Playground in my Mind/1972-1975

Taken in 1972.

Boi and I had recess at the same time. He didn’t like me playing four- square with him. But I would stand in the line he was playing in, even though I liked to play soccer style (we used only our feet to hit the ball and occasional head) and he liked to play “hardsies”. They used to punch the four square ball hard.

One particular recess, the ball went in Boi’s square, and the server said he was out. But Boi said, the ball went out of the square. “I’m not out.” His youthful heart protested. So Boi stood there stubbornly even though everyone in line was telling him to get out. I motioned for Boi to get out of the line before he got hurt. Boi only stood his ground more stubbornly. Boi was scrawny for his age, a bigger kid walked over to him and carried him out and threw him on the hard cement.

Boi and I were in the Math-a-Rama together and in the MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors). We would play at different elementary schools with a team of students from our school, Lane school. Boi was the best on the team. He scored 95% of the points. He was extremely gifted in math. I only made 1 point the whole time. Math was not my best subject.

During one of our tournaments, Mr. Witzke asked Boi to give up his seat and give someone else a chance. Mr. Witzke our coach was tall, blonde and big-boned. He told Boi that he had to give someone else a chance, but Boi refused to give up his seat.

“Please, Mr. Witzke, this is my best one.” Boi begged.

“Ray, they are all your best ones.” He said adamantly.

I felt so embarrassed. I don’t think Boi did.

We painted a mural when I was in the 5th grade and Boi was in the 6th grade in the MGM with other students, Kim Walker, Patricia Sanchez, Alex Miramontez, Danny Klassen, Minnie Avilia who was only in the 4th grade to name a few of my classmates. Patricia was extremely popular.

The mural was supposed to be about world peace. Six of my characters were picked boys and girls from Mexico, Canada, and the Netherlands, Mr. Witzke and Mrs. Kaye only picked a rainbow Boi had made. I used to tease him about that.

We were supposed to travel with the mural to the capital in Sacramento and meet with the Governor Jerry Brown. He promised to have lunch with us and discuss our mural, but Jerry Brown briefly looked at our mural that afternoon, surrounded by journalists. We ate lunch from brown paper sacks in the park.

Boi and I were so disappointed. It was then we decided we would never vote for him when we were adults.

Our Frank M. Lane Mural. It was shipped to Sacramento where then Governor Jerry Brown was supposed to have lunch with us, but didn't.

Mr. James Courtwright was my 5th grade teacher. He was an older man in his 50’s slender, and grey haired. But he was my favorite teacher he was extremely nice to me.

I could never do anything wrong in his classroom, even when I would fight with my best friend Yvette Garcia. We used to roll around on the floor of the classroom, but Mr. Courtwright never sent us to the office. He never sent Yvette because he never sent me. The kids in the class said he was a drunk. But I thought he just had bad breath. I must have looked to him as a father figure as I made him a card on my free time, left it on his desk and ran out of the class when the bell dismissed us to go home.

One night, momma and daddy were in a hurry I was in the bathroom, I don’t know where Boi was but they left us. They took my three younger siblings and drove off. Boi thought something had happened to momma and daddy, I knew daddy had left us.

Boi came to me with that sober face, “Let’s face it our parents are dead.”

“

They left us Boi, because we took too long.” And I sat down to watch television.

Another day, it was raining momma went to the store, we all wanted to go, but momma didn’t take any of us. We were all bawling at the front door, daddy came with the belt and whipped all of us Boi ran to the bathroom and locked the door. Daddy banged on that door, until he got tired. He started to watch television with a beer, and forgot about Boi.

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Momma and daddy used to call my younger sisters Mo-Mo and Missy the “ninnies” when they were little. They were the youngest of the family, Mo-Mo was technically only a year younger than Jimmy, but she was always petite, and Jimmy was tall for his age. Mo-Mo and Missy would play paper dolls, but they called theirs “Who-Who’s”. For some reason Mo-Mo drew them triangle heads.

Mo-Mo was momma’s favorite, and she used to tell us so. You could tell, Mo-Mo didn’t really like daddy, she would always crawl into momma’s lap Missy would sit on daddy’s lap. Daddy used to call Missy, “Rabbits.”

For Halloween Missy would always have to get a store bought costume of a rabbit or she would throw a tantrum, she wasn’t skinny like Mo-Mo, so her costume would tear from the back side. Momma dressed the rest of us as hobos.

Mo-Mo used to wear special shoes to go to sleep in because she was pigeon-toed. She used to cry the shoes had a bar between them it was so uncomfortable for her.

Daddy’s screaming was hardest on Mo-Mo she would cry, and hide in the closet whenever the shouting would begin. She was always delicate, quiet and petite. Mo-Mo always had a quiet dignity about her, the rest of us were kind of loud and argumentative. Years later Mo-Mo told me she acted that way because she was scared.

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Momma used to tell us, “Whoever picks up their “hoof” first will get it. She wasn’t kidding, she spanked whoever hit first. She wasn’t going to have us being violent to each other, when daddy was already violent, and we weren’t.

None of us were over-weight, but Boi and Mo-Mo were thin. Boi and Mo-Mo would get slim pants, but she would buy Jimmy husky and me 6x. She would also get Missy a little extra room, not because we really needed it she wanted us to be able to wear the pants as long as possible. Momma and daddy used to lay our clothes away at Sears. She used to buy us shirts with Winnie-the-Pooh. Momma and daddy always bought us new clothes and a new pair of shoes when school started.

They would buy us our shoes at the Bootery, since they had shoes in sizes that were wide. The five of us had wide feet. I had a EE even when I was little, I wasn’t over-weight I just had wide feet, like a duck’s. Going to the shoe store in the 70’s a clerk would measure our foot, with a device, called a Brannock device. The clerk would go to the back of the store and bring out boxes with shoes.

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Daddy used to take us to the junk yard he was always looking for parts for his turquoise colored Sanford and Son pick-up.

One afternoon, we were at the junkyard momma was in the pick-up with us she had given us some treats to eat. Missy ate a donut, and she left the smallest piece of her donut, and said she wanted a Hostess pie instead.

Momma said, “You don’t want to be a pig?”

Missy replied, “I wanna be a pig.”

We used to ride in the back of daddy’s pick up in the summers. Momma and daddy sat in the front with Missy and Mo-Mo. Me, Boi and Jimmy always sat in the back. We weren’t restricted with seat belts, and the wind would be blowing through our hair and faces. It made me feel really alive I could feel every turn the pick-up made.

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Momma used to have us in line that was one thing daddy admired about her. Years later he told me so. We used to sit on the table for breakfast, lunch in the summers, and dinner. Momma would cook us all the same thing, one egg for the girls and two for the boys, one piece of toast, and Donald Duck frozen orange juice or Tang. I don’t know how momma made the food stretch she didn’t used to eat very much. She would make spaghetti from the Chef Boyardee box. Momma used to make us frozen Banquet chicken. We used to watch Sanford and Son with chicken on Friday nights. Daddy would come home with his paycheck, no ATM it was to the bank to cash it. No direct deposit. It was a big deal.

Fast food was a treat not something we ate every day or every other day, momma and daddy would get us the tiny mugs of root-beer at A & W’s. I later discovered they were free. McDonalds’ was a rare treat, and so was Me-n-Ed’s. I don’t know how we all shared a large pepperoni, but we did.

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The kids used to have parades when one of them sat on the toilet. Jimmy, Mo-Mo and Missy they were the three youngest. They would march through the bathroom entertaining the one who was sitting on the toilet at the time.

They used to show-case their “under-roos”, under-wear of super heroes they sold in the 70’s for children.

“Under-under-under roos.” is what they used to sing while they were in their underwear.

Daddy used to laugh at Mo-Mo’s pronunciation of words. Momma would say “Ka-ka, cat.” Mo-Mo would respond by saying “Ka-ka, dog”. She used to walk down the hall with her hands behind her back, hunched over, and scrunch her nose, and make a face.

Mo-Mo used to walk on her “pitty toes”, her tippy toes. But that is how she pronounced it.

Missy had an imaginary friend she called “Michael” She used to love to hear the song “Playground in my Mind”.

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Before we would go into a store, momma had to make something perfectly clear none of us were to ask for anything while in the store. We could look, but not ask for anything. As momma was going to buy something in particular, in the grocery store usually eggs, bread, or milk. We only went grocery shopping when daddy would get paid.

I delighted in looking at the tinker bell make-up for little girls, the powder, the perfume, and lipstick. I never asked momma to buy me anything. Usually she only bought the two little ones, a coloring book. If we misbehaved in the store, momma used to pinch us in the arm. With four children circling her and Missy in the shopping cart, this is how it had to be. Momma was on a budget.

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Jimmy used to come to my bed at night because Boi wouldn’t let him sleep with him when he was scared. I remember I used to lift up my blanket for him. I was motherly towards my siblings.

Whenever Boi would pass me in the hallway, he would punch me hard in the arm. I should have told momma, but I didn’t want her to spank him. I used to snitch on my brothers, I would ask momma when she came home, “If the boys were throwing the ball in the hallway should I tell on them?” I think, subconsciously I wanted Boi to get in trouble.

One Christmas Boi made a hole in his Christmas present when momma asked if he had done it, he lied and said no. Momma and daddy immediately thought it was Jimmy and whipped him. Jimmy didn’t say he didn’t do it. But I always felt Boi shouldn’t have let Jimmy get spanked. Even when momma and daddy found out Boi had done it they didn’t spank him.

At Christmas time, I used to hear the hoofs of reindeer on top of the roof. Boi used to laugh at me. My younger siblings believed me, I believed it myself. I believed in Santa Claus until I was about 12 years old, when momma and daddy couldn’t afford presents for me and Boi from Santa Claus anymore.

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As kids we were imaginative, I would make up characters. It was about using our imagination, as we were kicked out of the house to go play in the back yard.

Jimmy, Mo-Mo and Missy and me would play “Mean Mama”. Mo-Mo was “Mean Mama,” Jimmy was Pecos the dog, Missy and I were the children of Mean Mama. She was nice, but whenever you would touch her, she turned mean. Years later I wondered what that was about. Mo-Mo would get into her role, she enjoyed being mean, chasing us around the backyard. She used to contort her face, to scare us.

At the time, our neighbors were the Pearson’s. Mr. and Mrs. Pearson reminded me of Archie and Edith Bunker. She used to ask him when he would come home, he would reply, “Expect me when you see me.”

We used to play with the three younger Pearson children. Tommy Pearson was a year older than Boi, Terry his sister, was two years older than Boi, and Darren was a year older than Jimmy. Darren was a big blonde kid, who could have been a special needs child. They also had two older sons, Larry and Ronny who were in high school.

Tommy, Terry, Boi and me used to go walking to buy fireworks at the end of the block, at the end of June when the stands were opened. We spent our allowance on sparklers.

Since we had a tree house, we made a club house, Terry was the Corporal she thought she was the highest ranking officer, Boi was a Captain, and I was the Sergeant. Naturally we excluded Darren and Jimmy since they were younger. Terry and Tommy wanted all of us to pay dues to meet in the tree house. Momma thought that was ridiculous since that was our tree house.

Terry used to like to carry Missy. Darren used to knock on the door and ask momma for a banana, “Do you have a nana Mrs. Duran?”

I enjoyed hanging around with Terry since she was about three years older than me. She liked Neil Diamond, and I loved Donny Osmond. She would have been the closest I would have had to having a big sister. She was tall and had straight sandy blonde hair.

Tommy and Boi were throwing pieces of wood at each other one afternoon, and he hit Boi on the head with one of the pieces that still had a nail hammered to it. Boi began bleeding immediately. Blood was scary back then we used to believe you would die if you bled too much.

There weren’t all of these violent shows on television, the crime shows were “Rockford Files” James Garner, “Cannon” William Conrad, “McMillan and wife” Rock Hudson, the original “Hawaii Five-O” Jack Lord, “Quincy” Jack Klugman, “Kojak, Telly Savalas, and the famous “Columbo” played by Peter Falk.

Scotty was our first dog, a Collie. Daddy broke his leg with a croquet stake when he got mad. We had to give Scotty away when we moved to Los Angeles for the summer. Shaggy was our second dog, he used to escape whenever the boys left the wooden fence door open. One day we found Shaggy dead, lying stiff in the backyard.

We had a crossing guard named Joe Fry that would walk us across Butler to school which was a large street. He was a retired old man, who wore the orange safety vest, and had the big red stop sign. We used to give him Valentine’s cards on Valentine’s Day. He made me feel safe, seeing him sit in a lawn chair in front of the corner house ready to walk us across the street.

When I was in the third grade I remember I had a beautiful black teacher in her early 30’s named Mrs. MacGalpine, she was my reading teacher. She used to sing, Minnie Ripperton’s “Lovin you” around the class. I never forgot her she had a soothing singing voice, and her voice gave me peace like a mother holding her child in her arms.

My home room teacher, Mrs. Zepeda was a horrible short white lady in her early 40’s who used to scream at us. Mrs. Garza our teacher’s aide used to have to be excused early or else she would have had a heart attack, that’s how bad, her screaming was. Which was really sad she was an older woman in her 60’s I used to want her to stay, I knew if she stayed Mrs. Zepeda wouldn’t dare scream at us.

“You’d better leave, then,” Mrs. Zepeda would tell Mrs. Garza, “I’m gonna scream at them.”

We grew up watching Gilligan’s Islands, Lost in Space and the Brady Bunch. Gilligan’s Islands and Lost in Space were already in re-runs, the Brady Bunch we would still watch at night.

Now they are all on DVD’s. But back then it was “sheer wonder” watching these magical shows and entering their universes as an escape from the reality we were all living. We were exhausted soldiers, searching for rest, T.V. provided what our hearts longed for, watching Gilligan mess up a rescue, watching Dr. Smith get into trouble, with Will and the robot by his side.

There were other shows The Brady Bunch, Hogan’s Heroes, Star Trek, the Partridge Family, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Family Affair, My Three Sons, Leave it to Beaver, and the Andy Griffith Show. I would hide myself in their worlds imagining myself in a place that didn’t hurt so much.

Momma and daddy allowed us to watch T.V. after school before we started our homework. There wasn’t a lot of homework in those days, not like today. Back then there was wonder children grew up with Opie, Will Robinson, Greg, Marcia, Jody, Buffy and Beaver.

There wasn’t talk about homosexuals or transgenders we were allowed our innocence. I didn’t even know what that was. The only thing that destroyed it was daddy hitting momma.

There were only a few channels, no cable T.V., Walter Cronkite was our anchor, and we trusted him. The Wonderful World of Disney was on Sunday nights at 7:00 p.m. showing the original Parent Trap or the Three Lives of Thomasina.

The whole society has been sexualized but watching T.V. back then I was allowed to escape to a world where I would be safe. This was important for a child whose eyes witnessed violence on an almost daily basis. I guess we suffered trauma. But the way we grew up it was normal, and watching Gilligan’s Island was so important, it balanced the pain, it kept it from swallowing me.

In 1973 momma went back to night school. She used to leave us with daddy in the evenings, the boys would play ball in the halls. Daddy would be on the phone even though he wasn’t supposed to be. Momma suspected even then that daddy was having an affair. Momma had dropped out of high school in the 11th grade, and lived with daddy and his family when they got married. It was tragic that momma hadn’t graduated when she was supposed to. She finally graduated in 1974 from Roosevelt the high school the five of us would graduate from. When momma graduated someone sang, “You make me feel brand new” by the Stylistics. This song stayed with me it gave momma a sense of self-worth at the time. Even then I could see the defeated and hurt look in her eyes. But momma never let herself cry in front of us, she said, she never saw Mama Tana cry. This song was a testament to the suffering she was going through.

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Donny Osmond was a big deal to me. He was the most beautiful teenager, and I wanted to marry him. I used to buy Tiger Beat magazines when Donny was on the cover. I bought my first magazine when I was 9, when momma was in line at the grocery store I took her the magazine not sure if she would let me have it, I hid it behind my back for awhile wondering how I would ask momma if she would buy it for me.

She said, “Aren’t you too young Matita?” “No momma” I said. Momma bought me the magazine.

She must have thought I was growing up. She was so used to buying me Archie comic books, I still wanted Archie comics I just wanted pictures of Donny too.

I absolutely loved Donny so I saved up my money to buy Donny and Marie’s album “I’m Leaving it all up to you” in 1974. I used to save my allowances in a sock, ever since robbers stole my raggedy Ann purse with my $8.00. Momma and daddy used to give me and Boi a $1.00 a week, for chores. My chores were folding the clothes when they came off of the clothes line, later the dryer, sweeping the kitchen, living room and halls which were hard wood, and making my bed. It also consisted of washing dishes once a week.

(On a ferry in the San Francisco Bay, 1975, left to right me, Boi with baseball helmet, Jimmy in front, Moe, and Missy with Micky Mouse sweatshirt.)

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I took my sock money to the store, to buy that album there were a few dollars in there, quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. I emptied the sock on the glass counter much to the chagrin of the clerk. The sock left the store deflated, but I had my album and walked out of the store with it pressed firmly against my chest.

Miss Hoffman, Mr. Courtwright’s aide taught us to dance the Hustle in 5th grade. The Hustle was the only dance I ever learned how to do. I don’t remember why Mr. Courtwright let her teach us the Hustle. She was a pretty light African-American who was in her early 20’s. She had these amazing dark eyes shaped like quarters, sometimes her brother who had those amazing eyes would stop by, and teach us to dance the “Hustle” too. ________________________________________

Momma and daddy owned a brown 1974 Chevrolet Impala with a white roof after the 1971 white Toyota station wagon was repossessed. Buying the Impala was a nightmare. We had to wait at the car dealership for hours, sitting in the lobby, beside the glass sliding doors. I thought everyone had to wait a long time to buy a car, now I realize it was because daddy’s credit was so bad.

When you are a kid certain things stick out in your mind until you are old. I'm nearly 60 now. Many of these people are dead. Teachers whose class you were only in one year, but who stayed with you a lifetime. Friends who moved away and you lost track of, but never forgot because they came at that special time of your life, the formative years known as childhood.

Its true life is a vapor. Years pass like sand in an hourglass, as humans our time is limited, moments are precious, the people in them are beyond price, and when we lose them the loss and grief are beyond comprehension.

(This blog was written a few years ago, taken from my Memoir, "RIB.")

"Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little while then vanishes away."

(James 4:14)

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

(1 Corinthians 13:11)