My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Three Girls and I Part One

December 10, 2020 

#3

Gentle reader,

If you are new to this blog/memoir, here is a link to the previous chapter:

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Two

I have not written since April, as everyone knows, Covid-19 has run rampant across out planet sickening and killing many. My younger daughter has it now, symptoms are not too bad. But I suspect she, like so many young adults just could not resist getting together. And, perhaps that is how she was exposed to it.

I left off raving about California. It really IS a beautiful piece of the United States which is why it has the highest population and continues to grow.

As the title is appended with: Girls, that is what I will tell you about. Remember, I'm hoping for your insight or counsel.

In the second small town in which we lived in rural Kansas, the family next door had a daughter my age. I'll call her T. 

We played together and at some point, we were sitting at their picnic table in their backyard. I said to T, something like, "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

I was in the process of showing mine and her mother must have seen that because she came charging out of the house yelling and banished me from playing with T. At least for a while.

Here's a weird and true thing that happened a couple of years ago: I got home from work and there was a message on our telephone answering machine. Yes, we still have and use a landline. 

It was T! I'm thinking how the heck did she track me down and why? 

Well, she had remembered Dad's name, since she was still a member of the church denomination Dad had preached in. She'd read that he had died and where and was able to get his home phone number via the Internet. She called his widow (who never wanted us to call her a "stepmother") explained who she is and asked if he was the same man. She convinced B her to give our home phone number to her and she called.

So, I called her back and we talked for a while. She had remained in that same small Kansas town, gotten married and had a son who as a teen became addicted to methamphetamine, AKA: Meth. It is rampant throughout the Midwest, she told me, because there just isn't much to do in small rural towns.

Not only that, but her husband had dementia, so their marriage was in name only and she was miserable. 

Something she told me at the beginning of our phone call was that she "had been looking for you for fifty years". Why? Without coming out and saying it, she felt that we were "destined to be together". I think that she hoped that I, upon hearing how unhappy she was, I would abandon my life here, mount my mighty steed and ride to her rescue. I did not.

That, to me is a unique example of the effect I apparently have on females. We were seven! I remembered who she was once she reminded be, but had not thought of her at all in those fifty years. In fact, I had forgotten her name too.

My third grade photo. The ENTIRE third grade in that school in California. I'm the only boy wearing glasses. If you click on or tap the photo, it will open up much larger. As you can see there are a number of very cute girls.

You will also note there are no black children. I do not remember any in Kansas, but I do remember that the only black people I saw in that town were obviously rich peoples servants.

Despite what T thought, I had no real interest in girls until S walked into that classroom on the first day of school. S is the first girl in the middle row next to the teacher.

She was wearing that dress, in fact, light blue gingham. I took one look at her and, well did not fall in love, but I was definitely attracted to her. Since I attended from third to eighth grade, it was essentially the same kids every year. I was attracted to a number of those girls over those six years.

As I mentioned in chapter one, this was a small but VERY wealthy town in Marin County, California. Because we lived on that side of the road which was the border, we attended that school. I do not know, but suspect we were one of the few families who were not wealthy. 

And I'm pretty sure many of them felt that we were not of the same "class" as they were. Not that they shunned me, but those who did become friends (all boys, of course) and did come over to our tiny house, which was student housing for the Seminary Dad had attended and earned two degrees from, they put two and two together.

It did not help that I was shy, uncoordinated and terrible at any kind of sports. I was that school's Charlie Brown. At least Charlie Brown could pitch a baseball.

After Dad received his Doctoral Degree, the Seminary hired him to teach. With that job, we moved across the street to this house, which came with the position. Living there meant we now lived in the neighboring town. However, our parents were able to convince the principal to let the five of us continue at the school. I was to graduate at the end of that year. My older sister had done so two years prior. 

The room behind those three windows became my brother's and mine. It wasn't meant to be a bedroom, but was a sun room. It had a three doors. The one we used to come and go was opposite the windows. The other two were on each end of the room. One connected to our parents bedroom, the other to my younger sisters bedroom.

The house has redwood siding roof shingles. The garage, fencing and even garage door were made of redwood. Main rooms in the house were paneled in redwood.

In front of the house were these two Redwood trees. Significantly larger than when we left in 1971.

They are Coast Redwood trees which are part of the Sequoia species. Much of the West Coast has huge Redwoods along the mountains pushed up millions of years ago. Some are THOUSANDS of years old.

Giant Sequoia also grow there, and no where else in the US and between the two species are the tallest and thickest trees in the US.  

I bought a Giant Sequoia tree which was a skinny thing about three feet tall and planted in our backyard here in Virginia. That's it on the left. This is a panorama shot I made of the dry creek my wife and I made to prevent backyard flooding when it rains a lot. Anyway, it's now almost forty feet tall and if left to grow MIGHT become the tallest tree on the East coast. We'll be long gone by then, of course.

That house was to me, perfect. The front door opened onto a hallway which went straight back to the kitchen. A hallway to the right led to french doors which opened to the living room. Another set of french doors on the left opened into the family room. Opposite the front door and leading up to the right was a central stairway. It was surrounded by wooden railings upstairs with the four bedrooms, and bathrooms arrayed around it.

Okay, you may be thinking at this point, "What about girls? All you wrote about is T and S." 

Well the subtitle is Girls and I Part One. Okay, I'll tell you more. Marin County if gorgeous as a lot of California is. Mt. Tamalpais is tall enough to prevent fog from getting to us. So, it is usually warmer than San Francisco is. The weather is perfect year round. 

Most of the families we were friends with were also associated with the church, seminary or both. Most of them also had a number of kids and we had lots of adventures. Truly a magical time and place to grow up.

But aside from the girls at school I liked, there were no girls that I was interested in those families.

One family had a dog they named, Dammit. They lived down the street and from time to time their little girl could be heard yelling, "Dammit! Where are you Dammit?" Think about it, it is a funny name for a pet, and hearing this otherwise cute as a button little girl yelling, "Dammit!" was funny.

Next chapter will cover the move East to Colorado. Where I began ninth grade determined to change my image. And the girls really took notice. Did I take advantage of that? You'll have to wait and see.
 
Thanks for taking your time to read this humble blog/memoir. I will continue to write and hope some will read it and comment (below) on it.

Scott

December 10, 2020

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