Day 2 Day radishes

October 30/ Berkeley and the 60's

Someone once told Ernest Hemingway that to begin to write, just write one true sentence a day.

My sentence is the following. Crowd mentality is alarming. People who are normally sane become insane. I was in Berkeley just before the big riots on campus. We lived two blocks from Sather Gate. I walked to my work place just inside the gate at Sproul Hall, the Administration Office.

It was at this time that Mario Savio founded the Free Speech Movement. He was at the gate ranting, and there were Black Panthers who greatly intimidated me. One day while I was working at the Admissions Office, Mario, some Black Panthers and students, but mostly non students came and surrounded the building closing off the entrances. The Police were there, and I mainly remember how mad and frightened my coworkers were. This was 44 years ago and I have forgotten a lot of the details.

But what I do remember vividly is the civil unrest, mainly of young people who were not students. They wanted to destroy the businesses on Telegraph Ave. One day Mr. Radish and a friend made what was to be a quick trip to the mom/pop grocery store on Telegraph Ave. We found what little we wanted, and then got in the checker line. In front of me was a hippie/dippie young man and woman. In their cart was all of the tiny items in the store. Those were things like razor blades that had to be checked separately. Chap lipstick, cigarettes, gum etc. They had a whole cart filled with small items.

This man and woman were in front of me, and people crowded behind me and beside me. I was trapped. The young clerk patiently rung each piece up on the cash register. And this took quite a long time. Finally the clerk finished. And the young man then said, “I do not want any of this stuff.” The clerk was dumfounded. “It will take an afternoon to reshelf these goods,” she said.

Meanwhile I could not escape. My husband couldn’t move, nor our friend. Then I went into a screaming fit of amazing filthy language, which has only been surpassed by child birth old style. I think the police showed up; I really do not remember how I got out. But I remember the feeling of trapped panic there in the crowd. The regular customers where outraged, and the Free Speechers were smug. “Smug” never sits well with me.

I am for John McCain, and I approve of this message.

July 17/ Skin

Perhaps you have seen my images of the 4^th of July several posts ago. You will see my young friend Rob who was the photographer of the party, the real photographer. Between jobs Rob has taken up photography with real energy. It shows. His skills are improving at great speed. Unlike me, Rob tries to take real images that the photographed will like, and he will be proud of. He crops, retouches, whatever. He is a Photoshop master.

Several days after the party, he had his photos up on the web, and our July Fourth party was on the site. My daughter called to say that they were ready and uploaded. She called again to see if I had seen the pictures. I had not. She said that Rob wanted to know if I really liked my skin. Frankly, I thought that was a silly question, plus a little invasive. No, I really don’t like my skin, but my skin is better than most my age, and it is also what I have. But as things go, it is a better part of my body. “Mom, really look at the pictures”, Margaret repeated

Two days later I looked at the pictures. There I am. A close-up. And I have perfect skin. My skin is even, unwrinkled, with no large pores and the color is uniform. I regret that I did not put on makeup. But I love my skin.

June 3, 2008/ apricots

No food porn here for me. Recently on my blog and NoName’s blog

www.expatprincess.wordpress.com

, the subject of food fights have been discussed. Yesterday I was in Costco and came across a flat of apricots which looked pretty good. And I would know what a good apricot looks and tastes like, because as a teenager I lived in the heart of apricot country. All of the orchards have long ago been cut down for the upscale homes of Los Altos. We had apricot trees at both homes where we lived. The first home had way too much for us to consume, and we had pickers to whom we would sell our small crop. Then when I become around 14 and 15, I could “cut cots”. Kids would get hired on to cut the apricots in half, and lay them out on large trays to be treated and dried.

Only teenagers did this work. I think we got paid by the lugs that we cut. It was summer and it was always a little over warm. We bought our sack lunches and sat in groups separated by sex and we felt lucky to have a part time summer job. Then in the after noon as it got hotter and we more bored and tired, the apricot fights would start. Some hard cots were thrown, but the best were the gushy over ripe fruit.

Only people who have had apricot trees in warm climates would know how good apricots really are. One would never know from the supermarket. They are sweet, so sweet. But they do not have a long shelf life if they have been picked at peak flavor. Suddenly they move to mush. And the word that comes to mind from that time is plop. The apricot does not explode, but it plops and it is the same sound of something falling into water. But in this case, if it is cast at someone, the gush goes everywhere including our hair. I was a terrible shot, and a sissy, so I did not get the worst of it, as I was no fun to throw at. But I always did have to go home and shampoo.

The Costco apricots were better than average. Go get them.

November 30/my sister

The weather is warming, and we think we can dig out of here. More like we can get our you know whats, up the hill, with a suitcase to the car.  My kid sister's sixtieth birthday is on Saturday. Who knows, I might cook her dinner.   In any case, we will be together, will bicker and will have a many,many laughs.  We drive our families crazy.

I am not taking my computer, so the blog is off until probably early next week. 

Mary Katherine may put in a blog in my absence.  Today she is raising money for the children in the favelas.  Please wish her well.
 

November 3/Ford Phaeton

This looks to me like Bunt's car.  It is the green one.  Check out his comment here.

November 3/October 25 revisted

If someone lets me know how to refer back to something I have written earlier, I would appreciate the help.

In any case, on October 25, there is a commenter named Bunt.  Bunt was the first guy I dated with a car.  Bunt and his wife, my good high school friend Ann,did not attend the reunion.  They live in a historic fishing shack in Maui.  Apparently, I guess, I know, that they always put on a big Halloween costume party and then they enter into a town costume competition, which they always win.  This reunion came too close to the party for them to come.  But at last I can tell their 2006 costume: Traffic Jam.  I hope I am sent a picture, as this couple is so outrageous that it would not have surprised me if they had put raspberry jam all over their bodies and glued hot wheels to themselves.

Bunt suggests that maybe I do not remember things correctly. Do you think?  And certainly I was not insecure or anything like that.  I was mortified when Bunt came to the house.  My father, and I know this to be true, asked him what kind of a "Governor" he had on his car.  My dad really liked Bunt's car, which was like an old convertible my dad had courted my mother. Bunt was very cool with my father. My father with Bunt.  When we left, my Mother and Father, 2 brothers and sister walked us out to the car, and just as Bunt was courteously opening up the door for me, my five year old brother asked Bunt, if he was going to kiss me.

Aside from the fact that I can't remember where my keys are , and where I last put my glasses, do you think I might have chosen to remove this incident from my high school memory bank, and put my own spin on this?  God, why did my father have to say that about the necking, if he ever did.  I never recovered from getting out the door. 

I think it might have been a 1936 Ford Phaeton. All I remember is that the car had no floor boards and you had to really look for a place to put your feet.  It was a strange feeling seeing the street pass by below. 

October 31/Reunion 4

For me, there was a little unfinished business from high school.  In my school, aside from the white majority, there were groups of Japanese and Mexicans and three negros.  There was none of this poitical correctness of today.  No Japanese-American, or Mexican-Americans.  The term "black" came  later.

World War II permiated everything when we were very little.  Although the fighting was elsewhere, there was no escaping it.  Your father was gone, and your mother was holding down the fort, and cried. Your friend's father died leaving three children.   At the very best, there was sugar, gasoline, and dry goods rationing. You kept your house dark at night in case there were bombers.

It was a long time before I knew that the Japanese were in relocation camps during the war.  I think the way I found out was reading a book around the age of twelve about teenaged German boys in camps in the United States and Canada. This should have been a clue that the Japanese were in camps also.  I do not know when I found out for sure, but years later someone from my class said,"Everyone knew, you chose not to."

I remember there being more Japanese  males than Japanese females.  The guys were sort of  in a pack, except for about two.  A girl would never at that time, well not this girl, go up and say I really want to know you better.  But there was fortunately,this miracle of "school."  Everyone was mixed up in classes, especially if you were in college prep.  I think English class was the best class for observing others. Teachers asked you questions and you were forced to speak.    You would come into class, throw down your books,  plop yourself down at your desk, and make some crack to the person next to you. Everyone became friends or enemies that way; nothing changed when my daughters went to school.

I do not think that the Japanese kids knew how much we all liked them.  Maybe their fathers did not want them trucking with us. Who knows? I think for the guys, sports was a common denominator. my friends would  go ugh, if we heard that boys or girls were not coming to a dance.  We felt that they took a vote whether they would be coming or not.  All for one and one for all sort of thing. . . I think the short boy club also took a vote. We liked them too.

These same guys have come to reunions, I think, still voting if they  are going to all come or not. They would sit with their  wives together at tables with no chance for intermingling.  However this reunion was  different. Everyone mixed. 

Very pretty wives were introduced with pride.  Wives were gracious and happy to be there.  They enjoyed me as I enjoyed them.  I could have talked at length with one particular  woman, about cooking. I stated, with pride, that I could make dashi. My husband talked to one man who had roomed with a friend of his in Law School. I stood by one man who had sat next to me in class. He was one of the few men at the party who was still short. This man beamed and announced that he had married at 50.  He married the widow of his best friend. He pointed to her, and there she was this beautiful, tall, blond.

For me, we were, at last, truly integrated.
 

October 28/High school date

I just finished talking to my thirty five year old daughter. During the conversation I asked her how she liked the last blog about Mountain View.  She said, "It was nice, thank you, but get on with the high school boyfriends."

My husband, who I met in my sophomore year of college, was without a doubt my best boyfriend, and he is still my best friend today.  But he thinks I was a little snotty back then.  Hum! He tells the story about how he took me out on our first date to the theater, which took his hard earned money, and when  we got there, I said, "I have already seen it." I tell you this to show that I may not have always been the perfect date.  For several  years after that, we dated each other only when we had no one better. Eventually we decided we liked each other. 

I wish that I could pass on to my granddaughters what I know with hindsight, how nice the few boys I dated in high school really were.  We laughed a lot.  So I must have had a sense of humor then, but for sure they did. What gentlemen! On a scale of 1 to 10, I was a five/six.  Contrary to commentors on this blog, I did become a Cheerleader. But I did not have this aura of sexuality. I wouldn't say that I was an ice princess, but. . . .you get the idea. My father was a formidable man, and he greeted each date, which got fewer and fewer, with his little speech about cars, etc.  After the first one,he really did not need to do this, as my father's presence went before me. 

The boys I dated were not on the football team, or the Jimmy Dean bad boy types, although one was on the baseball team.  The boys I dated in high school were fun, they were mostly funny, and smart in one way or another.  I don't want to mention the word "geek" here,  but now that Geek has become fashionable, and also I have come to intimately know the GEEK SQUAD, at BEST BUY, I think I can say the word.

I dated Mr. Printed shirt only once .  He was not a geek. But he wins the prize for being the ultimate gentleman.  This date was problematic in that Mr. Printed Shirt was Japanese American.  I was looking forward to the actual date, but first he had to meet my father.  My father was at the Battle of Okinawa, where the ships on both sides of him sank. My father was still saying things like, "Dirty Japs."  My father told M. Printed that I had to be home at midnight.  We went to San Franciso to a  night club that played jazz, and the music was just getting going at midnight.  But home was an hour away,  which meant we had to leave at eleven.   Here is a guy who had spent a lot of money to buy me dinner, and leave at eleven. But at eleven, he looked at his watch and said it was time to go. He did not complain, make excuses, or make a joke. And no one else did either.  He had that sort of presence.

I  had a wonderful time. Probably the most adult date to that point. While quiet, he discussed topics of substance.  My father was awake and he asked if I had a good time.  I said to him, "You should be so lucky as to have me date someone like him all the time." And I went to bed.   

So to my granddaughters I say, give a little thought to the guys hanging in the wings, with a good sense of humor, who are smart and nice.  Don't be too quick to pass them over. 

October 27/Mountain View

Mountain View, the city, had a stigma of being a lesser town, a place where history had come and gone.  The only good thing going for it was the High School and Penney's.

Origionally, the area was beautiful with rolling golden hills with the live Oaks, and when I was young, you could see hillsides of California poppies in the spring.   San Francisco Bay stretched down nearly to San Jose.  The bay was clear, and ditto the air. A Mr. Henry Rengstorff, from Germany,came to enter the Gold Rush, but arrived in San Francisco a little too late.  He sailed the bay from San Francisco to Alviso,( a place where in high school we regarded, metephorically,the dump of  the world) saved his money, and started buying land.  At that time there were actually small ports. Rengstorff then raised cattle in San Mateo,harvested grain and hay near Milpitas, and planted fruit trees in Los Altos. He planted Italian plum and apricots.  When the apricots were in bloom, it was a beautiful sight, much like here, where I live, and the snow geese take flight.  You would be hard pressed to find an apricot tree now.  The orchards have been replaced by homes. The San Francisco Bay, at the San Jose end became very pollluted and unnavicable, partly  because of Morton Salt Company across the bay.

I am unsure when the City of San Francisco started sending their garbage to Mountain View mud flats, but send they did. This meant that there was a lot of garbage in Mountain View, a city with not much going for it.  I do not know much about the reclaiming of the Bay.  However, Morton Salt started to clean up their act; the garbage was leveled and molded on the mud flat on the Rengstorff property,  then allowed to compact for a while, covered with dirt, the inlets filled in with water,and Voila, there was a park with golf course and a well known amphitheator, and several restaurants and boat rentals. And the Bay is cleaner.   This is where our reunion was held. I love full circle stories.

This is addendum was furnished by George, our host, and  I hope I have this correct.  When the garbage was covered over, this left methane underground which would seep up through the grass on the golf course, so that when a golfer lit a cigarette, a little flame would sizzle from the cigarette to the ground.

For those of you high school graduates, who may know the accurate story, please feel free to comment.

Octobe 27/ Reunion #3 add on

This is the woman Stuart married, Jeanie.  Are they not a handsome couple?  Jeanie and I could be great friends now, for many reasons ,not the least of which is that she can milk a goat.