Stories of Me-The Early Years

My earliest memories begin in 1968 when I was two years old. They are mostly like snap shots or video shorts.  We lived in the town of Bodega, not to be confused with Bodega Bay on the coast. Bodega is about five miles inland. If you’ve seen Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” you might think them one and the same. Hitchcock artfully spliced the two towns together using the church and schoolhouse from the town of Bodega.

We rented a house on a farming property not far from those landmarks owned by a man named Pete. I recall him and another guy mucking stalls, shearing sheep and peeking over the fence at my mother nude sunbathing. Mom tried to get us all to do it which wasn’t a problem for me, as that was probably the last time in my life I wasn’t self-conscious. My two older sisters, Katie and Janeann, about nine and seven and a half respectively, were mortified and would roll up like pigs in a blanket.

We lived on Salmon Creek road just off the Bodega Highway. I remember walking to the little store on the highway to buy groceries. I had a big buggy, not a stroller, and the bags would ride with me. I didn’t mind, especially if I was lucky enough to get some Barnum’s Animal Crackers. I would keep the box and use it as a little purse, though I couldn’t tell you what I kept in it. Across the street from the store was a bar that served food and had a pool table. This was where I had my first Shirley Temple.

We had a cat named Pyewacket. I think he belonged to my Mom and was named after the cat from the movie Bell, Book and Candle with Kim Novak. Interestingly, the cat in the movie belonged to Novak and was, in fact, named Pyewacket. Our Pyewacket would sit on my chair with me at the dinner table and steal meat that had been cut for me off my plate!

I recall having a lot of freedom and playing with my sisters, who were always stuck with me. One day I was at the creek with my sister Janeann and she gave me a shoulder ride as she waded into the water. My feet were hanging down by her hips which were submerged, and Janey said, “watch out, crocodiles will bite your feet off!” I quickly tried to climb to the top of her head, not realizing that if there were crocodiles, they’d get her first.

Another vivid memory I have is waking up to a strange rumbling and asking my mother, who was looking out the window (not the best place to be in the circumstances) “what’s going on?” “An earthquake”, she replied. Having no idea what that meant, I promptly fell back asleep.

From Bodega, we moved back to Santa Rosa, where I was born, and into a house on Cherry street with my older sisters. I’m not sure who lived there first but I do remember Nancy the eldest being there for a while and my sister Holly of course. Holly was a waitress at a drug store lunch counter. If we were fortunate, we would make the trip to Coddingtown (then an open air mall) where she worked, and enjoy a basket of fries and a soda. I don’t recall ever having either to myself, we always shared.

I vaguely remember Thanksgiving dinner around a long table with more of my siblings then would ever assemble at my Mother’s table again. This may be unrelated, but baking pies requires flour and Holly came out of the kitchen and announced there were weasles in the flour! I didn’t know she was incorrect and it was weevils. That story has been told for years, even after Holly passed, it's a family classic!

I asked my eldest sister Nancy about her nickname for Holly. She called her weasel and I thought the story above might be the reason but it wasn’t! The nickname evolved from Holly’s middle name, Louise. Louise became Weezy (not uncommon) and eventually weasel. The weasel story was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with her nickname. It’s funny how nicknames evolve and change over time.

Holly could have starred in her own sitcom, a slightly less together version of the Mary Tyler Moore show. Many funny stories are the result of Holly’s antics that were the lighter side of an unhappy life. One evening she came home from work with some liver. She fed her cat Lambert some of the liver, proceeded to get snockered and locked the cat in our bedroom with the heat blasting. I awoke to the horrible sound of Lambert retching in my hair! My hair was washed several times. At that time, I was a total towhead but after the Lambert incident my hair never did look quite as blonde!

I enjoyed the attention of my sister’s friends, who thought I was cute and my sister Nancy’s friend CB was a particular favorite. She always picked me up and often gave me candy. When I saw her after the cat threw up in my hair, she picked me up and said my hair stunk. I was so mad, by this time I had heard that several times, I slapped her face. We all have a temper in my family but most of us have learned to manage it.

We moved to 507 South E street next. I believe I was four, nearly five when we moved. I have a lot of memories from this time. Exploring with my sisters. Eating wild blackberries from the bush. Taking our galvanized wash tub and floating in the Santa Rosa Creek. At this point, I just enjoyed the freedom of being a kid. We were what is now termed ‘free range”. Some of it was parenting norms of the time but much of it was neglect. I was blissfully unaware of any of this at the time.

I had the good fortune of my older siblings, with Katie and Janeann (12 and 10 respectively) as my primary caregivers and my sister Holly when she wasn’t working and before she became a Mom. Janeann was almost always the instigator. Coming up with plans, experiments and ways to spend our days when we weren’t in school. I was often the subject of these experiments. From trying to roller skate on a frozen puddle (we had no ice skates and the strap on metal roller skates that didn’t really roll were the tools of the time). To coercing me into pulling my first tooth out before it was ready, along with a chunk of gum tissue. There were many times I was on the less fun side of Janey’s creative mind.

I remember vividly the day I became a co-conspirator and not the subject! We had a rope swing. I have no idea how it got there or who put it up, possibly my brother Thomas. Janey thought it would be fun to cut the rope to a thread and see what happened when Katie started swinging. I was so excited to be on the other end of the experiment, it never occurred to me that someone might get hurt. So, I held the rope, Janeann cut it, and Katie swung. The rope broke and launched Katie mid-swing. Miraculously, she was unhurt and we all laughed!

You may be thinking that we are all twisted and you might be right. But this was about 1971 and there were maybe three tv stations, minimal children’s programming and a pretty consistent edict to “go outside and play”. We made our own fun and it wasn’t always nice but we all lived to tell the stories.

My sisters were my best friends, even though we were sometimes foes. When I managed to somehow step on a board with a nail in it, piercing my foot to the point of seeing the nailhead poking through the skin at top of my foot, it was my sister Janeann that pulled it out and helped me get to the house. My mom told me to put peroxide on it (she did not administer) and take a nap. It’s funny when you think about current parenting and the proliferation of urgent care, but somehow I survived!