The Desert

When I was young, the desert outside of Riverside looked beautiful but mysterious and unforgiving. Storms would roar through the basins and clean out the entire landscape. Yellow and red wildflowers in bloom framed by the expansive sand dunes and standing radiant against the majestic and ominous San Gorgonio Mountains. Dirt roads splintered off the highway and headed to nowhere in particular. A lone car became nothing more than a dust trail winding its way towards the sea-like horizon. We worked our way towards the canyons. A small stream fed into a rock-lined pond surrounded by date palms. But it was the air; clean, dry, and hot that stuck with you. It was the air of regeneration and rebirth. The breath of God.

Once a year my family would drive to see my cousins in Tucson. It was a major ordeal. We would usually wait until mid-July, when it was cobalt hot, and then we would make the long one-day drive. The preparation was always the same. My dad would wake up at dawn and yell until we would get out of bed. He always acted like a vacation was the hardest thing to do in the world. He would pack. Repack. And finally let my mom put together our suitcases. He would yell at our mother, my sister, and, of course me. Everybody hated each other before we left the driveway.

Once out the door all was forgiven. Its like it never happened. All was forgiven. We'd start the day off drinking White Rock sodas and stopping for "curios" in Cabezon or Needles. Once on the road again my mother would pull out the songbook and we would sing until we tired.

When you're twelve, thirsty, and overcome by the heat you don't notice the scenery. I would sit in the backseat of the non-air-conditioned car while my parents sat in the front chain smoking Raleighs. By the afternoon the closest thing I could get to comfort was hanging my open mouth out the window. Unfortunately, all I caught was a wicked wind/sun burn. When we arrived in Tucson at 7:00 pm the temperature was still over 100 degrees and there was no air conditioning at my aunt and uncle's house. My mom would draw a freezing bath which would only amplify the pain of the Second degree wind/sun burn.

Why did the first settlers decide to stay here and not keep trekking to LaJolla. Big historical oversight.

Alice Quinn

Eulogy for Alice Blenda Quinn
Prepared by Walter Christian Quinn, Jr.
September 26, 2008

Alice Blenda Thomas was born in Iowa in 1914. There were four children born to David and Leah Thomas; Clover, Helen, Alice, and David. The children lost their mother when they were very young. This hardship at such an early age would shape the woman Alice was to become.

At seventeen, Alice left her home to go to secretarial school in Des Moines, Iowa. While there she worked as the executive secretary for the former Governor of the state. Alice was incredibly ambitious, skilled at her work, and prided herself on being a person people could rely on. She had an infectious smile and a welcoming heart that others were immediately drawn to. She also had a secret ambition of becoming a professional singer.

One day when she was waiting for the elevator in her office building a dashing young man approached her and asked her name. He said that his best friend, who was incredibly shy, wanted to, asked her out. By the way, he said, “my name’s Ron Reagan, but most people call me “Dutch.” I work upstairs at the radio station.” This would be the beginning of a very memorable year in Alice’s life and one that she would hold dear throughout her years. She, “Dutch,” and the shy young man, Ed Reimers – you remember him – “you’re in good hands with All State” became good friends. Mom remained friends with Reagan through the years.

Mom moved on to Chicago to follow her sister Helen and her husband Frank in search of better job opportunities. She went to work in downtown Chicago for an insurance agency. During that time she met her first husband and had her first child, Rosemary. She also was given the opportunity to pursue her dream as a singer, when Jules Stein, the eventual founder of MCA, offered her the chance to go on the road with a big band. But, Alice’s priorities had changed – it was never a consideration. Rosemary’s well-being was her #1 priority.

In 1940 the family moved to Los Angeles where other family members had recently relocated. The pressures of the changing times – the end of the Depression and the Great War on the horizon – lead to the end of the marriage. At that time Alice and Rosemary moved to Riverside, outside Los Angeles, and joined the rest of the Thomas family.

Alice and Walt met one night in Riverside in 1942. She was a secretary to the camp commander at Camp Anza. Walt was a young officer with striking good looks and a funny sense of humor. They met in a club just before Walt was scheduled to leave for duty in the Pacific. The young officer walked across the floor to ask Alice to dance. She said yes.

Walt left for duty, but sent Alice letters day after day. He told her he loved her madly but was afraid he wouldn’t make it back. He told her it was important that she date other men and forget about him. Mom never lost faith or hope that something good was around the corner. Dad was in a lot of brutal battles; Layte and Okinawa, but he survived and came back to Riverside. Alice and Walt got married.

One thing I remember is the tenderness of our mother. She became pregnant and had our sister, Loretta Ann, who died a few days after her birth. Mom was devastated and never forgot her. Even at the end of her life, she would remember Loretta Ann and begin to cry. It was an open wound that would draw tears all her life.

But mom never gave up. She went on to have five miscarriages before she had me in 1949. It’s because of Loretta Ann’s death and the miscarriages that she held the lives of her children as so precious.

Mom was always there for us. I remember when I was 14 or so. I don’t remember why. I guess I was depressed. I wasn’t growing up so easily. I remember her holding me in her arms and letting me cry and cry. Her arms were a safe place for me. They were home.

There are some other things I will never forget about our mother – like the smell of tacos, enchiladas, and chile rellenos that she and my dad prepared for weekend dinners. It seemed like we had them every Saturday when we were growing up. All our neighbors and relatives came by to have the best homemade Mexican food in Riverside. Mom and dad would sometimes cook up to sixty tacos at a time. None were ever left over. And on a lot of Friday nights, because we were good Catholics, mom would make her famous meatless spaghetti. My uncles, Jimmy and Jerry, would drop everything to get to our house for dinner.

The ‘50s were the days of affordable gas and travel and the Quinn’s took advantage of it. I remember driving all over the western United States. Sometimes we’d drive two hours to, say, a small café in Calexico to try out an enchilada sauce that my dad thought he could duplicate.

I also remember driving in the car – singing our lungs out. Alice loved to sing all the time. We had some books of songs in the car that all of us would use to sing. Mom would always harmonize – she always found the right note. Songs like…

“As he sings
Raggedy Music to his cattle
As he swings back and forth in the saddle on his horse
Who is syncopated, gated
And is such a funny meter
To the roar of his repeater…”

I also remember all the early mornings arriving at the dew carpeted grass of another southern California golf course. Mom and dad loved the game and it showed. Dad was a very good golfer and mom was president of the Lady’s club. My sister, Rosemary, thinks mom liked being the president of the club as much as the golf. Maybe even more. But I did find one of her scorecards the other day and she shot a 91. Not bad mom.

When I think of mom I think of bright yellow, a fabulous smile, and a great tan. She was the prettiest mom at my dad’s conventions. She dressed fashionably and she was always the perfect hostess. She could entertain ‘50s style with the best of them. Cocktail parties, golf tournament after-parties, conference parties…just parties in general... Always a Manhattan and a Raleigh cigarette in her hands. Mom loved to entertain.

My dad died fourteen years ago. It was a very difficult time for my mother. She loved my father to the very end. They had a hard time being apart and toward the end of his life you couldn’t separate them. Mom nursed and prayed over him until he drew his last breath.

Mom’s strength came for a strong faith. After she married my father, she read Thomas Merton’s Seventh Story Mountain. Her conversion experience, which led her into the Catholic Church, was directly tied to Merton’s writings. In 1952, mom, my sister, and I drove to Merton’s home at Our Lady of Gethsemane in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Her Christian faith held up through the years and gave her comfort and strength in the hardest of times.

Mom was proud of her friendship with President Reagan and certainly voted for him in all the elections. But Rosemary reminded me the other day that while dad was still alive she was a Republican, but after he passed away she finally had the nerve to register Democrat. She had been secretly talking to Ramee about it for years.

Our mother has left a wonderful legacy in her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Today there are five grandchildren; Cathy, Carrie, Phillip, Caitlin, and Connor. And three great grandchildren; Merrick, Matthew, and Thomas.

Living in Nashville it was hard to get out to LA to see mom as often as I would have liked. I did manage to see her two or three times a year. I say her three weeks before she passed away in June. I had a felling the time was near and so I spent a little extra time with her. I told her I loved her and that she meant more to me than she would ever understand. I held her tightly before I left. I didn’t want to let go. When we separated I looked her in the eyes and they were as bright as the sun. Her smile was so big and so happy. It was a wonderful image to live with the rest of my life.

Mother joined my father, side by side, at the Riverside National Cemetery. Through the years they moved far away from Riverside but yet they are buried less than two miles from where they first met – on that dance floor in 1941. What a wonderful coincidence. I’m sure she is singing about it in heaven.

(Finally I want to thank my sister, Rosemary, and my niece, Carrie, for everything they did for mom in the final years. You were always there for her.)

St. Catherine's vs. St. Edwards CBBL 1963

By the time I reached the age of reason I knew that Willie Mays was god. By the time I reached twelve years of age I was the CBBL (Catholic Boys Baseball League) home run king. For every home run I hit I would win a haircut at Tony Mazzio's barbershop. The summer of 1962 I had won twelve hair cuts.

By the summer of eighth grade I was 5'11" tall and ten pounds heavier. I knew that this summer I could only get better. Maybe ten additional haircuts by the end of summer. What I failed to understand then was the growth spurt was merely a symptom of much more complicated changes. And there was nothing more complicated and glorious than my new found interest in girls. For the first time I found myself looking down Maureen Tenner's blouse as she bent down at her desk. For the first time I began inviting the girls in my class over to swim in the new pool we built in our backyard. Something was changing in me. My stomach was tied in knots and I was busting out all over, so to speak. It was the summer of 1963.

I would hang out at Shamel Park in the afternoon and go watch or play baseball at Evans Park after dinner. The park was surrounded to the south by pepper trees and to the north by the silhouette of mysterious Mt. Rubidoux. The games would begin at twilight, a magical time in California. As the sun went down the colors swirled and convulsed over the outfield unevenly. The tall palm trees and the light poles in the distance contrasted almost violently with the increasingly dark, cobalt sky. It was so very surreal that it looked like we had touched another dimension. When the warm Santa Anas blew in off the desert it became absolutely frightening. It was the starkest and most eerily beautiful scene I remember in my youth. Later in high school, when I fell into a depression, the most difficult time of the day was during the sunsets when their beauty only heightened my despair. That time still haunts me as I grow older. The very thing that I loved so much, touched my deepest sadness.

###

The shifting of my leg didn't help change the problem. I had been watching American Bandstand waiting to leave for my baseball game. And now there was something wrong. It was swollen and it wouldn't return to normal size. I was twelve years old and I didn't even know why it was happening. But there was even a bigger dilemma. In thirty minutes I would have to leave the house and go play baseball. My team, St. Catherine's, were playing St. Edwards.

I tried thinking about go-cart racing, death on the highway, food. Anything. I even tried praying. But nothing would make it go away. I could be dying but there was no one I could tell about it.

It was almost 4:30 pm and I was supposed to be at the field in ten minutes. I was scared to death. I had a baseball game to play. I wondered, " was I on the verge of some teenage cancer that no one had warned me about. Is this the way I was scheduled to die? Could a cruel God think of a more ridiculous (so to speak) way of killing a kid?"

This probably wasn't the first time I felt confusion about my body but this was the first time it was going to go public. The mental scene continued to play itself out in my mind. All eyes would be riveted towards me as I made a slow, self-conscious stride towards the batter's box. I was sure everyone was whispering, pointing, and laughing out loud uncontrollably at the sight of me bowed over and trying to hide and bat at the same time. What really happened was even worse.

I threw on my scratchy wool uniform that we paradoxically wore in the desert-like climes of summer in Riverside. I ran down the alley, across the playgrounds to the park. The team was waiting for the visiting team to arrive. They began arriving in carloads. But they were missing their starting pitcher, Pinky". St. Edward was concerned because"Pinky" was starting and he was the winningest pitcher in the league. We waited and they stalled. Suddenly a car began to approach and they ran towards it. "Pinky...que pasa?"" Pinky" drove to the game in his  pink, fully lowered, tuck n' rolled 1962 Chevy Impala convertible. By his side, his new wife and his equally new baby. "Pinky" was over six feet tall , fifteen years old, and finally entering the ninth grade the next year. We were mortals among giants.

I would have felt fear if I hadn't been preoccupied with my own PROBLEM. Our team began to organize and warmed up. We then took the field. The PROBLEM is not going away. I took my position at first base. "Play ball". My mind was in overdrive. Strike one, ball one. It's a hit. Instinctively I ran over to cover the bag and take the throw. The runner was safe. He began to measure out a lead as I positioned myself in front of the bag. The pitcher threw his first pitch out of the strike zone and our catcher, Tom Ryan, hoping to catch the runner off first, fired a terrible throw to me. I scooped the horrible throw on a short hop and turned around to tag out the quickly approaching runner. He barreled into me but I managed to hold onto the ball. "YER OUT"

My parents and the crowd cheered but I couldn't hear them. I was a hero but I didn't feel joy or elation. I was standing alone, doubled over, hiding my mid-section as waves of pleasure flushed over me. The spasms continued but I didn't hear anyone. I looked down at my pants. My gawd, what happened to my uniform. Did I pee on myself? Why did it feel so good? I ran past my parents, past our dugout and straight through the alley towards my house.

In retrospect, no two more unlikely events could have come together (so to speak) in such a strange and ill-timed way. To put it in very simple terms, who would have believed that I would have my first sexual experience while tagging out a runner at first?

###

My Father's Drawer

Now that I look back everything was neat and perfectly symmetrical in my parent's house. And nowhere was it more evident than in the top drawer of my father's dresser. The first thing you noticed was the mahogany inlaid jewel box that sat in the center of the drawer. I could never walk past the dresser without looking at the contents of the box. The many gold and silver cuff links. I've never had any use for them but the last time I was at home I asked my father for a pair. They were more talisman than fashion. My father had at least fifty pairs of collar stays. I've never bought one. Today most collar stays are sewn in.

Medals. All colors, shapes, and sizes. All brought back from World War ll. Red and blue sharpshooter medals. Lieutenant bars. Regiment colors. No purple hearts. ( My father was blown off a seawall at the Battle of Okinawa. My war experience was pretty clear cut. Anti-war demonstrations in Berkeley and San Francisco during the '60s.)

There were also photos of my father, young and cocksure; standing on a beach by his home in Atlantic City, shirtless but in uniform standing in the desert holding up a rattlesnake, group shots of his pals overseas during the war. No matter where, what, or when, the pre-war and war pictures made him look stylish and heroic. But I've come to understand that my father's most glorious experiences were during the war. Later he had a hard time understanding why life never measured up to that again. I believe those photos in his drawer were reminders of his youth, when all the world was before him.

To the right of the mahogany box lay his perfectly positioned , perfectly rolled socks. Black or blue dress. That was it. Next to the socks lay the leather and gold perfectly aligned garters. Putting them on was an important part of my father's daily regime. He had three or four to handle a six-day usage. Stacked neatly to the right, ironed and folded into perfect squares were dad's supply of cotton handkerchiefs. I'm not sure I ever saw one soiled. To the left of the box lay his Jockey briefs. My father said once he left the army he would never stand in lines or wear boxer underwear. Civilian freedom meant Jockey briefs, I suppose. The last, and the most provocative item, was his razor-sharp, leather-handled, sheathed hunting knife. Hidden expertly under the stacks of the underwear, it, along with a 22 rifle in the closet, made up Dad's domestic arsenal. He would use them to defend our home in case of an "invasion."

I will never forget my father's ritual of dressing in the morning. A good many of his movements I have somehow picked up. I believe I watched them so often when I was little that they became part of me. Dad never improvised. I believe he thought improvisation was against God's nature and only people that were weak in character surrendered to it. Every morning was the same choreographed dance that never changed or faltered.

First he put on the briefs and the undershirt. He snapped the waistband to make sure it had significant tension and fit snugly. Then, he put on his clean, white undershirt that smelled fresh from hanging on the clothesline the previous afternoon. He then put on his crisp, ironed, white shirt and his regimental stripe tie. Next he stretched his socks up and hooked them to his garters. My father put on his shoes next. He would retrieve them from his closet, buff them, and pull out the shoe trees. They were Florsheim brogues, wingtips of the highest order. My father always told me, " never try and save money on shoes. Buy the best, polish them, and they will last forever." The shoe strings were stiff and waxed so they would hold tightly.

He might walk around the house for a half hour or so only in his underwear, shirt, socks and shoes before he continued. And then, at the last minute, before he left for work, he would slip on his slacks and coat.

At the end of the daily exercise one word emerged: order. All the shoes were polished and treed. All the slacks pressed and hangered. All the shirts hung up and spread symmetrically across the closet bar so no one shirt touched the other, left to right, starting with dress and ending in sport. Order.

Everything filed . In a way, the predictability was comforting. But it also symbolized the parting of our natures. Dad's dedication to order and responsibility and my rebellion against all his order and responsibility.

My unpredictability was at the core of our problems. I don't even think dad was as concerned with the results as with the method. I am the way I am because of some very intense, complex interactions with my father at a very early age. Today I know that my course was being charted before me and I didn't even know how or why.

###

The Allies vs. the Axis powers in Riverside California

The years between the age of twelve and fourteen is the time I can remember best. It was the cusp between boyhood and manhood. Innocence vanished and every mark that was left on my soul was indelible. I would never be the same.



We were on e of the first families to move into our new neighborhood. It was a subdivision that was built on what had been a large walnut grove. It was the first house we owned. It was a modest garden style. My parents also bought a new Plymouth sedan, creamy with with large tail fins.



My neighborhood was made up of families buying their first home on the GI bill. They certainly were not wealthy, and more often that not they were living from paycheck to paycheck. The Humbles lived across the street. Dwayne and Ernest were my age. Big boned with sandy blond hair, misshapen mouths and dull eyes, they had just moved to southern California from Missouri. Their size, not their wit, made them formidable. Every Sunday the Humbles would picnic in their front yard after church. My father, who never had any use for anyone unfortunate enough to be born south of Ohio and west of Illinois, said the Humbles had their picnics in the front yard to prove they could afford food. Strict members in the Church of Christ denomination, Ernest pulled me aside one day to tell me my parents were going to burn in hell for eternity. Their sin...drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes. The idea of losing my parents in a scene of death and fire confused and terrified me. Walking from Jefferson School one day I saw the brothers and with no warning I ran after and wrestled down the younger brother Dwayne. I fought blindly but the fury and rage helped me outlast the bigger boy. Outside of a few bruises and a scrape on my cheek the match did not change anything.



Later on that year one of the Humble boys threw a stick in the spokes of my bicycle tires. I fell in a heap and ended up with a concussion. Whenever I got into trouble later in life, my mother would always bring up the concussion. "Do you remember when that neighborhood boy threw that stick into your bike spokes and you fell? You got a terrible concussion. Sometimes I think you've never been the same since." For me, I've never met a Dwayne I liked. They all look like Dwayne Humble.



Another family moved on our street, the Delachellos. They were members of St. Thomas parish, but my father didn't want to have anything to do with them. I went to school with their youngest son, Frankie. Mr. Delachello moved to the United States from Italy at the end of the war and he spoke with a very broken Italian accent. His passion was gardening and he worked in his yard for hours on end. He wore, what we would call today a "wife-beater" tee shirt, and he rolled up his khaki shorts and fashioned a "hat" made from a wet handkerchief that he knotted up at the ends. The image of him in his yard was so foreign it looked like they had dropped his house in Italy onto our neighborhood.



I liked Mr. Delachello. I really didn't understand why my father disliked him. But as resentments are prone to do, they surface, for no apparent reason, at the the most inappropriate times. The blowup began to brew at a summer camp class at Jefferson School. The guys on my block were asked to come up with a project we could work on for "parent's day" at the end of the camp. We decided that we would do a skit about a battle in World War ll. We would split our group in half, choose sides, dress up in old uniforms and run around shooting each other. No script. But we would have an adult help us to become crack soldiers. And that was when Mr. Delachello got involved. He became the adult "advisor" to the group. Mr. Delachello organized practices, showed us how to dress properly, and shaped us into credible soldiers. In my excitement I told my father what we were doing. Oh God, that was not a good idea. He wanted to come to practice to make sure we were being "trained" properly. You couldn't believe the look on his face when he walked into practice and found out our "advisor" was Mr. Lenny Delachello. Dad began contradicting Mr Delachello at every turn. The practice labored on as dad tried to show us how "real" soldiers acted. The rehearsal became an ideological battlefield that strained under the weight of two generals; Mr. Axis versus Mr. Allies.

The day of the presentation quickly arrived. When it finally took place all preparation when out the window as we began acting like we were...kids. We were giggling and laughing refusing to fall down when shot. It was a blast. My father was predictably livid and blamed the fiasco on "that Goddamn Delachello." He ranted, "who the hell does he think he is claiming he can make my kid into a soldier." So that was what it was all about. Twelve years removed from World War ll and my father was still living it. And with his help it was playing itself out, albeit controversy, in the protected confines of California suburbia. The Allies versus the Axis powers. Fascism versus democracy. Mussolini versus Eisenhower. When it was all over and I was sitting in our driveway, all I could say was "Dad, we were just playing."

I never heard a sober word about "the war" again. The only time it came up was on weekends when my father came home drunk. He told my friends he taught "dirty fighting" in the "war" and he was going to show us how weak we were. What started out as instructional always became combative. "Come on you guys you"re young and tough, hit me." It quickly degenerated, " you're soft, tough guys," " you can't beat an old guy?" My mother would end up in the middle cushioning blows my father meant for me. The scene played out repeatedly like a slow mantra. My father struggled, spent, and muttering something unintelligible. Mom collapsed in a heap on the floor. My father passed out. I sat bruised, hating that man, stifling my rage and hoping he would die. I was thirteen years old.

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The Surfer Pt. 2

The call about the surfboard came out of the blue. It came from Steve Bluemel, the son of my day's boss. "I have this surfboard I need to get rid of. I have to leave for overseas and I can't take it." I casually asked what it looked like. He said, "It's ten foot Dewey Weber with a redwood stringer and skeg and "fire-engine" red rails. It looks fast." I couldn't believe my luck. I had never seen a real surfboard up close, but I knew Dewey Weber was one of the best. I visualized that stout little fireplug Dewey Weber ripping across a Malibu wave. I couldn't wait to get one of their decals on our Plymouth. I tried to be calm. "Weber's one of the best hotdoggers around" I chimed in to sound smart. He dismissed it and said, "Do you want it? Can you pay for it?" "I'll ask my dad. How much?" "Forty dollars even." Now I might have been in eighth grade but I know a bargain when I heard one. I had forty dollars I had saved from my paper route. My conversation with dad was ornamental. I wanted the surfboard and I didn't care if we lived in Denver. "Can you bring the surfboard over tonight?"

Bluemel drove up the driveway with the surfboard strapped to the top of the car. While getting out of the car, Bluemel said, " I threw some car racks and a wetsuit." The surfboard was beautiful. The red was the reddest red I'd ever seen. Redder than even our fire engine red Plymouth. It looked shiny and new. No, it wasn't a Sandy surfboard. Sandy was a local surfboard maker here in Riverside. It was a Dewey Weber shaped in Hermosa Beach. I immediately sent for a Dewey Weber decal for our car. The decal said it all. Dewey Weber with a poster like graphic about eight inches wide. My mind drifted. I could feel the warm sun and the tropical trade winds blowing across the face of the gradually pealing perfect wave. I was in heaven. It was also a dream. I'd only been to the ocean a few times and it was with a house full of my sister's girlfriends.

I eventually went to sleep with the surfboard laying next me like a newly wed.

The next morning I woke up and walked the surfboard over to our swimming pool. The board obviously needed a water environment. I jumped in and sat on the surfboard. I must of sat there for an hour or so before I decided to walk the board down to the mall. The Riverside Mall was probably a mile or mile and a quarter away. I'm not sure I noticed the stares. I'm not sure if I heard the uproarious laughter when people caught sight of me walking down the street like a businessman carrying a thirty-five pound nautical devise. I do remember Jim Fogler yelling across the canal at me. "You're an asshole Quinn." I didn't care. I was thirteen, and hopefully someone would mistake me for a surfer.

The surfboard would sit in the pool for weeks on end. Once in a while I wold wax the top of it and paddle it back and forth around the pool Guests treated it like a pet. My parents visitors invariably ended up in the backyard staring at the board. They usually would say, " its the first one I've seen up close.


The one thing I hadn't counted on was the transportation to the beach. It's difficult being a thirteen year old surfer and living 60 miles from the Pacific Ocean. After three months the tension became too much for even my father. "Don't you think it would be a good idea to see if that surfboard works. " You mean go to the beach?," I shouted. I really wasn't prepared for that. I tried to think of the place with the smallest surf on the west coast. "Doheny? I exclaimed. It was a small gently breaking wave on the south side of the Dana Point Harbor. It was tucked in between Laguna and Capistrano Beach. Hobie Alter lived down there. I thought to myself, "maybe I'll run into him."


My father impatiently unwrapped the surf racks that Bluemel had given to me. Every tangled knot or misplaced screw taxed my father's extremely low threshold of comfort. He finally attached all the pressure points on the racks and he slid the surfboard on top of the car. We had traveled no more than three miles down the Santa Canyon highway when people in cars we drove by began frantically pointing towards the car rack. Because I was so caught up in the excitement of being seen with a surfboard on our car I hadn't noticed the distinct metal on metal banging of the car rack's disengaging strap hooks pounding on the roof of our car. The sight was not pretty . The surfboard had completely separated from the front rack and the force of the wind was standing the board completely on end. As we slowed to stop, the surfboard gradually and then, not so gradually, fell down across the roof and small pieces of surfboard fiberglass feel to the ground. I hadn't even make it in the ocean and I had my first "ding." My father was livid. "Goddamn it! I knew that board was going to fuck our car up. I don't know why we ever did this. That's great, goddamn it."


The scene always played itself out the same way. I was excited, but if it entailed a little work, imagination, patience, or industry my father would be thrown into a rage. He would rage at the problem. And then he would rage at me. In the end he took anything that was new and I was excited about he would make fun of or condemn it. At an age when the world was before me I began I knew that nothing was going to be easy. I felt scared for no particular reason and like my life was being sucked out of me.


Somehow we got back on track. We made it down to Doheny State Park. The entrance was confusing but after being dangerously exposed on the frighteningly unforgiving PCH. (Also known as Pacific Coast Highway.) Some how the directions, the speeding traffic, the cost of parking, and even the weather, had all become my fault.

The closer I walked towards the water the faster my heart began to beat and the emptiness and fear overcame me. The skies were overcast and the fog made it difficult to even see the water past the shore break. There was no horizon. It was cold and foreign. Only then did I realize I had never seen anyone surf. The closest I'd ever been was the pages of Surfer Magazine. I didn't have a clue what to do. I kept pacing the beach looking for a stretch for a stretch of water that didn't look dangerous. I slowly began to take off my clothes. Each piece of clothing was an eternity. I then began to pull, and I mean pull, the wetsuit on. One inch at a time. I was exhausted and it was only pulled up to my waist.

I just couldn't do it. It was too scary. I knelt down and needlessly re-waxed my surfboard over and over. Finally I looked up at my father and said, " Let's go to Huntington Beach. It might be better." With resignation my father replied, "great." I walked away from the water feeling extremely self-conscious. It was March in 1963.

One hour later we were there. As we drove into the parking lot the sun dramatically burst through the fog and overcast. As I gazed out toward the ocean a large section of water was lit up by the reflection of the sun. The ocean looked inviting. I felt a breeze drive across the beach and pass out to sea. The smell of chaparral and mustard blew across the bluffs and eventually over the sea grass across the highway. The waves took shape and the wind peeled off across the wave face and sent a slight splay of water across the back. I took off my wetsuit and sat down on the sand. I felt much better. I breathed deep and closed my eyes. I felt the warmth of the sun. I walked to the water's edge.

I began to run into the surf and tried to lay down on the board. I was having trouble negotiating, what seemed to be an impossible shore break. It had to be at least two feet high (that's a joke.) I didn't seem to be going anywhere and my surfboard slid from side to side. I hang onto the rails but the chop knocked me off the board. I eventually discovered my problem. The "skeg" underneath and at the back of my board was stuck in the sand and I was in no more than six inches of water. A glance to the side of my trunks and I was pleased to see my Kanvas by Katin had, so far, weathered the severe elements. I jumped off the board, turned around towards the beach, and looked towards my father. He was not looking. He might have been embarrased, I don't know. He rounded up a beer and was watching the cars on the highway above us. I turned around, tried to relax and began paddling out past the shore break. For some reason, everything seemed to slow down. I steadied myself until I saw a wave developing over the horizon. I furiously paddled but it passed underneath me. I paddled out again and settled in. The air was perfect and the warm breeze invigorated me. The sun charged me with confidence. I began to feel more at home in the water, and I thought to myself, I'm going to stay out here until I catch a wave. Most of the time I was too early taking off, but usually I was too late. The wave of the day began to build about fifty yards in back of me. It looked huge (it was probably 2-3 feet). I turned around and began to paddle. I paddled with deep, deliberate strokes. I knew this was the one. I began to feel the water begin to move me. It was no longer through my efforts. I was caught up in natural law and I stood up. The surfboard was no longer listing and sliding from side to side. I was going fast but I was no longer fighting it. I felt in harmony. As I pulled up and looked ahead I felt as high as the tops on the palm trees across the highway. Within minutes the wave began to collapse around me, but I rode straight into the beach and almost on the sand. I stopped and yelled at the top of my lungs, "Cowabunga." My reading had served me well and my vocabulary had grown.

Today I look back and I realize that it worked for that one moment because I let go of my fears and stopped fighting the water around me. Only then did I begin to surf. I had never understood that important lesson before. Like my dad I raided and raged against my imperfections. I could never be perfect. When I stopped caring, I relaxed and my fears and insecurities feel away and I slowed down enough to learn. When I stopped fighting I could do anything. The water became my metaphor.

Although my father would always argue that the surf he grew up around in Atlantic City, New Jersey was much bigger and more difficult to manage, we both grew up a little that day. When I came in to shore he wasn't as mad as before. I think he even admired me. It wasn't so much that I had managed to stand up; it was the fact that I had stuck with it even when I struggled. I had shown grit. And I know he admired that. It had been a long time since " a job well down" had meant anything to him. He was too lost in his booze and memories from World War ll. But underneath the torrent and the rage that day he managed to look beyond himself and looked at me and said, " great job out there Mick."

The Surfer

The Surfer

He was alone. He was unheeded, happy, and near to the world
heart of life. He was alone and young and willful and wildhearted, alone
amidst a waste of wild air and brackish waters
and the sea harvest of shells and tangle and veiled gray sunlight.

James Joyce

It all seemed so exotic and remote. The picture was from a dog-eared, copy of Surfer Magazine. The issues date was fall 1962 and the photo said it all...Paul Gebauer at Sunset Beach, Hawaii. The twenty-five foot wave looked cold and terrifying, but at the same time beautiful. Gebauer poised cool and indifferent, an aquatic existentialist.

We were at Johnny Walczak's house after school. He wanted us to see why he had been going to the beach so often. We were alone because Walczak's parents were divorced and his father had custody. Even in the eighth grade Johnny went home after school to an empty house. He had complete run of it until his father came home at 6:30 pm. When he finally came home he would only stay long enough to shower and dress before he mysteriously slipped out again. (Frank Walczak cast a dashing figure, even by 1960s standards; slipper like loafers, linen blouses, and a mustache a la Gilbert Roland. He owned a beauty salon.)

Johnny Walczak was considered beautiful. All the girls in school said it. He had straight black, blue hair with see-through azure eyes and he had some kind of Zen deal going on. People were drawn to his quietness to see what he had to say. The biggest rumor about Johnny Walczak was that he had "gone all the way" with the Troy and Tracy twins. He was fourteen and they were thirteen. Walczak had achieved some kind of playground sainthood, ascending into the neighborhood myth.

That day he wanted to show us something called Surfer Magazine. One on one, his message about surfing was evangelical and almost feverish. " Freedom...speed..nothing touches it. Forget about baseball. SURFING IS LIKE...YOU'VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE IT. IT'S BITCHIN'.

We lived in Riverside, which meant we lived, not in Los Angeles, but in a place somewhat close, but very different. No one would ever recognize Riverside as a beach. It was not Malibu. But, oh, how we wanted it to be. It was a town built on the margins. To the east, the mountains and the desert. To the west, rolling hills and ocean. The sky was large and expansive. The horizon was an outline of hardscrabble, bouldered hills. Riverside's roots were shallow with a thin layer of surface dirt and deep bedrock. If you scanned the city above the tree line all you saw was desert. Some of the finest neighborhoods were built inventively on the hard edges of the cragged cliffs. The box canyon ran between the hills and nothing but rattlesnakes and lizards lived there. Everything that was green was artificial or transplanted. The magnolia, eucalyptus, and naval orange trees were planted in an effort to tame the untameable. My parents met in Riverside at the outset of World War ll. After the war it was a city in transition. A canal system wound through the neighborhoods. We lived at the end of a dead end street and our yard butted up against a small section of the canal. A six-foot industrial fence cut Harding Street in two. On the left side, the haves; on the right, the have-nots. As I looked out my bedroom window my eyes always veered to the left.

I sent for a copy of Surfer Magazine and I bought the poster of Paul Gebauer at Sunset. I waited for weeks and weeks for it to arrive. I eventually got a poster of Ricky Gregg at Makaha Beach. With the other space space on the wall I hung up pictures that I cut out from the magazine. Decorated in bamboo, my room was beginning to look like "Moondoggies" beach hut.

I saw it in an ad in Surfer Magazine. Kanvas by Katin. The logo was worth it all...a kid with "bushy bushy blond hair" holding a surfboard. I wanted to be that kid. I began to create my own copy. "Rugged canvas trunks that could withstand the incredible rigors of the ocean." I shouldn't purchase anything less. I ordered my first pair. Orange with a black pocket. They looked like Halloween.

The "surfer look" was on display at various concert halls in southern California. Harmony Park in Anaheim. The Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa. And the National Guard Armory in Riverside. White Levis. A pressed Penny's 100% white cotton pocketed tee shirt. A pair of black Converse

low top tennis shoes. And finally, a Pendleton wool shirt. I wanted one like Jim Fogler had...soft powder blue. My parents said Pendleton was too expensive and they could by one that was exactly like it. It was a black and red check lumberman shirt from Sears.

The first time I wore my new clothes was to a dance at the National Guard Armory in Riverside. That night it was Louie Louie night. A band played Louie Louie all night long. No other songs. I got a ride with Vito, who had a learners permit and his uncle's brand new truck. I tagged along with Vito and Mike Soccio. They were sophomores and I was a freshman. I had never been around so many old kids . I tried to stand indifferent hoping no one would notice me. I knew I was over my head so I didn't want any trouble. About halfway through the night a group of vatos from Casa Blanca started walking towards me in the men's bathroom. I recognized "Pinky" form Corona Little League games. He was the only kid that drove to the games in his car, a lowered pink Chevy Impala convertable...with his wife...and his baby. The "boys" were wearing their uniform; heavily strarched oversize khhaki slacks , pressed white tee shirts, and spit polished cap-toed Florsheims. The were walking, leaning backwards with their thumbs hooked to their front belt loops. Pinky walked up to me and "ese pendajo surfer boy.Fuck you chingada." He turned around to leave but completed the 360 degree turn and delivered a short, quick, right to my chin. I feel to the floor in a heap. I was stunned and wanted to cry, but I swallowed my tears and limped off. A bruised ego and a little more reticent to go out on weekend nights. I had gotten more that I had bargained for and I was way out of my league.

One good thing happened that night. Rick Gaynor, surfer/poseur, playboy, walked in while I was walking out. We went to his car and he showed me how to play Miserlou on his guitar. All on one string. Like many transient people in my life Gaynor eventually disappeared after awhile

Who the fuck knows. Probably ended up playing with the Challengers (surf band superstars).

The Dream of California

"Never saw my hometown
till I stayed away too long."
-Tom Waits


My father's illness and imminent death drew me back to California. It had been ten years since I actually lived there. I had spent my first thirty years in Los Angeles and San Francisco then I migrated to Texas due to a job change.

I moved to Nashville in 1983 with my wife, Lori. From 1983 to 1993 we never returned to California. I had a lot of excuses. Too busy, Too expensive. Too unfamiliar. Even when they discovered my father's cancer and a operation was scheduled to remove his lung, I didn't go home.

When people in Nashville asked us why we moved from Los Angeles I'd shrug it off with, "you don't think we could live in that crazy town, Loca de Los Angeles, ese?"
When people asked about our history in L.A., I said we didn't have one. "Heritage in L.A. goes back as far as 1945."

I got pulled over by a policeman after I had just moved to Nashville. I turned left on a yellow caution light. I tried to tell him, that's how we do it California, it moves the traffic along faster. (God knows, I had a better idea.) He looked me straight in the eye and said " I don't give a good goddamn how you do it in California. This is how we do it here." A car passed us by that had a bumper sticker on it that read, The Bible said it, I believe it, and that's that." There is no grey area like in California, it is black and white.

I had received a call about my father's quickly declining health from my sister. I flew out to Los Angeles as soon as possible.I was sitting on the couch in my parent's living room in San Pedro. The thin veneer that holding my emotions in check exploded apart that day. I faced my father as he sat in his old easy chair. It hurt to see the formally strapping man so small, engulfed in pillows and covered up like a boy-king sitting in the monarch's chair. His face was thin and taut. His skinny and twisted ankles and wrists, misshapen and blue. It was hard to believe that this same man had, in my youth ridiculed and bullied me. I used to wish he would die in a car wreck when I was in high school. I swore I would never be like him. I would never treat my children the way he treated me. Ironically, I had become a shadow of my father as a parent. I was the bully I swore I'd never become. Somehow I knew my only relief would come through talking to my father.

I traveled to Los Angeles fully intending to talk about my feelings. But until I got there I didn't realize just how sick dad was. (When I told my wife, Lori what I was about to do when I got out there she said, " why don't you not make it about you, don't talk about the past, but be of help to your mom and dad."

I took to dad to treatments and he never complained or showed any fear. He used humor, I suppose, to make doctors, nurses, techs, feel less pressure to deal with his pain. I had to carry him to and from the car and and sometimes I felt like, I was his father. One day I was sitting quietly with him in his living room. He seemed to drift in and out of sleep. He didn't appear to notice me. I was caught off guard when suddenly he said, " Thank you for helping your mother and I" he said slowly. I tried to say something but my words came out slurred. He continued, " I know you always thought it was your fault." I couldn't quite believe what he said, it seemed so out of context. "What did you say dad?" He repeated, " I know you always thought it was your fault," he continued, " but you weren't the problem I was."

My dad put his head in his hands and began sobbing. I had never seen him cry before. My father, who only prayed privately, asked if my mother and I could join him in prayer. (I thought my father, who was a cradle Catholic, would begin reciting the Lord's prayer. ) I was shocked when he took both my mother and my hands, and asked God for forgiveness. In prayer he said he was sorry for the things said in anger, and for all the things he left unsaid. He said he was a drunk and always scared how he could support my mother and sister and I. He raged out of fear, never out of lack of love. I asked for forgiveness for all the trouble I'd been growing up and for all my thoughts and hate and revenge. Mom and dad and I cried together and tried to hold on to our collapsing bodies. Like a Renaissance sculpture the scene was indelibly cast in my mind. I would never forget it.

I left the house at dusk. I wanted to be alone. The mixture of contrition and mea culpas had left me drained. I pulled my parents car out of the driveway and backed out onto Western Avenue, headed for Portuguese Bend.




My earliest memories growing up in California centered around driving in the family car. The cadence of the tires on the road gave me a warm feeling of security. Eventally, after watching the rhythmic shadows of the overhead wires on my car ceiling, I would fall asleep. No matter has short my nap, I woke up refreshed. It seemed like every weekend we would drive on trips with no destinations. We would stop at antique stores. Parks, Mexican restaurants. (Actually in the '50s I believe they were called "spanish restaurants.") My father's hobby was cooking "Spanish food." We would drive half a day to try out another enchilada sauce or chile rellanos. The town's names were exotic...Temecula, Pala, Calexico. No drive would be too far, no errand too small. The age of affordable transportation and fuel was upon us and we could see the future. And the future was the highway in front of us. The freedom of those California drives would carve and important fact in my psyche. No matter how difficult the problem, I could always avoid them by, as Mark Twain said, " lighting out for the Territory."

A lot of the old roads look the same as they did forty years ago. Only the unattended asphalt cracks are deeper and wider. The abandoned stone filling stations with their rusted pumps colored by years sitting on the sides of the highways. The pealed and faded signs that advertise products that are no longer part of our vocabulary. The stark and unkempt overgrowth of shrubbery. They are still there. The roads are the link to the past for my generation.



I drove to the cliffs about the ocean at White Park at the end of Western Avenue. I walked through a vacant baseball diamond and sat on the broken concrete World War ll gun mounts that protected the west coast from the "yellow peril." This place was familiar to me. I had spent a good portion of my life running and playing along these bluffs. The warmth of the sun, the bright reflective light off of the ocean, and the pick-axed silhouette of Catalina Island off the horizon felt familiar. I began to feel like I was emerging from a deep, dark cave. Finally an afternoon breeze put me at ease. I could smell the mixture of chaparral and pepper trees. For the first time I felt at home. I could breath.

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