CALIFORNIA IS THE PLACE WE WANT TO BE!

SACRAMENTO

Because my Aunt and Uncle owned a Dairy Queen in the Curtis Park area of Sacramento, we ended up renting a house nearby for a couple of years before purchasing it from the owner in 1969 for $13,900.00. (30 years later Mom bought a brand new Honda Accord for the same price!) The house used to be located a couple of blocks away and was moved here to build the 99 freeway. The Dairy Queen was sold and eventually torn down and a strip mall was put in. Mom still lives in the house 57 years later! This is about the time that Mom became the bread winner for the family as Dad's health and life style kept him from working full time. Satterlee and Tomich heard she was back in town and asked if she would like to come back to work with them. Tiva and I attended Bret Harte Elementary school and here I met long time friend Danny Thomas. We ended up walking home from school together and soon discovered he just lived around the corner. With his brothers Tim and Steve, sister Laurie and around the corner from them Mark, Kyle and Cris Elliott were the kids on our block. I do remember a couple of my teachers, Mrs. Croter, whom my parents would bring Dairy Queen goodies to as a bribe to over look my grades and Mr. Chase who used to pick up bad kids by the neck and threaten them. Can't do this anymore in schools. Shame.

California Junior High was my next school and was about 2 miles away from the house. We often walked on nice days and since my future High School was next door, I traveled the route many times. I was kind of a Geek and in the 7th and part of the 8th grade I played in the orchestra. I got in trouble for locking a couple of girls in the instrument locker and took this as a sign to part ways with the violin. By the 9th grade, I started losing the geek part and had my first "girl friend". Her name was Janet and I found out what puppy love was. Meanwhile Dad had a brief stint as a salesman for Cory Coffee Company, but Mom as I said was the true bread winner. First working for the architect firm Satterlee and Tohmich, then Carl Treaster's, and finally working for the John Nunan company which was bought by Trus Joist. She eventually retired from here in 1995.

HIGH SCHOOL

In ninth grade we got a visit from Marcella and Donald, my half sister and brother down from the state of Washington. I remember Marcella loaded her trunk with Coors beer to take back home as it wasn't for sale up there! We enjoyed their short visit and it was kind of cool having older siblings. CK McClatchy High School was my high school. My brother Don escaped from Washington and did a semester here as well. I had a blast from Mr. Carter getting me to run track and cross country (I was very mediocre but enjoyed it) to sneaking out the window of Mr. Kelso's drafting class. I rode a Honda 450 motorcycle to school and all of us who rode parked in the same area. This is how I met Bob Gavia as he had the same motorcycle and 5 minutes after we met, challenged me to a race. We have been competeing ever since. My closest High School friends were, Bob, Russell Mindt, Charles Mussett and Kim Kundrak. Besides the Honda, my parents let me drive their 1963 Dodge Lancer when it was cold or rainy. It had a push button transmission, wind shield wipers that worked when they wanted and a glove box that wouldn't stay closed. I had my hair long and it didn't sit well with my father. We actually went a few months living in the same house without speaking to each other. Once in a while he would go out to one of his local bars and my Mom and I would go and pick him up. She would drop me off and I would drive the Lancer back and Dad would ride with her. One night instead of my Dad getting in the car with her, he climbed in with me. He said "son, this is crazy, I love you and we patched things up that night. (I think my Mom asked him who the adult was between us and he wised up.)

I worked at Sacramento Car Wash along with Danny Thomas (Who's mother Harriet ran the resturant), Bob Gavia, Charles Mussett and a few others from school. My first job was to wash the inside windows of the cars coming onto the line. As soon as the car was hooked up I would jump into the back seat (2 door vehicles were a pain) and wash the back and two side windows then jump to the front and wash the front and two side windows. Meanwhile the car is going down the track getting washed, rinsed, waxed and blown dried. The trick was to get the inside windows clean, dry and streakless before the car hit the end of the line before you jumped out and went back to the beginning of the line. It took a couple of days before I could keep up but I got pretty good at it and could get a car done while it was being vacuumed and not be stuck on the line, not able to get out of the vehicle. But the money was made at the end of the line when the vehicle was driven off the line and towel dried for the customer. This is where the tips were made and after a month of doing windows I was promoted to this job. I really enjoyed doing a good job for the customer and seeing their face when they came up to their shiny clean vehicle. You could dry a Rolls Royce and get nothing for a tip while the next car would be a dented Toyota Corolla and I would recieve 10 dollars! Just before I ended my 3 month career as a car washer I was again promoted to the detail department which entailed customer owned vehicles, new vehicles and CHP vehicles. The last two were my favorite. The new vehicles were from Swift Dodge and detailing a new car was easy but we had to drive out to Florin Road and pick the car up and drive it back. We also had to pick up the CHP cars and drive them back. Can you imagine a 16 year old kid driving a Dodge Polaris with a 440 and full CHP markings on it and not having a little fun with it? First of all the speed limit was 55 miles an hour because of the oil embargo and as I am driving along I would see cars come flying up in the rearview mirror and slowing down quickly when they saw my CHP vehicle in front of them. If they pulled up by me they would see an "Out of Service" sign in the window and speed away. I only did it one time, but my parents house was on the way to Swift Dodge and I pulled off the freeway and drove through the Curtis Park neighborhood hoping to see someone I knew and show off. Sorry to say I didn't but that was probably a good thing in the long run.

One rainy day in January of 1974 I got a phone call while at work and it was my Uncle Don saying there was a problem with my Father who had been in the hospital for pneumonia and he would be there to pick me up. By the time we got to the hospital, my Father was gone. 44 years old. Still not alot of longevity on that side of the family. My brother and sister came down for the funeral and Don taught me the benefits of bowling and drinking beer. It was our wake I guess.

Click on picture for larger image

MOTORCYCLE WRECK

The summer after Dad passed Bob Gavia and I decided to do a road trip on our Honda 450's up to Washington to see family, friends and just for the adventure. This was during the oil embargo and gas was around 55 cents a gallon in Sacramento. When we got to Weed, CA it was 84 cents a gallon and we couldn't believe it. Those prices would be great today. Our first stop was in Prineville, Oregon where Grandpa Jack was staying with cousin Dale Craig and family on their ranch. He had his travel trailer there which we slept in. Because we only had a week to travel in we got up early and left for our next stop in Yakima, WA where we stayed with Alice and Carlos Cornejo who had bought their home from Grandpa Jack. We hooked up with some cousin's and did a cruise night in downtown Yakima. Our next stop was over Snoqualmie Pass to Tacoma to see my Brother and Sister. Don had a 1969 Chevelle with a blown 427 and a Muncie 4 speed that had both Bob and I in awe. Don proposed that he and a friend would take our motorcycles for a couple of hours while Bob and I would take the Chevelle. I drove first and the car was an eye catcher with what almost sounded like a dragster on Nitro. Two 16 year old punks cruising Point Defiance Park looking for babes or trouble. Then it became Bob's turn to drive. Almost as if it was in the movie "American Graffiti" we pulled up to a stop sign right in front of a group of girls. Here was our chance to show off! Bob revved the engine a couple of times, popped the clutch and promptly stalled the engine right in front of them. I think we just idled away sitting very low in the seats after that. We then went to Portland, OR and visited my Great Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob playing pool and ping pong in their basement and spending the night. The next morning we decided we could make it all the way back to Sacramento, about 600 miles. Remember the speed limit was 55? That would take 11 hours without stopping so obviously we had to go a bit faster. 70 to 80 miles an hour was our plan and we did quite well until we got to Woodland, CA an hour from home. Click HERE to see the ticket.

I grew out of the Honda by my Senior year and since I was working at Spitzers Meat Market for Rudy and Lydia Spitzer, (Russell Mindt got me the job, he cleaned up at nights, I set up in the day), I figured I deserved more and bought a 1975 Kawasaki 750 with Mom's help. Tomaselli clip on handle bars and K81 racing tires before it left the show room. Just after graduation, my Mom, sister, Aunt Jan and Uncle Don took off for a week to Idaho to see Grandpa Jack and Grandma Alice, leaving me in charge of the house. I was still working at the meat market and Russell and I finished up early, grabbed some hamburger strapping it to my seat and took off for my house. As we started over Hugh Stadium overpass we noticed a crowd on the bridge watching the goings on in the stadium. We circled back and pulled over noticing a couple of friends in the crowd. I strapped my helmut onto the bike and walked to the bridge railing and saw an Evil Kenevil wanna be jumping cars in the stadium. After it was over, we jumped on our bikes (Russell was on his Honda 450) and without putting our helmuts back on (it wasn't a law at that time), wanted to do a little showing off our selves to our friends on the overpass. The road circled down and under the overpass and as I took the first right hand corner I opened up the throttle in the straight away preparing for the left hand corner coming up directly under the crowd. When I started leaning left the bike didn't and I went sliding into the retaining wall of the overpass. I had left the kick stand down and it prevented me from turning left. Since I had not put my helmut back on and when Russell and the crowd above found me unconscious with 2 pounds of hamburger all around they knew I was a goner. Luckily there was an ambulance at the stadium show and it probably saved my life as they were there in seconds. Ended up with a basilar skull fracture. Since this was before cell phones and the family had yet to make it to Idaho, my Grandpa who was told what happened by neighbor Harriet (Danny Thomsa's Mother) began to call motels in the town he knew they were staying in. He found them after several phone calls and I ended their trip a little early. Sorry about that!