This is a re-post from last November and last Fathers Day. and, once more, it has not been edited.
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My mother married my father, Willis O'Brien, Jr. in 1941 at St Brendan's Catholic Church on the corner of Rockaway Avenue and Ulloa Street in the Laguna Honda neighborhood of San Francisco. My Uncle Bob was best man and had to break regulations to wear his tux. He'd joined the Naval Reserve out of high school and had been called to active duty because of the national emergency. The war hadn't started yet, but obviously some preparations had begun. At least that's what I've been told.
I don't know if there was a honeymoon or not. They moved to Martinez where they had an apartment about three blocks from the train station. My father worked in Benicia... and the war started... and he either enlisted or was drafted in the Army. Officially he was in the USAAF. That would later be the Air Force. Somehow he and my mom spent enough time together so I came along. He shipped out to India in September 1943 as a Sergeant. His unit was deemed critical and in February 1944 was being flown over the mountains into China in a converted B-25, when the plane crashed into the side of a mountain in the fog.
That's about all I really know about my father, other than he may have been a saint and he may have been younger than mom.
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So here's this idyllic life for a kid. Mom and I live on the top floor of the apartment building. My aunt and cousin live in the apartment next door. Two widow ladies, Mrs. Caroll and Mrs. White live on the floor below, and My great grandmother lives on the ground floor. My mother's Uncle Jim has the other ground floor apartment. It all seemed perfectly normal to me. Oh yeah, the best part was Golden Gate Park was one block away.
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It didn't last. Gram Thompson was ancient and unwell and had to be moved. My Uncle had returned from the war and had moved his family to Marin County. The apartment building had to be sold to facilitate the care my great grandmother needed. We remained for awhile. But the new owner of the building, Mr. Zuckerman, was a peculiar man. My mother couldn't wait to move. By that time I'd started school and she'd returned to work at the company where she had been employed before she married and before I was born. Anyway she had managed to put together enough money for a down payment and was earning enough to buy a house. It would also mean I didn't have to ride the city bus to school any longer. It also meant I had my own room, instead of a corner of the dining room.
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Maybe I forgot to mention that somewhere along the line I had come to realize that our situation was kind of unique. There wasn't a father in our house. I'm told I made numerous attempts to rectify that in conversations with repairmen and deliverymen, even to the point of telling them where they would sleep.
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So we'd moved to this house, ideally located right behind a fire house and four block from the parochial school I attended. Meanwhile mom's friends were plotting. Some were actually setting her up. She met this guy, Ev. That's short for Evert. He was from Oakland, the only offspring of Swedish immigrants. He was older than mom and was bald. I didn't hold any of that, particularly the part about being from Oakland, against him. Maybe because he brought me comic books? He was widowed, with a son my age... actually he's older by six months (the son, not Ev), but it's not relevant to this story. Ev and mom dated a bunch of times and they introduced his son, now commonly called
who's that sleeping in the chair Niles, to me. We all got along pretty good and the next thing I knew mom was saying that Ev had asked her to marry him. What did I think. Well for cryin' out loud, it's about time. I was almost eight years old and ready to start the second grade again. So Niles went off to his grandparent's, I went off to mine, and mom and Ev got married and spent the weekend moving all of their stuff, his from Oakland, ours from SF, to Menlo Park and the biggest freakin' house I could imagine one family could live in.
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And my mom wasn't going to have to work any more!
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So every week day, unless Ev drove, mom took him to catch the train early in the morning and picked him up at 6:00pm. Every single day. Then she'd come home, and roust us out of bed, and make sure we had breakfast, and were properly dressed for the current weather conditions, and were away from the house in time to catch the school bus, which depending on what grade we were in, stopped somewhere withing five blocks of the house.
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I guess I may as well mention that I can't ever remember calling Ev anything but dad until sometime in the '80s, when I started calling him “Pop.” Why I changed I couldn't say. So I may as well revert and call him dad.
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Dad was a pretty handy guy to have around. His father had been a builder and had managed to teach him a lot of what it takes to construct stuff. When you consider that dad had a desk job in a real office, that's pretty amazing. What dad didn't know about construction, he had friends who did, or they could get you a really good deal on frozen food. We had a really huge freezer in the garage, but still had to rent a frozen food locker because he got such great deals. I think dad's motto was, “Can we get this wholesale?”
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We were a church-going family, mom and I to the Catholic church, dad and Niles to the Lutheran church... same catechism, slightly different philosophy. One of us was even devout (that would be 25% of us).
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The following summer we took our first family vacation together. Dad had been priming us for almost a year about how great the Trinity Alps are. About the ride into Granite Lake on horseback and living in a tent for a week. What he didn't tell us was about the drive from where we lived to Trinity Center, where the packer was. He also didn't mention the car would be packed full of everything we'd need for a weeks and that passenger comfort was not in the cards. Nor did he mention the temperatures in the Sacramento Valley reached 110°. Back then there were no freeways. In fact most of the trip was on two lane highway. It was exciting when dad decided he needed to pass a truck, which was often.
It took two days to get to Trinity Center. Dad knew a shortcut.
He was right about how marvelous the Trinity Alps are. The fishing was great and mom did a fantastic job preparing three meals a day and keeping the campsite straightened up.
When we got home from the pack trip it was time for the nine year olds to learn how to paint a house. We were already learning about landscaping, raking leaves, pulling weeds, and how to operate a push mower (you know, no engine). I was learning that, while big houses are nice, apartment living has some advantages. The putty knives, sand paper, sponges, TSP, buckets, drop cloths, bushes and paint all came out while we spent the remaining three weeks of dad's vacation painting the house... the exact same colors it already was.
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The next Christmas we got a dog. Smoky was a Cocker Spaniel. He was about ten months old when we got him and his first act was to pee on the living room rug. He was never allowed beyond the kitchen again and only allowed inside on special occasions.
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The next summer we stayed home. My oldest sister (yeah I know she's ten years younger) was born. At the time I thought that was the best birthday present ever. Nothing's changed my mind. We didn't exactly stay home. Niles went to his grandparent's farm. I went to my grandparent's apartment. The farm seemed like a better option because although neither pair of grandparents had televisions, the farm was bigger, with more stuff to do. Though my grandfather and I did manage to escape periodically for a game of catch and to listen to a game on the radio.
Meanwhile dad was transforming the back yard. When we moved in, the front was already landscaped. In back there was a patio and a small lawn. There was little else. It was a great place to play. Dad's first move was to build a garden shed near one end of the yard. The shed was huge by today's garden shed standards, about 160 sq. feet, with a sliding 4 foot door and slab floor. Then he built a seven foot high basket weave fence to enclose the shed and end of the yard. When Niles and I came home we got to help. “Here, hold this board. Hand me that hammer. Darn you, kid” We learned lots of stuff.
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Dad always had something for us to do. We learned a lot about selling stuff. The only reason we didn't sell more Scout-o-Rama tickets when we were scouts was because there weren't any more. When the troop sold candy to help finance trips to scout camp, others would sell like ten units, we'd sell like ten cases... each. The following year when the troop decided not to sell the candy, dad got it anyway and we went out on our own and sold it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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I don't know where my folks sent my sister, but we went on another pack trip. This time dad borrowed a roof rack for the car so there was a little more room for passengers. We left in the evening to avoid the heat of the Sacramento Valley and we made the trip in one day even though we still took the shortcut.
I should mention here that dad learned of the shortcut some 25 years before he actually ever drove it. In the meantime new roads had been built in the area, which made the shortcut unnecessary and superfluous.
One of the really great things about packing in to Granite Lake in the Trinity Alps is that more often than not there is nobody else there and even when there is the campsites are far enough apart to give all the privacy anyone could want. This year arrangements were made to divide up the duties in camp. Mom would still cook, but only breakfast and dinner. Everyone was on their own for lunch. Niles and I were responsible for keeping up the water supply, policing the campsite and gathering firewood for the evening campfire. We had a camp stove for cooking. This year we'd also brought old clothes that we didn't necessarily have to pack back out.
The packer screwed up. There was another couple camping around the lake from us who were due to leave the day after us. Unfortunately, the packer mixed things up and only brought enough horses for them. They weren't ready to leave. So we packed some non-essentials and sent off. He'd be back the next day for all of us. It rained that night. Actually it was snowing only a little further away. We were at the 6000 foot elevation. Niles and I learned some new words. It was another fun trip.
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We didn't go again the next year. We got another sister instead and we both went to stay on the farm... for the first and only time. It had nothing to do with how we behaved and everything to do with the haircuts we came home with.
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The next year my mom stayed home with my sisters and dad, Niles and I planned a backpacking trip that would cover about 110 miles of the Trinity Alps Wilderness. We were going to see a lot more than Granite Lake. The week before we were to go, while at Scout camp, I got a stomach bug and couldn't hold anything down, even water. To make matters worse, we were actually away from the camp on an overnight camp out and I had to hike back. As bad as I felt, I made it. We put off the start of our backpacking trip for a day and headed for Trinity Center, sleeping in the car when we arrived.
This was back long enough ago that the Trinity Dam had not yet been built so the north fork of the Trinity River was still free flowing and there were still lots of spots available for car camping.
We got up early in the morning and found our way to Scott's Ranch to park the car and eat breakfast before we started the first hiking leg of our trip. It turned out I wasn't entirely back to full strength from my bout with the stomach bug. Somewhere around a little more then a mile from where we'd planned to camp I ran out of gas. Worse, it was getting dark and looked lilke it might rain. Dad muttered some more new words and told me to stay put. He then blustered off to the campsite, dropped his pack, had Niles start setting up, and started back to where I was told to wait. By that time I'd become a little more energized and started to move again and met him on the trail. He grabbed my pack, which was about 35 lbs compared to the 60 plus lbs he'd been lugging. He was happy to see me moving, but unhappy I hadn't entirely followed instructions. I think I heard a “darn you kid.”
To say dad was volatile would be an oversimplification. Most of the time, like more than 95%, he was really pretty even. When he blew up, you'd have thought the roof came down. It got loud and the air turned blue... for a few minutes. Then, if you hadn't been there, you wouldn't have known anything happened.
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Our hiking trip was one of those disaster of the day things. Fortunately, they usually involved little things, like wet boots. We made it without any major mishaps.
Dad must have had a really good time because he would still bring it up 40 years later.
That was when we finally found out how to avoid the shortcut and save about 20 miles and 45 minutes.
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By this time both my brother and I had paper routes with the local daily and were able to finance pretty much whatever our folks decided we wanted to do. Grandparents were pretty good about adding to the kitty. What I'm saying is that if the adults thought something was a good idea, then we automatically bought in without being consulted. They were probably right.
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Dad was all about family loyalty, at least if you were from the same household. Not that Niles and I didn't have our moments. One time he pissed me off so bad that I emptied a drawer full off hammers... and an axe... at him. Fortunately I missed. But let anyone from outside the family threaten and we had one anothers back. Not that we ever ganged up on anyone. We just didn't let anyone gang up on us. Much later some of that worked to my benefit. As my brother went through school a year ahead of me, he had to handle himself in a few altercations. He always prevailed. Others knew that neither he nor I could dominate the other, so I was seldom challenged.
On one particular occasion I'd had some issue with a group of kids on my paper route that caused me to get home late for dinner. Immediately after we ate, dad grabbed me and we went to each of the homes of these kids and confronted them and their parents about whatever happened. It was cool, if sometimes embarrassing, to have him on your side.
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Then there was high school. About the only way he involved himself in our high school activities was to monitor our grades, which, in my case, almost weren't good enough to get me out of high school. It took the threat of summer school after my senior year to get me the grade I needed. The teach was threatened that I would probably be in his summer school class if I didn't get a passing grade.
The best part about dad's non-involvement was when I started needing written excuses for missing class (the one I almost failed), I could have another student write it and sign his name. Of course if anyone had aver seen his handwriting... he had perfect penmanship... they'd have known immediately.
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Around home it was still a learning opportunity, particularly since I was grounded most of the time because of grades. He taught me how to cut bricks using a hammer and chisel so we could build a radius in brick path around an oak tree in the back yard. I learned how to mix concrete; how to install a window pane; how to build concrete forms for meandering path around the back lawn; and how to get up early enough in the morning to escape any number of other opportunities.
When I went into the Navy, exactly a week after graduation, there was some time to kill before leaving SF for San Diego. The buddy who joined up with me and I went to dad's office and he took us to lunch. He also brought my mom, grandmother and sisters to the train station in Palo Alto when the train stopped that night. So there was one of those tearful good-byes that you only get to see in movies or on the news. I wasn't even leaving California... for cryin' out loud!
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Three months later I was almost back home. I was sent for further training to Treasure Island in San Francisco. We had time off every weekend. I was home almost every weekend. I learned how to increase the size of a patio 100%. I also learned how to keep the concrete coming down the shoot from a concrete truck from dumping over onto its side.
It's funny, the patio job was started in the fall of 1961. It wasn't finished until 1965... after I was home for good.
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I lived at my folks, while attending college, for almost two years after the Navy. It saved me some money... there wasn't any GI Bill then... and it was handy for them to have another adult around, not to mention that I was another tax deduction because I was a full time student living at home. I worked nights and weekends part-time. I helped with project around the house when I could. Like the roof job: the house had a cedar shake roof that had been there for almost 20 years and was beginning to suffer for it. Dad got this linseed oil concoction that was sprayed on with a pump sprayer after the shakes were scrubbed down with a wire brush. I think that alone paid the rent.
On spring break my first year in college a friend and I went to Lake Tahoe for a couple of days. It was April and there was still a lot of snow. In fact, it had snowed on our drive up and we'd had to put chains on my car. Anyhow we decided we had to go play in the snow and we had a tobbogan. To make a long story short, I broke my left leg and tore the ligaments that keep the foot from flopping to the side. It required surgery and maybe someday I'll tell the whole broken leg story. So the little vacation was cut short.
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Dad hated cats. Well he definitely didn't want them around... at all. That is until a new family moved into the house behind my folks. They had two cats. Siamese cats. A male and a female. The female was shy and seldom seen. The male was the lord of the neighborhood. Even dogs would think twice about messing with him. Somehow this cat got around dad's “There'll be no cats” declaration and it was decided the family would have a cat. Not just any cat, it would have to be a Siamese. So the neighbor's male was put together with someone's female to breed and the outcome was an undersized male Siamese. As the owners of the male, the neighbors were entitled to the pick of the litter, or in this case the entire litter. The kitten was the same coloring, except for the points, as my folks carpeting, which was called martini, so he was named Martini.
Now we have to back up here just a little to mention that the cat acquisition occurred while I was still in the Navy.
So about a month after Martini moved in Mom was chaperoning a bunch of fifth graders at the roller skating rink and took a nasty fall, breaking both of her wrists. She was incapacitated. Heck she was in the hospital for a week. Someone was needed to look after my sisters so dad could go to work. My grandmother was drafted for the task. What did it matter that she was about 80 years old and still used an oven to toast bread? Grandma was a great target for the cat to practice stalking. Poor Grandma. I was scheduled to come home for the weekend to take to exams before starting college. My buddy, Smitty, came along, too. He was taking the same tests. We were not a good influence on the cat. We taught it how to get on top of doors so it could swat at people walking by. Sometime around this time the cat acquired a new name, Spike. When I came home permanently I became his, much to the chagrin of my sisters. Dad was next in line as one of Spike's favorites, then whoever fed him. Spike was also good friends with his sire. They actually followed one another around.
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So after I came home from surgery on my torn ligaments, Spike guarded my well-being, perching on my full-leg cast like it was a tree branch. There was no danger I would roll over on him by accident.
That summer my folks were taking my sisters to Europe. In fact, mom and the girls were staying all summer. Dad was coming home after six weeks. Somehow I was supposed to manage on my own. And I did, too. Except for one minor thing. Spike had some fleas. Spike got into the part of the house with carpet. The house got fleas. Dad came home and the first task was to rid the house ...and the cat of fleas. The house part was relatively easy. A house won't fight back. Spike was another story. It was a bonding experience for dad and I. All we were trying to do was powder the silly cat. You'd have thought we were trying to stuff him in a burlap sack.
After some time we were able to laugh about it.
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Some years later, after he retired, I talked dad into playing on the same softball team as me. This was after I had stopped playing fast pitch. We convinced him he could pitch and even got him a five gallon bucket so he could practice lobbing those slow pitches. He could hit the ball pretty well. It was a good thing because he needed a lot of time to get to first base. My mom and sisters used to come out to watch the games. In fact after they started attending, other players families would come, too. We had a reasonably large cheering section.
One time, when I was catching, I chased a fly ball into foul territory. As I approached the opposing team's on-deck circle, I ran into the bat held by the on-deck hitter and dropped like a rock. Dad was there before anyone else. Later I asked why he didn't run like that when he was on the bases.
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This post has nothing to do with Fathers Day and everything to do with what would have been a 103rd birthday. Ev passed away on November 22, 1999, the day before his 90th birthday. We may pick up this story again.
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I like this post so much it may become an annual or semi-annual tribute. I may even finish it some day.
wouldn't you think this
would've been edited the
second time it was posted?
