, was widowed and had five children.  So even though I was only 18, I took on a husband and five children and raised them as my own, out of the goodness of my heart. My husband was crazy and beat and raped me every day. Then he killed himself and I was left with his crazy, ungrateful kids. I loved them as my own, and look at how I am treated by them!  I don't know what I ever did to deserve the treatment I am getting from them!

This new "truth" served Mom in a few ways:

First, she was able to knock many years off of her true age. 

Second, she was able to wash her hands of any responsibility for her children's actions, because they were not her kids to begin with.

Third, and maybe the most important, this narrative gave Mom victim status. To her newer friends and associates, Mom was a self-sacrificing saint and deserving of their respect.

Listening to Mom recreate the past over and over did not convince me that it was true.  It did, however, teach me how to develop a poker face that would serve me well over the course of my life.

Patti's First Wedding

 Patti was Mom's firstborn.   I never knew her, because she was born in 1940 and gone by the time I was added to the family as a 1960 Christmas present.   Mom did not tell me too much about her eldest daughter.  I could tell, though, that Mom was not at peace with the fact that Patti had grown up and was no longer under her control.  As a young child, I heard all of Mom's family stories many times.  There were only a few stories that included Patti.  Some are true, others cannot be proven, and some were most likely outright lies.  I was Mom's captive audience during my childhood and listened as she told stories about her older kids over the years. There were no older siblings around who could give me an alternative narrative.  At the time, it did not dawn on me that these stories were not always factual.  As a young child, all I knew is that they were Mom's stories about the family, and Moms don't lie. Except they do. And it can take a lifetime for one to untangle the fabrications and find the true facts.  I will start with the very limited story that I was told about Patricia, the first born daughter of Carol Martindale Tompsett Warriner Young:

Patti was born prematurely as a result of Mom being afflicted with pre-eclampsia and nearly dying from high blood pressure and seizures. Her childhood nickname was "Patsy."   Mom said she reinvented herself when she left home, and that is when she started referring to herself as Patti. Mom never referred to her by anything other than her original nickname, so I will call her Patsy in the following stories that Mom told me.

Patsy was married right out of high school to a boy named Robert Saville.  They had a son and a daughter before I was born.  Mom told me that Patsy was having marital problems and tried to kill herself and her two little children by turning on the gas in her apartment. 

After the marriage broke up, Patsy married some other guy and had a son named Critter Sparrow, and they moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where they lived in the country and had dogs and farm animals. End of story.

I always wondered why my oldest sister never visited or called.  I remember Mom getting some photos in the mail from Arkansas, but only once. There was obviously so much more that I was never told. 

I recently located a wedding announcement for Patti from July, 1958:

Fourth child Lynda was 11 years old and very aware of what was going on at the time of her big sister's wedding.  This is her recollection of Patti's wedding, the turmoil that surrounded it, and the drama that continued long after the event.

Lynda's recollection of events:

"When Patti and Bob wanted to get married, Mom tried so hard to break them up. She found out that Bob's mom Lois wanted her son to have a big wedding, so she decided to sabotage the plans.  Mom drove Bob and Patti to Tijuana, Mexico for a quickie Vegas-style marriage ceremony.

When Bob's parents found out, they were understandably very upset.  His mom Lois wouldn't let her son register the marriage in the United States, because she still wanted the kids to have a proper wedding.

Lois bought a nice dress for Patti and provided everything they needed for the event.  The wedding was held on Sunday, July 6, 1958, in the Escondido garden of a home owned by Lois's sister and brother-in-law.  Mother was so angry.  She refused to attend her own daughter's wedding! 

From the start, Mom attempted to break up the marriage. She never let an opportunity to be hurtful go to waste.  For example, Christmas of 1958 was the very first Christmas for the young married couple, who was by this time expecting their first baby.  Patti and Bob brought a gift to Eagle Street, proudly addressed, "To Mr. and Mrs. Warriner from Mr. and Mrs. Saville. Patti was so thrilled to be a wife and did not mean to insult Mom.  But Mom took the opportunity to be insulted.  She tossed the gift back at Patti and kicked them out of the house.  This shocking reaction to a simple use of proper titles hurt Patti to the core.  She cried and cried, not understanding yet that there was nothing she could do to gain Mom's approval. 

Of course, Patti, being young and naive, still hoped that Mom would love her and accept her marriage to Bob.  So she soon started coming over to visit again.  But approval was not possible. I remember Mom doing so many mean and evil things to try to break Bob and Patti up. This included sending some shady characters to bully and threaten Bob.  By the time Bob and Patti welcomed their second baby in October 1960, the marriage was in trouble.  Within a few months of the birth of their baby girl, Mom finally got her wish. 

When the couple separated, Mom swooped in.  She wanted to take custody of the two children and needed to figure out how to make that happen.  She told Patti that Susan had called the county Child Protective Services and reported that Patti was endangering the kids' lives.  Patti couldn't believe that her sister would do such a thing, and panicked at the thought of losing her tiny children. She packed up the kids, tossed a few belongings in the car, and just started driving east.  She didn't tell anyone where she was going.  She ended up in Grand Junction, Colorado and stayed there for a few years.  She got involved with a church and settled down for awhile, away from the craziness of Eagle Street. But she made a mistake:  She called Mom and told her where she was.  Patti had no idea that it was Mom who had called Child Protective Services on her. Susan was in Los Angeles with her own husband and babies and did not know about the evil deception going on in San Diego. She had no clue as to why her older sister did not want to maintain contact with her.

Now that Mom knew where Patti and the kids lived, she sent teenaged Skippy to Colorado to spy on her and to bring her back enough information to use to take her children away. Skippy showed up on Patti's doorstep and she welcomed her little brother in.  But that was also a mistake.  Skippy may have been a youngster, but he was very sophisticated in his ability to manipulate people and steal anything and everything he could get his hands on.  Patti figured out quickly that Skippy was nothing but bad news and needed to go.  She told him if he didn't immediately leave, she was going to call the police.  That was when Skippy decided to spill the beans in order to save his own skin.

Skippy told Patti that it was Mom, not Susan, who had called Child Protective Services in San Diego, because she wanted to take the kids away from her.  He admitted that it was Mom who sent thugs to start fights with Bob when they lived in San Diego. He told her that Mom had sent him there to spy on her and gather information that could be used to get the kids removed from Patti's custody. Skippy then left her house. He had pocketed anything Patti owned that had any value, but at least he told her the cold hard truth that she needed to know.  

When I got married to Ed and moved to Colorado, I made contact with Patti.  She told me she wanted to be close, but she could not include Mom in her life.  I was able to reconnect with my oldest sister, and helped to reunite her with Susan.  We three were all able to be sisters again, but the only way that was possible was for Mom to not be anywhere in the picture.  Mom did not want her children to be close with each other.  Sadly, as much as Mom talked about loving her children, her type of love came at great cost to everyone."  

Thanks Lynda, for telling the story.

This story is just the first example of our Mother's inability to allow her children to grow up, have relationships, and start their own families. The way she saw it, we were put on Earth to be her children forever.  Allowing us to become adults was not part of her plan, and if we chose to defy her plan, there would be hell to pay. I am sorry I never got to meet Patti and talk with her.  She is no longer alive.  But I hope that at some point in her life, she was able to come to terms with her upbringing, share her stories with her children, and find happiness far, far away from Eagle Street.

Mom's Opinions

I spent lots of time with Mom when I was growing up, especially after Dad died in 1971. She was a very needy and jealous mother. She didn't understand why I wanted to play with children my own age and limited my opportunity to interact with peers. Since I had to hang around with her so much, I got to hear her opinions and thoughts on lots of subjects.  I asked her lots of questions, and got some pretty hilarious answers in some cases. Here are some of the ones I remember: 

During a shopping trip to College Grove Mall, Mom drove past the Jewish neighborhood, which, up until the 80s, was located in the SDSU area of San Diego.  Back then there were a number of Jewish shops, including a large bagel bakery called Super Bagels. They had a big sign out front with a giant bagel on it. I was intrigued. 

Me: Mom, what's a bagel? can I try one? 

Mom: You don't want to try one of those things. A bagel is just a stale donut. 

Me: Why are they selling stale donuts? Aren't they fresh when they first bake them? 

Mom: No, they are always stale. Some people like them. But we like real donuts from Winchells. 

Grocery store trips usually occurred once a month, when Mom got her Social Security check. She preferred the Big Bear on Adams Avenue in Normal Heights. Every time we shopped, I was drawn to the colorful cups of Knudsen yogurt in the dairy section. There were so many flavors. Some had fruit on bottom and some were blended. I wanted to try some. 

Me: Mom, can we get some yogurt? I want to try it. 

Mom: Oh, you would hate it. Yogurt is just sour milk in a cup. 

Me: Why do they put sour milk in little containers? Does the fruit make it taste better? Why do people buy sour milk? 

Mom: I don't know. Some people like to eat things that taste like crap. 

Mom loved chili dogs. There used to be a Der Weinerschnitzel hotdog stand on First and Washington Streets, which was just a few blocks from Eagle Street.  Since it was so close to home, we ate a lot of hot dogs for dinner in the 70s. Mom received coupons in the mail every so often. These coupons were usually for discounts on plain dogs or chili dogs.  I had recently noticed something called a kraut dog on the menu and was curious about it:

Me: Hey Mom, what's a kraut dog? Can I try one of those this time? 

Mom: Yuck. Sour Kraut is rotten cabbage. Do you want rotten cabbage on your hot dog? 

Me: Some people must like it because they sell them. Are you sure it is rotten? 

Mom: That's why they call it sour kraut. It is sour because its been sitting around for months getting rotten. 

I loved flowers.  I used to look at the flower gardens that our neighbors lovingly tended everyday, and I wanted to grow flowers in our yard too. One day, after getting scolded by a neighbor for picking one of her Easter lillies, I decided we needed to have our own.

Me:  Mom, do you think we could plant some flowers in the front yard, maybe by the Jasmine bush?

Mom:  What a big waste of time! What the hell is a flower good for? It lives for a couple of days and then it dies. That's useless!  If you want to plant something, plant something we can eat, like a tomato plant. 

(I ended up finding some fake flowers at the church rummage sale and planted them by the Jasmine bush, but it just wasn't the same)

It was always difficult to ask Mom questions about health and hygiene, because her answers either made no sense, caused me embarrassment, or were about her. After watching a TV commercial for lipstick, I had a question: 

Me: When I get older, can I get some lipstick to wear? 

Mom: Women who wear lipstick look like they have a chicken butt on their face. Do you want to look like a chicken's butt? 

Then when I started getting acne as a young teen, I asked Mom if I could go to the doctor for some treatment:

 

Me: Mom, my friends at school went to the doctor and he gave them some cream that dries up their zits. Can you take me to the doctor too? 

Mom, while stroking her own face: I don't know why you are having skin problems. I have always had a beautiful complexion. See my face?  This is what they call a peaches and cream complexion.  You have olive skin.  You probably just need to wash your face more often.

And then there was this: 

Me: Can you get me one of those Daisy Women's razors so I can shave my legs?

Mom, while looking down at her own legs: I never had much of a problem with hair on my legs. Look how nice and smooth my legs are. 

After watching a commercial for feminine hygiene products, there was no way I wanted to broach the subject, but Mom took the opportunity:

Mom:  When the time comes for you, I will make sure you use napkins.  You cannot use those Tampax things, because then you will never be able to find a husband when you grow up.

Me: Why?

Mom: Because they only want virgins.

Here are mom's vocal opinions on other things: 

Tattoos: Anyone who has a tattoo probably is a criminal, a drunk sailor, or a whore.

Cigarettes: You have to be out of your mind to smoke. And a women who smokes sends the message that she carries a mattress on her back. Men who see a woman with a cigarette in her mouth know she is loose.

Alcoholic drinks: Women should never drink.  I went to the Women's Temperance Legion meetings.  We took a pledge:  "I promise not to buy, drink, sell or give, alcoholic beverages while I live."  

When Mom said the word, "public," it was obvious that to her the word had a derogatory connotation.  For instance:

Mom: I can't stand those Catholics, but their schools are so much better than a public school.

Me:  Why are they better?

Mom:  Public schools have to take all the bad kids.  You will catch head lice from public schools.  And you can't trust public school teachers. They try to find out your personal business and then they will have you taken away from me and put in the receiving home, and you will catch head lice there.

And then there is this example:

Mom:  We are getting our own swimming pool put in the backyard, because I don't want you kids in a public pool.

Me:  But my friends get to go to the pool, and they like it there.

Mom:  It's public!  That means you got strangers in the water with you. When I was a kid you caught polio from swimming with strangers. Now there are other diseases in the water.  Do you want to get VD? (Then she dug out a 50s era photo-filled booklet describing sexually transmitted diseases and showed me some pictures to make her point.)

As a child, I often thought about future career options.  I got lots of input from Mom.  First of all, she didn't believe you could "have it all." Her opinions:

 

Working Mothers: They are bad mothers because they use someone else to raise their kids.

When I was in 2nd grade I loved watching The Flying Nun, starring Sally Field.  Her ability to fly made me want to be a nun when I grew up:

Me:  I think I want to be a nun like Sister Bertrille  when I grow up. 

Mom: You would hate it.  Nuns are very unhappy. They were trapped by the Church. The reason why you always see them shopping in pairs is that one will tell on the other if she talks about leaving.  And their heads are shaved so that if they do manage to escape the convent, they are easier to find.

The only working mother on Eagle Street in the 60s and 70s was a nurse. Since her kids had their own boats and got to ride horses and go skiing, I figured maybe their mom might be on to something:

Me:  Maybe I could be a nurse and work in the hospital when I grow up.

Mom:  A nurse? Forget it!  They are nothing but maids. They have to clean bedpans all day. If you want to work in a hospital, be a doctor, not a nurse. They get to boss the nurses around.

And one of the weirdest things Mom said to me, which she repeated quite often as I grew up:

"Stay Wood."

It took me a few decades to figure that one out.