A couple months ago, nay a few months ago, I ran a thread of narratives regarding my childhood, roughly chronological, as accurately as my memory would allow. Its time to step off of my fast train and hop onto the chuck wagon of my recollections past. My health probably relies on some form of self affirmation bolstered by my life's journey. It is becoming more and more apparent that I must exile any self loathing, any doubts as to the solidity of my character, really, anything negative that could taint my self perception. In a nutshell the size of New York: No matter how many people see me as a good guy, I must see it in myself in order to feel worthy of success today, tomorrow......... the best way to do that is to go back in time and better understand that despite a number of odds (the darkest of which will be left undocumented on these pages, best imagined, best not revisited) I turned out OK, a good guy, a guy worth loving, a guy who should love himself. So........... let the catharsis begin!
If I recall- and I do- I left off exiting Tweedy School in the spring of 1968, days after Martin Luther King was assassinated. I attended Tweedy for a mere two weeks before we found an apartment on Topaz St. in Fullerton or Anaheim (mom, help me out here). In the course of a year or so, we moved from a two bedroom apartment in a courtyard to a three bedroom apartment fronting the street to a two bedroom apartment edging another courtyard, all on Topaz, all within a block of each other. While living in apartment A, in the courtyard, we experienced our first California earthquake, clueless and amused until we stepped outside and witnessed the panic, found to be an overreaction as the temblor amounted to nothing more severe than a lemon shakeup. While living in apartment A I consumed my first fondue dinner, popular in the '60's, peanut oil, bite sized steak chunks and steamed artichoke leaves, a meal prepared by persons unknown. I have never been able to duplicate that experience.
Still in the courtyard, still in 1968, I think still in school, the fourth grade though it might have been summer, I was introduced to the living music world for the first time. Across the courtyard, directly opposite us, I met John Christian, a black singer, musician, the first black individual I ever knew, ( in Chicago, we lived in a predominately Italian housing project, so no, I never met a black person there, and Tweedy had to be reminded that MLK was killed in Memphis, need I say more?) and his wife, whose name escapes me (help me here, mom), white. At the time I didn't see the significance of an interracial marriage, didn't recognize their courage.
John Christian, or, more accurately, Johnny, was a club singer, his current claim to fame was his recording of a song called "Tighten Up", cool in the day, cool today- Google It. I heard the recording on a high tech (for the time) Teac reel to reel. (It would be years before I owned my first cool electronic device- an AM radio, a sphere, with a short chain for toting, white like a cue ball, maybe a Panasonic, a real prize). Johnny was cool. He wore his hair greased, slicked like Sammy Davis Jr.; he even owned red pants. That summer a guy living to the right of Johnny and (Linda?) introduced me to his record collection, fronted by Jose Felliciano. I must have listened to "Light My Fire" a hundred times, never tired of it. That same summer someone, maybe mom, gave me my first significant read, Psycho-Cybernetics (the power of positive thinking), a book I either failed to comprehend or failed to agree with at ten years old, taking into account the totality of my life. Maybe I should re-read it.
School: Integrated, modern thinking, a few blacks, a large Hispanic population, I had finally found a school I could love. More on that later.
I know what you're thinking: Where is all the drama? Where is all the calamity? You will have to wait. If, in the mean time you are bored, download "Tighten Up", download any Jose. Listen to it all a hundred times. By then I will have moved forward.... to the fireworks from the roof, the Green Stamps, the Monkees, mom and plate glass, my rollerskating incident, Mr. Drake, my second girlfriend, track, Rodney, ........................... and the beat goes on........... oh, yeah, my starfish, octopus in the tide pool, my bull snake, my tarantula, crustaceans, President's Physical Fitness testing, flag football, me and Mark Boguski and our horse skeleton, water poisoning, solid fuel rocketry, my first rattlesnake experience...............I'll get to it all, and much, much more.
If I recall- and I do- I left off exiting Tweedy School in the spring of 1968, days after Martin Luther King was assassinated. I attended Tweedy for a mere two weeks before we found an apartment on Topaz St. in Fullerton or Anaheim (mom, help me out here). In the course of a year or so, we moved from a two bedroom apartment in a courtyard to a three bedroom apartment fronting the street to a two bedroom apartment edging another courtyard, all on Topaz, all within a block of each other. While living in apartment A, in the courtyard, we experienced our first California earthquake, clueless and amused until we stepped outside and witnessed the panic, found to be an overreaction as the temblor amounted to nothing more severe than a lemon shakeup. While living in apartment A I consumed my first fondue dinner, popular in the '60's, peanut oil, bite sized steak chunks and steamed artichoke leaves, a meal prepared by persons unknown. I have never been able to duplicate that experience.
Still in the courtyard, still in 1968, I think still in school, the fourth grade though it might have been summer, I was introduced to the living music world for the first time. Across the courtyard, directly opposite us, I met John Christian, a black singer, musician, the first black individual I ever knew, ( in Chicago, we lived in a predominately Italian housing project, so no, I never met a black person there, and Tweedy had to be reminded that MLK was killed in Memphis, need I say more?) and his wife, whose name escapes me (help me here, mom), white. At the time I didn't see the significance of an interracial marriage, didn't recognize their courage.
John Christian, or, more accurately, Johnny, was a club singer, his current claim to fame was his recording of a song called "Tighten Up", cool in the day, cool today- Google It. I heard the recording on a high tech (for the time) Teac reel to reel. (It would be years before I owned my first cool electronic device- an AM radio, a sphere, with a short chain for toting, white like a cue ball, maybe a Panasonic, a real prize). Johnny was cool. He wore his hair greased, slicked like Sammy Davis Jr.; he even owned red pants. That summer a guy living to the right of Johnny and (Linda?) introduced me to his record collection, fronted by Jose Felliciano. I must have listened to "Light My Fire" a hundred times, never tired of it. That same summer someone, maybe mom, gave me my first significant read, Psycho-Cybernetics (the power of positive thinking), a book I either failed to comprehend or failed to agree with at ten years old, taking into account the totality of my life. Maybe I should re-read it.
School: Integrated, modern thinking, a few blacks, a large Hispanic population, I had finally found a school I could love. More on that later.
I know what you're thinking: Where is all the drama? Where is all the calamity? You will have to wait. If, in the mean time you are bored, download "Tighten Up", download any Jose. Listen to it all a hundred times. By then I will have moved forward.... to the fireworks from the roof, the Green Stamps, the Monkees, mom and plate glass, my rollerskating incident, Mr. Drake, my second girlfriend, track, Rodney, ........................... and the beat goes on........... oh, yeah, my starfish, octopus in the tide pool, my bull snake, my tarantula, crustaceans, President's Physical Fitness testing, flag football, me and Mark Boguski and our horse skeleton, water poisoning, solid fuel rocketry, my first rattlesnake experience...............I'll get to it all, and much, much more.
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