Tape title stories

  "Things will be great when you're downtown Don't wait a minute more, downtown Everything is waiting for you, downtown"             -Petula Clark       Although I had spent some time as a delivery boy for my Dad around downtown I was always a little nervous down there. In the mid 1960's and 1970's DTLA was in the doldrums as the automotive city became a bunch of buildings you drove past on the Harbor freeway. However, you could still park on the street and when I delivered stuff to the Southern California Music Company near 8th and Broadway or the run down Ambassador Hotel on Spring. As mentioned before I acted as a "digger" standing in line for tickets for the newly opened Music Center in August of 1965. The show was Hello Dolly and the star was Carol Channing. My other contacts with dirty old downtown were in going with my family to the Biltmore or Philharmonic Hall for Broadway musicals like Fiorella or My Fair Lady. Running er...

   Into the Showers      After surviving the abrupt move from my beloved South Gate to the repulsive La Habra I managed to act out in bad and some good ways. In the 8th grade I was disruptive in class, desperately seeking attention and was a terrible student who learned little. The head nun called my parents in for a conference and told them my IQ was 138 but my grades were substandard, approaching failure in some cases. Not only, did I not pay attention I was always trying to get the other good kids to be naughty like me. I was under-sized while many boys were becoming men but I made up for some of that by excelling at sports which I had learned in South Gate living a few hundred feet away from "the Park." Despite being a shrimp I  scored seven touchdowns for my schools flag-football team and had the top batting average on the baseball team. I was not that great at basketball but was one of the best at the kind of lousy OLG squad. However, I was not being ...

 The Late Harvest ?     This is a tale from the 1970's and exposes some of my criminal history. My early years on my own were those of poverty and a hippy lifestyle that meant few luxuries and rare nights out at fine restaurants. The only time I experienced any kind of the good life was at the invitation and selection of BC. It was from my Dad that I learned of another side of life beyond the comfortable middle class scene of the Gate. In this case, the subject was wine and my education involving the fruit of the vine. At the end of the sixties my idea of fine wine was Gallo burgundy, CK Mondavi gallon jugs, Mateus Rose and Lancers wine that was distinguished by the crockery bottle. My father was starting to move from his bad martini habit to a more sophisticated quaffing of good wine. He and my Mom even visited some wineries and they kept their home in Long Beach at a temperature amenable to the wine they were buying and not the humans who lived or visited Terraine ave. ...

       Maybe it was the Irish in our blood but Greg and I spoke a common language that I hope will survive somewhat with these humble letters. Because I knew some phrases would tickle him I went out of my way to use them. One of my favorites that was used for at least thirty-seven years was calling Greg and Lissy "you kids." The older we got the more fun it was to use the expression and when I waited to be picked up for a blessed trip to Lawry's by a septugenarian couple I might make my inquiry "what time you  kids coming by?" While he did not laugh when I said the phrase I knew it tickled the old man to be called this antiquated term. We also loved to use some wording that would have been frowned on by common folk but to us it gave greater meaning and sometimes respect for the situation.  We liked to call women both gals and broads with no intention of demeaning our betters. If Greg really liked a woman he might refer to her as "a great gal." As menti...

   Big Game...Big Kick in the Balls      This is one of those tales that traces misguided good intentions by BC who set me up for a crash landing at the Coliseum. It was big game week in 1979 and I was buoyed by the fact I had been hired by LAPL to begin my library career that month. UCLA once again had a mediocre team but was showing some life by winning their last two games including a rout of Oregon up in Eugene. BC invited me to come down to the old venerable gridiron and watch the big game with the help of the UCLA ticket manager who provided me with a lost-seat location pass. The lost seat location pass was a scam that got you through the gate but did not provide you with an exact seat every time. To top off the deal BC gifted me a bright, baby-blue windbreaker with a bumper-sticker plastered on the back that said UCLA #1  What the fuck! I was always proud of my graduation from the school and was fanatical about the sports programs which at that time ...

 Lud...       Growing up in South Gate, boys took for granted the blue collar sweat that kept the city thriving and  Tweedy boulevard becoming the pumping heart of what was once an old dusty ranch. My Dad and John Sheehy were outside the norm in this city encircled by factories and the hard jobs handling steel ingots, building Chevrolets, putting truck tires through their stages or standing on a line putting hot water heaters together with numbed brains. I have gone on before about our neighbors. a plumber, a meek assembly line tin can maker, a bread truck driver and a beer soaked butcher named Jack. BC had his pals but these Anetta street guys were not in his social circle where you might find salesmen and civil servants. The richest men in South Gate were realtors and the two gents who operated funeral parlors. It amazes me to this day that in this white enclave the men behaved no differently than they would have if they had remained in Iowa, Missouri, Michiga...