Tales From the Dark Side

Tales from the Dark Side 

I’ve already established in previous posts that I loved, and looked up to my step-brother and his wife ever since I met them upon arriving in Washington State.  In trying to figure out the reason why I liked them so much, I can come up with one that is definitely a good argument.  Up until I met him, I pretty much went everywhere and anywhere either alone or with my parents.  Alone was always played safe, and with my parents, it was mostly boring (running errands, etc.).  My mother and step father were very nice and loving people in a parent way, but not very exciting.

While the above is a good argument, the real reason I settled on is that they were young and adventurous.  They did all the things that my parents thought were risky or foolish.  My brother loved firearms, and he had a nice collection; 30-30 over/under Winchester, a couple of 22 pump rifles and 3- 22 caliber handguns, a 20 gage and a 12 gage shotguns.  The best part about this wonderful couple; they loved taking me with them everywhere.  We would go swimming, hunting, camping, horseback riding, target practicing, and regularly to car races.

At the age of thirteen my brother and his wife invited me to a carnival at the annual Rodeo and Pow-Wow.  We were having a blast and were almost ready to go home when we decided to make one last walk through the carnival promenade.  As we walked past a group of small mobile trailers a beautiful young woman was standing at the doorway of the Fortune Teller trailer, and I made the mistake (this is Monday morning quarter-backing, talking) of making eye contact.  She signaled me to come to her but I kept walking behind my brother and sister in-law, as we passed by. 

After going past her trailer about 30 feet I suddenly felt my hand being grabbed and tugged at.  I turned around and was surprised to see the beautiful young lady was trying to get me to go with her to her Fortune Teller trailer. Trust me I know it sounds bad, a 13 year old being lured by a beautiful young woman (Gipsy woman no less), but this story is a lot more serious, as you will eventually come to find out.

The slight commotion got the attention of my brother and his wife who were amused to see a woman pulling on my arm.  He asked her what was going on.  Her response was that she had something important to tell me about my future.  My brother asked how much she charged and she said a dollar but I won’t charge him anything.  My brother being the adult and in charge said, let’s see what the future holds for you, it’s not even going to cost anything.

We went to her trailer where I was asked to seat across from her at a small round table.  She grabbed my right hand and turned it palm side up, where upon she immediately started to trace what she called my life line.  I remember staring at her face, not only for the obvious reason that she was beautiful, but as much for the fact that she had a very serious look on her face.  I felt a sense of imminent life changing information about to be disclosed about my future.  There again what could be so important about a 13 year Old’s life?  Please keep a look out for Tales from the Dark side Part 2.  The best is yet to come….

Larceny In My Heart

Larceny in my heart

It is a known fact that we all have larceny in our hearts, at least I’ve heard it said somewhere.  The rumor, if that is all it is, sounds good enough to me for the purpose and title of this posting.

The year was 1963, and summer was the season. A perfect summer day for a drive; I never missed an opportunity to go for a drive in my 1956 Ford Victoria.  I swear I would have lived in that car if only my mother would allow it.  I regularly would ask my mother if she had any errands for me to run, or if she needed to go somewhere so I could drive her there.  The family car was 1962 Plymouth Belvedere Station Wagon with automatic transmission, air condition the whole nine yards as the saying goes.  I enjoyed driving my mother around in it, that is, until I acquired my Ford.

Teenagers didn’t make fun of each other back then for driving the family car even if it was a station wagon.  Besides, this station wagon had a 383 cu. in. V-8 engine that could outrun most anything in town, and I should know.  You could say I was ungrateful to prefer my Ford without air condition during the hot summer days, but trust me when I say that the Glass-Pak Cherry mufflers, more than made up for it.  People could hear me approaching a country mile away, especial that I loved down shifting as I approached stop signs.

But I digress, back to the subject of larceny in my heart.  Before you go off conjuring pictures in your mind of me robbing banks or even gas stations, here is how it went down.  I had a step-brother two years younger than me, and he loved riding around with me.  You can bet that my mother influenced his love for riding around with me.  He was supposed to keep me out of trouble, not to mention tell on me if I didn’t do everything by the rules.

On a beautiful day in June a week prior to the start of cherry harvest my brother and I drove into town to get haircuts.  We also stopped at Western Auto buy leather gloves and couple of straw hats, to ward of the hot summer sun while working outdoors.  Of course we also made a stop at A & W for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a frosted large glass of root beer (still my all-time favorite).  On the drive home (we lived 15 miles out of town) is when the dastardly deed took place.

We were driving along the beautiful country roads among the open fields of alfalfa, mint and cherry orchards, admiring the ready to be picked plump purplish red cherries.  I suddenly decided that we should pick a few to eat as we drove home.  My little brother and I pulled to the shoulder of the road and went a few yards into the orchard to pick a handful of cherries.  As we came out of the orchard with my brother holding as many cherries, as he could put in his tee-shirt, which he folded up like a pouch in front of him, we were apprehended. 

Apprehended is an exaggeration; we actually came into the open to find a Sherriff’s Patrol Unit parked behind my car.  We were ready to drop the loot but he told us there was no sense in wasting the fruit, so he allowed us to keep it.  He continued to lecture us about how the farmer wouldn’t be able to make a living if everyone that drove by could just stop and pick some fruit.  As he instructed us to get in our car and go home, he mentioned that he knew our older brother, and would tell him about the incident the next time he saw him.

We learned our lesson, and never again took anything that didn’t belong to us.  We became very appreciative of law enforcement, and probably kept us from bigger jobs like robbing banks.  Our older brother never mentioned it to us, so it was probably just a scare tactic (that worked well).  The best is yet to come…..

My One Big Secret

This was almost my last swim

My mother and I had the perfect relationship between mother and son. From the age of 9 years old when my mother and father separated I became the man of the house (literally). The family unit was made up of my mother, my sister (7 years older than me), and me the only man in the house.  My sister passed away three years ago, so I can say the following without hurting her feeling (I am sure she was aware) I believe that I was my mother’s favorite child. Some relatives often said that I resembled my father so much, whom she loved until the day she died, and that is why she favored me.

Communications with my mother were excellent.  There was never any secrets that I kept from my mother, and when she got serious about getting remarried she wanted to know my opinion and approval.  Well, I did keep one secret from her for my whole life (or as it turned out for her whole life).  Her big thing in life was for me to be happy and safe, not necessarily in that order.  Because my maternal grandmother lived on an island off of the Gulf of Mexico, many of our yearly vacations were there.  Whenever we arrived I was like a celebrity to the local kids my age and younger (and even some older ones).  After all they considered me the one that went away to the better world.  Back in those early years I thought they were the ones that were better off.

Those kids had the simple and yet majestic life.  They lived in paradise, bleached white sand on the beach, greenish blue crystal clear water, tropical breeze, banana plants, mango trees, guayabas, berries, and all the seafood you could eat.  None of those mentioned items had to be bought, they were there for the picking, or fishing.  Kids ran around barefoot, in cut-offs or swimsuits, the girls wore white blouses for tops to fend of the tropical sun and its heat.  I on the other hand was always in a process of learning a new language, lived in a climate that pretty much had the four seasons, including the cold and ice and snow of winter.  I am not complaining as it turned out Mexico definitely took a bad turn along the way with the cartels and drugs.

At the time I envied their simple life style.  They would all gather around me and wanted to hear what it was like going to school in the United States.  They wanted to hear me speak in English, and they asked me how to say some specific words in English.  They also wanted to hear about what I did for fun.  The older boys wanted to know what I thought about the non-Hispanic girls that I lived amongst.  When I mentioned the television programs that I watched, they couldn’t believe that people actually had those movie boxes in their homes. 

Since my mother always would tell me to go and play (hangout) with the other children, I always did as I was told.  It goes without saying that she expected me to make good decisions.  When it comes to deciding between adventure and safety, many young ones will go with adventure (sad to say).  Everyone pretty much decided it was time to go swimming in the river.  In those days the best I could do was stay afloat, because of my mother’s safety concerns, I was always told to stay away from the water’s edge (didn’t have any swimming lessons on my resume).

I didn’t know that over recent years, the river had been dredged to allow for ships to pass through the area.  The locals knew to stay near the river’s edge, but I didn’t.  While floating in the river strong currents pulled me away from the shore.  All of a sudden I felt the current pulling me under, I know that I fought to stay on the surface for a short time but I felt that it was for a lot longer, and I was exhausted.  Every time I came up for air I only managed a half breath and a mouthful of water.  The other kids were reaching out to me with oars, and some were swimming out to me.  Even at that young age and inexperienced as I was, I felt that I was not going to win this battle.  I made a calculated decision that I would let the current take me all the way to the bottom.  I curled my legs under me bringing my knees to my chest, and dropped to the bottom like a rock.  While I didn’t want to open my mouth and take in water, I felt like my chest was going to burst for lack of air.  When I finally felt the bottom of the river, I pushed against the river bottom with all my strength extending my legs as if they were spring loaded.  From the bottom of the river I could see the boats on the surface above the water searching for me.

When I finally broke to the surface and could finally fill my lungs with air, I was choking and coughing because I had gotten water in my lungs (it amazes me at how I didn’t panic and kept control of the lungs that had a mix of water and air in them).  My friends reached for me and pulled me into one of the boats. During the time that I wasn’t sure whether I would survive the drowning experience, I did have a quick replay of my life and I worried about how my mother would handle not having me in her life anymore..

After a quick recovery, I found that I wasn’t the only one that feared my mother and grandmother.  We made a pact that no one would ever hear about the near drowning.  A couple of times I came close to telling my mother but thought better of it.  If you don’t believe that I’ve been blessed throughout my life maybe this will convince you.  The best is yet to come…..