Turtle Rock

Part 2

I’m going to take this moment to mention something that I should have shared in Part 1.

While in Texas, where we spent our first Christmas, Mom and Dad were so excited over their first Christmas as a family now complete, they propped their new baby boy up on the couch with a couple cushions, carefully placed a sampling of gifts and snapped a couple photographs to mark the occasion. A copy of one of those pictures went out with every Christmas greeting card they mailed to friends and family. Mom, of course wrote the date on the back of the picture with my name, Teddy, after her late brother.

What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall as they convinced all of Dad’s brothers and sisters, 14 of them, to never reveal to me that I was not their biological son. Mom’s only sibling, had died years before and I doubt that they ever told her parents the truth.

I don’t remember much about my third grade experience except that I was just one of the students who opened the brand new Dan Mini Elementry School. Everything was brand new, inside and out and it was within walking distance for me. I could not only walk to and from school, but I could walk home for lunch if and when I wanted to. My first teacher there was Miss Hart, a very young and pretty black woman who on the last day of school informed us that she was to be married during the summer and would retire to become a housewife. There were several tears shed that day in the classroom as she was so very well liked. I remember her kneeling down to console my classmates who were visibly upset.

Growing up in Vallejo, California, I spent many of my weekends in the two movie theaters downtown. The El Rey showed new release movies and the Crest Theater showed second run movies. Mom and Dad dropped me off on their way to the bar and always picked me up following the double feature. It wasn’t unusual for me to go to the El Rey for the Saturday matinees, then to the Crest the following day. I just loved the movies and the palatial theaters back then were magnificent! The total experience seemed so magical to a little boy like me. Mom was always sure to give me enough money for admission and some treats to enjoy during the intermissions. It’s still a thrill going into the old restored theaters throughout the country even now. It never fails to bring back memories of that little boy standing at the candy bar, ordering an orange soda and a candy bar before returning to his seat and waiting for the next feature to begin.

It was in the fourth grade that I remember multiplication being introduced into our mathematics itinerary, beginning my academic struggles. As Mrs. Lubovich handed out the multiplication tables, 2 to 9, she said to take it home and memorize it. I’m sure she spent some time explaining it, but I don’t remember that. Pretty basic and simple stuff for a fourth grader, right? Not for this one, however. I had a dreadful time with it. I didn’t understand it and I suppose that’s why memorization of the table was so difficult for me. No one will ever convince me that skipping a grade was not at least partially responsible for that.

Mom tried her best to help me at home, but I truly don’t think my brain was ready for it. No matter how she tried to make sense of it for me, I just didn’t get it! We were expected to have as much as possible memorized upon returning to school the following day. Returning to school the following morning, I felt stupid and embarrassed as I saw my classmates recite the tables with little problem and I had very little memorized. I never felt so inadequate before or since. That was the only subject that I had problems with and it was only the beginning. I began to lose interest in school as a result. I did, however, move on to the fifth grade after that year and eventually memorized it, but it was still a while longer before I finally understood it.

I was eleven years old when on Friday, November 22, 1963, Mrs. Edwards opened the classroom door to let her class in after lunch recess. This hour was always our art class period. We hadn’t been working on our assignment very long before the school janitor entered the room. With a deliberate stride, he crossed the back of the room and down the opposite side. Upon reaching the front of the classroom, he once again turned left and approached Mrs. Edwards, seated at her desk. My desk was right in front of hers and I had the best opportunity to hear what he whispered to her. Pausing what I was doing, I realized that this was a rare occurence. I didn’t hear him very clearly but I did hear enough to know that someone had been shot. I’ll never forget the shock on her face as she asked him to repeat what he had said. I thought I heard him say that the President had been shot, but I was sure that I hadn’t heard him correctly. I quickly reasoned that he said the principle had been shot. After all, I thought he was a mean old man who didn’t like kids, so he naturally had more enemies than President Kennedy. Even after the janitor repeated what he said, I was still in disbelief. She just sat there, obviously shaken as he exited the classroom. Wiping the tears from her face, she stood up and asked for everyone’s complete attention before telling the class that the President of the United States had been shot. A sudden quiet smothered the room until a few moments later, when one of the kids blurted out that he was glad because he didn’t like the President. Everyone quickly lashed back with raised fists and expressed objections to his insensitive remarks and Mrs. Edwards explained how inappropriate and disrespectful his behavior was. She opened the class for respectful discussion.

I don’t recall much being said at home about it, but I could see that Mom and Dad were both upset. As usual, the television wason, however, the only thing on was the news about the assassination. To make things worse, we only had five broadcast stations on the TV – ABC, NBC, CBS, a local San Francisco independent station, KTVU and KQED, the PBS channel. Programming on the PBS channel was very limited and often there was nothing even being broadcast there. All the regular programs were preempted for live news coverage. Pretty boring stuff for the average fifth grader! This fifth grader usually went home to watch the three stooges but not that day. Live news coverage on TV was all there was throughout the entire weekend. That also meant no Saturday morning cartoons. My feelings ranged from disappointment to anger when I got up Saturday morning and turned on the TV only to discover that the news was still on. Like so many other kids, Saturday morning cartoons was how I always began my weekends while Mom and Dad slept in.

Everyone around the world was stunned by the news. Then, out of nowhere, the man who had been arrested for shooting the President was shot to death on live TV! I happened to be watching when that happened. A man jumped out of the crowd, shoved a pistol into his ribs and discharged it while he was handcuffed and flanked by two police officers escorting him from the jail to a police vehicle in the basement of the police station. That shooter, of course, was immediately disarmed and apprehended as there was nowhere for him to go. The entire world was in shock and unsure if the Cold War would now become a hot war – a nuclear war! Everyplace you went, people were just wandering around aimlessly, in tears, for days uncertain of the future.

Not quite three months later, on February 7, 1964, Americans began to turn their attention on a new phenomenon that had already been sweeping the rest of the world. Beatlemania was taking the world by storm. Americans now had something else to focus on rather than the assassination of their beloved President. Adults rejected them, saying it was a “here today, gone tomorrow” craze. Young kids and teenagers alike were filled with excitement over the arrival of The Beatles at the recently renamed Kennedy Airport in New York. No British musicians had ever been successful in the U.S. before then and only the teenagers were sure that things were about to change. Certainly, no one had any idea how much things would change because of those four “mop topped” young men from Liverpool, England. The Beatles not only saved rock and roll, as it had been heading in a different direction before their arrival with the likes of Fabian, Pat Boone and other singers, but they did in fact change music, the culture and in the process, saved the world over time, some would argue.

When my parents and a few of their friends asked me what I thought about them, I had no idea who they were talking about. That too, was about to change. Two days after their arrival, February 9, 1964, the Beatles appeared live on the Ed Sullivan Show, a nationally broadcast weekly TV variety show. It was a highly rated show, but the debut of the Beatles broke all the records. Everyone wanted to see them as they had already had a number one hit in America. We often watched Ed Sullivan, but Dad decided we were going to watch something else that historical evening. Michelle, the girl across the street, invited me to her house where she and her sisters would be watching. Curiously, I accepted her invitation.

As soon as Ed Sullivan introduced The Beatles, it was pandemonium! Not only in the TV studio audience, but in Michelle’s house as well as they all started screaming and jumping all over the living room. I, on the other hand, just stood back for my own safety if nothing else, and just observed it all. When it was over, I couldn’t understand their reactions and I didn’t really hear the music from the TV.

I eventually became a fan, buying their record albums whenever they were released, but I hadn’t really felt the grip of Beatlemania, as it were. Mom and Dad even bought me a guitar because I wanted to learn how to play. I took lessons once a week, but lost interest within a year. Music, however, continued to remain a strong influence upon me as the Beatles were followed by what became known as the British Invasion. There were a host of other British rock bands taking advantage of the popularity of The Beatles success in America. Listening to it all on my transistor radio, it was the Beatles who influenced my first lp collection until a band of zany musicians dressed in American Revolution uniforms from Oregon caught my attention with their hit song, Kicks. I liked their creative costumes, but what made them different than any other band was the way they seemed to have so much fun performing with their crazy on-stage antics. On the other hand, not many others took their music seriously. Paul Revere and the Raiders then began the second of my only two complete record collections among my miriad of other lp’s.

Then there was a live music variety show on TV in the late afternoon Monday through Friday called Where The Action Is, produced by America’s oldest teenager, Dick Clark. I rarely missed an episode of the very popular TV show that featured the band he had signed to the Columbia record label, Paul Revere and the Raiders.

It was also around that time that my mom introduced me to the comedy of the Smothers Brothers. When she gave me one of their comedy albums, The Smothers Brothers Tour De Farce American History And Other Unrelated Subjects, I became an instant fan. I even began imitating them and making my friends laugh. That’s when I learned I liked making people laugh and be happy. It was like a shot of adrenaline and I loved it. On the other hand, when I was home alone, I came down from those highs and I’d get bored and even depressed sometimes, again, making me wish I had siblings. Making people laugh covered up and made me forget about my academic shortfalls.

About 30 minutes south of us, a new phenomenon, hippies, began to gather in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Dad made a conscious effort to critcize their socialist tendencies and recreational drug activities, in an attempt to discourage me. Oddly enough, he and Mom had begun drinking more, spending more time at the bars downtown and having their friends over for even more drinking. Their behavior embarrassed me and I stopped having my own friends over. When home, I spent more time in my room, listening to music. I didn’t like all that drinking, especially the nonsense they spewed in their stupor. To make matters worse, they all smoked and you’d swear a San Francisco fog had filled the house. I couldn’t breathe. I found myself taking long pauses between shallow breaths while in the house. Headaches ensued. The smell of the partially filled liquor bottles, half empty beer bottles, glasses, and ashtrays that spilled over of ash and cigarette butts, was nauseous the following morning. All too often, I was the one who cleaned it all up as I was the first one up while Mom and Dad were sleeping it off.

After graduating from the sixth grade, junior high school awaited me in the fall. Throughout the summer I asked around trying to find out what to expect from the changes that junior high school had to offer. Eventually, someone suggested I talk with the new kid in the neighborhood who was one year ahead of me. With nothing to lose, I went down the street to the house where his family lived and introduced myself. Geno and I immediately connected, becoming inseparable, best friends.

One evening while my parents and I were having dinner, Perry Mason was on the TV. All three of us enjoyed watching and trying to guess “who done it.” Out of the blue, I said that I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up. Turning to me with looks of surprise, they naturally asked what it was. “I want to be a lawyer,” I said before Dad told me I better set my sights on something else because I wasn’t smart enough for that. A few minutes later, I said that maybe I could be a comedian. After all, I knew I could make people laugh and that made me feel good. Dad said that I had to be smart for that too. Knowing that I did not like watching the news, he said that comedians know history and are up to date with current events. Apparently, I wasn’t smart enough for that either. That really took the wind out of my sails! He did however recommend the trades. He said that if I learned a trade, I would always have a job. Mom had always told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be and I had no reason to doubt her. I had always looked up to my dad and believed everything he told me, but that was the first time I remember his hurtful words. Maybe he didn’t think very much of my ability or aptitude. I was crushed and promised myself to be much more thoughtful when speaking to my own children when I grew up.

There is more to come. I hope you’ll stay tuned.