Tape title stories

 The Garage is Burning                                             arsonist kid         It is time to uncover the dark secret of the family fire back in 1955.  It was an important year with my First Holy Communion, the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and the Dodgers winning the World Series for the first time ever. It was also a time of shame and prevarication for me since I pulled off one of the worst family disasters in our childhood. At this time we lived at  9400 Annetta avenue and all four kids were in place and on their way toward the abundant life of post-war America. As was the case much of the time I liked to spend some of my free time playing by myself and had in my possession a dozen rolls of caps for a toy gun. There was no toy gun available but I remembered that the coffee can of turpentine in the garage was flammable and a hamm...

  BC and the Betsy       Recently, old pal Zeke and I were discussing events we just happened into that sound like BS in the retelling. Yes, we actually shook hands with JFK, yes we were at the Ambassador Hotel the night RFK was killed, Yes, Monty Montana lassoed me at Bryson Avenue school in 1952. However, this tale is one that sounds even more preposterous but is pure truth stemming from the amazing nerve of my father at the happiest place on earth. It was mid-Summer in the life altering year of 1959 when my father was so successful in his business he left the office one afternoon to his more than capable assitant and took me and my little sister to Disneyland. It was a huge day in the Magic Kingdom since the place was thriving and getting more and more magical by the day. The newest attraction was the Matterhorn Bobsleds that was doubly exciting since it was massive, exotic and a boss roller coaster. Admission was a paltry $1.25 but this was the year the ticket bo...

"Daddy Got Mad at the Basketti"                                            One of the manifestations of the nook      I was born at St.Luke's hospital in Altadena but brought home to a small house at 9400 Annetta avenue in the good old Gate. In many ways BC was always trying to distance himself from the regular Joe's who comprised the population of the city. He wanted to be better somehow and it was that drive that made him a good salesman over at J.M. Taylor Oldsmobile on Long Beach boulevard during most of the 1950's. While my Mom ran the household, like most Gate women he made some big decisions that sometimes were not good ones. I believe she picked out the furniture and perfectly 50's print wallpaper but sometimes he forced some poor ideas on her better sensibilities. Originally, the old homestead was built in 1943 as a two bedroom, one bathroom pad. Later a...

The Purple Handprint         My guess is that it was 1958 or Fall of 1959 when my Dad's forced march toward manhood decreed myself and the Knowltons (John and Paul) would take the old Yellow Los Angeles Railway streetcar from the Loop in Huntington Park and make a transfer at Slauson, then to Vernon where we could walk over to my Dad's offce at Figueroa and Santa Barbara. We took the "J" car to the "V" car and trembling in fear of getting mugged we would half run, half walk over to the Coliseum about an hour before kickoff. The stories of selling programs are many and can be told over other posts but this one holds the social truths of that time in LA history. South Gate was a redlined city and black people were not allowed to buy property there despite the fact that they lived and worked just across  Alameda which was the color line for southeast LA. The truth is that there was an inordinate fear of blacks in my experiences since we had hardly ever seen a ...

 Paul Knowlton's White Lotus \      It is ironic that this post is titled something that means nothing to the protagonist. Paul, Zeke, "the Prince," "Senor Suerte" or the Snail (I never called him that.) My old pal just created a memorable vacation on the island of Oahu where the mean old world was a far off nightmare and the closest thing to stress was choosing which kind of massage you would request. Paul was the second friend in my life and we grew up about a block away from each other. We were Catholic boys and loved sports that created a bond lasting seventy years. This connection continued from grammar school to High School, to Community College to University. We were roomates from 1968 to 1972 and our families had a solid respect for one another. Paul grew up in a family of nine kids at a tract house in South Gate when the common man lived the American dream. Then again with 11 mouths to feed the American dream can only stretch so far. It is a cliche but ...

 I don't want a sandwich “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's how the smart money bets.” ―  Damon Runyon       This being one of Greg's favorites I include one from the Creason household when entertaining mugs from New York.  In the mid to late 1930's BC spent time in the big apple where he learned the ticket business and made some very unique pals. Damon Runyon had created the archtypical New York City character and many of the guys hangind around Hickey, Duke and the rest were street-wise fellas with their own vernacular and an abscence of proper manners. The were blunt speaking guys who felt at home around a race track, a boxing areana or the grandstands at a one of the three big league baseball parks in the big city. Duke Ray was the king of the characters and his utterances are fit to enter into Bartlett's quotations. Stephen and I accepted him as a super-hero when he took us out to shag baseballs at the park a...

 Cowardice in the Kitchen     Once more I find my thoughts drifting East as I recall seeing the shimmer of Squam lake reflecting off the ceiling of a little guest room behind the perfect shoeshine chair at Bear Cove. It is that time of year when the Sheehy family travelled East and vacationed in tranquility underneath a clear sky and open bar. The stories are abundant there and I don't want to spoil possible posts by listing too many. I have my favorites, some are written about in this space but some are just moments in the good life found beside beaver cove or in a snake resting between the paws of the legencary pug Harvey. Some of them took seconds but may last forever in lore such as the time I stood out on the deck beside a bbq being performed by master chef Greg looking into the kitchen. There a nice lady known as Prune was holding a glass of scotch n' soda and glancing about the room to see if she was being observed. The coast was clear and the lady surreptitiously...

 The Art of Food Service       This is an idea Greg came up with on his own and I think it was a celebration of the joy in everyday life. When Greg saw a man who knew his job well and peformed it with a savoir faire he would laud the skills of his labor. One of the occupations Greg had regard for in particular was short order cooks, waiters and waitresses who gave the job their best effort and were proud of an honest day's work. A couple of these indivicuals have already been mentioned but I am going to list them just the way my old buddy would have held his hand over their heads to elicit applause. Carl at Bill's Hot Spot, a burger stand on Santa Monica boulevard where Greg often took lunch and watched a fiftyish guy produce one fine hamburger sandwich after another while dripping sweat and wearing his trademark headband. Bill was the owner and he handled the grill in alternating shifts but Greg liked the way Carl bore down when the orders came in fast as hungry cu...

 The Certified Auto Braves      I have had a lifetime love affair with baseball and it all began sometime in the early 1950's. It was not because my Dad took me to Gilmore field to watch the Hollywood Stars battle the Portland Beavers. That actually filled me with a dread of falling through the open slats of the grandstands on the land now covered over by a gigantic mall. My love was more from looking at the acoutrements of the game and hearing of my brother's heroism when he played a game for the Redbirds wearing muk-a-luks because of a terrible sunburn. Because of big bro I got to check out the glory of a baseball uniform, the beloved cleats and the tiny bringers of dreams: Topps Baseball cards.When Stephen was not guarding them I flipped through his collection with the little symbols of the teams at on the corners of the cards. I never got to eat the stiff stick of gum since he took care of that but I looked at cards with cute little cubs, impish characters repre...

 God Bless What Used to Be America     It is a year on from when my great pal jumped into his space capsule and jetted away from the Amerika that would make Krypton look pretty good. He escaped, leaving us to face a future where we must watch all of what we hold dear evaporate in a tsunami of ignorance, cruelty, selfishness and proud stupidity. By any standard we are standing knee deep in shit and our legs are getting close to buckling. Yet, these posts are about the things that were handed down with love from good and gentle people who would have no place in this fearful, foolish pack of idiots called Americans. There was a time when we would actually tear up hearing "God Bless America" sung by Ray Charles and stand tall at the ballpark when a surprisingly good singer would battle through the National Anthem with old glory waving out in center field. We saw the phonies, the corporatre stooges, the money-grubbers, the false prophets,  the crooked politicians ...

 Greg's Bible      We, that is the friends of Gregory Sheehy were readers and we loved to exchange passages from favorite books back and forth. Yet none of us devoted the time that Greg did in pouring over Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes" that was introduced to us by cousin Kevin sometime in the early 1970's. The book is without a doubt a "great American novel" that is now taught in Literature classes in snooty universities. In the beginning the value of the writing was being spread by word of mouth and our literate gentleman was able to bring up Exley's words to describe all kinds of life situations. I am leaving most of the this post to the words of the greatly flawed but supremely gifted writer's own sentences we heard from the mouth of Greg. I may humbly throw in a few comments in italics        “Unlike some men, I had never drunk for boldness or charm or wit; I had used alcohol for precisely what it was, a depressant to check the mental...

The Ten Glens      I have never thought of myself identified by a nickname. Paul Knowlton was Zeke, Eddy Carroll was Tussboy, then Doc Tozzle, Billy Hogan was Hogie, Steve Breen was Big Brownie, Kevin Smith was Smitty and Greg named himself Craig.  Yet, there are a handful of folks who know me by other names and this post covers ten names beside "Creason," "Glenny," "Glenusan" or "the prick with the glasses" (referred thusly in pick up basketball games). Clancy - when I was about six years old there was a funky puppet show on TV called "Thunderbolt the Wondercolt" that had a lion cast member named Clancy who I loved. One day, after watching an episode I informed my Mom that in future I wanted to be known as Clancy. Olivia Whitney always called me Clancy and a handful of St. Helen friends used the name including Steph Knowlton. Cleats - another childhood nickname placed on me by my Dad since I loved the sound baseball cleats made when y...