Fun Fair and Other Adventures

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For four years every summer I worked as a Carney at the Santa Clara Fair. It was an enormous fair with every type of attraction. The pay was terrible, way below minimum wage and the hours were I think eighteen a day but by the end of the two weeks it added up to quite a lot for a teen-ager and since you had no time to spend it, it was an interesting summer job. Several of my friends worked with me over the years so it made it fun. We worked for the same group every year. They owned several cotton candy and corn-dog stands and they let us eat as much as we wanted, we also made snow-cones and candied popcorn. I was in charge of cotton candy and corn dogs. The cotton candy comes out of the machine very fast and you have to learn to twist the cone around it just right and very quickly. Once in a while you would fall behind and have to scoop out the candy with your hands. I always ate it and to this day I still love cotton candy.
There were quite a few riots during each season and our bosses would come around and close the sidings and tell us to stay on the floor until they came back. It was very frightening because there were gun shots and chains being banged against the side of our booth, you could hear the crowd running from one end to the other with the police behind.
In front of our booth was a stand where you threw a ping-pong ball in a fish bowl and won the fish. All of the open stands like this were very dangerous because you were out in the open with an apron on with all the money in it. The aprons were frequently cut off and run away with. One day we saw a man stab, with a knife, the man in the next booth and take his money belt. We were yelling at the police but our bosses came running over and closed us down and said we didn’t see anything. One day I burnt my fingers very badly from the boiling oil and was taken by golf cart to the Red Cross. A young boy attended me and was very embarrassed because he had to put Trojan rubber protectors on my fingers. The first four or five he opened all had holes in them and to break the ice he said I hope the real ones are made better. After returning to my booth I was required to make only cotton candy and corn-dogs and give them to my friends to serve to the customers, it seems they didn’t like the look of condoms on my fingers.
The Carneys lead a very hard and dangerous life. Every detail must be safety inspected including the food booths because accidents can be fatal. Our boss was making candy apples in his caravan when the huge pot of boiling sugar spilled all over him it dried fast as it cooled and he was rushed to hospital and couldn’t return for two years. But they all love the traveling life and then they have about six months off and lots of money to spend.

Saratoga High

At Saratoga High we had one great teacher. He taught English and let us sit on the floor and made learning interesting. He was later fired by the establishment for being too modern, what idiots they were, he was the only one that could get through to us. He now drives a taxi in L.A. During his time there he helped us build a reading garden. I used to take time off of school with a friend and drive my father’s pickup to a mushroom factory to get compost for the garden. It is apparently the best stuff to use. He helped us with some old laws that put the administration in its place. Once in a while a few of us would ride our horses to school and tie them in the back field, we were firmly told that this was not acceptable so this great teacher found an old book on California school regulations that said that all state schools were required to provide space, water and food for the children that rode to school, so we duly presented this document to the school administration. The rule had never been removed from the code book. Faced with this dilemma the school agreed that we could tie our horses in the field in the back but that was all. We didn’t do it much it was just to piss them off.
During those fun days a lot of us would sneak out of our houses at night and meet to go TP someone’s house. This means – for those who missed school in America – to cover someone’s home in toilet paper. It was great fun especially if the house was brick and it rained. We were so mean, as kids tend to be. I was not allowed to go over the mountain to Santa Cruz because my parents felt the road was too dangerous but a lot of my friends cut school and went. They never seemed to get caught. One day I was talked into participating and it happened to be the one day my mother couldn’t find her keys so she called the school to see if I had them. CAUGHT.
We had kidnap parties that were a blast. If I had one, I would tell all the parents of my friends to leave the door unlocked and at sometime in the middle of the night we would come kidnap their child and take them to a slumber party. There was no slumber, just swimming, dancing, singing and lots of noise. We would usually go to an all-night store and pick up a bunch of junk food to eat. The rule was you had to come as you were, with or without night gown, hair in rollers, with teddy bear etc.
Most of my friends were permanently grounded. My parents didn’t approve of grounding, besides they knew we would just sneak out. They believed in a punishment to fit the crime. Or in my father’s case he would just tell me that he was very disappointed in me and knew I would never do it again and that everyone made a mistake in judgment from time to time. It always crushed me to hurt my father’s feelings so I never went against him, whereas with my mother she would just yell and I would think I just won’t get caught next time.
I don’t remember what Patty and I did to upset her father so much, I have written to ask if she remembers. All I remember was that our punishment was to spend all summer painting the fencing around their property, which was huge. It was a special lead-free paint, new on the market, so if the horses chewed on it, it would not hurt them. Even though it was a punishment we had lots of fun, drinking Gatorade and laughing while she painted one side and I painted the other and a lot of paint on each other.
The Capezio for lunch bunch were the hip kids at school, the kind everyone wanted to hang out with, but they were very exclusive. Capezios were Italian ballet shoes, in every color, to match every outfit. They were very expensive and didn’t last long. If you wanted to be accepted into this elite group you had to own a few pairs. My mother was a firm believer in a good sturdy shoe like a saddle-shoe. I used to try everything to wear them out but, no luck: they were indestructible but very good for your feet. That doesn’t matter when you are a teenager; you just want to be like everyone else no matter how trivial. Patty was about the only one that would cross the line and be friends with people on both sides. Thank you, Patty. There were only three kids in school that had to wear saddle-shoes one was Susan Stoner, the smartest girl in school with no desire to fit in, some boy I’ve forgotten about and of course me. Once my mother finally let me out of saddle-shoes in high school they became the popular fashion. There was no way I was going back to them, fashion or no fashion.

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Three Friends
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Patty and I have been friends since before nursery school and have stayed that way ever since. Terrie and Mary didn’t become my inseparable friends until young teens but we have maintained that contact and friendship. Mary and I used to be together night and day, crocheting, drinking tea and basically just chatting about everything.
Being the first of my friends to have children, my girls had so much attention. They had a string of people to baby-sit them, more clothes than they could ever wear and they were spoilt rotten by all of these loving aunts. Terrie always did the things that mothers don’t, like get their hair done and buy fancy clothes. When I was in labor with Amber, Mary and Terrie were in the hospital with me taking turns to keep me company. I was finishing a baby blanket while in labor and Mary felt it wasn’t right and that she would finish it for me. We haven’t seen it to this day. You owe me one Mary. I know she feels terrible. Terrie was in the room with me when I thought it was time to deliver Amber. There wasn’t enough time for her to leave the room so they gave her a gown and she watched the delivery. I remember looking up at her and she was all pale. I kept asking her if she was alright but she said she should be asking me that. These have been great friendships with so much history and I feel really grateful that we have all stayed in touch.

This is a story that I will keep working on as I remember things so if you have any fun memories send them to me. These are just for fun and to keep me busy. After re-reading these stories I find that I say I don’t know a lot so fill me in girls then I can fill in the blanks and stop saying I don’t know.

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Growing up as a Beaumont
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I was born in San José California in 1953, at that time Silicon Valley didn’t exist and people used to take helicopter rides over the valley to see the fruit trees in blossom. It was a beautiful place to live and grow up. I didn’t spend much time there because we moved to Los Gatos at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains. That is where I went to nursery school and met some of my best friends that have remained so to this day. My father worked for IBM. He was a type of inventor–scientist mostly in the bio-medical field, he had a title that we could neither pronounce nor spell. My father was a sixth-generation Californian and grew up in Monterey. He came from a large catholic family and got along super well with his siblings and their spouses. As a result we spent a lot of time with our cousins, 32 in all, counting my mother’s side which we never saw. My mother hated her family except her father whom she loved but he died when she was twelve. Also she came from Minnesota, ‘a fine place to come from but not to live’. She loved California and my father’s family. We all lived within an hour’s drive of each other so would take turns having family gatherings at each other’s houses. My father and his siblings were famous for their sense of humor and every year each would write an amusing letter summing up that year. Since their passing, my cousin Nancy has tried to keep us all up to date and who is where but the Mother Teresa of our family has to be Andi. She is always there to listen, pray, lend a shoulder to cry on and in general just keeps tabs on all of us and our well-being. Thank you, Andi for being there.
My mother was a firm believer in outdoors and exercise and had a gift for finding the most interesting and huge beautiful houses, in the most incredible locations. Each house was a thrill and an adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It was a good thing too since we moved almost every year. So even from the young age of three, when I walked home with my brother and sister, several miles, up hill, after school only to be sent to the garden, which was always fantastic, full of games, trees, hiding places and tons of room to play, with a snack like a carrot or an apple. My mother hated cooking and eating while my father loved both. Mind you we had every kind of outdoor activity imaginable so we were never bored. As siblings we didn’t have much in common but got along well. I was an early reader and used to help my older brother with the words he couldn’t read; this made him really mad. The first day of nursery school I was so excited. I had my book bag with my brother’s second grade reader and pencils and colors. I was ready to learn. What a disappointment the first day was. All the children were crying and didn’t want to leave their parents so they finally set me down in a corner with a few children so I could read them a story while their parents left. The house in Los Gatos had many wonderful memories even though we left when I was three or four. I remember my third Christmas. In our house, Santa Claus didn’t wrap presents, because he was to busy, the wrapped ones were from family and friends. We had to wait at the top of the stairs until my parents got up and came to the tree with us. That year I sat on the bottom step in floods of tears staring at all my presents. My parents were confused and didn’t understand that I was crying because everything I had ever wanted was sitting under the tree and it was too much for me to take in. Another memory was of moving day. We moved almost every year being IBMers. Bekins came with their trucks and boxes and gave my brother and me each a toy moving truck. During siesta, a must for my mother, my brother and I snuck downstairs with our trucks and filled them with graham crackers and butter. I ate the butter and he ate the crackers. We moved so often and each house carries such special memories that sometimes I get my time-line a little mixed up but only by a year or so. Next stop New York State, beautiful house, nice neighborhood. What my mother called a neighborhood was not what most people think of, as one house next to the other, it just meant that there were other houses within a few mile range of us. I was five. We learned to garbage pick there and got a lot of great stuff, my parents died of embarrassment when they found out. I also had a toad named Leaping Lena who lived in the garage during school and in the garden with me after school. I found her on a trail in the woods and brought her home. It was also a time when it was fashionable to take in Native American girls, to be like part of the family and go to school. We had a Navajo girl called Anita Whitehorse which was, on consideration, the only interesting thing about her.
Next stop Maryland, one of the best houses ever with stables and the works. It was a two hundred year old stone house and is in the book of great American homes. It was so big I don’t even remember parts of it. I got a horse there and a lamb and we had lots of dogs and wild critters. We had 2,000 acres to ride on. It was also the time I started collecting animals, a habit I have never lost. I volunteered with my mother at a summer riding camp for mentally challenged adults. My job was to teach them grooming and general handling of the horse.
I was just about to turn seven when we moved to England, Cambridge to be exact. That is when my little brother joined our ranks. That is also where my parents tried to trick me into taking a miniature poodle instead of the lamb I had to leave in the states. Yet another great house in the countryside. It was one of the coldest houses, next to this one in Southern Spain, we had ever lived in, and we used to joke about the fat on the bacon being frozen by the time it got to the table. My mother couldn’t stand the idea of us being confined to an apartment or small space and that is why she always found something great in the country, even though it meant my father had to commute and my mother had to transport friends in and out. In our first house in England my older brother lived in a thatched train carriage in the garden. It had three carriages, one for his bedroom, one for his train set and scale electric and one for storage. Once, my mother brought home a baby male goat, thinking it would be good to keep the weeds down. We lived alongside a river and there was a lot of undergrowth. She knew nothing about goats. Never get a male, and this one just stood on a three inch wide pillar, outside the front door, waiting to jump in as you opened the door. She soon started trying to find a home for him but no-one was that stupid. One day the local priest came around collecting for the church fate. My mother donated the male goat much to the dismay of the priest, whom by his chosen profession was obliged to take it. From the country we moved to a neighborhood for the first and only time. Our neighbor was Mrs. Busy-Body. She had never met Americans before and became so fascinated with our way of life that she actually cut a hole in the hedge so she could watch us better. That is where we first got our trampoline, which followed us around the world. It ended up here in Mojácar. That way we could continue to exercise in case we were ever to live in a confined area again. Back in the little garden in England, the funny thing was that when we jumped on the trampoline, not only could we see over Mrs. Busy-Body’s hedge, we could see right into her bedroom window. Unaccustomed to city life and English customs, my mother opened her curtains, one day, after getting up, to find a man there, on the second floor, with a ladder. He was the window washer. It was apparently a service provided by the neighborhood that we had not been informed about. The over-flow pipe for the bathtub came out right over the front door so when my father would explain to guests that my mother would be right down they were then covered in a splash of water, now realizing she wasn’t even out of the bath. All of the houses were the same, except the color, and they all had a window on the staircase, where most people put a gold fish bowl, but being different our poodle used to fix herself firmly there so she could keep an eye on the house. We never again lived anywhere but in the great open out-doors.
Then off to Estepona, Spain. My father was traveling with the Royal Navy doing experiments at sea and docked every few weeks in Gibraltar so my mother felt it would be a good cultural experience to take us out of school and spend a year in Spain, also making it possible for us to visit my father. Estepona didn’t exist yet but my brother and I got our first paying job there, the job only lasted a few weeks though because we didn’t get paid and they had no intention of paying us. Still we had a great time riding our donkeys along the beach and to the bar-shop. Our job had been moving rocks from the mountains down to the road where they were starting to build the road that would soon lead to the now Estepona. We carried the rocks in baskets on donkeys. We found scorpions and centipedes under every rock but we weren’t dismayed. Any excuse getting an animal.
After a few more months back in Cambridge, the family moved back to Maryland, and I returned, now in sixth grade, into the same elementary school that I had left in first grade. I was shocked as at this time I thought I was British and knew nothing of America: I even had a BBC accent. My mother didn’t tell us until the day before leaving; my sister and I were on a riding holiday and couldn’t even stay for the show at the end. I was so embarrassed at school; I didn’t even know the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem. However it was the best house yet. It was a huge wooden house that looked a bit like the Addams Family house. I had my own wing with two bedrooms, a bathroom and stairs going up and down, all to myself. I got another horse, she came with the house, and we had 2,000 acres with a river to ride along to spend our time with lots of barns and out-buildings to explore.
The next year, we moved to Saratoga California, right next to Los Gatos. My same school buddies were all still there. Another great house; there was a main house where my parents lived with Michael and we lived in an outer area covered with a breeze-way. We each had our own room and entrance to the outside and a kitchen and games room, it was great. I had my own horse, who kept me out of a lot of trouble. I knew my parents would take him away if I didn’t do well. I couldn’t have that because besides being my form of transport and best friend I could also tell him everything. He never judged me and that is a very difficult age to go through. We started having family reunions again and they were even more fun than when I was little. We moved from house to house but always near Saratoga so I kind of thought of that as my home turf until I moved here. As we got older our family reunions started to look like UN meetings. We had relatives of every color and religion. It was a huge melting pot in the true American tradition. I went to five different universities and got a degree in psychology and a minor in cultural anthropology. I started working with disabled preschoolers, which I loved, until the state said we all had to get speech therapy degrees. I stopped work there and started teaching dogs for the deaf. It was a new program and I loved it. Soon after, I moved to Spain where I still live. You can read about my life here on my blog http://animospain.blogspot.com/ as I have started writing stories of how our children grew up for my grandchildren to read and enjoy when they are a little older. I am still in
contact with my cousins and feel closer to them than I do to my brothers and sister. My father died in late October 2000 and it changed my life for good as he was my link to my mother and siblings, he was also my best friend. I think we spent time together almost every day for the last 30 years of his life. Lenox and our kids has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. They have all supported me and my animals and charities. Even though the girls are gone now, I stay in constant touch with them. Jessica has blessed us with four beautiful grandchildren. Lenox has a sense of humor that can make the best out of a bad situation. He is a person who has never made me feel unloved or insecure, even now, when what he sees must sicken him because I know it does me. He just looks right passed the disfigurement and sees an inner beauty that helps me to feel it too. I feel proud to walk by his side. I am so lucky to have spent my life with such a wonderful man. My whole family and their friends have stood by me through a few rough years with my health. Even when we have hit hard times, the house was always happy and full of kids. It is their combined effort that keeps me going. That is why our recent trip to The States was so important. I came away with a lot more confidence, and even for the first time in years I let my picture be taken with the family because I figure I can’t change it and it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else so why should it bother me?
I now am writing other blogs that you might find of interest. I am not a very good writer but I am improving with practice, it is also good therapy for me. The memories are lots of fun. I think our grandchildren will enjoy them when they are a little older.
My latest blog is http://mojacarmischief.blogspot.com/ .

The Shopoholic

Terrie was a oniomaniac, which is to say, a shopaholic. She would drive to the ends of the earth just to put something on lay-a-way and go back every week until she had it paid off. I am sure she paid more in gas running around paying for these things than if she just bought them outright. It was great for me though because once she liked something she would buy two or three of them. Not knowing why, she would then give me one of her duplicate items. I still have one or two. I know that is why she went into psychology to figure out what caused this problem. However she is now a great psychologist and has her own office. I don’t even know if she ever got over this problem or if it still exists today. She never had much luck with men but I think we all suffered from that a bit. Maybe Saratoga just has a bunch of dogs because I found the greatest man on earth, right here in the middle of nowhere. Terrie now has a beautiful daughter; Mia that I wish I could spend time with and get to know but there will be time when we get a little older. I don’t know how her love-life is going but now that she has Mia it is not so important. Write and fill me in OK, Terrie. Terrie was a lot with Jessica like Amber is with my grand-daughter Cleo. They do lots of girly things that mothers don’t have time to do, especially if they have other children. Paint nails, curl hair, play dress-up, shop and just do fun things. My children were lucky, as was I, in having such close friends because my children never had any cousins or doting aunts but my friends took care of all that.

Jiggs, Pony Club and my Sixteenth Birthday

When we first moved back to Saratoga, it was the first time in my life, I didn’t have a horse. I looked in all the want ads but they were too expensive. Then one day I saw an advert from a girl going to university and looking for a good home for her beloved horse. I called and went to see the horse with my mother. It was love at first sight. I thought she said for one hundred dollars and we could afford that but she had said four hundred dollars. Now I was faced with a dilemma because I didn’t have four hundred dollars. He was a barrel racer and much wanted by the stables where he lived but she said she would think about it. He was sixteen-two hands, sorrel and a gelding. I went home in tears. A week later she called and told me she would rather have her horse with one person who loved him than belong to a stables where he would be ridden by lots of riders so that is how I got Jiggs. We went to look for tack but the cheapest saddle started at six hundred dollars, so that is when I started riding bare-back for good.
My father said he now understood the old cowboy song about the forty-five dollar horse and the one-hundred dollar saddle.
Jiggs lived right up the street from my house and I got free board in exchange for caring for the other horses. I kept Jiggs through university, even one of my reasons for choosing a university was on how would Jiggs like it. After university I gave him to a young girl that loved him the way I did so I felt happy.
We had the best milkman in town and I used to get a ride, with him, in his truck and he used to let me deliver milk on the way to the stables. George the milkman knew all the women of the houses and he would come in, the kitchen door was never locked, put your milk away and then look to see if you needed butter, ice cream, yogurt or other goodies that he supplied and he would just put them in your fridge. You would get a bill at the end of the month but nobody minded because with George around you never ran out of stuff. My friends and I would bump into him from time to time while we were out riding and he would give us a box of popsicles or something that we had to eat very fast because they melted and came twelve to a box. That is a lot of ice-cream for a few girls to eat in a short time even if they are teen-agers. It was always on your parents’ tab at the end of the month. George had been the milkman on the same route for twenty-five years and he knew everything about everyone. When he retired the women of the neighbourhood threw him a surprise party and they all came in their pyjamas and hair in rollers just the way he would see them every morning. We were all sad to see George go but his milk company had been bought out by a bigger one and they got rid of all the staff from the old company. They don’t know how much money and good-will they lost when they let George go.
Lisa, Bobby and I used to go to pony club out at Barbara Dollard’s. Most kids had matching trailers and trucks and traded their horses in like cars, to have one better than their friends. I wouldn’t trade Jiggs for anything. He was my friend and competition was not my thing. Pony club hated me, my horse and my tack, which was compulsory there, so I had to borrow an antique cavalry saddle from the old man next door. I had always thought that pony club was a place to teach you about riding and have fun but in Saratoga it was who could outdo who. The short time I stayed in pony club, Lisa, Bobby and I had great fun. We used to ride over in the morning and then after class we would ride into Los Gatos to the supermarket where I would hold the horses in the parking lot and they would go in to buy junk food. Most of it went down their boots. There was a large estate just outside Los Gatos with a train that went around their property and if we got our timing right we could chase the train through the orchard. On our way to pony club we used to pass by the house where Mike Nesmith from the Monkeys used to stay, Lisa babysat his niece. It felt so important to just be near a place where someone that famous lived. Always hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
Lisa had everything from mint condition antique cars to motor bikes and horses. Her house was beautiful and her parents were great friends of the Smothers Brothers. Yet another great thrill for a young teen. I used to sit and watch Lisa’s mother brush her hair at night. It was the most beautiful hair I had ever seen. I was below her waist and really thick. During the day she wore it in a braided bun in the back so it had a beautiful wave to it. She used to brush it one hundred times with a natural brush just like in the old days. I knew then and there, that when I was older, I would have my hair just the same. Now it is to my waist as it almost always has been, but not as beautiful as hers was. One day I was crushed to see that she had gotten it all cut off and had a ladies hair cut and all permed. I will keep mine long. I think grandmothers should have a bun in the back.
As you know I was not allowed over the Santa Cruz Mountains but most of my friends were. On my sixteenth birthday we had a party at Barbara Dollard’s and then moved it to Bobby’s boyfriend, John. I had half a can of Colt45 and spent the rest of the evening throwing up on the lawn being hosed down from time to time by my friends. I still can’t drink alcohol to this day. My friends felt it would be better if I got home late, walking under my own steam than to be on time and carried in. For the first time in my memory my parents woke up when I came home. When they saw my state they thought I was on drugs and would not believe that half a can of Colt45 could do that. I was sick all night and said I would explain everything in the morning, which I did. Bobby, being able to hold her alcohol, went home and told her parents a bunch of lies about us going to Santa Cruz and the boardwalk. Riding on the rides and having a great time. The following week my parents were going to Switzerland and I would be staying with Bobby. So our parents talked on the phone and about our trip to Santa Cruz. When my mother explained that I hadn’t gone, and we were at a party elsewhere, of course I was the liar because I wasn’t allowed to go to Santa Cruz, so I would have to make up another story to cover my tracks. I was so disappointed that my mother didn’t believe me because I told her the truth even though I knew I would get in trouble for drinking.
When I went to stay at Bobby’s house it was a bit uncomfortable because her mother thought I was a liar. Then she called us both into her room and asked me who was telling the truth. I could feel Bobby behind me saying please don’t tell. I just stood in silence. I didn’t want to betray my friend but I didn’t want to lie. Finally she asked Bobby and she had to come out with the truth. We were grounded my whole stay there.

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Mrs. Sedelberg
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There once was an old woman who lived with her daughter, high in the mountains in a forest next to a lake. Her house was a small log cabin with one small room and a kitchen downstairs and a bedroom and bath upstairs. There was no room downstairs to sit because in the middle of the room stood a giant grand piano and lining the walls, two deep, were books from ceiling to floor. The books covered every topic on this earth, from fairy tales to science. I never understood how she got all those things way up into her cabin. No one lived anywhere near so the animals became her friends. She could sit in her garden and feed deer from her hand or make different bird-calls and be covered with birds all eating out of her hand. She had regular visits from skunks, raccoons, squirrels and even bears and mountain lions. She put food out for them but never tried to tame them. In the snowy winter she would hang lard and other goodies in wire baskets from the trees so the animals could eat all year long.
The old woman’s name was Mrs. Sedelberg. She had grown up and was educated in Switzerland. She was very highly educated. She had married Mr. Sedelberg when she was quite young and they had come to America for the ‘American dream’. His American dream was to go out west and to find gold. That is why they went way into the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. He never found any gold and died shortly before their daughter Suzanne was born. Their daughter was not very bright and spoke with a lisp so she said she was thuzanne thedelberg. They had no way to know that she would grow up with a lisp but it was an unfortunate name. Suzanne was home-schooled but her love was for horses. She had two that she kept in a little paddock next to the house. She spent all of her time with the horses and other animals. Because of growing up alone Suzanne didn’t have very good social skills.
Even though the old lady never saw other human beings except Suzanne she was never lonely. She played her piano like a concert pianist and read her books which took her on adventures wherever and whenever she wanted. As she wandered in the woods one day she found a baby deer stuck in a trap. It had hurt its leg. The old woman took the deer back to her cabin and healed it. It stayed with her until it was well again. This was a very upsetting event for the old woman because it meant that humans were encroaching on her forest and it would mean danger to the animals. For the sake of the animals but to her great sadness she started feeding them away from her house and never again fed them by hand except for the ones that lived in her house because they couldn’t survive out in the wilderness. She still sat in her garden every night and called to the birds and continued to feed them. Little by little houses started to be built around the lake. Over the years her cabin got lost in a sea of holiday homes but she stayed there living in her own world with her music, books and animals. Once in a while she would get a glimpse of one of her animals parading their young by for her to see but she never again touched them.
Suzanne started to make a few friends by going to the shop for her mother, but she was so socially inept and quite unattractive, that it was hard for her to make friends. Her best friend, who was more of a companion, was Barbara. Barbara had a horse and kept it at Suzanne’s stables and they went riding everyday together. That made Barbara her best friend at least according to Suzanne. Suzanne was 19 and Barbara was 13 years old so Suzanne discussed a lot of things that were not appropriate for Barbara. After a few years the area became too developed and Barbara’s family moved to the valley to get away from the tourists. Suzanne also moved to Berkley where she became a permanent fixture in the local bars and tragically became a prostitute. Her mother pretended that she was at university. The mother stayed in her little cabin and may still be there for all I know but she never became part of the community.

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Dinner at the Buckley’s

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Dinner at the Buckley’s was always fun. One, big, Irish Catholic family, with lots of children. One night I was invited around for a very special dinner. Mr. Buckley had decided to take cooking lessons so the family were to be practiced on until he got it just right. The night I was invited around, which was one of many, Mr. Buckley was learning about Chinese food. We all gathered around the table as the dishes were set out in front of us in the correct order and we had to give our opinion on each dish. During the cashew chicken, children started spitting their food into their napkins or running to the sink to throw-up. I never saw anyone turn so red with anger as Mr. Buckley did, while he explained how delicious it was. He told us all in no uncertain terms that we were to eat what we got, because a lot of children were starving in the world and we were lucky to have food on the table. Then it happened. Mr. Buckley got up from the table and didn’t even make it to the sink when he had to spit out his dinner. As good as it was it seems that he forgot one important rule in Chinese cooking. The ginger is for flavouring the oil and must be taken out before adding the other ingredients. He had forgotten this very important fact and left the ginger in. Fresh ginger is almost impossible to eat. We all had a good laugh and other than that the meal was delicious.

Noah and Nicky

Noah and Nicky were two dolls that Jessica and Amber had. Noah was Jessica’s. He was the first Fisher Price boy doll. He had a cloth body and plastic head with lots of hair. My friend Mary named her first son after him. When Jessica was a new-born she used to twiddle my hair while nursing, tying it into knots, so I cut my hair and got her Noah. His real name by Fisher Price was Joey, so you might recognize him. I would put Noah on Jessica’s stomach while she nursed and she twiddled with his hair until after a few years he had a Rastafarian hair-do. I only nursed for fourteen months but she kept twiddling. The great thing about these dolls is that they were washable and indestructible, at least Fisher price thought so. They had never met Jessica. She should have been in their trial group, testing toys. She loved Noah so much and never went anywhere without him. As the years passed her love for him grew but his body was starting to show signs of wear. I sewed on new bodies lots of times to no avail so for a long time she just carried around a head, until my father came home with some medical ties used in surgery to attach Noah’s body back to his head. It worked and we only had to change the ties about once a year. Abuela, the old tenant farmer lady who lived next to us in Spain, refused to let her bring just the head when she went to stay. It was all or nothing. By this time Noah had the most impressive Rastafarian hair you can imagine. Just before her early teens she outgrew him or he was not repairable, I don’t remember which, but that was the end of Noah. The funny thing is that her husband had the same doll and still has it in perfect condition. It has been passed down to my grandchildren. He obviously didn’t love Joey as much as Jessica loved Noah.
Amber had Nicky. She was a bigger baby doll with a voice box that would go off if you shut the door or dropped her. Then she would start to cry and you would have to go comfort her. Amber never felt the same love for Nicky that Jessica felt for Noah, so Nicky stayed in relatively good shape, but it was her favourite. Nicky would laugh if you picked her up and played with her. They were real baby sounds taped on a voice box that was activated by movement. Abuela, again, wouldn’t let Nicky in the house if we didn’t remove the voice box first. Nicky also had a cloth body with a plastic head and beautiful hair, which Amber cut thinking it would grow back. It didn’t.
Neither Amber nor Daniel was ever too attached to any material possession like Jessica was to Noah. Daniel was a romantic and remains that way until today. He loved unicorns. I don’t know how he found out about them but he soon had a collection of books with beautiful pictures of unicorns that he still has today. He knew there was something magical about them.
It is interesting how children get attached to one object or another like a thumb or a doll or a blanket. They say that thumb-sucking comes from not enough sucking time or nursing but that is rubbish. I nursed all of my children on demand, not a schedule, for fourteen months, and Jessica was the only one that developed a strong attachment to Noah and her thumb. She was born with her thumb in her mouth and the doctor said she had probably been sucking it for a long time because as a new-born she had no trouble getting her thumb to her mouth. Neither Daniel nor Amber ever had anything that was so important to them that they couldn’t leave home without it. Amber was more into dressing up and using make-up, like Cleo, and Daniel was into super hero costumes and transformers. I never distinguished between boys and girls toys for my children I let them pick for themselves but they did tend to chose gender-oriented toys.
You can tell a lot about a baby when it is born. We knew Jessica would be funny and capable but the strong character in the family. Amber was drugs, sex and rock and roll. I use this as a term from the 1970’s, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, we could just see she would have a wild side to her, and Daniel was the romantic. Jessica certainly had me under control by the time she was three. I don’t have such a strong disposition and am not a disciplinarian. They had to deal with their own discipline, which was not needed very often as they were all really good kids. I am very lucky that I got along with my children so well and loved them all equally with all my heart. I can’t imagine life without them. Just because children are born to you doesn’t automatically mean you have to love them. I know lots of women who feel no real bond with their babies. Everyone is an individual and you like them or you don’t. I have friends who are sure they were born into the wrong family because there is just no tie or feeling there.
Jessica and Matt are great parents because they say what they mean and don’t try to explain everything like I did. They don’t give in during a temper tantrum they stick to their guns no matter how hard it is to listen to. Then after, there are always the big cuddles and loving hugs and the children are much better for it. They have learnt how far they can go and which buttons they can push. Jessica and Matt also don’t make a fuss over small things or get mad unless it is dangerous or important. That is a very hard thing to do but absolutely the right attitude. Who cares if the house is a mess it can always be cleaned up later. It is more important to spend quality time with your kids and worry about the trivial stuff later. Amber as their Tita and me as their Mima, can spoil them as much as we want because we don’t have to take them home later. This has always been a problem with in-laws, so I try to follow their rules even though it is hard not to spoil the darlings. If you don’t treat the children as the parents do, each parent has a different way, then you make it confusing for the child and impossible for the parents. As the children get older, like Cleo, they learn that there are certain things you can do with one family member and not with another but it doesn’t stop them blaming the parents for not wanting to play dress-up when they have more important things to do like look after the other children or work.

The Smiths

The Smith family played a large part in my growing up. Not just in Saratoga but as both families moved from place to place. The Smiths were like the kind of family that I always wanted. They were very down to earth and family-oriented not like most of the Saratoga crowd. Larry, our best friend, lived right over the back fence from Steve’s. Steve and I both had horses and rode a lot. His father went even one step farther than mine. The children all had to ride bareback but their father also roached the mane so there was nothing to hold on to. He said they would ride like that or not at all, I at least had a mane to hang on to. They used to take me camping with them a lot and I learned so many things that I have retained to this day. Like, don’t drink from flowing water if there are sheep grazing upstream. Dr Smith taught us about birds and wildlife. How to tell buzzards from eagles, how to utilise natural resources in the wild, like fire and food and shelter. We made hot-rock tepees for steam huts and a million other things, a lot of which I have passed on to my children.
Steve and I had two accidents as kids, both of which shouldn’t have happened because of our experience in both. One was on my thirteenth birthday. We went to a church party. I still can’t figure that out because neither of us went to church. We were jumping on the trampoline, which we had done for years at my house so were quite adept at it. We were jumping together, I came up as he came down, and his front teeth went into the back of my head. There was so much blood and he was in so much pain, that everyone thought that it was all from him because I didn’t feel much pain even though I was covered in blood we just assumed it was from Steve’s mouth. We later found I had a huge hole in my head and had to go to the hospital to get it stitched up. We were attending summer school at that time and I had long hair down to my waist. I told everyone they had to shave my head and I wore a ski cap to school. A few days later when I took off the cap Steve was really disappointed that I still had all my hair. Thanks Steve. They were going to shave it but the doctor said since the scar would be under my hair it wouldn’t show so he could fix it without shaving it. The second accident was while we were riding. For some reason we had swapped horses and as I cantered passed him, his horse tried to kick mine but got Steve in the shin and split it open, he also had to have stitches.
We have stayed in touch through all these years and we even got together once, in Sweden, at Sharon’s house. Steve lives in Denmark. Our children were all small and Daniel loved all types of travel so I used to try and take him on as many forms of transport as I could, and the trip to Sweden provided planes, double-decker busses, London taxis and a ferry ride. It was all great fun and great to see each other again. We haven’t seen each other since but we stay in touch. Here are a few photos from the trip you might enjoy.

Chicken Pot Pie

Mark and Debbie Vincent had been friends of mine for a long time. Debbie and I spent a lot of time together because we both lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains and also were pregnant with our first child at the same time, but the friendship goes way back to Junior High School.
We each had a little garden, at our house, and neither of us had much money or none at all really for that matter. Debbie and I would get together and make jam or pies, things to put in the freezer while there was an abundance of fruit or vegetables in the garden. That way we could have fresh food later in the year. One day we decided to make chicken pot pies. Her neighbors raised rabbits for eating and told Debbie they would give her a few rabbits in exchange for a few pies. It was another great money saver. I was pretty much a vegetarian and never ate much meat so my chicken pot pies were vegetarian, not that anyone noticed. We spent all day making the crusts and the filling for the pies. I wouldn’t even let her stir my filling because the thought of the rabbit made me sick. After they were all baked and cooled we wrapped them and put them in the freezer. Every time Debbie went to get out a pie, she thought about all of those little bunnies, and put the pie back. After about a year she decided to give them to the dogs because even though it seemed a good idea at the time she couldn’t eat the rabbit. During a few years’ period we spent a lot of time at each others houses. During our pregnancies we shopped a lot together and every Friday had crepes at the crepe place. When our babies were born we were together everyday. Charlie slept all day and Jessica was awake all day but they were both extremely good babies. We were very lucky.
After she moved, I went with Jessica to visit her several times in Redding but we sort of lost touch.
When Debbie got divorced, it was her ex-husband Mark who came and rented my extra room. It worked out very well since we both worked at the same place, I needed the extra money and I was by myself most of the time. His company and friendship were a great help to me. His sense of humor is even famous here in Mojácar because back when I first moved here, mail was very slow and no one had TV so we depended on conversation in the bars. Every time I would get a letter from Mark I would have to read it to the whole bar. Even though they didn’t know the characters involved it was like a running serial and you couldn’t wait for the next episode. It was the way Mark told about the goings on in the old neighbourhood and our old friends that made you feel as if you knew them all and they were written with such a sense of humor. Every one waited anxiously for the next letter. I sort of lost touch with Debbie after her divorce because she moved and remarried and had a new life. My new life didn’t start until I moved here. It was the best move I ever made. I still stay in touch with Debbie from time to time but Mark and I haven’t lost contact. It is a shame that our children don’t really know each other after having spent so much time together as babies but Charlie ended up marring a girl named Jessica so maybe some of his early memories stayed with him.

Lunblads Lodge: where we were and where we are

Most everyone lived at Lunblads Lodge at one time or another or at least spent a lot of time there. Lunblads Lodge was a huge old wooden house with rooms to rent and a fantastic restaurant, all run by a very elderly Mrs.Bargas and her equally antique butler. It used to be fun to go into the kitchen on any day and have tea and whatever was baking with Mrs. Bargas and her butler. She welcomed everyone. Behind the main house in a beautiful garden were small wooden houses that she rented out mainly to young people, mostly hippies. Mark Dickson was one. She also let you have pets which made it a big plus since we all had dogs or cats. Because she was so nice, everyone pitched in to help her keep up the grounds. It was also a place where we would take our parents to dinner on special occasions. There was just the meal of the day and you had to make a reservation then she and her butler would get to work and turn out one of the most fabulous home cooked dinners you ever had. In its heyday it was very popular and famous people like Kim Novak would come from a long way away to stay in her little hotel and eat great food but as she got older she rented the rooms out and made dinner by reservation only. Kim Novak continued to come every year even after the hotel was closed just to spend time with Mrs. Bargas and work in the garden. Mrs. Bargas was in her eighties by this time.
There were a lot of beautiful old homes around Oak Street and near the center of Saratoga. Mark Buckley had a beautiful but tiny wooden house near the downtown. Mark sensibly stayed mostly to himself and was into public broadcasting, ecology and poetry, so it was always interesting to go spend time at his house. We all thought we were into those things but Mark Buckley and Larry Ford really were. They studied it and made it their profession. Mark now spends a lot of time in Antarctica, at that fantastic International Science Institute studying penguins and other interesting stuff. He has a great wife Sue and two beautiful daughters. Mark and I have maintained our friendship even with the long distance in miles - there is no distance in the friendship - and I am looking forward to meeting his family one day.
I spent quite a bit of time visiting my friends at Lunblads and with Mark at his little house. Rob Christian lived at Lunblads Lodge with his dog Hashimoto and that is where he found religion. He is now a Baptist Minister. Rob and I were inseparable from Junior High through university then we lost touch and even though I have written to him and his parents I have had no response. I miss him. His parents thought I was a good influence on him so he could only date if it was a double date with me. His mother thought I was too much of a tom-boy though and one night when I slept there she left a book on my pillow; it was Emily Post’s Etiquette for Young Women. Need I say more? His sisters were like little princesses and always dressed to the nines. I have no idea what that means I just know how to use it. Rob and I spent a lot of time in the tree-house we had built in the forest in our circular drive. My father got quite mad when we built the tree-house because he said we took ten years off the life of the tree with each nail. Rob was the kind of friend that I could tell anything to. His mother made the best packed lunches at Saratoga High, he could swap his lunch to anyone. She also had one of those fashionable shag rugs that you had to rake and vacuum then rake again. We were never allowed to walk on it. Mrs. Christian had a potting shed in the back yard full of old ceramic pots and when Rob would get mad she would tell him to go throw a few pots until he felt better.
Mark Konig and his wife lived in one of the little houses at Lunblads Lodge. They weren’t from Saratoga. They had a miniature cat that everyone thought would be so fun because it would just stay a kitten forever. It isn’t like that, they look like a kitten forever and you expect them to play like a kitten but they get old just like everything else and they just lie in the sun and sleep. When they moved, Terrie and Jessica and I went to visit them up north somewhere. Jessica was under two we had very little money and they weren’t ever that great friends of ours so it is hard to imagine why we went. The trip was something that could only happen to Terrie and me. We went in her old VW bug. We had so little money for the trip. It was late, and we were really tired, so we stopped at a truck-stop and Jessica and I hid in the car while Terrie went in to get a room for one then Jessica and I snuck in so we could wash and get some sleep. Mark Konig had died in a car accident and things were really strange at his house. His wife was sleeping with all of her husband’s friends and everyone was smoking joints with Mark’s ashes in them including their two little boys aged about three and four. Terrie and I were so freaked out by the goings on there that we left soon after we got there. Terrie and I didn’t even smoke joints and I think you needed to in order to fit in. One boy was so freaked out he wouldn’t leave the house. He had been in the car that killed Mark and the three other passengers and he survived without harm. What upset him was it was his fourth accident in a short time, where he wasn’t driving, and everyone else got killed and he never got hurt. He thought he was some kind of bad luck figure and wouldn’t get in the car with anyone.
On the way home, Terrie, Jessica and I stopped by to visit Mary Pestarino who had just moved to Forest Hills above Auburn. What a wonderful relief getting away from the insanity of the Konig’s and just sitting drinking tea and sharing with friends.
Some of my other friends shared a few of these huge old wooden homes on Oak St. during and after university. They were fun sort of care-free days before we all had responsibilities. Some of us lived in equally great houses but in the Santa Cruz Mountains, like Larry Ford who is now an ecologist, rangeland manager, and conservation science and fire protection specialist. His house was beautiful and I think some sort of look-out area. It was surrounded by a large forest. Larry helped me out a lot before I moved here and was going through a rough patch, his friendship is very important to me. Larry and his wife Sue live in Felton now. Larry has been helping us out with information about our trees since our brush-fire in July. We lost most everything except the actual house. Lee and Dianne Maxted lived next door to me on Bear Creek Road and then again in Ben Lomond, later they moved to Montana, where they still live, with their two children, and Mark Vincent moved from the mountains and now lives in Half Moon Bay or near there. I have mentioned Mark Vincent in previous stories and about how funny his letters were and everyone here used to wait for his next letter. It was like a soap opera and even though they didn’t know the characters it was really funny. Steve Smith married a Danish girl and still lives in Denmark he has two sons. After veterinary research Steve has become a silversmith. I would love to see some of his work because his whole family were very artistic as I have mentioned in my story about the Smith Family. Steve and his family and me and my family all met once at Sharon Blosk’s when she lived in Sweden. During the time of Lunblads Lodge, Sharon lived over the movie theatre in Saratoga and we used to spend a lot of time there. I remember her sister Donna worked at the petting zoo and brought home an otter called Boy, who amused all the guests. Mrs. Blosk was very tolerant of all of us as teenagers. Sharon is now a doctor in Sacramento and lives in Davis. It was a great reunion in Sweden and our children got to meet each other and we got to catch up on things, plus the trip was great fun. There are a few pictures of this reunion on an earlier post. It is a shame I don’t have any pictures from High School to embarrass you all with but we didn’t all have cameras in those days except David Welch. I will try and take a digital picture of a picture David took of me at Montalvo and post it here. It is the only one I have from those days. If any of you have pictures you think would be fun to add to this blog please send them to me. David also had two Citroen cars, which I had never seen until I moved here and found that they were very common we even had two.

JUANITA’S

Juanita was a Madam from San Francisco that bought an old beautiful house in the country near Sonoma. She was very exocentric and people came from far and wide to stay in her hotel which was furnished with the furniture from her old brothel in San Francisco. She was also famous for her food. You could only get one thing, steak, but I think she had the first salad bar in California and you could go as much as you wanted until your steak was ready. The dinner also came with baked potatoes. She had a collection of strange memorabilia that covered all the empty space. Her garden was full of antique bath tubs and she had cockerels from every country that were free to wander where they wanted even in the restaurant. She had a pet monkey that used go around and visit all of the tables, play with men’s moustaches or take food off your plate. The health inspectors finally told Juanita he had to be locked into one of the bedrooms. She picked the one downstairs facing the dining room so he could still watch all the people and people used to take him titbits and talk to him. Like Lunblads Lodge in the beginning they were places for the rich and famous to get away from the public and hide out for a while. Then they got discovered and lost some of their charm but were still great fun and good food.

Animal Adventures

Jiggs

When my parents decided to move to San Francisco from Saratoga, I didn’t take to the idea well. I didn’t want to leave my horse or my friends. I had finally been in one place, lots of different houses, but still in one place for long enough to make a connection with people and a real bond with my horse. I was fourteen, not a very good age. We went anyway and I was too young to say no but I insisted that my horse come too. Where do you put a horse in San Francisco? Where can you ride in the city? I had always lived in the country and had never been to a big city. My parents agreed and we set about looking for a place to board my horse. What a surprise we got. There were several stables out at Lake Merced on the beach, one was for privately owned horses and one was for rentals. They were perfect and you could ride down to the beach and along the sea for miles, as a matter of fact San Francisco is designed for horses. I could ride all the way to Golden Gate Park and there was even a cross-walk with a horseshoe in it for the horses to know when to cross the busy street. Once inside Golden Gate Park, the places to go were endless and all designed for horses. There were even horse paths down the center dividers on the highway but all covered in trees and flowers so that drivers couldn’t see them. I could ride all the way to Ghirardelli Square without ever going on the road and at each crossing there was that horseshoe stop-light telling you when it was safe to cross. In Golden Gate Park there were race tracks, jumping courses and paths that went on for miles. It really was some of the best riding country I have ever ridden in. We also got to ride with the mounted police when they were on duty. Who would have thought? I soon made friends to ride with there. The only problem was that on one stretch of the beach between my stables and Golden Gate Park was a nudist beach, which made me feel a bit self-conscious as a young teen. We learned to ignore them and had great adventures. Jiggs, my horse, was so babied that it took him some adjusting to not seeing me every day and living in a box stall. It was very funny because as you went down the mountain to the beach there would be horses just stopped anywhere all the way to the beach. They were the rental horse who had learned that they had to get far enough away from the stables not to be sent back out but not any further. People tried everything to make them move but they wouldn’t budge and then at the end of the hour, with or with out rider, the horse would return to the stables. One day while my friend and I were riding past the nudist beach on our way to Golden Gat Park a nude man leap-frogged onto the back of my horse, scaring the both of us. As I collected my wits I just said ‘up!’ and Jiggs reared really high and the man slide off the back and we galloped away.
In Saratoga, Lisa Sims had an old circus pony once that knew how to dance to music and other funny things so we taught Jiggs to do a few tricks which included things like to play tag and leap-frog. He was 16.2 hands which is very tall to leap-frog onto; he was very patient as we rammed into his rear time after time until we could jump high enough to leap-frog onto his back. We taught him lots of tricks one of which was to rear on command. Unfortunately he also used it when he didn’t want to go out riding, trying to toss me. I never thought it would be a useful thing to know it was just fun seeing what we could teach him but in this instance, when the nude man jumped on his back behind me, it came in very handy. I was almost sad when we left San Francisco a year later and went back to Saratoga, but there were all my friends and I still had Jiggs.

Shadow's Incredible Journey

My brother had a German Shepherd throughout his young life and into his twenties. She was a fantastic dog and was at his side at all times. After we had had her for at least eight years she bit the mail-man. She had always hated all delivery people but was great with kids. She had the same reaction to the Culligan water man but it turned out he was a dog trainer and one day he came with an even bigger male German Shepherd on the back of his truck to attack Shadow. It worked; Shadow kept her distance and would jump the fence to sit on the neighbor’s porch every time he came but that didn’t change her feelings for other delivery men. One day she just ran out and bit the mail-man. It was not a bad injury, he didn’t need stitches or anything, but my parents said we had to find a home for her as a watch-dog or something because we couldn’t have a dog that bit at home. A friend of ours owned a truck-rental company and said he would take her. She would be in a kennels during the day and have several acres to wander at night as a guard-dog. The first day when they were shutting the gates after letting her out she escaped. Even though it was over twenty miles away she came home. My parents were so touched by her devotion that they thought about letting her stay but decided against it because she would still bite delivery people. The man said he had a much bigger lot with barbed wire around the top about sixty miles away. He put her in his car and drove her to her new home. He was very pleased with her because she was amiable with the staff but wouldn’t let anyone in at night. This is when we were living on Park Drive where my sister and brother and I had our own house connected by a breeze-way to the main house. We each had a door to the outside and a kitchen and TV room and sauna. It was a great house for teenagers because we didn’t bother my parents or each other with our music or friends. One night while I was sleeping, a soaking wet Shadow came into my room. It was pouring rain and she knew how to open my door. We had had her for so long that it took me a few minutes to register that she didn’t live with us anymore. I was so happy to see her. After a few minutes of excitement I took her to my brother’s room and he had the same reaction as I did, he patted her on the head and told her to lie down. A few minutes later he sat up and realized she had run all the way home in the rain from somewhere she had never been to before. In the morning after drying her off, giving her a good meal and drink and a sleep we took her into the main house to show my parents. After that they said she would stay with us forever, and she did. The truck rental man couldn’t believe it he said they found dirty paw prints on the hood and top of one of their biggest trucks and she had jumped the fence and run sixty miles home to us.
On another occasion we were moving to Tiburon from San Francisco and someone found her and read her tag which we hadn’t changed since the move and they drove her back to San Francisco and left her outside our old house. Somehow once again she found her way to our new house having to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and find our new house about twenty miles up the coast. She was an amazing dog and my brother’s best friend.

Poodles, Rats and Reindeer

From the time I was little, whenever I would ask my father what he wanted, he always replied: peace, quiet and tranquillity. I always said “no come on, what do you really want?” His reply was always the same throughout my life. I didn’t understand what he meant until my children were all over six years old and then I realized that the best gift you can give someone is a bit of time on their own with no phone, or kids or any other disruptions, just time to sleep or do whatever your heart desires even if it was just for a few hours. This brings me to our house on Park Drive Saratoga where the kids all lived in a house attached to my parents. My poodle Chaussette, you have all met before in other stories, and she also fits into this one. My friend down the street had a miniature poodle and so did I, but she also had a rat and I didn’t. I begged my parents for one but finally my father said I don’t care if someone gives you the rat, cage and a years supply of food the answer is NO. During summer break I cleverly brought home a rat, cage, years supply of food and to top it off a maze. I told my father it was a science project. I am sure he didn’t believe me but that is how I got Bat Rat. My friend Rhonda and I used to put our poodles and rats in our bicycle baskets and take them on picnics to Montalvo and to the store. In the store we always put the rats on our shoulders scaring half of the customers. Eventually even my mother came around to how sweet Bat Rat was. Like I said on the house on Park Drive we all had outside doors and my sister and I shared a joining bathroom. My brother lived in the part with the kitchen and TV room, with his own bedroom and bathroom. I was a normal, awkward and obnoxious pre-teen with the sense of humor to go with it. My sister on the other hand was a phone talking, sophisticated teen-ager with no time for my pranks. Just as normal as me, I suppose. Now that I look back I must have driven her crazy because what a pre-teen and a teen-ager find amusing have nothing in common. One night when she was talking on the phone looking at the wall I snuck in and set my rat on her shoulder. She didn’t notice at first until he moved and ran that prickly tail across her neck. She jumped up and let out a shriek giving me just enough time to catch the rat and skedaddle. She was furious. I thought it was so funny that after things had calmed down a bit I would try it again. You see this is what I mean about what a pre-teen thinks is funny and what is not. I have to back-track here for just a moment so you can fully appreciate the story. When we lived in England my parents took us all on a ski trip to Scotland to the Cairngorms. It is very famous now but I think we were the first visitors. I know we were in the hotel, run by a very tall Finish woman and her very tiny husband from Lapland. They were called the Utsis. He raised reindeer and she ran the hotel which still wasn’t finished. At the ski resort, there was a lodge, not yet open but they gave you a bag lunch. You could ski down the hill and then wait for a bus to take you back to the top or you could walk, there were no lifts. It was over Christmas and we even got to go to church in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. On about the third day I slipped on the ice and cracked my tail bone so I had to stay at the hotel with Mrs. Utsi, which turned out to be quite fun. I got to help her in the kitchen making cookies and things. She gave me a present. It was a stuffed rat dressed in Scottish clothes. With that little bit of history we can return to Park Drive and my sister back on the telephone again. Since I though it was so funny the first time I was sure it would be better the second. Worried about the safety of Bat Rat I took my Scottish stuffed rat and snuck into my sister’s room where she was still talking to her friends. I carefully placed the stuffed rat on her shoulder and waited for the reaction. Thank goodness it was the stuffed rat because this time she showed no mercy. She grabbed the rat off her shoulder and threw it against the wall so hard that if it had been Bat Rat I am sure he couldn’t have survived. I made myself very scarce for quite along time until my sister could calm down. I am sure that all my sister ever wanted was peace, quiet and tranquillity as well. I think most of us discover this as we get older.

Marcel

When we lived in Los Gatos, which was until I was between four and five, we had a great house and a big yard. It is when I started Kindergarten with my friend Patty Peck. We had a German shepherd called Heidi. Heidi was our constant companion and never left our side. She played all day with us and was very gentle. Everyone loved her. As you all know by now my mother was a health-freak so even from the age of four, I had to walk home with my brother and sister up-hill about a mile and a half. It was called Hollywood Drive. When we got part way up the hill we would all start spelling out and yelling H E R E H E I D I and she would come running down the road to meet us. One day a naughty boy in the neighbourhood had started to tease her by showing her some meat then pulling it away he thought it was very funny but this was to have tragic consequences for us. She eventually jumped for the meat and barely bit the boy on the face. It was very minor no stitches or anything but his parents put up a stink about having a vicious dog wandering free and my parents had to put her down. That day while walking home from school we called H E R E H E I D I and she didn’t come. We were very worried because it was the first time she hadn’t come to meet us. When we got home we went into the garden to look for her and found a huge black dog with pom-poms on his feet and tail: I later learned it was a giant Poodle. His name was Marcel. We asked my mother where Heidi had gone and what was that in the garden. I was so small that I really don’t remember the story she told but I knew it wasn’t true. It turned out she had taken Heidi to the vet and since he knew what a wonderful dog she was and someone had brought in this poodle to be put down because they couldn’t handle him in their small house with no garden, the vet made a switch. I don’t know what my mother was thinking because there was no way Marcel would make up for Heidi and besides he was not castrated, something my mother failed to notice and he spent his whole time trying to ride us around the garden. I thought he was trying to play piggy-back but the rest of the family knew what he was doing. We didn’t speak to my mother for about two months and then when we moved. Marcel didn’t move with us. I have no idea where he went but we got another German shepherd and spoke to my mother again.

Pooh

One warm spring night when I lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains we had a few friends over for drinks. Because the weather was so pleasant we had the doors open. Suddenly, a little visitor came walking through the door and joined in the party. She was a very young raccoon, far too young to be away from her mother. We took a quick look around to see if we could find any more babies or the mother but we found nothing. She was smaller than the palm of my hand and appeared very friendly. We tried feeding her milk with bread and a few other things but she didn’t seem very interested. We were all a bit worried because it was obvious that she hadn’t eaten in some time. She walked over to me and I was drinking a Dr. Pepper: she grabbed hold of the bottle and started to lick it. She obviously wanted more so we poured a tiny amount in a little plate and she drank it all up. She was so cute and we were all laughing by now as she went from person to person looking for more Dr. Pepper. There was a neighbourhood raccoon called Esmerelda who had lived in the vicinity for many years so we thought the baby might be hers. Esmerelda was not afraid of humans, and she even used to break into the house and open the refrigerator and help herself to what she wanted. If she couldn’t get in, when we got home from work she would be in the driveway banging her little tin plate waiting for something to eat. A racoon’s favourite foods, by the way, are grapes and eggs. Esmeralda didn’t belong to anyone and made the rounds of the neighbourhood as she had done for many years. We figured that perhaps someone might have tried to take her in and make a pet out of her which would mean there were probably more babies out there.
But then all of the sudden, the baby went into convulsions and started foaming at the mouth. We called the local wildlife help-line – their center was right down the road from us – and the lady said to wrap her in a towel and get there as soon as we could. She said she would keep her under observation for a few days and give her some shots and when she was ready she would be returned to us with a male raccoon to keep her company and to be turned loose with her in about a year but in the meantime we had to build a large area for her and she was to be on a high-protein diet. We turned half of our terrace into a cage for her and she and her friend came home in about three weeks. We called her Pooh. She ate better than we did. She would have either scrambled or hard boiled eggs, grapes, bananas and other fruits and vegetables. It turned out that due to malnutrition, all the sugar, and the preservatives it was too much for her system to handle. We never saw Esmerelda again so something must have happened to her. Even though we had her from a baby, Pooh never was very friendly not like her companion Rocky. You could feed her by hand and pet her but she did not like to be picked up. About three months before we were to release them into the wild, we were told we would have to start changing their diet so that they could learn to eat things as they would find them in the wild. For Pooh, this proved to be much more traumatic then I had expected. We would give her a smaller amount of cooked eggs and then a raw egg as she had to learn to eat them raw. Instead of being served on a plate, her food was hung high up in the cage so she would have to make an effort to get it. It ended up taking us about five months to get her ready for release into the wild. In all of this, Rocky was far easier than Pooh to both handle and teach. The night we let them go, they were a bit afraid to leave the terrace but after a few hours they climbed down a tree, well fell off would be more accurate, and set off, straight across the street to the wine vineyard that made one of California’s most exclusive wines. The grapes were just ready for picking. What I found strange is that she or her companion never came back to visit or have a snack, we never saw them again but I am sure they lived very happily in the mountains.

c

b

a