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On Bandini with Dumb-Ass Joe

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      One of the few positives that came out of the painful departure of Tim's father was a small amount of money that was left after Tino wasted away from cancer. They never had a lot of cash in reserve at the time and treating the cancer did not help their finances. The house on Oklahoma street was probably the life's work of Faustino who boxed and then did a series of jobs around SoCal including bartending, supervising newspaper vending and teaching a few lessons about the sport of kings. Tim adored his Dad and when he had to watch him fade away it left a scar that never healed. The Old Man was larger than life and had lots of gritty life experience around Pasadena. Faustino was the only member of his family who was born in the U.S. and managed to graduate from High School and join the Army during World War II. There is much more to say about the Balderamas but that is for another story. This is about 1965, the months after we graduated from Pius and Timo and I were pl...
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Rumble in the Rental Yard

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  "The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits." - Nathaniel Hawthorne        This is a sad and shameful tale that was only told to Greg and not even discussed within the family. It involved an actual fist-fight between my Dad and an ignorant red-neck who worked at a rental yard in Paramount. This was during Christine's  equestrian days and she was serious enough to compete in horse shows with her arabian horse Narawna. My Mom was sent to this rental yard to get a horse trailer to be used in transporting the horse to a show. However, the dumb-ass who rented the trailer did not connect it properly and the jerry-rigged, half-assed job he fucked up created a dangerous possibility of the trailer getting loose from the hitch and causing a disastrous accident. The death or injury to the beloved horse would have been devastating. However, the principal danger would be to the towing vehicle which was my Mom's car where she and Chris were riding....
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Downtown adjacent

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  "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...
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Into the Showers

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   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 7th and 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 no...
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The late harvest?

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 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. ...
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"What time you kids stopping by?"

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       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...
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Big Game...Big kick in the balls

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   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 ...
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