Chapter 7: Mid 1940s, Chico — Every summer Mom took the kids to visit her mother, Nellie Chatfield, who still lived in the two-story house on Boucher where my mother grew up. Chico was even hotter than Sonora during the summer, in the 100s every... Continue
Rude Awakenings
Chapter 6: 1945, Sonora – At five, Betty opened her first business. She admired the ads of the Lucky Strike girls wearing long gloves, short skirts, high heels, and satin pillbox caps. She particularly applauded the ingenuity of the lacquered trays they carried like a personal... Continue
Chapter 5: Mid 1940s, Sonora. Larry and Carleen went everywhere together. They were a year apart (he was born in 1934, she in ’35) with the same dark brown hair and brown eyes. When he was four, Larry wore an eye patch, and in first... Continue
Chapter 4: 104 Green Street -- A long linoleum hall led to the staircase and wood banister that the kids rode halfway to the bottom when our parents weren’t in sight. I got down the stairs by falling. In the living room, white antimacassars and... Continue
Mid 1940s • 104 Green Street -- Chapter Three. My father first took a job managing the Sprouse-Reitz on Washington Street in Sonora. Mom came in and helped out. Ten years younger, with jet-black hair like her mother’s and grandmother’s, she wore red lipstick and... Continue
Emerging from the crown of Highway 49 and a mile from end to end, Sonora is tucked into the foothills and ravines of the Sierra Nevada, the gateway to California’s gold-mining region. In its frenetic gold rush heyday, the sounds of miners blasting the hillsides... Continue
My brother Larry was under the illusion our mother was a good mother, but he had a different childhood than we did. My sisters believed otherwise: Carleen complained Mom was thoughtless and self-centered, Betty hated her for abandoning us, and Claudia simply thought she was... Continue
When I was not yet ten, Mom put me on a plane to visit Carleen. My sister took one look at me and decided I was never going back, and so I lived with her and her family for the next eight years, until 1966,... Continue
Credo for today Why am I here? Who am I? What do I believe? How shall I live my life? Where do I stand? When do I speak out? Ten Commitments I shall honor Spirit: my God, your God, their gods, and the God within me.... Continue
1950s San Francisco... On Haight and Belvedere, tightly wedged between my father’s dime store and the Superba Market, was Sweeney’s candy shop. The Sweeneys were a sweet white-haired couple who lived in the flat above their Haight Street store. Actually, now that I think about it,... Continue