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