LAURA

In this story, I recall the arrival of our second child. 02/29/2016

LAURA

Our married life had settled into a familiar routine. Angie minded Jamie while I spent five days a week at my job. The close proximity of my office to our apartment allowed me to drive home for lunch and enjoy their company. Jamie grew more beautiful by the month, her hair becoming ever so curly.

Angie became pregnant again, and we wondered whether Jamie would have a sister or a brother. The answer came on July 21, 1957 with the birth of our second daughter, Laura Lynn at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, a full-term healthy and happy baby. From the outset, Laura displayed prominent cheek features which led us to call her our “dimpled darling.”

Shortly before her birth, we moved to a duplex on 48th Street in San Mateo, just a few blocks from our previous residence. Above our ground floor apartment lived a divorcee with two pre-teen boys. We referred to her as the “Sergeant” because of her stern and gruff demeanor. She seemed to be a mean spirited, unsmiling, cranky person. We missed not having the Morans for neighbors.

Our duplex adjoined some other units, and we soon made friends with a number of their tenants, including Lois and Ralph Hardy. Their oldest son weighed a ton. One day I lifted this bundle of “joy” over the fence to allow him to play with Jamie and paid the price in the form of a strained groin that later herniated.

Cars were always my bane. Angie needed a car, so we bought an old Ford, whose year and style I don’t recall. Meanwhile, my ’51 Studebaker began to malfunction. We couldn’t afford a new car, so we decided to accept an offer from Ralph, a United Air Lines mechanic, to replace the engine with one he helped me buy from a junkyard. Afterwards, a California D.M.V. inspector discovered that the engine block number did not agree with the one on the bill of sale. It took me quite a while to convince the authority figure the engine had not been stolen. 

Kay and Ian McClellan lived next door to the Hardys. They were a fun loving couple. He worked as a sales representative for the Crown Cork Corporation, the company that manufactured cork inserts once found in bottle caps. He quit his job in order to buy a run-down soda bottling company in Oakland whereupon he fired all the firm’s delivery drivers. He then offered to sell them the trucks and work for him as independent commissioned sales agents. This allowed him to shift the burden of truck maintenance and sales effort directly to the drivers, significantly reducing his overhead expenses.

The McClellans bought a small house on a large lot in nearby San Carlos. Ian designed and built a truly unique addition to the home, choosing to leave a tree standing in the middle of the new add-on. He installed glass walls around the tree’s trunk. This design allowed natural light to illuminate the interior of the house and provided an interesting view of the tree’s branches high above the roof, a spectacular architectural accomplishment. The front of the new room had large windows from which you could see the San Francisco bay.

 One evening Angie and I spent hours with Ian and Kay trying to think up catchy names for the new soda flavors he wanted to introduce. His business had begun to thrive. However, the Cuban missile crisis caused sugar prices to soar, and this forced him out of business.  

Kay went by the nickname, “Sparky.”  She allowed her pregnant unmarried friend, now a Stanford graduate student, to live with them while awaiting the birth. This girl went by the nickname, “Peaches.” When Kay’s parents announced their intention to visit, Sparky asked if Peaches could room with us until her parents left. We agreed, and for upwards of a month, we had the pleasure of her company.

It astonished us that Peaches gave up her baby up for adoption. Later, we learned she finished graduate school, married happily, and had a number of children.

In a recent phone discussion with Kay, who now lives in Florida, she said Peaches informed her husband and children of her first child. They made an unsuccessful effort to trace its whereabouts. It seems all her family wished she had kept the baby. 

Another neighbor, Joe Capps, had worked his way through college as a carpenter while studying to be a chemist. He later realized he could make more money pounding nails than in mixing reagents, and abandoned his efforts to work in his academic field. He bought a residential lot in Redwood City on which he built a unique four-bedroom home. He sold it before he could move in. He repeated this scenario. In a short time, he became a recognized builder of custom homes. Years later, he bought a tract of land at Half Moon Bay and built a large development there. His two-story homes featured wall-to-wall stone fireplaces, both in the living room and the master bedroom above. He told me it did not cost that much to incorporate this feature, but added so much in style and appearance that his homes sold quickly.

FWC‘s cooling tower sales increased, thanks to its new design, and it appeared that the department would begin earning money. But the competition for business made it difficult. In order to secure business, we began offering towers incorporating unique features and very large diameter fans, unproven in service. Our customers included many large firms in the electric utility business and process plants industry. They expected our cooling towers to perform as specified and we guaranteed they would.  Not all of them did.

None of these matters concerned Laura. She thrived on our love and affection.

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I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE UNDER MY FEET

Earthquakes are common in California. This story recounts one that rattled San Mateo in 1957. 02/29/2016

I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE UNDER MY FEET

In the spring of 1957, things were going well for us and for our neighbors, Pat and Kate Moran, who lived in the apartment directly below us in our six-family unit. Pat had recently joined the Belmont city police force but had not received much training. He spent his first night on duty sitting in a police car up in the hills overlooking the community, pushing buttons, trying to figure out which one operated the siren. While Pat and I worked, our wives spent many hours together, discussing motherhood and its virtues.      

During the summer of 1957, a moderate earthquake hit the Bay area in mid-afternoon. I rushed home from my nearby downtown San Mateo office, while Pat raced home in his patrol car, both of us concerned about the well-being of our wives and babies. We found them huddled together in Pat’s apartment, unharmed but still frightened. When the quake hit, they said they left the babies on the couch and took cover in the doorway.

Pat then played a dirty trick. He went into the adjoining bedroom, thumped his fists against the wall, hard enough to shake the living room pictures, simulating an aftershock. True to form, our wives again ran to the nearest door, this time abandoning both babies on the couch. Quakes are frightening events.

  Shauna, the Moran’s baby girl, had to wear shoes attached to a steel bar while sleeping in her crib to avoid becoming pigeon-toed. Upon awakening, she pounded the bar against the sides of the crib, making a deafening sound. It is a wonder she did not chop the crib to pieces.

  Not long after Pat joined the force he had a chance to demonstrate his police skills in our apartment building. Awakened by a commotion, he went barefooted into the basement laundry room, where he cornered a teenage boy who had been stealing lingerie from the clotheslines. The kid put a move on him and escaped. We howled with laughter that a member of the “Panties Police” had failed to catch a culprit trapped in a room that had only one exit.

  Another couple who lived in our apartment we found to be delightfully offbeat.  The pregnant wife, who hailed from Fiji, hated doing the family wash. As she grew larger, her supply of underpants diminished. Rather than buy new ones designed to accommodate her expanding tummy, she chose to wear her husband's skivvies, which she showed off to one and all with great indifference to propriety. Fijians live by a different set of social rules, we learned.    

Our lovely apartment had only one bedroom. When Angie became pregnant with our second child, we decided to move to a larger place, a duplex apartment just a few blocks away, on 48^th Street. It had many nice features, including two spacious bedrooms, a kitchen large enough to eat in, and a big living/dining room, complete with a fireplace. The washer-dryer units were located in the garage, just steps away from the kitchen door. The fenced back yard had numerous blooming rose bushes. One bedroom had a wonderful mural painted on a wall, a carousel circus scene, a perfect backdrop for young children.

We had access to our new apartment for a week before moving which allowed me time to paint the kitchen to match the colors of the one we were leaving. When the time came to move, Angie and Kate Moran, the neighbor with whom she had shared an earthquake experience, cried.

As the song goes, they were “All shock up.”

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BABY FACE

Our child won first prize in a baby contest. Okay, there were no other entries. 02/29/2016

BABY FACE

We decided to call our new infant, “Jamie Lee,” after seeing this name in the society page of the local paper shortly before her birth. Her unusual name caused some people to think we had a baby boy. Jamie did not care for her name while growing up. Later, she changed the spelling of her middle name to “Leigh” and is now quite pleased with her moniker. 

Jamie arrived on time, a full term perfectly healthy baby. We had bought just about everything needed for a newborn: Crib, bassinet, furniture, playpen, carriage. You name it; we had it. We were elated to bring her into our home, and looked forward to becoming ideal parents. We had no idea how difficult this task would be during the next few weeks. Our idyllic concept of parenthood soon ended when we could not soothe Jamie who cried and cried. We had expected some crying, but her screams were constant and unending. After ten days of sleeplessness, we were both completely unnerved.

One experience illustrates my state of mind. A man knocked on our apartment door, introduced himself as a representative of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and stuck out his hand to shake mine. Without comment, I slammed the door in his face. Luckily, he pulled his hand out of the way before the door slammed shut with a resounding bang. A few days later, he phoned to apologize for making a cold call.

“No, I am the one who should apologize for being so rude. At the moment, we have no interest in buying insurance.” Had he been peddling sleeping pills, we would have invited him in for dinner.

At her two-week checkup, the pediatrician said Jamie had lost weight and advised Angie to give up her efforts to breast-feed. Jamie’s cries were ones of starvation. As soon as we started feeding her formula, she became a happy infant, and we regained our sanity.

Parents in those days cared for their infants using cloth diapers and sterilized powdered milk. The convenience of Pampers and packaged formula were years away. Should Jamie awake before we had time to sterilize the next batch of milk, we had to endure her screams while we rushed to get the pot of water boiling. Nothing made me feel more despondent than having to delay feeding her because we lacked sterilized milk. In time, we became more pragmatic. To hell with germs. To hell with Dr. Spock.  Give the kid something to drink, sterilized or not. Naturally, Jamie thrived, and so did we.

Initially, we ordered diaper service. In short order, we found it far more convenient to wash the diapers ourselves. Learning how to pin a diaper, now a lost art, took me quite a while to master. I punctured Jamie on more than one occasion.

All parents believe their first baby is the most special person in the world, and we were no exception. By the time Jamie turned six months, she had become gloriously angelic in our eyes. She had an olive complexion and curly black hair. Angie dressed her in new clothes every day, so it seemed. We were bursting with pride and happiness. A stranger had come and turned our world into something magical.

In the summer of 1957, we spent our vacation in New York in order to show Jamie to our relatives. While visiting my parents, my mom placed Jamie on the fire escape for some nice fresh Hoboken air. Angie gasped, and stood petrified. She thought my mother had put Jamie’s life at risk and couldn’t wait to retrieve her. Home movies show my parents, leaning out the front window, waving good-bye to us as we returned to California, a treasured memory from that trip.

The TWA flight from New York to San Francisco took about 18 hours, a tortuous journey. The plane made frequent stops all across the country, including an extended layover in Kansas City, during which time the passengers remained on board the aircraft. Poor Angie. She sat there in sweltering heat, cuddling Jamie while suffering from an infection. The round trip airfare of $175 had seemed like quite a bargain, but it cost us a lot more in discomfort. Jamie did not mind. She never cried a peep nor did she file a complaint with the police.

Despite the ordeal, our trip convinced us that we had made a wise decision to move to the West Coast. San Mateo had so much more to offer us than Hoboken or Brooklyn, our roots.

As 1957 came to an end, we looked back and realized how much we had experienced in our marriage. We had risen from the despair of miscarriage to the elation of childbirth. We felt grateful and pleased.

Early on in our marriage, we agreed that she would control the purse strings. She had proven to be a far better at money manager than I. During the brief time we were wed, she paid off the costs of furnishing our apartment and a vacation trip back east without the need to borrow or resort to credit. 

Infants dominated our lives. Our neighbors, Pat and Kate Moran, had their first baby, whom they named Shauna, a few days after Jamie had been born. Angie’s friend, Frances (and husband Ted) Lysten, whom she met while employed at Lenkurt Electric, also gave birth to a girl about the same time. The three new moms compared notes seemingly every day.

We stayed close to home; content to take weekend drives around the area. We were both very domesticated cats. It overjoyed me to play the role of “Dad.”  I took especial delight in giving Jamie her first bath as Angie found it a challenge to handle a squirming wet and soapy infant. Marriage and fatherhood suited me, and although Angie missed her family very deeply, being a wife and a mother pleased her.

We willingly surrendered ourselves to the role of parenting, wholeheartedly. We devoted all our time to Jamie, relishing every new day in her life. Call us prejudiced, but we felt our child to be the most beautiful baby on earth, a real blue-ribbon winner.

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HELLO, MY BABY

I became a daddy in 1956. Read all about it. 02/292016

HELLO, MY BABY!

While driving home from an office cocktail party on a rainy day in late December 1955, Angie spotted a virtually empty Christmas tree lot.

 “Let’s stop and get one.”

The operator gave us the last one he had: FREE. He wanted to go home. The man tied it atop our Studebaker, and I managed to drag it into the apartment. Angie fell asleep on the couch watching me set it up. Unfortunately, it did not produce much joy.

A few days before Christmas, Angie suffered a miscarriage. Dr. Joseph Waddell made an urgent house call and confirmed the obvious. He assured us that first pregnancies often end this way, and expressed confidence we would have children in the future. At the time, his assurance did not fill us with optimism. 

Rain fell almost every day in San Mateo that winter causing the worst localized flooding in the city’s history. One day a house atop the hill near our apartment came off its foundation and slid down a ravine. That event, coupled with the gloomy weather, made Angie very despondent. Every day she longed to return to New York.

The State of California had rejected Angie’s claim for unemployment insurance as she had resigned her position voluntarily. This added to her malaise. Anxious to return to the workforce, in January she found a job in nearby Belmont with the Lenkurt Electric Company. Despite her previous experience as an Executive Secretary, she could not command as much pay as she had been earning in Manhattan prior to our marriage.

As Dr. Waddell had predicted, Angie became pregnant soon again and had to quit her job to await our first child, a girl, born November 30, 1956, at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. Could life be sweeter? 

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THERE'S A SMALL HOTEL

Our honeymoon trip lasted two weeks. This story describes it.02/29/2016

THERE’S A SMALL HOTEL

We spent our first evening together at the Waldorf Astoria. On Monday, we flew from LaGuardia, to San Francisco to begin our married life far from our old homesteads. Friends took us to the unfurnished apartment I had rented in September. All its rooms had been newly painted. The blue-and-yellow enamel walls and ceiling of the kitchen-dining room shone like a mirror. The living room and bedroom were large and newly carpeted. A large bathroom and numerous closets made the apartment a perfect nest for newlyweds. Angie will love the place. And she did.

FWC had agreed to pay the cost of hauling Angie’s furniture from her home in Queens to our new abode. However, it wouldn’t arrive for another two weeks. This fit our plans perfectly, as the following day we began our honeymoon trip, following an itinerary suggested by her boss, Archie Goodrich. It would take us through parts of California, Nevada and Arizona, including the Grand Canyon.

From San Mateo we drove toward Fresno and the entrance to the Yosemite National Park. We enjoyed perfect weather and found the park quite scenic. It seemed as though we had the entire place to ourselves, almost devoid of tourists. The next leg of our trip took us through Kings Canyon National Park, equally beautiful to see. We drove east to the desert community of Needles which borders Arizona on the Colorado River and then north to the Inyo National Park, site of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in California. We drove up the mountain as far as possible, stopping to take home movies of the beautiful fall colors of the foliage. The descent down the narrow winding mountain road unnerved Angie who slid low in her seat to avoid having to look out the window, foretelling what would happen at the Grand Canyon.

From Mt. Whitney, we crossed into Nevada, headed toward the Panamint Range and Death Valley, site of the Furnace Creek Inn, closed for business at this time of year. We both could have used a drink at that time.

At last, we arrived at Las Vegas, a relatively small, gaudy but exciting place to visit at this time. We stayed clear of the major hotels, opting to check in at a motel on the outskirts of town. Beginner’s luck did not apply, and my attempts to win a fortune playing craps ended when the house took my wagers. On this disappointing note, we left Sin City.

We drove across the Hoover Dam and arrived at the Grand Canyon just as all the park’s facilities were shutting down. As we had not made any hotel reservations, we had to turn around and drive back sixty miles to Williams to spend the night in a motel.

Early the next morning we were back at the Canyon where we signed up for the one-day ride on the mules down to the plateau that looks over the Colorado River. My weight, 175 pounds, matched the maximum allowed for riders. The prospect of being toted down the Canyon’s narrow trail astride a mule terrified Angie. The wrangler escorting our party of seven other sightseers assured her safety, remarking, “Lady, I've been takin’ tourists down this here trail for 25 years and I ain't never lost one of 'em yet, and I ain't gonna lose you." Then he placed her mule first in line behind him and dragged her down the narrow path. From my vantage point, last in the chain, I could see Angie hanging on for dear life at every hairpin turn, head held rigidly away from the canyon so as not to peek at the chasm below. I will always recall this thrill of a lifetime ride.

Take my word for it, we are in this photo, taken moments before we rode down the trail.

We returned to California by way of Las Vegas where I hoped to win back the money I had lost there on our first visit. My gambling style of cautiously betting no more than one buck at a time contrasted with that of a drunk who slouched over the table tossing chips on every one of my rolls. When he ran out of them, the casino had him swipe his name across a credit form and they reloaded him. I could not comprehend how anyone could be so willing to lose money that way. Before finally crapping out, Lady Luck allowed me to recover the amount lost previously.

In the morning, as we checked out, the motel desk clerk asked, “How’d you make out at the casino?’

“We broke even.”

“No, in that case you actually won.” 

That observation stuck with me. Gambling never attracted my interest afterwards.

We left the glitz of the Strip, did a one-hour tour of Palm Springs and sped off to Anaheim. Disneyland had opened a few months earlier. We found the park virtually empty. Hardly any tourists visited the park the day we arrived making it for us to explore every attraction. We had a great time.      

The next day, our travels took us north along the Pacific Coast highway toward the Mission at Carmel. Somewhere between Santa Cruz and San Jose, the Studebaker stalled. Another car pulled alongside and three young men got out, making me fearful.

“Need help?”

Those were the kindest words I had ever heard spoken.

They opened the hood, tightened a loose wire in the distributor, and had the car up and running in minutes.

“Where are you heading?”

“San Mateo.”

“We’ll follow behind in case you need more help.” And they did, all the way to our apartment. Talk about guardian angels.

Home movies captured many of the highlights of our memorable honeymoon trip. We thanked Archie Goodrich profusely for suggesting it. On the other hand, I wondered if we would have had just as much fun had we spent two weeks in Hawaii, an alternate consideration.

No mules?  No Missions?  No casinos? No Mickey Mouse? No way.     

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THOSE WEDDING BELLS

This story describes our wedding, a marriage that has lasted more than half a century. 02/29/2016

THOSE WEDDING BELLS

In August 1955, I left Arcata and moved to San Mateo. Things began looking up. I loved the better weather and enjoyed reuniting with the other employees who had elected to transfer from our NYC office. We were confident that our new cooling tower design would allow the company to offer a more competitive product, and start making money.

Later that month I flew back to NYC to affirm my desire to marry Angie. We set our wedding date, October 8, 1955.  I returned to California leaving her to make all the wedding arrangements. There were no hitches.

It rained on our wedding day, a good omen they say. Angie arrived quite late at the church, making me a nervous wreck. My brother, James, served as my best man, while Angie’s sister, Jo Sepuca, played the role of matron of honor to perfection. My first cousin, Reverend Thomas Francis Heneghan, conducted our nuptial Mass.

The bride and groom pose for posterity.

Angie’s mother, Antoinette, had died on April 1, 1955. Out of respect, Angie arranged for our wedding reception to be held at a nearby small Italian restaurant, a no-frills affair. We did not dance. Afterwards, many the guests gathered at Angie’s residence, which she shared with her father, Bonaventura, her oldest brother, Tom, and his new wife, Joanna. Home movie film shows how happy we looked at the time. Angie wore the most beautiful bridal gown you can imagine, and looked like the proverbial princess. I had married a wonderful and beautiful girl.

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IT'S A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY

This story describes how I felt about living in northern California. 02/29/2016

IT’S A LONG WAY FROM TIPPERARY

Northern California is no bed of roses, although nearby Portland, Oregon is famous for them. Its coastline is very rugged, more bleak than beautiful. The temperature of the Pacific Ocean water north of San Francisco is very low, often below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which when combined with its rough surf make it very swimmer-unfriendly. Most of my weekend trips took me north to Oregon or south to Santa Rosa. The views of the beaches in either direction were always the same: uninviting.

Narrow roads filled with logging trucks made driving inland difficult. Mighty redwoods and enormous stands of Douglas fir populate the region, making the forests both scenic and imposing. However, when lumberjacks harvest the trees, the forests lose their picturesque appearances. It is far too noisy there to contemplate nature. The woods rang out with a cacophony of ear-splitting sounds coming from chain saws and logging trucks driven by daredevils at frightening speeds hauling logs to the mills located along the coast. The ground  seemed always to be damp and the air smelled dank. Angie would have detested the place, which made our decision to defer marriage seem wise.

Soon after my arrival in Arcata the company hired a structural design engineer, William Cauley, a bachelor like me. We often ate dinner together at a small family restaurant. He lived frugally in a one-room furnished apartment that had no kitchen.

On a few occasions, he would join me for a beer after eating, but neither of us enjoyed the company of the roughnecks who populated the local bars. These gents were loggers, truckers or mill workers who appeared to be a fearsome lot. I preferred to imbibe at the Eureka Inn’s lounge as it catered to vacationers, traveling sales representatives and a few local businesspersons, most of whom did not wear Levis and other Western attire. The bar crowd wore professional attire and spoke in a civil manner.

One late evening, while sipping a cocktail in the motel’s nearly deserted lounge, a rough looking bewhiskered older man joined me at the bar. He guzzled down a beer in one swig. We had a brief conversation before he left as abruptly as he had arrived. When he had gone, the bartender informed me that this character owned a huge spread of redwoods, and had the distinction of being one of the wealthiest men in the area. It confirmed the adage: Don’t judge a beer guzzler by his beard.

In late June, our staff completed the new tower design. In August, the company closed its Arcata office and transferred us to their new office in San Mateo where we joined forces with a few other NYC Cooling Tower Department employees who had chosen to relocate. It had not come soon enough to satisfy me. Residing in the fog-shrouded area of Eureka Bay depressed me. The San Francisco Bay area had much more to offer in the way of cultural and social activities, on a par with New York City. San Mateo even had sunshine!

Let me assure you, the cities of Eureka/Arcata are a long way from everywhere, not just Tipperary.

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RED SAILS IN THE SUNSET

This story describes a fishing adventure that ended flatly. 03/10/2016

RED SAILS IN THE SUNSET

   One day in 1955 Ed Carlson and Eb Brazelton persuaded me to go salmon fishing with them, against my better judgment. Fishing never appealed to me, but it would not have been polite to refuse their offer. We climbed into a small boat powered by Eb’s outboard motor and chugged out into the vast Pacific Ocean beyond Humboldt Bay, the entrance to the port of Eureka, California.

After bobbing around endlessly, a fish finally bit my hook, the only fish caught that day. 

This picture shows me holding my trophy catch that day. “What should I do with this critter? I don’t eat fish.” Too late to toss it back, I gave it to a starving cat and sailed off into the sunset in search of meat.

At last, we headed back to the dock. I couldn’t wait to get back on dry land. As we entered the harbor, a Japanese freighter sailed past us. Its wake hit our little craft and caused it to rock violently.

We’re going to capsize. The prospect of taking an unwanted bath in that frigid ocean frightened me. Both Ed and Eb made light of the episode but it convinced me not to join them on any future voyages in that little craft.

A prior fishing expedition with Eb had caused me grief. While spending time with him at a job site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1953, he put his outboard motor in the trunk of my ’51 Studebaker while coming and going fishing at a nearby TVA lake. Neither of us realized that some oil had leaked out of the motor into the well where my spare tire stood in an upright position.

On my way home from this Pacific Ocean fishing adventure, a flat tire stopped me in my tracks. After changing it, the car wobbled upon reaching a speed of 35 mph. I could not understand why. The tire had sat in that well since the day I bought the car. I brought the car to the Firestone Tire Company dealer who determined that all those years of sitting in an oil bath had deformed and ruined it.

The dealer said, “You never rotated your original tires and you never had a flat in over 50,000 miles? Write a testimonial to Firestone’s corporate office. They might reward you with a set of four brand new tires.” 

I chose not to, as my claim might have smelled “fishy” to them.

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A FOGGY DAY

In this vignette I recall working and living in Northern California. 02/29/2016

A FOGGY DAY

   The idea of moving from metropolitan New York to the Golden State appealed to me on many levels. It could kick-start my life, which seemed stuck in neutral. The aftershocks of the major earthquake that rattled the twin cities of Eureka/Arcata soon after my arrival made me sit up and notice how drastically my life had changed.

 Eb Brazelton, his wife, Jobie, and their adorable toy poodle, Character, had preceded me to this area. They lived in a trailer park. Another early arrival was Maurice Tarplee, his wife, Marie, and their two daughters. They lived in a beautiful home, which they probably rented. During the 1954 Christmas season, they treated me like kin.

   Here I am, playing pattycakes with one of Tarplee's daughters, smiling at his yonger one. Tarplee sits on the floor, talking shop with Ed Carlson, the mill manager.

My first two weeks were spent looking for a furnished apartment.  Pickings were slim but one had possibilities. It consisted of one large room furnished with a sleeper-couch and other living room furniture plus a kitchen and bath.

I asked the elderly widowed landlady, “How much do you want for the place?”

“The rent is seventy five dollars a month.

“I’ll take it.”

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from the New York City area.”

“In that case, I’ll only charge you sixty-five dollars. You'll have the heat on all the time and will need the money to pay your electric bill." She had that right. The climate left me cold all the time and I always had to turn up the thermostat at night.

The Eureka/Arcata area is not only a long way from New York City in every sense, it is equally remote from other parts of California. The two cities, seven miles apart, are three hundred miles north of San Francisco and ninety mile south of the Oregon border, with not much in between. Coastal fog frequently obscured long stretches of the two-lane highway heading north or south. The residents bragged that during WW II the army used the Eureka airport to test various methods of dispersing fog. The cold Pacific Ocean provided an endless supply of the stuff.   

I did not enjoy living there. Daytime temperatures were usually in the low sixties, nighttime some ten or more degree's cooler. Fog or mist prevailed during the early morning or late evening hours.  Overcast skies gloomily covered the entire area during the daylight hours causing many people to experience depression. On weekends, many locals would drive to Santa Rosa to escape the dreary environment in search of sunshine.

My working conditions were pleasant. FWC rented office space on the top floor of a two-story commercial building in Arcata, above a hardware store. 

FWC occupied the second floor of this building in Arcata, California.

Here, Tarplee, Brazelton and others worked to complete the redesign of the company’s redwood cooling towers. I continued to act as the contract administrator while assuming the purchasing function previously handled by the New York office. The company authorized the addition of an office clerk to assist me.

Eb Brazelton said, “Joe, you ought to interview my trailer park neighbor. He could use a job and would be a great addition to the staff.”

Enter Fred King, a 6'-3", 225-pound, twenty-year-old Adonis who had suffered a head injury while playing football for Southern California, resulting in the loss of his athletic scholarship.  His physique did not seem to match that of an office clerk, but not wishing to disappoint Eb, I hired him.

Fred turned out to be an amazing person. He eagerly sopped up all I could teach him. His capacity to absorb information astounded me. In no time, he not only mastered his clerical duties but grasped the heat engineering principles involved in cooling tower design as well. In August, Fred accepted an offer to move to San Mateo with his wife and daughter when the company closed its Arcata office. Once there, he started taking night classes and earned an accounting degree.  Hard strapped for dough to pay his tuition, he asked me for a loan. Angie frowned on this idea. In retrospect, I always regretted this decision.  You see, in time he went into the printed circuit business and made a fortune. A lifelong resident of Arcata, the fog there had not clouded his vision.

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SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL

I looked forward to driving across the country to reach the west coast, but got an unexpected greeting when I reached the Pacific Ocean. This vignette describes the journey. 02/29/2016

                                      

                                       SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL

Once I had accepted the job transfer, events moved swiftly. I packed my belongings in a steamer trunk and shipped it to Arcata via Railway Express. The next day, my cross-country automobile ride began. At Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a heavy snowfall convinced me to change my travel plan. Instead of proceeding due west, I make a left turn and drive south to Meridian, Mississippi, then west to Dallas, Texas.         

After checking into a downtown hotel, a combination of thirst and boredom made me seek out a nearby tavern. Loud country music filled the air along with cigarette smoke. After one beer, I succumbed to temptation and bought a pack of Lucky Strikes, intending to smoke just one. That good intention failed. One cigarette led to another and another. It felt good to take a drag and sip some suds. Nicotine had hooked me again.         

My next day’s drive took me to Amarillo. At a gas station, after checking the oil and water, the attendant closed the hood. In the process, the steel rod used to hold the hood open slipped from his hand. It now protruded straight out from the grille, perfect for spearing pedestrians, perhaps. It took me fifteen minutes to undo the latch, by which time the undertaker had me in his sights. My skin started to freeze-dry while being sand-blasted by the howling wind. Alaska’s arctic weather seemed tropical in comparison to this frigid day in the Texas Panhandle.

The next leg of my journey took me to Tucson. This quaint city captivated me. After checking in at a hotel near the campus of the University of Arizona, I went sight-seeing. All the stores featured Christmas decorations with a southwestern flavor. Shoppers wore earrings and other jewelry with southwest accents.

The visibility seemed unlimited. The sun shone intensely. After dinner, the thought of lingering here for another day began to appeal to me. Why rush? Why not enjoy this place for another twenty-four hours.

I delayed my departure, choosing to spend the next morning walking around town. I checked out of the hotel at noon, dropped my suitcase on the sidewalk, walked across the street to a parking lot where I had left my car overnight, got in and drove off.  Fifty miles down the road, my mind flashed a thought. You dummy! You left your suitcase on the curb in front of the hotel.

 I returned to Tucson, convinced someone would have taken it by now. Much to my surprise, no one had. Could this be an omen to stay another day? Even more reluctantly, I rounded up the wagons a second time and headed toward Yuma and from there to the Californian desert town of Indio, a place with a million motels. The one I chose to stay at had a lounge and a few patrons, one of whom struck up a conversation with me. “The only people who live out here in the desert permanently are those who have lung problems. I hate it here. Where are you heading?”

“Arcata, California.”

“Could you give me a ride tomorrow?  I’m certain I could get a job there.”

“Maybe. I’m leaving about nine.”

He touched my hand and said, “You won’t regret it.” I already had. The guy’s fawning mannerism freaked me out.

By six the next morning, I had Indio in my rear view mirror. By five o’clock that evening, San Francisco welcomed me.

“Where’s the best hotel in town?” It must have struck the gasoline station attendant as a strange request coming from a person driving a quirky car and dressed in rumpled clothes.

“The Fairmont.” He pointed it out to me, high atop Nob Hill.

This incredibly steep landmark thoroughfare is a challenge to navigate. With little room to maneuver, a motorist has to contend with clanging cable cars, numerous stop signs, traffic signals and jaywalkers. That first ride up to the hotel’s entrance caused my heart to race with anxiety.

It raced even faster after entering this four-star hotel to register. The place reeked of opulence. Ornate Christmas trees and other seasonal displays filled the lobby. Women in furs and diamonds lounged about in stark contrast to my attire, rumpled slacks and a stained underwear t-shirt. Despite my appearance, or perhaps because of it, the registration clerk checked me in at the outrageously low price of ten bucks a night. He rented me a tiny room located next to the elevator shaft from which whooshing sounds emanated all night long. It mattered not. The city enchanted me.  I walked down Nob Hill that evening, and rode a cable car back up. I loved the experience. The sounds of the elevator kept me awake all night, giving me plenty of time to worry about the next day.

   Someone had suggested to Dennis that he locate the Cooling Tower Department’s offices in a new industrial park near the campus of Stanford University. “Check it out, while you are in San Francisco,” Dennis had said. The following day found me in Palo Alto, wandering around Stanford’s campus, impressed by its beauty. The leasing agent provided me with information, but I could see our office would be out of place in this upscale high-tech setting, no more I fit in with the Fairmont’s clientele.

   In late afternoon, while driving back to spend my last evening in San Francisco, listening to a music station, my thoughts turned to my final destination , Arcata (population 7,000) and Eureka (population 35,000). These two communities are located seven miles apart on either side of Eureka Bay, some 300 miles north of San Francisco. It would take me all day to drive there, on a winding narrow coastal highway. The weather had been perfect during the last two days, sunny and mild. It never occurred to me that the weather near Eureka Bay would be so dissimilar to that of the San Francisco Bay area. No one had informed me that the Eureka/Arcata area enjoyed coastal fog three hundred days a year.

Then, a shock wave hit me. The announcer said, “A major earthquake has struck the Eureka/Arcata area causing significant damage to buildings, causing some of them to collapse. However, there is no report of injuries or deaths. Phone communication to the region has been cut off.”

How could this be?  I’ve been driving for over a week to reach a place that may no longer exist. The irony overwhelmed me. Pulling off to the side of the highway, laughter rocked my sides for a few minutes before I could continue driving. Not until midnight did my frantic phone call get through to Ed Carlson, the mill manager. He chuckled at my concern. “It was a big quake, but everyone here is fine. No buildings collapsed, but a few are damaged.  We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” 

 While driving to Eureka the next day, the radio continued to give reports about the quake. It confirmed that no one had died, nor had there been any severe injuries. This news comforted me, but my nerves were jangled.            

Once there, the magnitude of the quake became apparent. It had broken every large store window in both cities and had shaken merchandise off the shelves of many retail stores. Chandeliers in a department store had swung in a 180-degree arc, denting the ceiling on either side. It severely damaged a few older buildings. It certainly seemed like it had been a significant earthquake, although I had never experienced one.

The Eureka Inn, the best motel in town, became my lodging the first night in town. About midnight, a “whooshing” noise awakened me. It sounded like a New York City subway. No, that can’t be. Perhaps a logging truck ran into this motel. Then a light dawned as the bed danced. It is an aftershock. Welcome to California.

   Over the next two weeks, a number of significant aftershocks rattled the area. They broke replacement windows and caused shelved goods to topple on the floor again.   

Some people like to brag about having lived through some natural disaster, but not me. It brings to mind a story Abe Lincoln told about a man whose fellow citizens had tarred and feathered for committing a misdemeanor. When asked to describe his feelings about what the town folk had subjected him to, the unfortunate fellow said, "If it hadn't been for all the notoriety I received, I would just as soon have skipped the experience." 

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