Tape title stories

 Spoiled...       Close friends know that button they can push that really elicits a red hot response of anger. Mostly they do not use the button because it normally will cause a rift that might put such a friendship on hiatus for some time. Yet, my good pal Paul knew the spot on my hide that when touched it stung. Paul and brother Johnny were restrained by their place in a large family with little excess of cash. They made do when I had things they could not afford. I remember one baseball season when Paul could not play because they did not have the dough to pay for "insurance" which was a bullshit thing to protect the city from law-suits.  The city never got sued but someone somewhere said it might happen. Anyway, when my Dad started his ticket business the Creasons had an influx of money, evidenced by a swimming pool, new cars and nights out to restaurants. While Johnny and Paul never complained the secret weapon was kept in the vault that I could be called...

 My First Princess      It was Halloween, 1957 and I had been the costume winner two years in a row. The scene was the playground at St. Helen school in South Gate where my 5th grade class was rulled by Sister Balbina I believe. Halloween was a big deal at the school and the kids, imprisoned in drab uniforms all year came out of their cocoons and expressed their dreams. One year I was a giant with a mustache and anothter I was a Mom pushing a baby carriage. In a baby boomer neighborhood there were lots of props sitting around in garages next to Japanese combat helmets from World War II and out of style clothing created by enlarged parents living the American diet dream. The excitement was palpable since our parade took over some class time and instead of boredom there was downright exhilaration. I was confident and looking for a threepeat with a costume made up of grown up clothes. There were Supermen, cowboys, baseball players, ballerinas, nurses and one dazzling p...

 No Guts       While I have few regrets about how my life turned out I have to think back to an opportunity I had in 1970 that might have steered me on another path. I was surprised to get a letter from UCLA letting me know I had graduated and my goals were to avoid being drafted,  getting tied down to a job and finding a girlfriend. I wanted badly to grow my hair out and be a hippy but there was the impediment of my residence with my parents and the towering presence of my father's rules of the house. I did get a degree in English Literature without a clue as to what I would do with that sheet of paper signed by Ronald Reagan. Smoking pot, drinking beer and hanging out with other like-minded educated bums seemed like a terrific plan. However, BC had other ideas and he let me know I had an appointment with a business acquaintence of his named Surl Kim who ran a high-end travel agency that focused on tours to sporting events like the fairly new spectacle of the S...

 Charline...what's Johnny's number over there?                                                                       LO-67773      What may have seeemed maddening then has evolved into one of those delightful snippets of our youth in South Gate. The sentence itself has meaning and humor to probably five or six people. Yet, it resonates through many decades including the 1950's when the question began to be asked. I have mentioned the strange way BC and John became pals in the hallowed halls of Huntington Park High School where Mr. Sheehy was doing "post grad" work in clerical skills to insure he gained employment that did not involve working with cows. The surprising part is that BC was there since he ditched often and found his way down to the Pacific Ocean where he frolicked with fellow miscre...

 The Leak of Love...      This is a story of uncluttered love, the kind that was not complicated by prior missteps or broken hearts. It was a time of glorious possibilities and the kind of happiness you cannot reach alone. Nancy was my very first true love and while I was 20 years old I was about as sophisticated as a grammar school kid and had absolutely no idea how I was to proceed with the girl of my dreams. The really wild part of this romance was that she seemed to feel the same way about me and that was a truly novel situation. My home life was not warm and fuzzy and I was climbing up a wall of poor self-esteem that was full of emotional pitfalls and a lack of healthy role models. But when cupid fired his arrow it struck me in the heart, dead center and I was in a dizzying catbird seat. Despite my maddening immaturity we were able to go on lots of fun dates with my parents helping me with great relief that I liked girls. Nancy's parents trusted me and they had ...

  ...Strictly Cash and Carry       Living in Los Angeles you are bound to run into some genuine movie stars. They might be nice or they might show themselves to be real bastards or bitches. Going back to the beginnings of Creasons in So Cal we find BC working as a boy extra on the old Our Gang Comedies. This was not the version with Alfalfa, Spanky, and Stymie but the 1922 silent shorts with the same subject matter but different kids. In BC's day it was a chubby kid named Joe Cobb who was the ring leader and target of abuse by the street punks who populated the old sets. BC made a dollar a day and got a box lunch which was better than his Dad made working for a paint factory. The story of my Dad's life was that he went where the money was and when Our Gang changed casts with sound in 1929 he was long gone and selling newspapers around downtown LA. However, he never gave up making a few bucks as an extra and he had friends behind the scenes who would let him know when...

 Maybe Not Mark Spitz      We are heating up here in So Cal and I can't help cast longing thoughts toward the cooling waters of Squam Lake. I am remembering an event with some humility that took place out in the lake during one of my early trips to Bear Cove. The thing about camp is sometimes physical strength and  stamina would be tested and you never knew what kind of shape you were in until you took out a kayak or tackled a trail with some unknown altitude. You really had to dig in a bit sometimes or look ahead huffing and puffing at one of women or children in front of you who had not even broke a glow. On this Summer's idyll Emily's daughter was joining the fun with her very cute and very tattooed friend. They brought youthful energy and were young enough to cause camp men to hold in their bellys when taking to the water in sagging trunks. I was able to tolerate that first invigorating leap into the cool water and make the short swim to the float without b...

 The Nose Knows     It is strange how little boys seem to have hormones that cause them to laugh at other's misfortune and pain. When a kid takes a bad fall his buddies guffaw as he writhes in pain. Punching eachother was considered good fun and there was even a stupid game where you would fake hitting a pal and if he flinched you called "FLINCH" and punched him in the arm. On the playground education I received the worst thing you could be would be a crybaby or sissy. Deep down I was both but could never give in to that weakness in front of my peers and be stained forever in the male stupidity club. So, this tale concerns my  great friendship with the Whitneys and Bobby who was not only a schoolmate but in High School lived right over our back fence. In this boy dominated family only Bethy Doll was holding out against the testosterone driven behavior, although John and Bob were not mean in any way. John was a studly kid with broad shoulders and a powerful chest. He ...

 Lloyd and Gladys Purdy with a California Twirl      I can't say enough good things about the superb South Gate Parks and Recreation department that employed me in my late teens. The programs they created and maintained were an example of the right way to run municipal services. Early on, the one hundred acre park and all the activities therein were the pride of the Southeast and all of the kids in the city participated in one way or another. One of the special spots for recreation was the WPA built auditorium that was at the far end of Hollydale Park where I would be assigned to oversee the Square Dances on Saturday nights. The dances were beloved by the local yokels and they were hosted by the Gladys Purdy and her husband, the accomplished caller Lloyd Leroy Purdy. It is all too appropriate that Lloyd literally died with the Square Dance Microphone in his hand, mid-call one Saturday night in 1974  well after my role in the frolics there. I believe it was Coach...

 One day at Wrigley Field Los Angeles      I was lucky enough to attend many games at Wrigley field over on 42nd and Avalon when the Pacific Coast League minor league Angels were out favorite team until our Dodgers came out from Brooklyn. It was a cozy place with room for about 20,000 fans and power alleys at 343 feet. The LA Angels were big time in town during the mid-1950's with stars like Steve Bilko and Gene Mauch. However, the club was owned by cheapskate William Wrigley and their major league affiliate was the perpetually crummy Chicago Cubs. So, while much can be said about Wrigley and Gilmore field across town where the Hollywood Stars played this little story is about the brief period when Major league baseball was played in Wrigley. Walter O'Malley ended up buying the park and trading the land to the city of Los Angeles for the land at Chavez Ravine where he built magnificent Dodger Stadium that opened in 1962.  BC had excellent connections with the Ma...

 Jesus...who spit that bundt cake ?!       My brother fled civilization after his divorce and sure-to-fail residence in cookie-cutter Mission Viejo. He took a cabin up in Silverado canyon that was 17 miles from a main road but was where the actioin was in the hippy years that stretched for decades up there in the mountains above the city of Orange. His place was the very essence of a hippy crash pad and was constructed of outside the  building code materials ranging from river rocks to ramshackle wood planks. There was a bucolic charm to the place as it sat near a creek in a canyon far away from the city. It was boy rules all the way plus open recreational drug use and boozing de riguer during weekend revels. My pals and I visited many times throughout the 1970's and 1980's which explains the many stories remembered that took place within those flimsy walls. The plumbing in the kitchen was a bucket under the sink and the housekeeping was not meticulous. Women w...

 The History of Creason dogs Stormy - a little black dog I never saw in dog-person but he seemed to represent love between my parents as when they were affectionate they might call eachother stormy. Fritz- a brief family guardian Doberman Pinscher who may have been around when I was a baby but he perished after eating snarol pellets in our yard. Pretzel- my earliest dog recollection and the beginning of a Creason affection for weiner dogs. He was a black dachsund who saw a kitchen door ajar and darted into eternity since he was hit by a pickup truck heading for the park . Hansel-   the male part of a pair of dachsunds who came to us after the traumatic loss of Pretzel. They figured in some family lore but Hansel had a bad habit of pissing on everything when he was allowed in the house. BC took him one day supposedly to Rancho Los Alamitos and gave him away. Gretel- a longtime beloved female brown dachsund who lived in three houses with us and was an exceptionally loving and ...

 an anatomy lesson       Of the many reasons why I miss my old pal is that I have had to surrender a large part of my vocabulary to the ether. We developed our own expressions by comparing situations at hand with experiences in the past. Sometimes the descriptions just appeared from the subconscious and sometimes we heard them from gentlefolk like cousin Kent and borrowed them for our own usage. This vernacular could be taken from Shakespeare or a skid row bum but the sole purpose was to have fun with the English language. Part of this love for speech came from the great John F. Sheehy and some of it just existed in our DNA as the Irish are well known for their gift of gab. Today, I am reminded of our list of anatomical lingo that worked perfectly for us and associates. These are just a few terms we used instead of the vulgate. Rear Main Seal- basically the anus. We had to live with a common male problem which involved the leaking of excreta from the back door. Suc...

 Paranoid Stoned Bummer       This story takes place on McNerney circa 1972 where I was keeping Greg company as he oversaw the old homestead while John and Grace took a short trip to a Tank Destroyer reunion of sorts. It was a rather lethal combination of drugs, a bodacious wind storm and a viewing of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo that drove us to a state of self-induced anxiety. There was a rare freebee showing of this classic film on the old Philco in the front room that was the central draw to the event. I was in a bum period after being a salesman and failed West LA hippy so when Greg offered some tubing entertainment I was glad to join the fun. We started by smoking as much pot as we could inhale and still stand upright. This was part of the haul once called "superpot" by Greg and it was perfect to cause intense fascination with the Hitchcock art of film-making. For some very poor reason I bumped up the focus and heartbeat by taking a dexadrine found in my Mom's ba...