Winnebago

Enemy at Hand

Chapter Two

Donald sat on the porch.  The sun had just begun to rise over the grassy green hill to the East.  A steady creaking noise traveled through sound waves picked up by the tiny little hairs of his ears.  The mahogany wood of his rocking chair had seen years of the constant back and forth motion that produced comfort, and a place to think.  Steam from his coffee cup drifted away, passing by his nose and eyes.  There was no fog this morning.  Spring was only weeks away and this morning's frosty grass blades would be the last of the fading winter.  At the age of 78, life had slowed down for Donald.  Nothing worked very well anymore.  Simply walking to the mailbox to retrieve the newspaper took some effort.  Ignoring the soreness in his hips and back, He made the trek every Friday.  If it were not for his kind neighbor, he wouldn't even have a paper to read unless he drove in to town and purchased it from the limited newsstands scattered around.  No one subscribed to the Newspaper anymore.  Almost everyone used their smart phones to read the news.  Donald could remember back when he'd get a paper delivered by a kid on a bicycle seven days a week.  Those days were gone.  That memory along with many others filled his thoughts as the mahogany chair played its tune.  Although he never spoke about it to anyone, he also often wondered what had become of his daughter Rebecca.  She had left the family soon after graduating Highschool.  She just simply disappeared.  Donald would never know why she hated her family with such a passion.  Maybe she hated him for turning Vicki in to the police.  The grumble from his stomach brought him out of his thoughts.  Normally he would have already had his breakfast.  By six a.m. he'd already been awake for an hour or more.  His normal routine would have subdued his hungry stomach by now.  But today was not normal.  Donalds Son and Daughter in law were visiting from New York.  Along with them, his granddaughter and grandson.  The grumbling in his stomach was worth the wait for this precious time spent with his family.  He knew these occurrences would become fewer and fewer over time.  He cherished every moment he could spend with his loved ones.

Melanie would be the first one to stir, running down the stairs from the second-floor bedroom where she slept when she visited Grandma and Grandpa.  Unlike Robert, her brother, she liked getting up early.  With cell phone in hand, she swung the front door open.  The screen door groaning and squeaking as she pushed through it.  "Good morning Grandpa!"  Melanie had spent all 17 years of her life living in a condo in New York city.  Although she never dreamed of moving to the country, she did enjoy the relaxing slower pace of life found at her grandparents' farm.  Pennsylvania was not that far from where she lived.  She imagined being able to drive there when she was older.  Any chance to visit her grandma and grandpa put a smile on her face.  "How was the sunrise this morning?"  She was sad she had missed it herself.  She set her phone down on the little glass top table that her grandmother, Vicki, had cleverly painted and decorated with little ceramic raccoons and Red Cardinals.  With unlimited energy she vigorously rocked back and forth next to Donald.  "Sunrise was spectacular as usual Mell".  "Would you like to read the paper?"  "Why do you still read that thing", she said, "You can just read the news on your phone grandpa."  "The paper just gets your fingers all dirty with ink anyways!"  Donald just smiled.  He knew it was hopeless to try to persuade his grandkids to believe in the ways of the past.  Change was all this new generation wanted.  Everything had to be changed.  Maybe life had become too easy.  Or maybe this was how things were supposed to happen.  Although Donald had a phone, he never used it to see what was going on in the world.  You couldn't trust ninety percent of the information you found on the internet anyways.  All of these so called "influencers" were not necessarily educated.  These days, all you needed was a phone or a computer and the ability to draw people in, and you could spew whatever crap you wanted to.  In the year 2030, less than half a percent of the population was without a cellular device.  Ninety-nine-point five percent, carried a computer that fit inside their pants pocket.  Donald was certain.  This little device, although helpful in many ways, was the sole enemy in the destruction of civilization as he knew it.  An army of electrons and pixels.  "If it were up to me Mell", "Cellphones would be outlawed for all kids under the age of 18".  Melanie rolled her eyes.  "Grandpa", "you don't know what you are talking about!"  She laughed.  It was half a joke and half true in her mind.  She loved her grandpa dearly and would never do anything to hurt him, or his feelings.

The sound of pots and pans clanging about in the kitchen meant that Vicki had started preparing breakfast.  This made Donald's stomach even more envious of the food he would soon be eating.  Roasted potatoes with green chili and onions, cooked with a full stick of butter.  Thick cut crispy bacon and sourdough toast in which he would smash a spoonful of grape jelly between and make a toasted sandwich.  Breakfast was his favorite meal.  All finished off with his third cup of coffee, black as night, no cream or sugar.  Robert was awake.  His slow sauntering footsteps clunked down the stairs.  He too, carried his cell phone with him.  "Grandma!"  "Have you seen my phone charger?"  For some reason, anytime something went missing, or was lost, everyone expected grandma to know where it could have gone.  "Did you check under your pile of clothes?", she said.  Truth of the matter was, he hadn't even spent one second looking for the charger.  He relied heavily on others to find things for him, and he knew that his grandma would break away from whatever she was doing and go look for it.  "Robot, if your head wasn't attached to your body, you would lose that too!"  Grandpa smiled as he finished his little insult.  "My name is Robert, grandpa".  "Ok Robot".  Robert just smiled.  He loved joking around with grandpa.  "Weren't you dropped on your head when your mom and dad carried you home from the hospital grandpa?"  "I'm surprised you even remember how to get home from the mailbox!"  Donald grinned.  "I just use my nose and follow the smell of your stinky feet!"  Vicki had had enough.  "Would you two knock it off!"  "Breakfast is almost ready".  "Kids, go wake those lazy parents of yours and tell them breakfast is ready".  Jonathan and Sheryl were already awake.  This was vacation time for them both, and they would try to enjoy it to the fullest.  They overheard the banter going on downstairs.  Both knew how lucky they were to have kids that still loved them, and Jonathan's parents.  So many young adults these days pushed their families away.  New York city was not only a place of high crime, but also a hotbed for this new generation who wanted all ways of life in the past, changed.  From climate activists to gender neutrality influencers, to you name it.  Young people felt it was their time to create massive change.  If he had a choice, Jonathan would live in the country like his mom and dad.  Sheryl's job however, kept them anchored in the city for the foreseeable future.  They both put down their cell phones, neatly made the bed and joined everyone else in the kitchen for a family breakfast.

After all the dishes had been cleaned from breakfast.  Melanie wandered off outside with her phone.  She had to update her online video chat that she broadcasted live every day.  She had accumulated a hundred thousand followers in the four years since starting her site.  She would post videos of her everyday events.  From baking cookies, to putting on her make-up.  Her earnings every month were equivalent to her father's income as a grocery store manager.   Jonathan didn't agree with what she was doing.  He didn't like that these total strangers new what she was doing, the city she lived in, and what she looked like.  She would assure him that it was safe and that no one could figure out where exactly she lived.  She also believed that most if not all of the people that subscribed to her channel, were good people.  Today, she would post what she liked to do while at her grandparent's farm.  Driving away on the riding lawnmower, with her phone attached to a long stick, she began her video.  "This is my grandpa's mower".  "It's a John Deer as you can see, and it doesn't really move all that fast".  She adjusted her phone to look out over the area she was about to mow.  As she approached the start of the driveway, the phone would pick up the street sign just to the left of the entrance.  The farm was very near to an intersection.  The names of the streets were clearly marked with green street signs.  "In Pennsylvania, the grass almost grows daily in the summer".  "Especially if we get rain every few days".  "I hope you all can hear me over the noise of this mower?"  Bouncing down the field, she continued with her video and eventually shut the phone off when she had recorded about an hour of footage.  After parking the John Deer, she looked up and noticed a city employee parked in their work truck at the street near the driveway.  She was so involved with her chat; she hadn't noticed whether it was there the whole time or not.  On the door of the vehicle, it clearly read:  Public Works, City of Bowling Greene.  It was time to clean up and cool off inside the house.  Vicki had cut up some watermelon which hit the spot after being out in the humid weather for over an hour.  "Robot!"  "Do you want to go shoot at some cans with the .22?"  Grandpa loved target shooting.  He had never been a hunter, but he owned a few guns.  Small caliber rifles mainly.  Robert excitedly agreed and finished up his cheer wine and watermelon.  One of Roberts favorite things to do was play video games.  More importantly, first person shooter games.  Sheryl would get after him constantly to do his chores and homework.  "Make sure he's wearing ear protection grandpa Donald".  She was concerned he would forget and suffer permanent hearing loss.  Melanie would join.  She didn't care to shoot but enjoyed watching.  "Did you get your stupid video posted Melbrainy!"  Melanie hated when her brother used that nickname.  "Why yes I did Deathbreath!"  "You're just jealous", " At least I don't have to rely on mom and dad when I want to go buy something".  "How much money are you earning off of those stupid video games!"  This wasn't a question.  She knew her brother didn't make any money.  Furthermore, he didn't even have a job of any kind yet.  Grandpa set up four to five soda cans against a large mound of dirt.  The explosion from the gunpowder in the .22 cartridges was not that loud.  You could hear it echo off of the creek wall to the west.  Jonathan and Sheryl took Vicki to town while grandpa entertained the kids at the range.  They were in search of a birthday cake and some last-minute gifts for Donald.  His 79th birthday was in just two days.   The warm early spring day was slowly fading to nightfall.  The cicadas would stop with their incessant buzzing, and the fireflies would begin warming up their bright bellies.  Inside the house, Jonathan and the two kids were playing a game of poker.  Using fake chips, it really wasn't a true game of poker as there was no worry of actually losing any real money.  The kids enjoyed playing with their grandfather.  The kitchen became orange in color as the sun began to set.  Robert turned on the kitchen lights so they could continue their game.  "Are grandma, mom, and dad eating dinner in town?" Melanie asked.   "No".  "They said they would be back and are planning on making spaghetti".   Just as the last rays of dim sunlight faded off, a set of headlights could be seen entering the driveway.   "That must be your mom and dad now".  Donald was happy about this.  He hadn't eaten very much for lunch and his stomach was talking to him again.  The doorbell rang.  The car in the driveway didn't look like Jonathan's but it was hard to see in the dark.  Donald and Vicki very seldomly had visitors.  Donald got up from his lazy boy to answer the door.  In the kitchen, Melanie checked on the status of her latest post, while Robert buried his head in the cabinets looking for a snack.

Bowling Greene was about a twenty-minute drive from the farm.  Leaving the grocery store, Jonathan sent a text to Melanie that they would be home soon.  It was strange that she didn't reply right away.  But maybe they were outside, or maybe she had hopped in the shower.  He knew not to text his dad.  Donald rarely looked at his phone and wouldn't respond to a text in a matter of days sometimes.  Pulling into the driveway, Sheryl could sense something was not right.  The flag was still flying in the night breeze.  Grandpa Donald would always bring that flag down before nightfall.  As the car pulled in closer, she could also tell that there were no lights on in the house.  There weren't any streetlights in this area, maybe the power was out she thought.  Jonathan retrieved the groceries from the trunk of the car.  It was Vicki who noticed the bright red shotgun shell laying near the glass top table of the front porch.  "That doesn't look like the bullets Donald uses", grandma replied.  Sheryl picked up the casing.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the front door was open, only the screen door was shut.  "Is this a .22 round Jonathan?".  Jonathan's answer was no, and he knew very well that his dad didn't even own a shotgun. "Maybe the kids found it down by the creek".  Jonathan smelled it.  His eyes veered towards the house.   A look of worriment painted his face.  "This still smells like gun powder", he said.  He knew exactly what that meant.  He hurried to the front door, pushing it open with moderate force.  His hand rubbing off a black mark just above the doorknob.  The house was quiet.  There was a smell of gun powder and iron.  "Melanie!"  "Robert!"  There was no sound other than the refrigerator humming away in the kitchen.  Vicki found the light switch.  Slowly casting their brilliance across the small entry way, the florescent bulbs illuminated Donalds body as if it were a mountain slowly emerging from the first rays of morning sunlight.  His face was a bloody mess.  His body lifeless.  Vicki screamed!  Sheryl was unable to continue standing and knelt to her knees.  Jonathan cried out again in desperation although he knew it was probably fruitless.  Moving on to the kitchen, the slumped over body of Robert could be seen shoved into the cabinet.  The back of his head that same bloody mess as Grandpa's.  They were both very dead.  It was difficult to hear Jonathen scream out Melanie's name over the moaning and sobbing from the front entrance.  Melanie was not in the house.  There was no third body to be found.  Jonathan had called 911.  The police arrived and cordoned off the house awaiting the homicide detectives.   The detectives arrived.  after an hour or so, they spoke to Jonathan and Sheryl.  "We think your daughter is still alive Mr. and Mrs. Roldano".  Detective Mossburg had been with the Bowling Greene police department for twenty years.  He knew Donald and Vicki personally.  When Donald brought Vicki, his daughter, into the Sheriff's Station years ago after blowing up the Winnebago, Mossburg was the deputy on duty at the front desk.  It was difficult for him to process what had happened, even more difficult to see Vicki in such pain over the death of her grandson and husband.  "Her cell phone was in the bathroom".  "There appears to have been a struggle, and we have some good DNA evidence to process".  "We also pulled a fingerprint off of the light switch in the kitchen."  "Jonathan, did you know about your daughter's webpage?"  "Yes".  Jonathan's eyebrows perked upwards.  Mossburg continued.  "It looks as though she just posted a video today in which she livestreamed around three thirty this morning".  "Yes".  "She mowed the fields and filmed it", Jonathan replied.  "Ok, we have some leads then". " She gained three new followers just this morning, and they are locals just outside of Bowling Greene".   Sheryl was beyond remorseful.  "Do you think they took her?"  "It's a strong lead Mrs Roldano".  "We will be pushing all these leads until they are exhausted."  "We've watched the video from this morning".  "It appears that in the video you can clearly see the street signs".  "Also, a public works truck was parked at the end of the driveway, and you can clearly see which town the truck is from".   "There's a very good chance someone saw this video and new exactly where to find your daughter".  Jonathan threw his head into his hands.  He was both distraught and angry.  He knew he shouldn't have allowed his daughter to continue on with those stupid videos.  Now, she was missing, and his son and father were dead.  "This also could be just a random act of violence".  Mossburg made his way to his patrol car.  "We will do our very best to find your daughter and punish those responsible for this crime".   "Thank you, detective Mossburg,".  Jonathan was an empty pit of despair.  He had hopes that his daughter would be found alive, but it was not certain.  For the next 48 hours, he and Sheryl and Vicki would check in to a motel and wait for any news.  It would take three days of following leads and tips from the community of Bowling Greene before the body of Melanie turned up in a dumpster behind the papermill just outside of town.  She had been murdered.  All that was left to do was identify the body.  Jonathan bore the brunt of this unimaginable task.  He and Sheryl would move Vicki back to New York.  The house of the property was demolished, and the land put up for sale.  There would be no more chairs rocking on the porch.  No more poker games at the kitchen table.  Vicki would only live another full year.  She would die of a broken heart.  The killers were never found.  Jonathan and Sheryl remained in New York; their lives brutally changed forever.       

 

 

The Life of Brian

1986 

No fires, no injuries, no problems.  Nineteen eighty-six would start out as a good year in my little world.  I would continue my education to resist alcohol and drugs.  My Teacher at Topa Topa was Mrs. Lessing.  My favorite topic in school was Heads up Seven up.  Quite the fun game once you figured out how to cheat.  If you held your head just right, you could peek out of the opening just below your elbow.  All you needed was to see the shoes and you were golden.  My teacher actually caught on to this eventually.  When the "picked" kids stood up and she saw them immediately look at the shoes of the "pickers", she knew something was up.  Smart teacher that one was.  I would get into a teeny bit of trouble in sixth grade.  Must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed one morning.  As my class lined up to go to lunch, I decided I wanted to be line leader that day.  The kid who was already in the front of the line didn't take kindly to me stepping in front of him.  Some pushing ensued and of course the one who pushes last, gets caught.  Not only did I push last, but I also ended up last in line, and got a mouthful from Mrs. Lessing.  The look on her face was one of shock.  Why?  Because I was actually a very good kid.  That's the only trouble I'd cause in my tenure at Topa Topa.  The only trouble I got caught at anyways!  

January of that year, a tragic event in the outside world would occur.  The Space Shuttle Challenger would blow up in midflight.  One of the crewmembers was a high school teacher by the name of Christa McAuliffe.  The mission of this flight was to deliver a communications satellite that would study Haley's Comet.  At 46,000 feet the shuttle suffered a massive explosion and everyone on board was killed.  The launch was aired live in many schools and hundreds of thousands of kids saw it occur in real time.  I do not remember watching it.  For some reason we were out at recess when it happened.  When recess was over, we were all lined up and told of the unfortunate events.  Honestly, it didn't affect me in any way.   I did not know those people and remember thinking to myself that space flight was inherently dangerous.  Tether ball, and basketball were still my favorite games to play.  I very rarely played handball anymore.

 Interestingly, somehow, I got introduced to lead in sand.  Some kid had brought a magnet to school and used it to drag through the sand pulling out the black metal stuff.  He and I would collect lots of it.  Don't ask me what we did with it!  Most likely, it probably ended up in my parents' carpet.  I would graduate this year.  Not before busting my head open, again.  The first time at the age of 6, I tried to fly.  My parents steel frame bed stopped me quite nicely.  This time, I slipped off a rock in the creek by my house in the mountains.  The fall was about four feet.  Problem was I had a lizard in my left hand and a lizard catcher in the other.  Now a normal kid would have tossed both and used their hands to break their fall.  I was not normal, I held on to both and instead used my head to stop my fall.  Do you see a pattern here!  My forehead would land on a rock in the creek bed causing a fairly nice cut above my eye.  The walk back to my house was probably roughly a quarter mile.  As I came down the driveway, blood running from the wound above my eye, my oldest sister Angela was out front washing her car.  I asked her to get me a washcloth, to which she replied, " I'm busy, get it yourself".  To this day she swears she did not see my injury.  It's ok.  I survived.    I would have a bandage on my head up to graduation from this event.  The picture above is my class photo.

Our bus drivers would change quite frequently during the first two years of moving up the canyon.  One of them comes to mind.  He was a big burly dude, with tattoos.  He also wore big rings on multiple fingers.  When he drove, we had the quietest bus in the district!  We were all afraid of that guy.  Truthfully, he was probably a very nice man.  All that sprinting for the kid Olympics would pay off.  Our driveway was fairly long and getting ready for school was always annoying.  If we heard the airbrakes from the bus while we were still in the house, the race was on. I do remember missing the bus at least once.  I think Angela had to drive us to school.  Maybe I'm wrong about that.  My life living in our new house across from the campground was a dreamworld.  I could hike, ride my bike around the nature trail and the campground, and go fishing just about every day.  Hiking was not done on any trails; I would hike through brush in various locations.  On one particular hike, while descending down a hill, I would find a small piece of Indian pottery.  My parents thought it might have been used for water, or maybe even food. Whatever it was used for, I still have it somewhere.  Hiking in the area was really quite easy after the Wheeler Fire.  It only took a couple of years for the brush to grow back, however.  After that, it was impossible to walk through some areas that saw significant re-growth.  I'd hike up the canyon behind our house with my sister.  We actually found crystals up there one year.  I've always wanted to go back up there and look again but have yet to do so.  Came across a number of rattlesnakes while living in that house.  Most of them were discovered by our cats.  We'd hear the sound of water running only to walk outside and find one of our cats just sitting there, looking at a coiled-up rattlesnake, with its tail buzzing away.  Using my BB gun, I'd dispatch most of them.  After about fifty rounds to the head and body, the snakes would finally pass out.  Heeding my dad's warnings, I'd always cut the heads off with a shovel so as not to get bitten by a dead snake still capable of biting due to nerves.  One day, I would get my dad's 12 gauge shotgun out of the safe and use it to kill a snake.  The only rounds my dad had were double ought buckshot.  It only took one round to end that snake's life and gave me a valuable lesson on how to tightly hold a shotgun while firing it!  My lip was only swollen for half the day.  The 00 buck round completely split that snake apart!

As mentioned before, my friendship with David would end after sixth grade.  He and I both would acquire different friends.  Our family also stopped doing things with the Nettles.  Not sure why, but when you move, even if it's twenty minutes away, you tend to stop doing as much with the people who lived really close by.  I would have other friends.  For the most part though, I would do a lot of things on my own.  Once the bus dropped me off at home, there was no way for me to go anywhere.  Both my parents worked full time.  Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing.  Doing things by myself never bothered me.  I spent most of my free time outside.  Within the first few years of living up the canyon, I had the entire campground memorized.  Even the creek that ran down the middle of it.  I could walk up and down that creek at night with very little lighting to guide my way.  One evening, after my dad had rehydrated sufficiently enough, I somehow was able to talk him in to giving us kids each a hundred dollars!  He claimed to not remember the promise from the night before, but my mom had overheard it as well and held him to it.  In those days, a hundred dollars was very good money.  Of the things I purchased with this money, a calculator watch was by far the coolest thing I bought.  There were some jealous kids at school when I showed up wearing it.  For all you gen Z ers out there, when I say calculator watch, I mean a watch that actually had a keypad calculator below the screen.  lol. 

Our annual trip to New Mexico would occur over Christmas break this year.  This trip stands out vividly in my mind.  We always drove on our trips.  Our family did not ever fly anywhere.  In fact, my first plane ride would happen as a young adult for my honeymoon at the age of 20.  This trip to New Mexico could have easily been my last trip ever.  As we tootled along at sixty miles an hour through the high desert.  We came up to a bridge that had iced over.  There was a car coming at us in the opposite lane at probably the same speed.  When this car got on to the iced over bridge, the driver lost control.  Sliding almost sideways on the bridge. We had nowhere to go.  Impact seemed un-avoidable!  My dad and I were the only ones awake if I recall.  His eyes, my eyes, the driver of the other vehicles eyes, and their passengers' eyes were as wide as a full moon.  Then, at the last second, the other vehicle regained control and straightened out resuming travel in their own lane.  This was very close to being a head on collision.  We probably would have killed the driver of the on-coming car.  But all was avoided.  Maybe a higher power was watching over us?  Maybe it was just good luck?  There was no screaming involved between my dad and me.  We just kept on trucking down the road, humming to Alabama's Dixie Land Delight.  We'd spend that night in Williams Arizona.  The snow was a couple of feet deep in town.  At our luxury Motel Six, there were icicles about a foot long hanging from the eves.  That night we would all awaken to the sounds of two people apparently in an argument over how long those icicles really were!  lol.  The police would eventually show up and they either ended the argument by measuring the icicles, or possibly took one of the participants to jail.  No, it wasn't really an argument over icicles.  Definitely a domestic dispute. These family road trips were awesome.  I loved every minute of them and to this day prefer to drive when we go on trips.  You definitely see some cool little towns when traveling by car.  I have a few more good stories to tell about these road trips so make sure to keep coming back.

Home prices in 86 averaged around $111,900.00.  New cars averaged around $10,500.00.  This price was 6.2 % higher than 1985.  Today, in 2024, car prices are triple that amount.  Minimum wage was still close to $3.59 an hour.  Gasoline was 93 cents a gallon.  A dozen eggs were 87 cents.  Gallon of milk, $2.22.  World population was 240 million, Reagan was President.  The unemployment rate was at 7.2%.  Inflation at 1.9%.

On the big screen movies such as The Color of Money, Out of Bounds, and Where Are the Children were popular.  Comedies included Little Shop of Horrors, and Tough Guys.  I think the only one of those I've seen is Little Shop of Horrors.  Do any of you remember the movie with Willie Nelson called, Red Headed Stranger?  One of my favorite books of all time was published in 86.  Hatchet by Gary Paulson.  Just a couple of years ago, I bought the entire series of these books.  Hatchet is by far the best.

The longest running number one song of 86 belonged to Dionne," That's What Friends Are for".  I'm almost certain this song was played at my graduation!  The Bangles sang "Walk Like an Egyptian".  Whitney Houston would debut her hit," How Will I Know".  One of my favorite songs was by Peter Gabriel, "Sledgehammer".  Another of my favorites, Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors".

On T.V.  My family was hooked on The Greatest American Hero.  Come on, you know the opening tune... "Believe it or not, I'm walking on air, I never thought I could feel so free".  Why we were so enamored by a dorky curly blonde-haired fella in a tight suit, I'll never know.  Ok, Ok.  this show actually aired in 1981 and ran up until 1983.  Matlock, La Law, and Alf all debuted in 86.  Remember Perfect Strangers?  That was a good one too.

What were you doing in 86?  I was loving life for sure.  Although I played team sports at our local rec center, next year, in 87, would be my first year belonging to a school team.  By eleven years old, I was already sporting two pretty good scars over my left eyebrow.  I had not broken any bones yet.  Life was good.  Bring on 1987.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

-Ronal Reagan 1986 News Conference

 The Life of Brian

1985

Decade:

- A period of ten years.

My first decade on this planet, in this country, in this county, and in this town was nothing special to anyone other than a handful of family members who loved me dearly.  I was not born into royalty, was not the baby of a famous politician, or movie star.  Just a little brown eyed boy.  Son of a proud and honest veteran.  The little boy of a hard-working mother.  A brother to two older sisters.  Luckily, my immediate family was surrounded by Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and even Grandparents.  My father's parents died while I was very young.  My mothers, lived in to their nineties.  They, however, lived in the state of New Mexico.   I didn't see them more then maybe once a year.  Even less as I grew older.  My reason for mentioning all of this, is because it is in my utmost opinion, that family is the most important thing on this planet.  The support given by loving family members cannot be matched.  I know that some grow up without this luxury.  Some even push theirs away.  Luckily for me, this was not the case.  My daily life was spent with family and friends.  I remember going over to the Nettles house quite a bit with my entire family.  One particular outing, Randy and my dad must have really liked whatever beverage they were drinking.  My dad ended up falling asleep on a lawn chair in the Nettles front yard.  This created a great opportunity for us kids to pull grass from the lawn and insert it into my father's gaping mouth.  He would eventually wake up, and as you might imagine, he was very perplexed as to why there was grass inside of his mouth!  This wouldn't be the last time he overly enjoyed his beverages.  Two other occasions come to mind.  One was quite prosperous for us kids.  The other, I ended up climbing a tree!

In nineteen hundred eighty-five, I was ten years old.  As my dad used to say, "You're a double-digit midget today".  I think, now hear me out on this... I think once you reach the age of fifty, your age should start declining back down.  So, if you make it back to the age of one, you've lived a very good life.  I'm gonna submit that idea to congress.  In this year of 2024, it might just get passed.  Seems as though everyone wants to change just about everything we've grown up with in the last hundred years, why not change the number we give ourselves as we get older?  Fifth grade would give me my best years of back flips off of the swings at school.  I could fly off those things, legs swinging up over my head as I'd lean back, slipping out of the seat once the swing reached its highest point in the pendulum.  If you ejected too early at too low a trajectory, you would cascade off the curvature of gravity and if you were lucky, you'd land softly and only tumble three or four times.  Unlucky, you'd pile drive headfirst, bending in ways only a scorpion would envy.  It was important to always keep your eyes focused on where you wanted to land.  Back flips off of the swings were as close as I'd get to being fairly athletic.  Every other sport I would play throughout my school career, I would always be second best.  Rarely was I a starter, never did I win a game for my team, second string was my home.  I've finally figured out why.  

Confidence:

- A feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

Just about every word in that definition above, I lacked.  My best sport by far was basketball.  I would excel in this sport.  I would even be on the starting team for a couple of games.  This would vanish in my later high school years as the lack of the word above, would rule the day.  Luckily, I did not pass this on to my three children.  Around the age of ten, my parents signed me up for pony league baseball.  I still have my jersey that I wore for our games.  That is the picture above.  Baseball was a fun game to play.  I would end up in the outfield mostly.  I had a very big fear of the ball, and so did not make a very good in-fielder.  My games would take place at Sarizotti Park, on Park St. in Ojai.  My coaches' faces are very crisp in my memory, but for the life of me, I cannot think of their names.

Tether ball was another fun game to play at Topa Topa.  I loved that game too.  As you probably know, tetherball also was very harsh on the hands and fingers.  And sometimes on the head too.  Terms like, around the world, and stoppies, and holdies would come to life.  Rules would change constantly to suit the kids that had influence, and even more importantly, didn't like to lose.  Arms would be burned by rope, fingers would be severely jammed, and one or two red cheek bones would arise on those kids who were not blessed with quick reactive responses.

1985 would bring about some firsts.  One of those being my first fight.  So technically, a fight would involve two people outwardly trying to harm or subdue one another.  My fight then, was more one sided.  It evolved from a game of baskerslaughterball.  Another kid, who outweighed me by maybe forty pounds, was not happy about the way I threw the ball at him.  His actions to convey his anger would be to tackle me while getting me into a headlock and then sitting on me.  Literally!   My friend Noe helped pry this young luchador off my back before he was able to teach me what a sleeper was.  I would witness many a 'sleeper' in middle school.  I'll be writing about that for sure!  Another first, would be witnessing my first wildfire.  The Wheeler Fire started up near the tunnels on Hwy 33.  It would burn for over ten days, consuming over a hundred thousand acres.  On the night of July 3rd, this fire would come raging down Nordhoff Ridge towards Ojai.  The streets would be filled with thick smoke, the fire and police departments were driving up and down streets using bullhorns to tell people to get out immediately.  It was a scary time for sure.  I remember the smoke was very thick making it difficult to see anything.  Embers would streak through the darkness like southern California fireflies.  My Dad, who had worked on a fire crew for a number of years never really let on that we were in any danger.  By the time we even started thinking about evacuation, the fire had moved on, and we actually never had to leave our home.  The days to follow would be eerily filled with smoke and orange suns.  Something we'd experience again in 2017.

I don't remember how long it was after the Wheeler Fire that my dad actually began an undercover surveillance of a possible suspect who they believed started this fire.  He and a few other LEO's would rent cars and follow this guy around.  They wanted to see if he'd ever go back to where he actually ignited the fire.  Or, possibly even start another one.  I just remember my dad got to drive some pretty cool cars during this time.  Even cooler, he got to drive really fast in them and follow this guy on a daily basis.  I want to say that the suspect actually ended up dying in a car crash at some point.  I don't recall if my dad was following him that day or not.  The mountains above Ojai looked like a moonscape after this fire.  In some places, even the asphalt burned due to the heat of the fire.  You could also very visibly see the old stagecoach road that existed well before Hwy 33 was constructed.

Mr Stafford was my teacher in fifth grade.  This year, a pilot program called D.A.R.E, would come about and I was lucky to be in a 5th/6th combo class so I would go through the D.A.R.E program two years in a row.  Drug Abuse Resistance Education was a program designed to do just as it reads.  Officer Harding would come to our classroom once a month I think and teach us ways to stay away from drugs and alcohol.  I didn't need any help with this, as to this day I've never tried any illegal drug, and although I do enjoy alcohol, I've never gotten to the point of abuse.  I think my grades were always average.  School never would become something I'd put a lot of effort towards. It would be halfway through the fifth grade that our home on Oak Street would be sold, meaning we could no longer live there.  Lucky for me, this forced us to move up the canyon across from Wheeler Gorge Campground.  As a ten-year-old boy, this home in the mountains was PARADISE!  If you were to ask my sister Vicki what she thought about this move, it'd be a very different response.  Instead of walking to school, I would have to ride a school bus.  Our house was the first stop of the morning, and the last stop in the afternoons.  The bus didn't go all the way to Topa Topa either, so I would get off at Matilija Jr. High and walk to Topa Topa from there.  Our new home location would become an absolute paradise for me.  I could walk out my back door and I basically was in the mountains.  Across the street, in the campground, fish and game would stock trout in the creeks.  I used to catch so many fish, that eventually I'd just end up letting most of them go.  One area that suffered from this move, was my friendship with David.  By sixth grade, we already started drifting apart.  By seventh grade, we really were not even friends any longer.

As I've documented in past entries, prices on just about everything continued to climb.  Gas cost $1.12 a gallon.  The median home price in 85 was around $82,800.00, and the median household income was $23,620.00.  Interesting fact learned from the internet.  If home prices grew at the same rate as inflation since 1970, the median home price today would only be $177,788.00 rather than $408,100.00.  Where I live, you can't touch a house for under five hundred grand.  And at that price, you have just bought yourself a fixer upper!  

Music of the mid 80's included bands like Dire Straits, Madonna, A-ha, and Simple Minds.  Songs to include, Money For Nothing, Crazy For You, Take On Me, and Don't You (forget about me).  I know the lyrics to most of those songs.  People were listening to music on their tape decks.  This meant you'd have to listen to the entire tape unless you wanted to push fast forward, guessing where to stop for your favorite song.  How many of us have spent time re-winding a tape with a number two pencil eraser!

Movies included Tampopo, A Room With A View, Creepers, and Out Of Africa.  The movie I remember best... Pee-Wee's Epic Adventure!  The scene in that movie where the female trucker describes the horror scene of some accident she'd witnessed, cracks me up to this day!  In reality, the movie was terrible.  We'd make many a trip to Ojai Frostie.  They had the best corn burritos around.  The patio for dining was also pretty cool with light green fiber glass tables.  My sisters and I would ride our bikes here for lunch in the summer. On one of these journeys, my sister Vicki would eat it big time on her banana seat bike.  I think her chain came off.  I just remember riding behind her and seeing her bike buck like a bronco, her hair defying gravity shooting straight into the sky, and then she crash landed on the hard pavement.  I, being the loving caring brother that I was, immediately began laughing at her.  Of course, these excursions all ended with the move up the canyon.  1985 was indeed a scary time, a time of change, and a wonderful era to be alive.

"California deserves whatever it gets.  Californians invented the concept of lifestyle.  This alone warrants their doom."

-Don DeLillo White noise

                                                                  The Life of Brian  

                                                                            1984

Nine!  Achtung!   Of course I am not German.  But I was the age of nine in 1984.  Interestingly just a few years ago, Sarah and I spit in a tube (each of us) and sent it off to people who can supposedly track down your ancestry simply from looking at your spit!  Ok, maybe it's a little more involved than that, but you get the gist.  We won't discuss how boring hers was.  Mine, however, came back with some pretty cool results.  Turns out, my spit is 24% Navajo Indian.  Also, 1% Indian from the region of India.  That one percent explains my uncanny ability to speak with an Indian accent.  I've also spoken in clear audible Navajo.  It's true!  Just ask my sister and my nephew.  There was alcohol involved, and we were camping on a really remote, majestic mountain top, and it just came out.  Back to me being nine, I apologize for getting off track.

Nineteen hundred and eighty-four.  My home was still on Oak Street.  I still attended Topa Topa elementary school.  My teacher in fourth grade was Mrs. Bell.  I have a book that we made in fourth grade, kind of a journal of sorts.  One of my complaints in that journal, about my school, was not being able to play suicide.  I'm fairly certain this is in reference to the game of tetherball.  But it could have also been for handball.  Either way, apparently my good spelling abilities began after fourth grade because I spelled suicide as suaside.  I would do pretty well in the annual spelling Bee's in fifth and sixth grade.  Looking at this journal, I find it interesting that one page was dedicated to what my opinion was on four different subjects.  Pollution, Cheating, Smoking, and Stealing.  Now what would a fourth grader know about smoking?  At the age of 48, I'm thinking this may have been a sneaky way for your teacher to know whether or not you lived around people who smoked.  Who knows.  I did not mention the explosive sticks we used to put in our family and friends' cigarettes.  Your welcome mom and dad!  Snitches get stitches, is that the term? lol.  I wrote:  Smoking is bad for your lungs.  You can die from smoking.  Does anyone know if cigarette vending machines still existed in 1984?  Those were a great idea.  Any kid with a few dollars could easily purchase a pack out of those vending machines.  I never had any interest for some reason.

  For stealing I wrote:  If you steal something, you could get into a lot of trouble.  Of course, I knew this firsthand.  My mother caught me stealing a little toy pop gun from Ben Franklins and made me return it and apologize.  My response to cheating was a little puzzling.  I wrote: I think cheating is the worst thing to do because then if you forget to write it down, you're in trouble.  That sounds a little shady doesn't it!  After my swap meet bike, I don't recall having a bike of my own.  I think my interest switched to skateboards.  We had various types of skateboards.  The first few being the little skinny ones.  I think they may have been called Penny Boards.  I would ride them on my knee.  Using my other leg to push off and propel me down the sidewalks.  No helmets mind you.  Many a crash and burn occurred on these little boards.  My favorite thing to use to stop myself in a crash was actually my face.  More accurately, my mouth.  I got some really big fat lips from this, and not all of these occurrences were my fault.  I seem to recall someone stuck their foot in front of my wheels sending me flying through the air, and you guessed it, face planting on the asphalt lips first, slowly sludging to a stop.  I still remember the pain from this. Ouch. Plus, I then looked like a nine-year-old who'd had a bad collagen injection in my lips. My parents would eventually spend some pretty decent cash on me and buy me a big skateboard from Mervyns.  I remember going there with David and looking at all the cool skateboards on the shelves.  They had neon coloring and skid stops.  It was a dream come true when my parents bought me one.  Definitely got their monies worth out of that purchase.

 Memories that are etched in your brain are interesting.  Why is it that some things stick, and you can visualize them as though they just happened yesterday?  I had a friend in fourth grade who lived right across the street from Topa Topa.  He had asthma, and so he needed an inhaler.  I'd never seen an inhaler before, but I found one on the floor of his room and I vividly remember depressing it and spraying the medicine right into my eyes.  Don't remember if it burned or not, but it's definitely stamped in my brain, the spraying part.

Anyone remember Mary Lou Retton?  She was a gymnast in the 84 Olympics in Los Angeles, Ca.  I remember watching her on T.V.  I totally had a crush on Mary Lou for some reason.  I even cut out a picture of her in the newspaper and saved it.  I probably still have it somewhere.  I was not interested in girls in the fourth grade so it's even more surprising that I took so much interest in her.  Who knows.  I'm pretty sure the only other event I watched during those games were the rowing events.  No other memories come to mind in regard to the 84 games. 

I don't remember how this came to be.  But in fourth grade someone came to our school and asked for volunteers to do a sort of square dance that would be filmed and aired on the local channel in Ventura County.  This was that channel that had multicolored bars running from top to bottom of the screen most of the time until there was a local broadcast.  I somehow volunteered.  Or maybe was volun-told to take part in this dance.  I remember not being overly happy about it. Holding another girl's hand was not something I was too keen about in fourth grade.  Nevertheless, I would learn this dance, and it did in fact air on the local channel.  Did my parents have any way of recording this?  I doubt it.  Heck, I think that us kids were still the remote when my dad wanted to change channels.

1984 was yet another good year.  I still push that these early years may in fact be the best years of our human lives.  If you look at terms of worry, and stress.  They are virtually zero at this young age.  I did suffer from pretty bad bronchial asthma as a young kid.  It would send me to the emergency room a time or two.  Had to drink some nasty medicine as a result when I would have flare ups.  This could have also been the year where I threw a baseball bat down at the ground after my sister Vicki struck me out.  The bat ricocheted off the ground and cartwheeled right into her face.  It dropped her immediately and ended up putting a pretty good gash under her eye.  It truly was an accident and boy did I feel bad. But I would have felt much worse had I gotten in big trouble.  I think she may still have the scar?? 

Scooby Doo, He Man, and Inspector Gadget were some of my favorite cartoons.  I wrote down that my favorite movie was Raiders of The Lost Ark.  A hobby of mine oddly was collecting little ceramic figure reins.  Pic N Save had a ton of these.  I specifically remember one of Donald Duck.  These were easily breakable too.  I don't believe I have a single one left.  Also, pretty sure Pic N Save didn't have the highest quality items anyways.  It's right there in the name now isn't it.

I wrote down in my school journal that I was scared after riding the Colossus at Six Flags.  My brain however doesn't recall a trip to Magic Mountain in the fourth grade.  I wonder if this is when we went with the Kruthoffs who were visiting from S. Dakota.  All I remember about that trip was some adults drinking in the back of my U. Gary's van on the way home.  And I bet we were not wearing any seatbelts.  I do remember going to Disneyland.  Thunder Mountain terrified me, and I ended up bawling my eyes out after riding it.  This could be the trip I'm remembering the van incident.  Remember when Disneyland used tickets to get on to the rides?  You only had so many tickets.  When you were out, you either had to buy more, or not go on any of the rides.  I also remember the big cable car ride that is no longer there.  It went right over the Matterhorn roller coaster mountain.  There was a special show where Tinker Bell would fly around on a cable from the top of that snowy peak.  It only took one dead Tinker Bell to end that!  Just kidding, I'm not sure why they discontinued it.  I so seriously miss the Bear Jam Country Jamboree.  Not sure why they got rid of those big fake dancing bears.  Remember the snoring bear in the cave as you approached that section of the park?  I can.  Now they have a Winnie  The Pooh ride that is actually painful to experience if you aren't a kid, or a kid at heart.  And a water ride that the woke community decided needed to be changed because it had racist themes in it.  Another page in this journal was titled, The Sad Me.  This is fairly comical, so I'll share the entire page.

The touch of:  "Somebodies wet cold hands" makes me sad.

The sight of: "My sister" makes me sad.

The sound of: "Somebody crying" makes me sad.

The smell of: "My other sister" makes me sad.

The taste of: " My mom's cooking, sometimes" makes me sad.

Boy o boy did me and my sisters get into some hum dingers over the years.  I listed the day my grandpa died as one of the saddest days I could remember.  Did we find out he had passed upon return from that magic mountain trip!  Anyone of my family members recall?

Anyone remember me talking about my Ghostbusters shirt?  I drew a picture of me wearing it in the fourth grade.  That's the drawing at the top of this page.

The cost of homes by the end of 84 were at $112,472.00.  This required a minimum income of $38,400.00.  Joel Singer, who was vice president of planning, research and economics for the Ca Association of Realtors stated that a major factor in home prices rising was the increase of 5 to 10 percent of household incomes since 1978.  New car prices:  A BMW 633 CSI coup cost you a whopping forty grand.  That thirty-eight four a year income doesn't seem like a whole lot after hearing this does it!  A Cadillac Cimarron ran around $12,600.00.  A Chevy Blazer, $8478.00.

Minimum wages in Ca were around $3.50 an hour.  That means you were earning $124.oo a week.  $6448.00 a year.  Well below the amount needed to be able to purchase a home.  Rent amounts hovered nationally around $300.00 a month.  Found on the internet this info.  Average rent prices have increased 8.85% per year since 1980.  Consistently outpacing wage inflation by a significant margin.  In the year 2021, the average rent would increase over 18% in one year.

Food costs.  Retail grocery prices increased 3.8 % in 84.  Compared to a 2.1% rise in 83.  Freezing weather around the country ruined fruit and veggie crops driving up the price.  Slow consumer spending on poultry caused reduced production, and inevitably, higher prices.  A new T.V. cost you around $700 dollars.  As you can see, we never looked back.  The cost of living just keeps going up, and up, and up.  A funny side note.  Our local lake has been victim to a ten-year drought.  People have been asked to conserve water, which was actually achieved.  Now, the lake management is proposing a rate increase of up to 50% in five years.  Why?  Well because of the low demand of course.  Seems absurd, doesn't it!

"Where there is equality, there can be sanity."

- George Orwell, 1984