THREE HOUSES DOWN THE STREET

     When  my daughter was around five years old she used to play toss the ball with a little red haired girl who lived three houses down the street.  The little girl was around eight years old and  they played in front of our house when I lived in Daly City, California. The houses in the Serramonte subdivision had garages and what would be, in other houses,  a laundry room and basement on the ground floor with living quarters upstairs on the second floor. Our house was built like that.

       The little red haired girl had two older brothers and her mother was a separated or divorced single mother.  This was in the 1970's and one afternoon police cars and ambulances pulled up in front of their house.  The mother had given the children sleeping medication in a drink or food, put them in their beds, sealed all the windows and outside doors and gone downstairs to the garage and started her car.  She took sleeping pills herself and when the car finally ran out of gas they were all dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.
        I was told she did this because she was despondent over the breakup of her marriage.  When they were found they had been in there a week and they were found because her ex was a San Mateo County sheriff who had been trying to get in touch with his family.  Because they were so badly decomposed the people from the Coroner's Office processed the house in haz mat suits with respirators.
       When it went on the the market the house sold for practically nothing because of what had happened.  I was really surprised it sold as fast as it did and wondered if they were able to get the odor out.  A couple bought the house, the man was a longshoreman on the docks in San Francisco.  He had a side business offering for sale from the house merchandise that had "fallen off the truck".
        I never went in the house and didn't know the family that died except for the little girl.  I don't think my daughter, who is now in her forties, remembers and I didn't discuss it with her before writing.  I'm sure we will when she reads this.
        I always thought it was curious that the new people had an orange cat.

DEAR DAUGHTER

     We had an argument today and that makes me very sad.  Dad was teasing you but your answer to him "I'm not here to clean house" made me see red.  No one is asking you to be a maid or servant.  You're not Cinderella, you have a nice warm room and lots of great advantages and "stuff".  You have your own bathroom unless we have company and you need to share it.
      Here are things that bother me.  I don't understand your clothes all over the floor in your room.  If they are dirty why don't you put them in the hamper like I taught you?  If they are clean why don't you put them away in a dresser drawer?  I don't understand wet towels on the floor in your room.  Why are they not rehung in the bathroom or put in the hamper?  I don't understand little bits of paper and candy wrappers and sucker sticks just dropped on the floor and cans in your room or left around in the rest of the house and nail polish on the sheets..  I don't understand if you aim for the trash can in the bathroom or in your room and miss why you don't pick up the trash and put it in the can.  Do not put Q-tips in the toilet!
     You have wonderful treats to eat and we always make a delicious dinner.  We love your company.  You are funny and bright and very opinionated and not afraid to say your mind so don't be upset if others do the same.  I don't ask you to do a lot.
     What I do ask you to do is get good grades.  D's and F's are not acceptable those grades are for dummies.  C's are okay in some subjects because we don't have the same capabilities in every category and that is a passing grade.  A's and B's are the best and what you are capable of.

     Other than passing grades this is what else I expect from you.  I want you to start picking up after yourself.  I'm not your maid and I don't want to live in clutter.  I want you to clean your room and put clothes where they are supposed to be.  I don't mind doing your laundry it's family laundry and that's not a problem but when I fold them and put them in your room you need to put them away.  I can't tell the difference in clean clothes on the floor and dirty clothes on the floor.  If I ask for some help with dusting or vacuuming it be done without insolence.   You wanted to do "something",  go to town, have lunch or dinner out today, do something fun.  Dad and I like to do that, too.
     You are a twelve year old young lady and I expect you to respect me and in so doing respect yourself.  I love you.  WE love you.

                                                                   Love, Mom and Dad             

PERFECT DAY

     Up at O-Dark 30 we launched from China Basin in the fishing boat John Frederick.  Rod named his 20 foot Grady White after his youngest son who he lost in a motorcycle accident.  It was clear skies until we passed under the Bay Bridge and as we rounded the tip of The City we ran into the fog San Francisco is famous for.  Unable to see anything in the thick mists we could hear the fog horns as we stayed close to the shore and searched for the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Finally the south tower loomed in front of us. This is the dangerous part.... crossing the shipping lanes to go out under the gate to the fishing grounds off Stinson Beach in Marin County north of The City.  In the fog you can't see any big ships who might be heading in to the ports of the San Francisco Bay but if you listen close you may be able to hear them before it's too late.  Then we have good luck as we see a Coast Guard Cutter and follow in her wake out the gate.
     I'm feeling a little queasy so I'm sipping a Coke and munching saltine crackers.  It's choppy at the mouth of the bay as the floor of the ocean rises up to pass through that narrow channel but the queasiness disappears as soon as we're out on the ocean.  The sea is calm as we speed along up to Duxbury, the fishing grounds off Stinson Beach and the Marin headlands.  It's late summer into fall and this is where the salmon are at this time of year on they're migration back to the streams and rivers of the Pacific Northwest to spawn.  We're in thick fog all around but if you look straight up you can see blue sky because it only goes up about ten feet.  I'm standing by Rod who's at the wheel as we make way and he's using a Lowrance which is a navigation device that tells us where we are and guides us to where we want to go.
     It's cold on the ocean in the fog so we have layers of clothing on...long sleeved shirts, light jackets, and I have on bright yellow rubber rain gear and warm boots.  Rod's rain gear is dark green almost black and called Helly-Hansens and was a gift from our Czech friend Paul.  Rod looks like a Norwegian fisherman in his black watch cap.  Rod's first boat was Paul's Zodiac, a 17 foot blow up rubber boat, which Rod bought when Paul bought his Boston Whaler.  The Coast Guard also run Zodiacs as they're very sturdy but Rod says it's like going to sea in a condom.  Rod fished with a group of friends that he worked with at United Airlines.  There was Paul, of course, and Peter Wolfgramm who had an eighteen foot Proline and who took his Rhodesian Ridgeback out to sea with him, and Jim Sharron who had a commercial fishing license with his brother.
     When we get out to Duxbury Rod puts the boat in idle and starts pulling out the fishing gear and setting up the downriggers.  We put two poles off the back and a pole off each side.  If we had another person with us we could put two poles off the front of the boat as the Grady White has a walk around deck.  After we're set up we start trolling.  Trolling is going along at a slow speed with our lines trailing out behind us waiting for a fish to bite.  For salmon we fish with anchovies and flashers and hoochies.
     When a fish bites it tugs the line and the tip of the pole dips and jiggles.  It's exciting to call "fish on!" and then the real fun begins as you disconnect the pole from the downrigger and start reeling your fish in.  Rod stands and reels but I'm short and not as strong so I straddle a cooler and sit while I reel in a salmon 'cause it's hard to keep my balance on the rolling ocean and reel, too.  While I'm reeling my fish in Rod's managing the boat so that it's in the best position for pulling the fish in to the boat then he'll grab the net and pull my fish on board.  What you do when the fish gets up to the boat is you need to keep the tip of your rod up and let the fish swim into the net because once he's in the net he can't swim backwards out again.  He's caught!  My first salmon was a nine pounder.
     Around noon we turned the engine off and made sandwiches and sat and enjoyed ourselves.  The sun is shining down from above but we still have fog all around us.  While we're talking we hear a rolling in the water and it's a whale and it's eye is looking right at us and then she disappears.  Rod said once when he was out in the Zodiac he had a whale come up and put her calf between her and the boat.  He also told me about the time he and his brother Ray were out fishing and a Great White passed beneath the Grady White and Rod could see him on one side and Ray could see him on the other at the same time.  He was that big.
     After lunch we trolled some more and then decided to head home.  At about three o'clock in the afternoon as we're cruising back the fog lifts and the sun shines bright and beautiful and we could see the headlands and the shore and miles out to sea in the west.  There were pelicans flying in tandem three and four at a time like prehistoric pterodactyls.  It was so beautiful and wild and primordial  it made you feel special to be alive.
     As we approached the gate the sea became rougher and confused as the floor of the ocean was rising up.  This is the area they call the potato patch and you navigate around it because it's only 20 feet deep here and if there are big swells twenty feet high one minute you might be on top and the next minute the sea is gone and your "plowing potatoes".  Under the gate and into the bay with The City to the south and Alcatraz and Angel Island to the north we head back under the Bay Bridge to China Basin to pull our boat out of the water and go home.
     At home we hose the ocean off the boat and unload our stuff and clean the fish.  While Rod is cleaning the fish he whistles for Cleo the neighbor cat and she comes walking fast with her tail in the air happy to have the tidbits Rod will fix for her.  That evening we grill the fish on the bar-b-que and make artichokes and salad and there's nothing better than fresh caught salmon grilled the same day you catch it.  Perfect.
         

   

  

THOUGHTS ON A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME

     I started sixth grade at Westmore Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia the fall of 1958.  A new student in a new school we had moved to Ardmore subdivision that summer.  My new friends were Pat McGhee who was in Mrs. Lowe's class and I was in Miss Ponton's class with Barbara Conklin, Libby Mauldin, Karen Hennage, Kathy Lam and Sherry Boyd.  Miss Ponton used to say "vegaTA'bles" and was from Richmond, Virginia.
     Karen Hennage was tall and pretty and very blond and she and Larry Erwin were a sixth grade "couple".  Karen took ballet and Larry took tap dance lessons and when we had a class talent show both of them performed.  Karen was a twin.  Her brother William was called Spooky because their birthdays were on Halloween.  Karen and Spooky's parents worked in a local Northern Virginia lab but I don't know exactly what they did.  One day Spooky brought to school two cute little rats which we kids admired and played with all day  and the next day he brought in their dissected parts.
     Libby Mauldin I had known in first grade in Alexandria, Virginia when we were both students at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School and our teacher was Mrs. Brown.  When we reunited at Westmore we would continue all the way through to graduate together in 1965 from Fairfax High School.  I, myself, was in  first grade in three different schools.  In Alexandria, Virginia  they had the high and low system and because my birthday was November 30th I started first grade in February at Douglas Mac Arthur Elementary School with Mrs. Faulk as my teacher.  I don't remember Libby at this school.  I was in first grade from February to June and had summer vacation then finished first grade at Stonewall Jackson the next September to February because the school boundaries had changed.  I graduated to second grade but my parents moved to Popes Head Road in Fairfax in March and when I started school at Fairview they didn't have the high/low grade system.  Since I had just started second grade, and the second graders at Fairview were ending their year, they put me back to first grade for three months and I started second grade the next school year.  I'm sure something similar to this happened to Libby since we both ended up in the sixth grade together at Westmore.
     Kathy Lam was my best friend in Miss Ponton's class.  Her parents were divorced and she and her brother lived with their mother.  I had never met anyone whose parents were divorced much less who had a working mother.  Her father was a record promoter for Decca records and she had hundreds of records but I don't remember anything she had that was a popular song at the time.  I think they were all demos.  Kathy's father got us on a TV rock and roll show in Baltimore the August before 9th grade.  She invited me and our friend Danny Snider and Kathy asked Billy Hawk to be her dance partner.  This teen dance party TV show was the show writer/director/producer John Waters based his movie "Hair Spray" on and is now a Broadway musical..
     Barbara Conklin was a tiny, pretty girl with thick bangs and a long blond pony tail.  She had the nicest mother who sponsored us when we girls decided to start our own club which we called The American Girls.  We didn't do much but did have a door to door bake sale.  Barbara's father worked with plastics and built us a clear cabinet for our classroom where we displayed treasures such as fancy rocks and things.  She also had a play house he had built for her in her back yard that actually had windows and a door.  Cool.
     Sherry Boyd  had a great sense of humor and was an "artist" like me.  She was the first person I had ever met that had a color TV and her father escorted us on our field trip to the Smithsonian at the end of sixth grade.  Her father also took Sherry and me for our interview at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D. C. our senior year when we both applied and were accepted.  I did attend the next year but Sherry didn't.  In Miss Ponton's class both of us got to do wall murals on our bulletin board with colored chalk on brown paper.
     Pat McGhee  is a friend of my heart.  We were best friends for sixth and seventh grades.  Our mothers were BFF's and she lived a couple houses up the street from me on Allison Circle.  Her mom Ocie was the best mom and she allowed us to congregate every afternoon and watch American Bandstand in her living room.  I'll never forget sitting in the swings in Pat's back yard and discussing all the important things in life to 12-13 year old girls.  Ocie was the first parent of a friend I ever called by their first name and Pat and Ocie called my mom Pearson.
     Over the years life changes us, throws us up in the air and either lands us on our feet or drops us on our butts with a big UMPH.  All of us went on from this short period of time with school, careers, marriages and children and most of us are grandparents now.  We've lost touch and reconnected and wished each other well  and lived the best lives we could.  When I moved back to Virginia in 1978 I was reading an article in a local Fairfax newspaper, I don't remember which one maybe the Northern Virginia Sun, and an article I came across was about a Fairfax  police forensics investigator.  This article told how his specialty was investigating fatal auto accidents.  The officer's name was William Hennage.  I've always thought it was Spooky.