RAGGED MEMOIR

I

I worry about people today.  Seems like if they can’t have a cable connection, a smart phone, and eat out regularly they think they’re poor. Kids wear designer clothes, seem to have more spending money then their parents, and now there’s a whole industry trying to sell them things I couldn’t afford as an adult.

I was poor for years, but I didn’t give poverty much thought.  Perhaps I was too busy inventing ways to make life better using what we had or maybe my friends were in the same bucket.  So before this deteriorates into a litany about how I got along as well as how folks today don’t have as many complaints as they think, I’d better tell a story. 

I’m an old hippie.  What I mean is that I was there in the beginning, with the first flower, before Janis was anything but a funny looking girl with an amazing voice, back there in the dark ages when everyone on Haight Street smiled at you.  I’ve got a few pics put away of myself in dresses I made that were covered with swirling colors, hats with ragged feathers, barefoot and straggle-haired.  People are still wearing this stuff, but mostly they buy it at stores for mucho bucks instead of trolling St. Vincent de Paul.  I was accidentally in the right place at the right time, but unlike some lucky Wellesley drop-outs, I had no money but just a whole lot of imagination for comfort.

1966 landed me in Berkeley.  By then I was married, but we won’t go into all that.  At least I don’t think so.  I had about five pieces of furniture by the time the first kid was born.  Most of the furniture could have been found in a 1905 Montgomery Wards catalog, today the stuff is called antiques, but then it was just cheap stuff no one wanted. 

The first house I bought was sandwiched between a train switching yard and a Chevron refinery.  It was a nice little house with the finest river bottom soil I’ve ever seen.  You could just turn it over with a spoon, drop in a seed, and get a squash.  With a shovel and a hoe I taught myself to garden and filled in by gleaning windfalls from the Mexican neighborhood I lived in.  Prickly pear cactus, figs, quinces, crabapples ---- these strange foods were also antiques, and I jammed, jellied, and canned the lot to amend our diet.

At night the flames of the refinery smoked against the loom of San Francisco lights while the train cars bumped as they connected.  When the sulphurous smudge was cast out at 3:00AM your throat would go raw and you’d stuck your nose in the pillow.  Did I mention that I had two children in this place?  Two kids, one very pretty cat named Coriander, a dog who had been added at the birth of my second, three cages of rabbits, and a couple of guinea pigs.  And a husband.  All that stuff.

I’m not sure why the house was originally there.  Must have been built in the oughts or teens, before the twenties.  It was part of a plain row of the same with nice big back yards with peach trees and passion vines similar to mine.  The floors were all old linoleum, the heater was a small oil one that didn’t do too badly, and the bath tub held two people on it’s much painted claw feet.  Nearby was a huge piece of fallow land used for impromptu ball games that was stitched with paths towards the little market owned by a Chinese family.  I would put one kid on my back, drag the other by the hand, and walk around town shopping for dinner, saying “hello” to all the colors of people in my neighborhood.  Eventually the few acres at the end of the street was sold to a Baptist church who put up a huge sign followed by low rent apartments that quickly filled.  The night I saw a guy walking around with a long gun I decided it was time to move and I went back to the land.

Northern California now grows some of the most delicious buds you can imagine.  I see that a house I sold in 1978 is now on the market for over half a million.  I wonder if the place I owned before that is still standing?  Really, it was a shack, a sad shelter from the winter rains.  I suspected that the carpenter who built it either lost his t-square or was drunk during construction as nothing quite fit together.  The front of the house was on pier blocks, but I guess they ran out as the bedrooms sad down right on the mud.  This made it convenient for the termites who riddled it.  The attic was property of bats.  Nice little home.  The flat on which it squatted had been scraped clean of anything resembling topsoil, so gardening was my first experience with solid clay, a problem I’ve managed to repeat through my gardening career. 

The kitchen was big and so was the bath.  They nearly equaled in size that of the two mini bedrooms and that other small space we credited with being a living room.  From the front door you stepped into a bog, from the back down to mud.  Mid winter when the frogs were mating, the pond beneath the house croaked.  But on summer nights we spread a blanket and all of us searched the skies for anomalies.  Those are there, you know.  After the bats left the attic, we’d see stuff.  Lights moved in ways that had no logic.  Don’t let them fool you, we’re not alone.  We just don’t know what the heck that stuff is.

As the spring warmed that hillside behind the house sprouted waves of wild flowers --- Mariposa lilies, shooting stars, poppies, and that wild, red fern that hid itself in deep woods.  Colors marched across the hill until the summer burnt everything brown, then the madrone peeled it’s orange bark and dropped leaves, reversing the fall to suit the dryness of a California hot season.  It’s always the native vegetation that’s the most beautiful.  All the flowers I’ve tended have never equaled a square yard of a wild California hill.

This land, so disrespected by the dozer and carpenter, had been a haunt for Pomo indians before they were tossed aside.  There were dished out places, now supporting big trees, but obviously used for water collection.  Someone with free time might have hunted for implements.  But me, I only found toys.  Pack rats lived under the trees, building leaf mounds.  I tore one apart out of curiosity and found Leggos, pop-beads, and a shiny whistle.  Why there were such hoards, I’ll never know.

On top of this hill you could look down to my goat paddock, the chicken run, and the struggling squash and greens.  Ducks paddled in the kid’s wading pool and geese screeched while herding my children.  When you squint and look way back in time as I am doing, it seems idyllic, but it was in fact hand to mouth and if the hand didn’t work hard the mouth didn’t eat.  Yet amongst our blessings we counted:  goat milk a-plenty, blue and green chicken eggs, butternut squash, Swiss chard, Manzanita jelly, an English walnut tree, lambs from the auction, and some very kind friends.  What we didn’t have was TV, radio in the daytime, health insurance, and a washing machine.

THE FIRST EARTH DAY

Standard Oil had a great belching cracking plant behind the switching yard.  The network of tracks was across a broad street from my Richmond home.  Sometimes at night the bumping railroad cars would wake me and the sulfur dioxide burning my throat would pull me to the window.  In an underworld of flames on towers and brilliant lights the yellow-gray plumes streamed from the midnight stacks.  By morning both smell and smoke would be gone.

I'd tried calling Bay Area Pollution Control.

"Well, no one has ever mentioned this," they'd tell me.  "There's never been any complaint."

"It's done at 3:00AM," I'd remind them.  "Only the insomniacs know about it."

We stayed three years in that simple frame house --- the one with the deep black soil, curried by a generation of Mexicans who'd been squeezed into this corner.  My yard had an old passion flower vine, a huge fig tree, and a peach so ancient and fine that it was picked by taking from the ground what sweetness it dropped in the night.

Midway in our tenure there the news announced the first Earth Day.  On a late spring day in April people were to assemble and march in support of the earth.  After years of marching against the Vietnam War and People's Park, more assembly wasn't inviting.  What's more, I had no car, no money, no way to join a group celebrating the green planet.

But I lived in the perfect place to make a stand.  Standard Oil exuded it's choking effluents daily.  My babies were at risk.  I'd go my own way.

Blessed with a bright, California spring day, I painted a sign for April 22, 1970.  It said "STANDARD OIL IS KILLING BABIES, STOP POLUTION".  With my youngest bundled against me and the three year old trotting blithely at my hand, I hiked up the sidewalk along the road to the bridge stopping next to the Standard Oil office building.  Behind it flames inhaled the morning breeze in from Point Richmond.

So there we stood. One hippie lady and two toddlers with a hand lettered sign of alert.  From the highway cars honked, and alternated between one finger and two, according to their concern.  A black car stopped, and disgorged a man in a dark suit.  He took pictures, frowned, did his best strut of intimidation, and left without words.

It was very lonely out there.  It felt risky and hopeless.  But it also felt brave.

The San Francisco Bay Area slowly woke up to it's pollution problems.  The fish are now nourished in it's waters.  Skies are cleaner.  And a whole generation has now made it their mission to use the earth in a more kindly fashion.

This old hippie continues to garden and hope that the sun of spring will shine on better world.

ROBERT WHO?

Dementia in one act

(Throughout this piece Mom is moving through the kitchen “tidying up”.  She takes a jar of peanut butter and stuffs it in the drawer housing the pens.  Two plates lying on the counter are placed with the linens.  A jar of pencils is switched to the shelf with the wine glasses.  Each cupboard is filled with dissimilar items.  The aimless moving of items continues.)

Barbara:      “Diane’s coming for a visit next week.”

Mom:           “Who’s Diane?”

Barbara:    “She’s Billy’s wife.”

Mom:        “Who’s Billy?”

Barbara:    “Billy’s your nephew, your brother’s son.”

Mom:        “I don’t have a brother.”

Barbara:    “Yes, you do … his name was Bill.”

Mom:        “Is he in the hospital?”

Barbara:    “No, Bob’s in the hospital.  Bill is dead.”

Mom:        “Who’s Bob?”

Barbara:    “He’s your husband … Robert.”

Mom:        “How do you know him?”

Barbara:    “I’m his daughter.”

Mom:        “Oh.” (thoughtful pause)

Barbara:    “Anyway, Diane and Bill are coming for a visit next week.”

Mom:        “I don’t know them.”

Barbara:    “Yes, you do, they are family.  They come out here every year.”

Mom:        (angrily) “I don’t want anyone here.”

Barbara:    “Well, they’re coming anyway.  We need some help.”

Mom:        “Why do we need help?”

Barbara:    “Because Dad’s in the hospital and she’s an RN.  She helps to make decisions.”

Mom:        (anxious and surprised) “My father is in the hospital?”

Barbara:    “No, your husband is in the hospital.”

Mom:        “My husband!  He was supposed to come home for lunch.  Where is he?”

Barbara:    “He’s in the hospital.”

Mom:        “Well, I waited for him to come home to lunch and he never showed up. I just had to go ahead and eat without him.”

Barbara:    “Well, he’s not coming home because he’s in the hospital.”

Mom:        “Who’s in the hospital?”

Barbara:    “Robert, your husband.”

Mom:        “Then what are you doing here?”

Barbara:    “I’m going to drive you to the hospital to visit your husband, Robert.”

Mom:        “I can drive myself but that car’s too big.  I need someone to teach me how to drive that car.

Barbara:    “Anyway, Diane is coming out to visit next week.”

Mom:        “Diane who?”

Barbara:    “Diane, your nephew’s wife.”

Mom:        “Do I know them?”

Barbara:    “Yes, they are part of the family.”

Mom:        “I’ve never met her.”

Barbara:    “She was here last year with two dogs.”

Mom:        (pause) “Why is my brother in the hospital?”

Barbara:    “It’s not your brother who’s sick, it’s your husband.”

Mom:        “Did you tell my mother?”

Barbara:    “Your mother’s been dead since 1967.”

Mom:        “Well, she was just here.”

Barbara:    “When Diane comes out she’ll help us sort things out.”

Mom:        “Diane who?”

Barbara:    (sounding impatient)  “Your nephew Bill’s wife is Diane.”

Mom:        “Terry is Bill’s wife.”

Barbara:    “Terry was Billy’s mother.  Your brother Bill was his father.”

Mom:        “Who’s Bill?”

Barbara:    “Bill was your brother.”

Mom:        “Is he here?”

Barbara:    “No, Bill is dead.  His son is coming to visit.”

Mom:        “Then who is that lady you were taking about?”

Barbara:    “That’s Diane, Billy’s wife.”

Mom:        “Don’t know her.”

Barbara:    “So, let’s go see Robert.  Why don’t you get your purse?”

Mom:        “Where did I put it?”

Barbara:    “I don’t know, why don’t you try the usual places?”

(Mom begins looking into kitchen cupboards amongst the glassware, pots and pans.)
Mom:        “I think it may be in one of these cupboards here.”

(She keeps opening more doors.  As she looks through the linens, mail and newspapers spill out.  There are pieces silverware and pencils amongst the wine glasses.  A bra falls out of the same cupboard.)
Mom:        “Here it is.  Let me look for my keys.”

(She begins to unzip various compartments in the purse.  She pulls out a single fork, one sock, and a packet of unopened mail.  After a few minutes she finds the keys.)
Mom:          “I wonder which one it is?”

(She walks to the front door, opens it, and sticks a key in the lock.  She wiggles it vigorously while holding the knob tightly in her other hand.)
Mom:    “It doesn’t work.”

Barbara: “You need to let go of the door knob.”

Mom:    (She moves the key even more vigorously while keeping a death grip on the handle.)  “It doesn’t work.”

(Barbara seizes the key and handle, locks the door and motions her mother to the
sidewalk.)
Mom:      “I need to tell Robert where we’re going.”

Barbara:  “We’re going to see Robert right now.

Mom:      “Robert who?”
      

© Picottee Asheden