Category Archives: high school

35 Years of Marriage–Year 17

Posted on February 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

This collection of stories is an anniversary gift to my husband of 35 years–one story for each year. Our 17th year was one of significant change. For nearly two decades, we both taught science at the same high school which we loved, and this was the year we changed districts, schools, and subjects.

After closure of Fort Ord, Seaside and Marina became ghost towns, and after years of signing transfer sheets for students who were moving, and years of dwindling course selections offered at our high school, and most importantly, years of declining income while our family expenses climbed, we made a decision. Eighteen years we taught at Seaside High, at a school, faculty and staff we loved, but we needed to move.

1999 was our last year teaching at Seaside. Whenever we mentioned we taught at Seaside, the usual reaction was,

“Oh my god, aren’t you scared of getting shot?”

“Aren’t you afraid of working there?”

“Wow, you’re brave.”

Public impression was we risked our lives to go to work. It was never like that. Students were sweet and respectful, and we figured we’d retire from that district.

Seaside students came from all over the world, sons and daughters of military personnel stationed on the Fort Ord Base. Seaside High (chanted in a deep voice with emphasis on “side,” as in “see-SIDE”) pooled together a fascinating combination of genes–Samoan/African-American, African-American/Asian, etc.  During the 1980s (heck, even now), the government expected teachers to count ethnicities within our classes. Seriously? Seriously. Of course, data recorded on scantrons, determined federal funds the school received, so we took this assignment seriously.

1999 was our first year teaching at Salinas High, John Steinbeck’s alma mater, and different from Seaside in many ways. 2600 kids attended, nearly 1000 more than at Seaside. Salinas lacked the diversity of Seaside; it seemed as if only two groups attended–farmers’ kids or farm-workers’ kids. Think of pre-packaged lettuce to chase the money. The “show-case school” of the district possessed beautiful architecture and strong history in town. Football games were the biggest (usually only) thing on Friday nights; parents and grandparents, mostly alums of Salinas or neighboring Catholic schools filled the stadium. Lots of “intermarriages” between Salinas High and Palma/Notre Dame alums, which made for exciting and packed volleyball, basketball, and football games.

That year, there was no welcome for new staff, rather colleagues demanded to know your stand on school issues, your stand with admin, etc. We left a school we cherished and moved into a scorching hot bed of politics, faculty taking pride in the rapid turn-over of administrators. I walked a thin line that school year–really three years until I had tenure. To say it was difficult to find friends on staff is an understatement, but we “first-year teachers” found solace in each other. And though I had taught 24 years, it felt like my first. I mourned the loss of our other school, eventually “found my way,” and celebrated that I worked at the same school of our oldest. Not just the same school, as a result of shuffling in the master schedule, daughter M. “landed” in my biology class.

Many in her class recognized me as the “science specialist” from their past elementary school.

“Hey, I remember you. You came to our class and we dissected owl pellets.”

Of course, that was then, ungraded and fun, this was now, graded and work. On the other hand, the class embraced the schedule change and me, which made the changes (districts, schools, subjects, and classes) worth it. Except for poor M.

I explained to my second period class. “M. is my daughter. She won’t call me Mrs. Harrison. She can call me Mom. If you call me that too, it’s okay.”

The class laughed and nodded agreement. Made perfect sense, still daughter M. avoided addressing me for that entire year.

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Posted in bullying, children, Family, Family Life, high school, Marriage, teaching

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In Memory of Matilda

Posted on May 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

I have not written in weeks—no time, no energy, no desire until this morning. My first period entered loudly as they always do, most of them slurping Monster for breakfast, and those who do not suck up Starbucks espresso. I have a cup of coffee to match their energy, but today was a little different. Adrien was gone all of last week at the Salinas County Fair and he returned solemn as though he lost his best friend. I get it. Fifteen-year-old Adrien raised a pig and sold it on Sunday. I asked if he said his goodbyes and he started to tear up and then I started to tear up and then the entire class hushed to hear our stories.

Me: I remember our family’s first pig. The night before we sold Brutus (appropriate as we are studying Julius Caesar), I cried. Our children did not cry until after the auction, when the truck pulled up and the pigs were marked with spray paint to determine their final destination, but I cried the night before. It was just as well, since I had serious consoling to do after the auction.

Adrian: (tears in his eyes, but thankfully, not on his cheeks) She was a great pig. I called her Matilda. She ran around, barked, and barked whenever she saw me. I fed her the last meal, and when I turned to walk away, she barked some more. She never did that before. (Now, the tears were on his cheeks.)

Me: I am sorry. I completely understand. Pigs are amazing creatures—so intelligent, certainly much smarter than sheep (hoping to get a smile).

Adrien: Yeah, she knew me. We had great times together. I tattooed her name on my arm so I will always remember her.

Adrian unveiled the scripted, black inked Matilda on his forearm. Priceless.

Okay, time to get to studies like Julius Caesar. I love this class. I am going to miss them. We bonded in the same way Adrian did with his Matilda (not that I should compare a class of sophomores to a pen of pigs—well, maybe). I am going to miss the way we seamlessly move from a sob story to laughter to somber discussion. This seldom happens, but when it happens, it is as indelible as a tattoo on the mind or heart.

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Posted in 4H, animals, Childhood Memories, children, Family, Family Life, high school, Humor

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31 Years of Memories–Year 14

Posted on March 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

First Half of 1996 – 1997

Our girls were 5, 8, and 11 when I returned to teaching high school full-time. This was the year of Quackers the duck and our immersion into the world of 4H, starting with poultry and rabbits, and then moving to sheep and pigs. One afternoon, Sammy brought home a special “gift” from her kindergarten class, a newly hatched, almost neon yellow duck. Quacker’s webbed feet never touched land as he was passed from one girl to the next. Most days, he slept contentedly in the palms of his many little mothers, within another hand’s reach of duck feed. Quackers thrived and pooped and pooped and thrived. At night, he slept in a refurbished hamster cage, which lasted about a week, as he quickly outgrew that abode and moved into the chicken coup.

Our cat, Ginger stalked him wherever he waddled, so our girls and their friends stood guard while he was young. However, ducks grow quickly, even faster than children do, and within a month, Quackers was twice the size of the cat. Ginger kept her distance—the two paced on the backyard deck—meowing and quacking, respectively to come into the house. By three months, in duck adolescence, Quackers was like something out of a Dr. Seuss book—a brown, white, yellow mishmash of colored feathers on short legs, long neck with a beacon of an orange bill. As he grew, he became territorial; hence, our assumption that this duck was a male and no 4H leader was going to “sex” him to find out.

One morning, Allie opened the chicken coup to release Quackers for his daily foraging of our yard. As she lifted him out of his cage, he flapped his white wings that proved flightless, which landed him squarely between the cage and a bale of hay. Bottom up and webbed feet kicking furiously, Quacker’s neck and small head wedged firmly in the narrow spot, while poor Allie screamed for help, but by the time I pulled Quackers free, he was bleeding from his bill, which I deduced brain damage. Sure enough, the next few days Quackers staggered around the yard, twisting his head to one side to see with his one good eye. He was a sad, nearly blind duck—a large, flightless Pekin better for a meal than anything else, but slowly, over weeks, Quackers recovered.

At four months, Quackers had developed into a well-fed Pekin, ready for a banquet. He flourished from the exercise and endless supply of food. The exercise came from chasing small children who ran about our yard. Not that he would eat any of them, but countless kids from the neighborhood sustained tiny red welts from his bill-bites, as he latched on the thinnest piece of skin and held tight. I was the nurse for many. Once safely atop the play structure, the children were stranded by Quackers, who circled the area, quacked loudly, and waited to strike unaware children who swung too low, or dropped from the rope, or slid down the slide, or jumped off the monkey bars. He was there. Waiting. Quacking. Again, I rescued kids with my mop in hand and defended against duck-attacks.

By summer’s end, after months of hosing off the deck or walkways or wherever the duck waddled, months of dashing outside mop in hand to protect small, defenseless children, I was “done with duck raising.” Time to release our assailant. Quackers clearly outgrew our domain, one-half acre was insufficient territory. He needed a more expansive spread; say the entire pond at the bottom of our hill. The hills beyond our house were nearly limitless—expanding into 1500 acres of wilderness, a regional park. Quackers could roam forever–free at last!

We found a large orange crate in which Quackers could sit, and then with smiles amid tears, we marched down the hill. Each little girl sniffled her goodbyes, sure that he would miss her and she would miss him. Dale brought the camera; we would have pictures. We reached the edge of the pond where Dale tenderly placed the box of Quackers. The five of us plus duck stood our places at the lip of the pond. I focused the camera, ready for action. Nothing happened. We waited—no flapping of wings, no quacking. The duck remained in the box, and he was not going anywhere. Quackers looked at Dale, with pleading in his eyes, and he turned his head from side to side to make sure Dale saw both eyes (prey, of course, have eyes on the sides of their head). He waited for his master, Dale to do something. Dale reached down and removed Quackers from the carton. The duck moved as close as possible to Dale’s size 14 boot, which Quackers knew well, but the boot was a safer bet than the unknown but beautiful pond. So, we stood—duck, Dale, me, Meg, Allie, and Sam for the longest time. No one moved.

After a few minutes, Dale with soft and gentle hands that Quackers never experienced before picked up the duck. He lovingly stroked Quackers’ long white feathers, spoke kind words, and said, “Goodbye. Be strong. Be a duck.” Then, he tossed him, as a quarterback would throw a football to a receiver at the far end of the field. Quackers instinctively flapped, which, of course was useless. He landed with a giant splash because he was such a beefy bird, and sprinted out of the water as though chased by some predator. Now, he was quacking, loudly, furiously, and shaking. He ran to his master’s side and Dale tried again. In fact, Dale tried to get rid of Quackers at least five times. Each heave met with a quacking duck, exiting the water faster than before—taking off as a seaplane. After an hour of unsuccessful attempts of introducing Quackers to our pond, we gave up. He was going home. To our house. I did not know whether to laugh or cry.

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Posted in 4H, animals, Childhood Memories, children, Family, Family Life, high school, Humor, Marriage, nature

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31 Years of Memories–Year13

Posted on March 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

Changes Ahead

12/28/93 – 12/28-94

While our kids, Meghan, Allie, and Sam were little 10, 7, and 4, I worked half-time, Dale worked time and a half, his summers spent in construction as a tradesman-carpenter in electrical, plumbing, and carpentry on assorted remodels or new homes. Each Christmas, I consulted Alan Douglas, Dale’s friend and employer, for tool suggestions. Alan directed me to the right store, exact machines and best prices, so for these years, Dale acquired new skills and skill saws or saws-all or jig-saws or drills or whatever a good tradesman needed. Little did we know at that time how these skills and skill saws would be used, but that is a story yet to come.

For one brief blip during my teaching career, I shared a fourth grade position with Jan Nutton. Jan taught Monday and Tuesday and I Thursday and Friday, while we shared Wednesday.  It was quite an adjustment moving from high school to elementary, despite the fact that La Mesa was a science magnet school with field trips nearly every week. I delighted in teaching a variety of subjects and considered staying at fourth grade when the year ended.

Fourth grade children usually enjoy school, unlike teenagers, and they offer their teachers cards of devotion on random occasions or hug their teachers at moments of celebration or sorrow or boredom or giddiness. Not much triggers a hug, and initially, I struggled with the steady barrage of embraces, as this was so foreign from high school student behavior. I stood tall and immobile as one child after another lunged at me “hello,” “goodbye,” “good lunch,” or “nice break. ” Okay, that was weird—students marched in line –but not without the requisite contact. By high school, there is no marching except for ROTC, and hugs morph into high fives or slaps on the back or fleeting eye contacts, the latter the more typical. Elementary students gave wings to my heart every day. They tugged on my shirt, sweater, and sleeves. They hovered around my desk. They gave glittery, flowery cards, both girls and boys, cards unlike anything my husband has bestowed upon me, and he has given me plenty of cards. I received apples, oranges, pears and roses—for no reason. Dale is romantic, in a practical sense; his roses were the potted kind we added to our garden.

This year, we rushed to school or to day-care or to soccer practice or to swim practice (both of us), or wallowed in dirty laundry or clean clothes (mostly me), kept up with shopping and meals for five (me), maintained working vehicles (Dale), maintained plumbing or wiring or flooring or whatever the house needed (Dale),  kept up with yard work (both of us),  brushed and backwashed the pool (mostly me), bought clothes for growing children (always me)—all of which took hours of our days and weeks and weekends.

The dilemma of fourth grade verses high school hovered over my head for weeks, until I finally decided that high school anything was more stimulating than fourth grade curriculum; I returned to the high school campus and down the hall from Dale.  It was a difficult decision—a melancholy for the sweetness of young children and their precious gifts for the mania of high school adolescents and their exuberance for life.

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31 Years of Memories–Year 12

Posted on February 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

31 Years of Memories—Year 12

12/28/1992 – 12/28/93

Sam was 1-year-old, Allie 4, Meghan 7, Dale 42, me 38, and Fort Ord 75 years old and the base was closing. Congress warned in the “Base Realignment and Closure Act” that closure of Fort Ord was imminent. In response, our school district initially did the responsible thing and generated a list of employees, their priority numbers based on year hired and subjects taught. The lists hung on public bulletin boards near bathrooms, in teacher lounges, next to mailboxes or in mailboxes, on any available space on campus. It was the first question asked when you met someone.

“Hi, so, where are you on the list?” or “Hi, what’s your number?”—so GATACCA-like in nature.

To which the ubiquitous response was “Oh, I already have a job in ______________” or “I am safe. They won’t get rid of math or science teachers” (implying that these lucky people were more valuable that the rest).

To which the usual reply was “Oh, yeah, sorry, about that and good luck on the job search” or “Wow, yeah, you’re in a good place.”

Dale and I were momentarily safe, yet the stress on our family was as insidious as a cancer diagnosis with its impending treatment. We were only “safe” until the next CAT scan or PET scan, or in our case, the updated list. No one knew exactly what effect the departure of 22,000 troops would have on local schools and businesses, but there was plenty of speculation.

We had seen the army come and go with a variety of deployments. In 1989, the seventh IDL deployed to Panama to restore order and then captured, Dictator Manuel Noriega. In 1990, the seventh IDL joined the coalition troops in the Middle East to defeat Iraq during Desert Storm. One of the last deployments was to quell the 1992 Los Angeles-Rodney King riots. Each time, when Congress called out the Cavalry, it took its toll on our students, most of whom cried for days while we consoled and tried to teach them. Often, bomb threats to the campus accompanied the deployments, as though students had anything to do with the government decisions. The bomb scares were nerve-wracking distractions as we stood in evacuation lines for an hour or so, until the military police secured the campus.

So, we were familiar with the military response, but nothing prepared us (and the school district) with the rapidity the military used for the base evacuation. The day after the government announcement, oversize eighteen-wheelers carted off military mobile homes to God-knows-where. Each day, three to five students submitted transfer requests; my average class enrollment of thirty dropped to five students. Our district could do nothing. Teachers signed contracts in September at the beginning of the school year and Congress decided in October to close the base. Every teacher remained in class, regardless of student enrollment, while school funds plummeted with ADA (average daily attendance) as over 500 students dropped to Germany, Hawaii, Korea, or wherever the military sent its troops and their families. We began the year with over 1300 students and ended with barely 400. Dale and I survived for this year.

I jogged, during my fourth period prep, through the ghost town of a base. No sounds from abandoned homes, no evidence of life, no evidence of succession in that first year. It was a significant year of change for all of us.

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Posted in Childhood Memories, children, Family, Family Life, high school, Humor, Marriage, military

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31 Years of Memories–Year 9

Posted on January 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

Year 9 from 12/28/1989 to 12/28/1990

Puff and Puff Paint

When we moved to Indian Springs, we increased our mortgage and decreased our salary by one-fourth. Not a shrewd idea, but we did anyway. Dale worked longer hours and additional jobs to make ends meet, so I could stay home while our kids were little. He saved us hundreds of dollars on the electric bill by insulating our crawl space. When our neighbors’ water pipes ruptured because of the long freeze, we were warm, we survived.  He garnered extra money as a musician, even using his accordion skills on occasion, though most of his work was on Sunday mornings at First Presbyterian Church. I found a job share partner, which meant I taught first through third periods and Pam Hopkins taught fourth through sixth.  This way, I maintained my skills in science while Meghan attended kindergarten and Allie napped or attended Mommy and Me classes with Nana Eva.

The bus picked up Meghan at our house (kindergarteners have this service), and she left wearing sweet, floral pinafores with combed hair, clean face and returned in disheveled dresses, tattered leggings with messy hair, sticky face. Meghan played hard, a rough and tumble girl, who wore dresses with pants beneath, as was the style of the kinder world. Allie wore tutus every day; lined up her Wee People on the fireplace insert, cradled her “Puff”—a fluffy pillow/blankie, and lived in a wonderful, imaginary world. Thumbelina shared a home in the backyard. Skittles people—orange, yellow, green, and red families—played with the Wee people and survived until ants or Meghan ate them.

I loved my life. I enjoyed challenging classes with semi-adult persons who responded in multi-syllabic sentences (yes, I am referring to high school students), followed by a run on the Marina State Beach, then to Allie’s world of make-believe. It was a magical time for me because I loved my family, teaching, and running.  To save money and to fix our house, I peeled wallpaper daily (layers and layers), painted when the kids played, planted a garden, set a walkway, yanked juniper and mint from every corner of our yard. The invasive species grabbed hold of our property, cropping up after each rain. I filled pillowcases with snowy-white Marina sand after each jog and poured it between the bricks of our walkway. Moved gravel from front to back (eventually back to front) and began our rose garden. Planted grapes around the pool fence—big mistake but made beautiful pictures in the fall. Made jams, jellies, sumptuous vegetable soups from the neighborhood farm at the bottom of our hill. I dehydrated anything that looked edible. I sewed all manner of dresses and play clothes for the kids. To top it off, this was the year of Puff Paint. I puff painted everyone sweatshirts for Christmas. I was at my creative best.

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Posted in Childhood Memories, Family, Family Life, high school, Humor, Marriage, Uncategorized

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31 Years of Memories–Year 8

Posted on January 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

Year 8 from 12/28/1989 to 12/28/1989—How We Got Our House
We camped during June and July, including visits to family in Southern California. When we returned, loads and loads of dirty laundry and piles and piles of filthy camp ware waited. In morning, the kids woke wanting pancakes for breakfast and lemonade with brownies for lunch. Perfectly sensible. Totally sugar. Definitely summer. I made breakfast, washed camp dishes, and sorted laundry. Meghan showed renewed interest in toys not seen for weeks and now scattered over the floor. The boys next door, Chris, Michael, and Douglas, appeared at the front door, wanting Meghan and our contribution to the neighborhood lemonade stand. They used Meghan’s Playschool kitchen, with a sign hanging from the plastic range advertising “Lemonade 20 cents,” and then ran up and down the street shouting the opening of their new business.
Meanwhile, Allie’s naptime at 11:00 was disrupted because of being home. Her summer naps often occurred in the car seat when we moved from one campsite to the next. Now, sleep in her crib was foreign—on a mattress in a quiet room. I asked my neighbor to watch the kids (fair exchange—paper cups and lemonade for ½ hour babysitting) as I put Allie in the car for a quick drive to help her fall asleep. Sure enough, a mile down the road, Allie’s eyes began to flutter and she assumed her sleeping position—car seat mode. I had a few minutes left on the clock, so I drove to where the sun was shining.
Indian Springs always held an attraction for Dale and me. Most of the time, the valley sucked in the fog like a giant vacuum. In summer, a dark line of dense clouds and mist hung over the entire valley floor. The plants loved this; we did not. I drove around the Indian Springs neighborhood, dreaming and looking at houses. Few homes were for sale this year—not a buyer’s market for sure. Whether it was the woman pulling weeds or the “For Sale by Owner” sign that caught my eye, I stopped in the driveway.

“May I see your house?” I assumed this was her place, not a neighbor’s she was weeding.

“Yes, of course, come in.” Didi, widowed a year before, had moved to her daughter’s home in town, returned periodically to check on the place. I knew as soon as I walked to the front door that this was our new home. The overgrown weeds, the unpruned roses, the sprawling mint, the gravel lawn (which I hate)—were cosmetic yard work which I love. The front doors opened to a magnificent valley view, the living room to a view of the oak forest. The layout of the house, despite the ugly orange and brown shag rug, was open and flowing. We needed to remove the layers of unsightly wallpaper, rip up the repulsive carpet, replace the broken tile, but the house would work. Most significantly, the pool desperately called for a fence, but the place was doable.
I asked the owner, Didi, “Can you take a contingency?”
She smiled and said, “Where do you live?”
I described our place and named the street, to which she replied, “Oh, I know that house. My daughter lives around the corner from you. May I see your home?”
“Sure, of course,” and by now I needed to get back anyway.
Didi followed me home to the disaster I left. Paper cups flew beyond our yard, to our neighbors on both sides and down the street. Breakfast dishes covered the counter and table. Laundry and camping gear, still not put away, surrounded the couch and the floor. Meghan’s toys, along with Chris’s, Michael’s, and Douglas’s multiplied in my absence, making one of the messier days I left. Didi and I sidestepped the debris, carefully dodging Legos, Lincoln Logs, and assorted body parts of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.
“This is the same model as my daughters,” she chuckled, “I’ll take it.”
“Excuse me?” Not sure if I heard this correctly. “Did you say you’ll take it?”
“Yes, we can work this out.” Didi smiled sweetly and suggested I name the price for her home. I made an offer, knowing this was far below what her list price was, and she said, “Yes, that will work fine.”
I called Dale, who was working at his summer “fun” job of crashing computer programs for Digital Research. “Hi, Honey. I sold our house and bought a new one.” Of course, I gave a few more details. “Okay, great, I’ll stop by the library for the forms.” I realized afterwards that Dale did not question me, that he agreed to it sight unseen.
Two days later, we contacted the title insurance company and escrow began. On the third day, Dale dug trenches around the pool for a fence; I enrolled Meghan in Spreckels kindergarten class. The next two weeks we packed. We paid a team of our high school football players $20 per hour plus pizza to move Didi and us. Poor guys had to move furniture to and from both houses, but they loved earning money and eating food. Boxes lined our hallways from floor to ceiling. We did it—in two weeks, with library reference books and without realtors. The title insurance company representative told us he never, in his thirty years in the business, encountered such an efficient escrow.
The bus picked up Meghan at her new house on the first day of school. We were home.

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31 Years of Memories–Year 7

Posted on January 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

Year Seven from 12/28/1988 to 12/28/1989

The Year of the Quake
Baseball fans and Northern Californians know well this date, October 17, 1989. At exactly 5:04 p.m., the earth shook for 20 seconds to a magnitude of 6.9, delaying the Oakland As and S.F. Giants World Series game, destroying sections of bridges, toppling houses, devastating lives. The earthquake reached the Monterey-Salinas area as well. We felt it. We lived through it. Here is our story.
That day, my physical science classes made ice cream, gallons and gallons of it, as part of the thermodynamics unit, while Nana Eva watched our girls. We made a variety of flavors from super rich vanilla, rivaling Häagen Daz, to cookies and cream diet version and everything between. High school students possess creative imaginations and mammoth appetites. We used over a dozen ice cream makers, hand crank of course, and by the end of the day, the metal tubs of ice cream firmed in the science and home economics freezers. Dale taught his usual schedule of biology, and then he rushed to the gym for a volleyball game against Salinas High.
At 4:00 p.m., I took Allie to her 1 ½ year old checkup, which included a multitude of shots. We left the doctors’ office, returned to the high school to watch the play against the number one girls’ seed. Meghan, meanwhile, frolicked beneath the wooden bleachers as Dale called plays from the sidelines, and I watched the game with Allie. Just as the team’s leading server threw up the ball, the quake struck. I saw the waves travel through the floorboards, across the gym floor, not sure, at first what I was really seeing. The lights went out. People dashed down the bleachers. I ran out the door carrying Allie and calling for Meghan. At least Meghan was inside with her daddy.
Swimmers, dripping from their workout, described huge waves while the pool lost a foot of water. The football team sprinted back from practice; many said the shaker knocked them off their feet. All of the sports fields, in fact, the entire school were built on sand dunes, trembled. Since this happened before cell phones, we heard about the epicenter, the magnitude, the disaster by car radio. Every few minutes another aftershock occurred and the school cleared out quickly. With the power out, I thought to rescue some ice cream out of the gallons and gallons we churned, so I ran to my classroom and grabbed what I could. That evening, we celebrated our neighbor’s birthday by candlelight and consumed copious amounts of ice cream.
Around 10 p.m., our sweet Allie was crying and miserable. Highly unusual for her, when it dawned on me, I never gave her any Tylenol after her shots as the doctor suggested. Poor little thing, she eventually fell asleep. I got into bed around 11 p.m., with the second floor of our house shaking like a cheap vibrating bed. So unnerving when you are trying to sleep. My eyes would drift and my thoughts float away, nearing sleep, when more quakes of varying intensities and durations rattled the house and me. One problem is you could never tell if a quake would subside or increase. I was ready to sleep in the car. The car might drop into an abyss, but nothing would fall on me. Dale’s solution, “Hey, if we are rolling around, let me rock your world.” What a man.
I am sure there were other significant events that year, but none shook my world as much as the earthquake in 1989 or none that I recall with as much vivid detail.

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31 Years of Memories–One Year at a Time

Posted on December 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

This picture was at our backyard wedding in La Jolla on December 28, 1982.  I was 29 and my husband, 33. We were slightly older than our oldest daughter is now, making a near perfect circle. 31st Anniversary gifts are timepieces, but last year, I gave my husband a watch, a year too soon, so this year my dad offered the sun-dial that sits in their backyard as a gift. However, that would have put my luggage way over the top on my return flight, costing another $50, so here is my anniversary gift year by year to my husband and to our family. It’s time for a “recap” of our years together. Here are thirty-one vignettes of our lives as a couple and then a family. This may take a while, as the saying goes, so I am “chunking” my writing a few years at a time.

Memories Year at a Time

Year 1   Newlyweds

12/28/1982 – 12/28/1983           We moved to Northern California after both of us landed teaching jobs at Seaside High. We managed this feat in the week before the start of school, as jobs in education are ought to do. Had we a marriage license in the interview (we were engaged), I doubt we could have taught  in the same school, let alone down the hall from each other. I taught all life science, Dale—physical science and math.

During that time, Fort Ord was a significant military base of 22,000 army troops with a significant housing problem, which meant we had a problem as well. I packed enough of my clothes to start work, took the essentials for meals, and drove up first, while Dale stayed behind packing and cleaning our apartment. With less than a week to find housing on the peninsula, I scrambled, searching a wide range from cheap to inexpensive to nowhere-near-our-price-range.  We had no assistance from House Hunters, and most realtors helped the military, who needed assistance far more than we did. Each night I gave a summary of my search:

Me—“I found a great place—1 Bedroom, 1 bath not too far from school, but it’s $100 more than we planned to spend.”

Dale—“Hmmm. Keep looking. I am sure you can find something better.”

Welcome to Monterey. Each phone call represented another $100 decrease in our budget. Prices were going up as the apartment size was going down. By the time I located a reasonable place to live, we had gone over by $300 and the place wasn’t ready for move in. Dale was thinking I was out of my mind, that we would be living in a veritable mansion or a fine estate overlooking a golf course in Pebble Beach. Instead, our first weeks at the start of the school year, we camped out in Carmel Valley and parked our rented U-Haul in an adjacent campsite. A solar shower at 6 am definitely wakes you up and ready for work. Trying to sleep at a reasonable time, say before midnight, while other campers are vacationing or partying, was also a challenge. Eventually, we moved to our first house in Pacific Grove, a tiny, 700 square foot cottage, on a large lot with a hot tub. The large lot was useless to us, as we never stayed long enough for a garden. Our hot tub we rarely enjoyed because the raccoons, who lived in the trees surrounding us, destroyed the cover, among other things. But, at least we were in a place, not in a tent looking at stars each night through the mosquito netting.

We explored the county parks and beaches on weekends, visited Gizdich Ranch and places in Santa Cruz, enjoyed the rainy weather that year—one of the wettest seasons I can recall. Everything leather in our miniscule closet, from jackets to belts and shoes mildewed in our tiny rental that never seemed to warm up. Later that January, we moved to a cute cottage with two bedrooms, on Pine St. and a bay window that looked across to Santa Cruz. I loved that house, including the broken, termite-bitten steps in the back, the old floor radiator, and stone fireplace; it had a charm that modern houses lack. We enjoyed countless visitors from Southern California that year, as family and friends descended on our place. This was the start to our marriage.

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A Tableful of Memories

Posted on December 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

My home is an eclectic mix of children, pets, and furniture, never more as apparent as on holidays. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, we set our family table with delicious family recipes, served on inherited china and in mismatched goblets—nothing matches, of course, but none of this matters. There was a time when my children were small, I was young and stupid and obsessed with my house resembling a catalog or magazine home. How foolish was I. My family quickly changed that concept—that my tablescape should mirror Martha Stewart’s with coordinated china, crystal, and silver, and my trees trimmed with themed ornaments and strung with perfectly arranged, twinkling lights. My bulbs stick on some strobe cycle, or the entire strand burns out from one “dead-watt” bulb, which I can never isolate. My china and crystal are chipped or nearly non-existent. Silver? Seriously, silver plate.

We married during the year of the “salad spinner,” that plastic bowl that gyro-scopes lettuce to oblivion. Salad spinners were inexpensive, since our wedding fell on the heels of Christmas, and practical, judging by the number we received in December 1982. We did not receive china or crystal or silver. Thirty plus years later, I appreciate what we have. I have stories—lots and lots of them.

Awhile ago, I inherited my grandmother’s china, the Johnson Brothers set that depicts country scenes throughout the year, which is appropriate since we live in the countryside. When I set the table, I remember my grandparents, gone long ago but not forgotten. I acquired my grandmother’s recipes, such as curried chicken with cashews, apples, and raisins, her minced pie, her pumpkin pie, her crab cakes. I am grateful for her well-turned recipes, and in awe of the brave woman who held her family together during the Great Depression by opening a restaurant in Hollywood. Her amazing meals attracted stars off the movie lots and they autographed the tablecloths in her little café—people like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and Lana Turner.

Through the decades, my husband and I have attended over thirty proms and have the glassware to show for it. We both taught high school science at Seaside High for eighteen years, “scoring the best extra duty” of prom, and now have sets of phony crystal from a multitude of proms. The unifying element is that each glass has the school name, “Seaside High” embossed on it. The long-stemmed, champagne flutes reflect the prom themes—in blues, grays, or black tints, or clear glass with fancy scroll, or fogged glass or etched in random patterns, or with gold or silver rims. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison were entitled to taking one apiece as chaperones, therefore we gathered a nice assortment.  Perhaps Martha Stewart would approve of that.

Our fine tablecloth has a story, as does our fancy crystal bowl.  Years ago, our neighbors left town, sold their home for a song, and returned to their homeland of Romania—all in one weekend. I recall the family standing at our front door early Saturday morning to say goodbye, and handing us a few prized possessions they saw no point in taking back with them. The tablecloth is hand sewn from Romania, of course, and the crystal bowl is almost too lovely for our home. It is perhaps the only “real crystal” we own, with the fancy signature on the bottom of the bowl—not Princess House or American made—but European old-style—Baccarat? It was the next family who informed us why the Romanians hastily departed and under what dire circumstances. I have no idea if they made it to Romania or to prison, but crimes and indictment were part of the gossip. Nice people.

Our Christmas tree ornaments are connected, since nearly all are gifts from students through the years—some handmade, some Hallmark. A few apples, naturally, among the lot. Many are 4H projects by our own children. Many are music instruments, such as tiny violins on a string, or gilded treble clefs hanging by a wire, as music is another significant part of our house. None match, of course, which matters not in the least.  All are priceless.

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