Where Do Angels Walk?

How many of us have seen those articles or even emails about angels? You can find talisman-like angels next to cash registers at Lowe's Hardware. Carry one of these charms in your pocket, and you will be blessed by some angel somewhere. Angels are all around us. Some are visible, some are invisible... so they say.

Go look in the mirror. See if you can find one there.

My father is getting pretty old. He worries about his physical body "going bad on him." He worries about his memory and his ability to do tasks that were once second nature. It takes him ten minutes to log on to the computer and find his email. He watches my mother's health deteriorate in tiny increments each day and worries about the day she might not wake up. What if he leaves a burner on the range and starts a fire? If Social Security and his savings fail to keep the house bills paid?

Larry Perl is twelve years younger than Dad. He was an apprentice to Dad way back in the 1960s when Dad owned an autobody repair business. He was a hippie, a musician... he had long hair. And he was a very intelligent, quick learner.

"He's got a gift for making something out of nothing," I remember Dad saying.

Larry knew every part in inventory, by number, by quantity, by quality. He could mix and blend paint colors effortlessly. Metalwork was flawless.  Dad thought he was pretty amazing. And Larry was cool. He played drums in a local rock band. We went to watch his band perform at a street dance near the high school. Very, very cool, I thought.

The young man helped us move from Livermore to Anacortes. We were packing boxes in June of 1968 while the tv news broadcasted reports of the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Late in the evening, Dad passed around take out chicken and Larry passed around that great California hippie wine, Red Mountain in the gallon jug.

I remember the evening winding down and Larry standing up from the table, saying, "Gotta make it... night all." How California hippie. How cool.

He came to visit us in Anacortes with his new wife and baby son. I was 13 or 14 and starting to get interested in listening to music other than what was on AM radio. He said the Allman Brothers are cool. Buy a copy of Eat a Peach. And then we lost touch.

Everytime I hear anything by the Allman Brothers I think of Larry Perl and wonder where he wound up.

So, not long ago, I was standing around with Dad in his front yard, and someone next door had the radio on. I could hear Duane Allman's song, "Melissa."

"Whatever happened to Larry Perl?" I asked my dad.

"Oh, gee whiz... I haven't heard from him since he came to see us on Ninth Street." said my dad. "It sure would be good to see him. I really liked that young man."

Dad smiled and said, "He's probably not so young anymore."

One night, during my middle-aged insomnia, I googled "Larry Perl." To make the long story short, I found an old article from a Livermore history page written by his sister. The Perl family, including Larry, were glider plane hobbiests and pilots. Then I googled his sister's name, found a bulletin board with her email address included and sent her a note.

"Yes," said Toodie Perl-Marshall, "That Larry Perl is the man who worked for your dad. And I remember your dad. We were just talking about him a few days ago. Such a good man your father is, and Larry would so love to hear from him. He has not had it easy for some time... quite a few challenges. I'll pass your contact information to him."

I heard from Larry within twenty-four hours. He told me my own dad was one of the people who influenced him the most, and someone he is grateful to for many good lessons. He'd often thought of how to get back in touch.

Dad and Larry are talking on the phone and writing to each other now. Invitations have issued. Dad is animated. He's talking about all the years they will catch up on. Mom is making up the guest room and looking up recipes to welcome Larry.

Dad is organizing the slide projector to show him the children, the grandchildren, and the single-engine airplane flights to Barrow, Alaska. Forty years of story telling are in the works, and I'm sure Larry is making the same preparations.

We did not know until today that Larry has a health crisis and has been in crisis for more than a decade. Only recently have his doctors found a resolution that looks very hopeful. In the next two weeks or so, Larry will know if he is out of the woods and can have some distance from the hospitals that keep him going. He says his goal is to come see my dad.

My friends and family would not tell you I am a religious person. I do not church. But I do believe the Spirit lives within all of us and does connect us. Maybe He speaks to us, and if we happen to be listening through the noise of day to day living, we can be instruments of small wonders.

I can't hear any better than anyone else does.

Could be I was listening at the right time, or maybe this is pure chance. My dad and his friend, Larry Perl, are helping each other be well.

I still can't say if I believe in angels. But I think I can say that each of us could be "as angels" in very simple ways.

I can't fix the economy, I can't make world peace, but I did facilitate a meeting that makes my dad (and his friend Larry) feel some happiness. Not too old or too sick to anticipate a renewed friendship.

A small miracle.

If it's Dead, Matt Likes it

I have two little dogs, both miniature pinschers. Tassie is 19 pounds and doesn't look much like the standard. Ava is 12 pounds and although a little chubby, competes with the best examples of the breed; her lineage is almost all champions. She has crooked teeth, which is a fault in the showbiz world, so she is my pet.

I've had Tassie six years since she was a puppy. She's one of the best dogs I've ever owned, and since I'm home most of the day, she's right by my side and I'm very attached to her. John and I travel several times a year and I can't take her along. It's always a worry how to keep her happy while I'm gone. I've hired house-sitters, a few different kennels... but I'd notice she was thin when I returned home. She was so unhappy she wasn't eating well.

What if I got a dog for Tassie? She'd have a friend and she would not be alone when I kennel her.

I found Ava on Craigslist. She was offered by a small but very serious kennel in Monroe. Salina Bailey breeds champions. The top miniature pinscher in the country, Marlex Mr. Chips, came from her kennel and is half-brother to this pup. Salina said she thought the puppy would get along well with us, and let me take her home on approval.

The dogs are very compatible.

Miniature pinschers were bred to be house dogs whose job it was to kill rats and mice. Like most dogs kept as pets, their original purpose seems to become "forgotten" through generations of dogs bred just for companionship. They've got it pretty soft.

We have an acre or so of lawn, and our property includes meadow and woods that surround our civilized claim. Small creatures may attempt to inhabit the crawlspace, the attic or the eves, but John and the cats are experts at defending the domicile from things that creep and crawl.

Except for the lawn. Those small mounds of dirt, several feet apart, were a constant aggravation.

John has tried every strategy put down in print, televised or discussed at backyard barbecues among the most manly of homeowners. Traps, water hoses, poisonous bait... none of them worked. The object of John's military ambition lived under the paved walkway between the roses and the lawn. Only working at night, the mole would leave at least one fresh mound of dirt every morning for John to kick at in defeat and disgust.

One afternoon, Ava escaped the leash and zoomed off in a red flash.

Around the house I chased her, twice around... where is she? There she was, under the rose bush, digging furiously. I got to her just in time to see her grab something small in her mouth, give it several quick shakes, then drop it on the ground. She wagged her tail at me.

Dead mole.

Now what do I do? John would want to see this. My folks would want to see this. I wanted the whole world to see this!

I picked up Ava and put her in the house. I got a zip lock bag from the kitchen and took it outside. Picking the dead creature up by the tail, I sealed it up in the bag, stuck it in the freezer, and went (where else?) to the Yellow Pages: "Taxidermy"

I called the local guy who I know. Jeff preserves big game for local hunters. He's stuffed deer and bears and game birds, but he's also mounted zebras, lions and other wonderful exotics.

He said no. He said, "Hell, no. I can't stuff a mole. Even if I could find a form for it, my friends would laugh their asses off at me. Nobody stuffs moles!"

I expanded my search to Skagit County. No, No, and No. I found a shop called Whidbey Island Taxidermy and dialed the number. An answering machine said Matt would call me back after 6 p.m. if I left my name and number.

"Matt, my name is Denise and I'm hoping you'll listen to this whole message before you laugh and hang up. This is really a point of pride. My little dog just killed a mole that had been tormenting my husband for over a year. It's a nice clean kill, and her very first. It's a big deal and I'd like to make a trophy of it."

Matt did call me back, soon after 6. He was laughing when I said hello.

"Sure, I can do a mounting of a mole for you." He explained that he's preserved all kinds of rodents, birds, and skeletons for the University of Washington. The freezer was the right place for the corpse until I could bring it to him the next day around 4:00 p.m. I got directions.

Matt Klope lives about fifteen minutes outside Oak Harbor. He has a couple of acres with a house and a shop. Taxidermy is not his career, but his hobby.

Inside his shop are preserved ducks, deer, moose, and things you might expect to see. There were also wild cats, bears, a coyote, a wolf and several prone skeltons eight feet and longer.

"I preserve seal lion and whale skeltons," said Matt. He showed me large tubs of stinky black water behind the shed. "The meat rots off, then I bleach the bones and assemble them."

Nice. He performs necropsies of stranded marine animals, too, as a member of Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Network. He has a wealth of knowlege about just about anything that crawls, swims, or flies.

Matt's real job involves the science of bird strike studies. He contracts with the US Navy to keep their aircraft safe from birds. You can read about BASH here: http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/approach/issues/marapr08/bash.htm I was amazed to hear they use radar to warn of incoming flocks, and specifically plant the acreage around the runways with foilage birds aren't interested in. Sometimes they use trained falcons to repel flocking birds.

Matt beheld the creature in the ziplock bag and said it was a Townsend's Mole, Scapanus townsendii. "Good dog. Nice clean break at the neck." He said he'd see what he could do to make it look fierce.

Ava's trophy sits in it's place of honor on the fireplace mantel. When we show it off, she knows it's hers. She struts proudly around it until it's returned to it's special place.

Doesn't that mole look fierce? Good dog.

Overheard at Doc in the Box

Some time ago, I'd been bothered by stuffy ears with no other symptoms. I thought it must be a virus and toughed it out a few months. A little antihistamine eased it, but you can't take that during the daytime because it makes you drowsy. My regular doctor is in Mount Vernon. I could call and make an appointment, but I hate the wait. I remembered another option.

Anacortes has a walk-in clinic. It's run by nurse-practioners and is loosely associated with the local hospital. It's an inexpensive alternative to the emergency room, if you're not near death. It's great for families who don't have insurance, although they do require payment upon treatment.

It was on a Monday morning when my ears were really starting to hurt, and I thought I could let an RN look and get them cleared, or at least get started toward some kind of relief. There were maybe seven people ahead of me when I checked in, so I got a People magazine and got settled in the far corner of the waiting room.

Two women, one blonde and one red haired, in their early thirties were trying to keep a toddler with a green nose still. The little guy looked pretty feverish, and I was glad to be a comfortable distance from him. They were so busy settling and wiping that they weren't paying attention to the volume of their conversation.

"Well, Tricia. You know I've been worried Rich was cheating on me. I'd been pretty sure something was going on and now he's got fired from work."

"Rich was fired?" said the blonde one, apparently Tricia. "When did that happen?"

"Weeks ago."

"When did you find that out? How come you didn't say anything to me about that?"

The redhead rolled her eyes. "Just because something happened doesn't mean I have to know. I make his lunch every morning. He leaves with it every day at fifteen to seven and I don't see him until five thirty. Friday morning was just like all the other mornings, except he left his tool belt in the garage. I called the company office to find out which site he was at so I could bring the tools to him. Ada laughed and told me he hadn't been to work in over three weeks. He was shit canned!"

The blonde sat back in her chair, speechless. She twisted her hair with her forefinger.

The redhead continued. "So when he walked in the door after work, " she made quote marks with her fingers, "I was waiting for him. 'What were you doing all day then? What am I going to pay the bills with? Are we getting unemployment money? What the fuck is wrong with you?'

"He had no answers for me and walked back to his truck and drove off.

"I did a little investigating. I called Ada at home and asked her what she knew. She said she heard he had a little something on the side and he'd been pretty flaky on the job. Couldn't give me a name, though. So, I thought, there's gotta be some way to find out if this is true.

"He came home around 1:30 in the morning. Drunk on his ass. Passed out on the living room rug. I was just so angry, so pissed off! I opened his fly and put green food coloring all over you-know-where, then I dragged his body out into the front lawn and put down his keys halfway to the front door, went inside and locked up. I couldn't sleep, I just sat in our room and read books until I heard him come in around five. I heard him go into the bathroom, and then into the kitchen."

"Well?" said the blonde. "Did he say anything?"

"No, not a word. He won't even look at me. We haven't said two words to each other since Friday night.

"But I guess I know."

(time and place are changed)

Huh? And Beggorah!

Ah, middle age...

At a dinner party last week, a bunch of us females decided we'd put a feast together for St. Patrick's Day. Ronelle said she'd make the corned beef and cabbage, Clang is making soda bread, Paula's making dessert. She's an expert baker, and she's committed to bring us sour cream coconut cake.

That heavenly dessert is all I can think about because the main course, like so many ethnic dishes, is too much salt and too much fat, mostly cheap calories. Ceremonial purpose cooking.

I got an email this morning from Paula asking if I'd be home today so she could drop some stuff off... "Sure," I said. "It's going to be a great time tonight. I'll get off work early."

"Tonight?" she replied, "I thought St. Pat's is tomorrow night." She is seven years younger than me and is kind.

Ah, yes. Today is Monday, March 16th.

Quick recovery from me: "Well, then... even better. We can save the cake for that."

Paula said, "Good. Because I'm baking it tonight. And the dinner's at Ronelle's house."

I think I'm bringing an appetizer... or a salad... or... I hope I can just find the car keys.

En Tequila Veritas

About five years ago, my family took a four-day vacation in Cabo san Lucas. Not my first choice of destination, but it was a free stay. A friend had a timeshare he couldn't use that year.

There's not alot to do in Cabo. It's a beach of party-goers and sunbathers. There are watersports off the beach, but the water is dirty and the undertow strong.

On the third day, I sent the others off on a fishing trip. They found a boat and skipper that looked fairly seaworthy, and I said I'd just go wander the town. I had a late breakfast at a marina-front restaurant. Very tasty tortillas and eggs, something I haven't been able to duplicate at home. I walked to the end of the touristy strip and looked toward the town square. Seeing the police with their machine guns walking the edge of the demilitarized zone, I changed my mind and rejoined the herd of tourists.

One must find one's own entertainment in these situations.

I walked back toward the cruise ship landing where the famous Cabo Wabo is. The cantina is above a patio and souvenir emporium. I walked up the few steps and to the far end of the bar to inspect the restrooms. Yep, Sammy was keeping it authentic. There is nothing more appalling than a public restroom in Mexico.

Maybe I'd sit at the bar and watch the tourists fresh off the Carnival Elation discover the "real" Mexico. I was fortunate to find a seat with good sight of the restroom doors, and looked at the menu. It boasted of the fine tequilas you can only buy in Mexico, nothing like that industrial solvent called Cuervo. It was shortly after noon. Ok. I'll try a sampler.

Videos of Van Halen looped on tv monitors around the bar. Some with Sammy Hagar, some with David Lee Roth. Roth is better.

"Sip it like brandy," said the barkeep. "It doesn't need lime, it doesn't need salt, it doesn't need ice. Those condiments are for bad liquor to hide the taste."

I looked at the five small shot glasses half-filled with liquids ranging clear to amber he set in front of me.

"Take a breath and hold it. Take a sip. Let the tequila slip down your throat, then exhale." It took a few tries, but I could appreciate the quality of the drink. Fruity, kinda, and certainly smoother than the Cuervo Gold we'd passed around in our youth.

I suppose a half hour had passed when I finished the fourth sample. It was about then a dark and very good looking young man dressed in a white blouse, bolero, black pants decorated with silver, and a serape around his shoulders came to sit beside me. He handed his pistol to the bartender and ordered a Budweiser.

I recognized him from the old posters I'd seen in Calaveras County Museum when I was in grade school.

"You have your head," I observed. The Bandit Joaquin smiled with perfect white teeth.

"Never lost it," he replied. "That was some other guy. What a joke."

There are many stories about the bandit. One was that a Stockton lawman gave a public speach about the vicious outlaw and nailed a poster to a tree. $100 reward for the body of the Bandit Joaquin, dead or alive. The people watched as an individual strode boldly out of the crowd , wrote something at the bottom of the document, then went to his horse and rode off. The inscription read, "I will give $1000. Joaquin Murrieta"

But things were getting too hot for the bandit. The once vast California territory was becoming more populated and government more organized.

"I got a good idea," said the bandit to me. "I had an acquaintance named Harry Love. Big phoney lawman, easy bribe. We decided he would go to the governor to say he'd find me and kill me for $1000, and he'd deliver my head in a jar for $5000. Love came back to our camp in Fresno and gave me the go-ahead. Five of us armed ourselves well.

"I'd told my brother-in-law many times I didn't like the way he was treating my sister. If he put his hands on her one more time, I'd kill him. He laughed at me and said with the price on my head, I'd better watch out for him! Timing was bad for him, good for me, so that's Carrillo's head floating in the brandy. And I threw in the hand of that whiner, Three Fingered Jack as a bonus. Harry might as well get the bounty on him, too. I didn't need a partner any more.

"Take these to your governor and keep the cash." That's the last I saw of Harry Love, but I heard he made good use of those body parts. Carrillo and Jack toured the state of California and for $1 any man, woman or child could view what remained of them. Harry could never tell the truth, or his gravy train would end.

"And so I disappeared," concluded Joaquin. "Very successfully."

I thought of the stories my babysitter told me when I was very little. "You see that hill? That's Brushy Peak. The Bandit Joaquin is still hiding up there. He killed hundreds of men with his knife and his gun. Stay in the yard so he doesn't see you!"

"Where did you go?" I asked. "Were you at Brushy Peak?"

"Just think, senora. If I were at Brushy Peak when you were five, I'd have been a hundred and thirty years old. I have to say I was pretty far from there."

The bandit set down his empty beer bottle, put some silver coins on the bar and took his pistol back from the bartender. He nodded toward my empty tequila glasses.

"Get the lady an agua fresca."

He touched his forehead and bowed slightly. Then he was gone.

http://www.answers.com/topic/joaquin-murrieta

Anacortes on a Summer Night 1968

At 4:30 in the afternoon, the air was still warm. It would be daylight until after nine p.m. or so. I'd written to my friends in California about the longer days, the green landscapes, and the unbelievably cold water of Puget Sound. And the air got cold at night, even in August. The lushness was beautiful, but as a price you got as much rain as you did sun. So different from "home."

They wrote me back about pool parties and suntans.

Livermore was a small town in a valley of rolling hillsides. In summer the hills were golden with dried grasses and dotted with oak trees. Almost desert, the days' temperatures passed 100 degrees, while the nights "cooled" to the low 80s. We ran barefoot on the warm sidewalks until bedtime, and sometimes the heat made it hard to fall asleep. Once in awhile, on a really hot day, the Fire Department would open a hydrant in our neighborhood. The parched street would fill with water, several inches deep at the kerb, and we'd jump in it, roll in it, scoop it up until it quickly disappeared into the drains.

You wouldn't do that in Anacortes. Water outside the house came in one temperature: bone achingly cold. One entry at West Beach was all I needed to decide that.

Just the summer before this one, our family came to visit my uncle Curt and aunt Shirley at Whidbey Island. Dad saw Puget Sound for the first time and definitely not the last. The next thing we knew, our house was up for sale and we were northbound. We knew no one in this place called Anacortes. And then we got the news that Uncle Curt was transfered to Memphis!

Twelve years old, I was sitting on the steps in front of the 1910 wood frame house that we'd moved into just a month or two before. My dad was in the basement trying to figure out a plumbing problem (those would be endless) while my mom was next door at the Pirak's visiting Sylvia. I was mourning the loss of all things familiar.

The Pirak's were the middle-aged couple next door. They were the first to welcome us, and the only people we knew so far. Mike and Sylvia had three grown children and one daughter named Marie who was about to start her senior year in high school. We hadn't met Marie yet because she was working through summer at an Alaska fish cannery.

I could see Mom and Sylvia through the Pirak's picture window. She and Sylvia were drinking red wine in water glasses, Yugoslavian style. Mike, at the parking strip on the street, was under the hood of Marie's 1959 Chevrolet swearing at the engine. I'd never heard language like that, and was thinking I'd better get used to it.

Sylvia saw me, and like she would anytime she saw one of us kids during happy hour, called me into her kitchen. I hadn't learned yet to stay out of her sight after 4:00.

"You'll come in and meet Marie. She's home from Kodiak."

Marie was in her room, off the kitchen in their shot-gun style house. She was unpacking clothing that smelled faintly of fish guts. About 5'3" and heavy set, Marie had dark hair and dark eyes. She gave me a big smile and said, "You must be Mouse."

Never tell a Yugoslav your childhood nickname. They'll call you that for life. Mom told Sylvia they'd called me Mouse when I was two because I worked very quietly at toddler-mischief. And I do remember thinking, "If I'm caught, I'll be stopped."

Sylvia emptied her glass and went to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. Mike must eat not one minute after 5:00.

"You come back at 5:30." She said, abruptly.

Marie smiled again and said, "See you later, Mouse."

At our house, Mom made sandwiches. Dad was still struggling with the pipes below us, so Mom told him his supper was in the refrigerator and we'd be at Pirak's.

Sylvia poured herself and Mom a glass of Vino Fino from the gallon jug. Mike stood up.

"On Tuesdays he takes the paper to his mother and his aunt Mary," said Sylvia. Mike asked if I wanted to go along. Marie was on the phone and I was beginning to get uncomfortable with Sylvia. She had lots of opinions and was looking at me a little too closely.

"Sure."

"Get your jacket."

We walked the three blocks to Safeway where Mike purchased three Anacortes Americans. Then we walked Commercial Avenue past the storefronts and taverns. Mike glanced inside the taverns, not entering, and made remarks about who should be home and who hadn't been seen at Mass for months. We turned the corner at 4th Street and went up the steps of an old white Cape Cod. An old woman with white hair, coke bottle glasses and a worn housedress greeted us.

"Mother," said Mike in greeting. Their conversation was in Yugoslavian with an occasional, "No kidding!" or "That's right!" from Mike. Mrs. Pirak offered me some strange smelling cookies that I politely declined. I found out later the aroma I didn't like was aniseed.

We left Mrs. Pirak's house and walked about five blocks zig and zag to Mary Bachlich's house, a big dark bungalow with a wide porch. Old hardwood and wool rugs that looked age-worn and maybe a little grimy. The smell was of stove oil and mothballs.

"Sylvia says I have to watch you take your pills, Mary," said Mike.

Mary, a woman of 80-something, ankles swollen and color terrible, hobbled up to the sink. In the cabinet she found a juice glass and filled it half way with water. Mike handed her several small pills. She tossed the pills down the drain and dumped the water in after them.

"There. Tell Sylvia I took them from you."

Entering the Pirak's front door I could see that Mom and Sylvia had a similar facial expression. Marie stood to greet me and said, "Let's go drag the gut, Mousey." Whatever that is. She got the Chevy going after several tugs at the key and we were on our way.

Up and down Commercial Avenue. Honk and wave. Turn around at Jorgenson's market at the high end, Reisner Distributing at the other end. The Beatles' White Album over and over again. Marie had bought the new eight-track deck with her cannery money and she only had enough left to buy one tape. We got milk shakes at A&W. "You owe me 75 cents, Mouse, but I'll pay for the gas."

We checked it at 9:00. Mom and Sylvia were looking for moths. "Mike found one in his closet so we have to find the other two before we can sit down." There are always three moths in Yugoslavian households. Soon enough, Sylvia was able to present two fresh kills to Mike.

"Now take your heart medicine and go to bed."

She opened a pill bottle and put one in his hand along with a water glass. Mike took a pill and Sylvia took a pill.

Mom said, "I thought that was Mike's medicine."

"It is," replied Sylvia, "He won't take it unless I do." Sylvia described how Mike wore garlic around his neck when they met and she made him get rid of it before she would go out with him. So, he blamed her for every cold he caught and made sure she got one whenever he did.

The adults went off to slumber, and Marie asked me to stay and watch a movie with her. Then another movie. There's no tv in Kodiak, she explained.

At 1:15 a.m. she jumped up and put her coat on. She told me to get in the car. So, I did, and we went back downtown. She pulled into the Thrifty Mart parking lot and took one of the spaces facing Commercial Avenue and Vi & Pete's Cafe.

"We're going to Watch the Drunks Come In," she said. And about then the first car arrived, stopping about three feet from the kerb. The passenger door opened, and a woman put her foot out, misjudging the pavement. Down she tumbled, and she cussed at the driver. He got out, walked behind the car and stood, swaying a bit with both hands pushed into his lower back, elbows out. Squinting, he went back a few paces, then put a hand over one eye. He staggered over to help his companion up from the street and together they made the sidewalk with only two tries. Just in time, too, because the next driver would have hit that first man, and he stopped just short of the rear bumper when he popped the clutch.

It was pretty funny, so I had to laugh out loud with Marie.

When all the Tuesday night revelers were seated at the U shaped counter and taking their black coffee, Marie and I left Thrifty. One more drag up Commercial Avenue and back down, making way for a last-minute arrival to Vi & Petes who'd been on-foot, running down the center line of the street.

We parked on the street in front of Marie's house and saw a man exiting two doors down from hers. He got in a car and drove off. Another man came up the sidewalk, staggering, with a pistol held loosely in his right hand.

"That's Bob, Doris' boyfriend," said Marie. "She's a prostitute. Bob gets jealous sometimes." She turned her back to him as he passed by and I scooted in front of her to her door.

"Ok if I stay a few minutes?" I asked, with an anxious glance toward Doris' house.

"Naw. You can go home. Nighty-night, Misch!" She closed and locked the door. I shivvered and ran home as fast as I could, quiet as a...

Misch? That's Yugoslavian for Mouse.

Steve and the Gypsy Woman

Livermore lies about 40 miles east of San Francisco, and in 1966 it was still a pretty small town. The downtown core was surrounded with middle class neighborhoods of the three bedroom, one and three-quarter bath, twelve hundred square foot rambler plans.The streets and cul de sacs ran back-to-back with no alleys, and boys often walked the fence lines to get to each other's houses. That really got on my mom's nerves because sometimes she'd still be in her house coat when a kid jumped down in front of the kitchen window, startling her.

"Can't you tell your friends to go to the front door and ring the bell?"

One 95 degree July afternoon, my friend Leslee and I were out in the cool garage inside a cardboard refrigerator box. We were playing, "Grapes of Wrath" after a book and movie our parents couldn't stop talking about. Her mother's and my mother's families had arrived in California when the dust bowl hit Oklahoma in the late 1930s and they couldn't remind us often enough of the hard times they lived through and how good we kids had it. Nine years old each, Leslee and I made entertainment out of it.

A cardboard refrigerator box became a tent at the edge of a sugar beet field somewhere in the Central Valley. We were "suffering," complaining of our empty stomachs and dirty faces. Leslee had taken two packages of Jello mix from her mom's kitchen,and we were dipping our fingers in it, licking it off, and proclaiming our good fortune in finding a meal for the day. She called me "Malcolm" and I called her "Clem," and we talked in phony Okie accents about the Mexicans who stole the gasoline out of our pitiful truck and left us stuck in an empty crop field. We were going to miss the hops harvest in Fresno.

We heard the gate open and close. Then the man-door of the garage opened, and in walked Annette. She found us. Annette was the five year old girl who lived next door. She was a very sweet little girl with the dark eyes, olive skin and wavy brown hair of her Sicilian family. Her brother and sister were in high school, so she had no siblings to play with, and her mother wouldn't let her leave the yard. Mrs. Certa was in her late 40s, at least. Always tired looking, stooped shouldered and baggy-eyed, she ambled along with her slip showing below a calico skirt. She usually wore a colorful apron with ruffles and seemed to be always cooking something. Mom complained that Mrs. Certa couldn't understand English, so didn't seem to get it when Mom sent Annette home several times a day.

"I tell Annette to go home and she won't stay home. I tell Mrs. Certa to keep her daughter at home, and she just smiles and nods at me. Annette walks into my house without knocking and always looks and smells like she needs a bath."

Certa's backyard was filled with tomato plants, strawberries and basil in very tidy rows. A small cement patio held two metal adirondack chairs with a small table stood in the middle, with gardening tools leaning against the house siding.

Annette wanted to play with us in the Stockton migrant workers' camp. She didn't want to go home.

"Tell you what," said Leslee, offering her soggy box of Jello. "You can play with us if we can go in your back yard and look at your garden. That was agreeable to Annette. So the three of us sat in the shade of an imaginary oak tree reminising about Oklahoma in the days of glory before the drought. Annette smiled at her orange Jello stained finger, and smiled at Leslee and me.

"Let's see that garden." said Leslee.

Annette said we should be quiet and not wake up her mother.

We crept through the mirror image of our own gate and tiptoed along the side path. The tomatoes were as tall as we were! There were bell shaped fruits we hadn't seen before, some huge red ones, ("Beefsteaks," pronounced Leslee), and some small round cherry tomatoes. At the far side of the yard in the semi shade was the basil, but we didn't know what that was. And in between the two crops were three rows of big, glistening strawberries.

I walked into a row of the pear shaped tomatoes and took a big whiff of herbaceous air. Leslee followed and held up a branch.

"Lookit!" She cried, then crouched down quickly realizing she'd breached the hush.

She held in her hand a big caterpillar-worm-looking creature. It was three inches long, bright green with red and yellow spots. There was a horn-like hook at the tail end. We easily found more and put them inside a terra cotta planting pot. They began to crawl out. By that time, we'd remembered the strawberries.

Annette said, "No! No! Can't have!" But Leslee and I already had our mouths full and we were filling the bottoms of our t shirts like pouches.

"I'll take some tomatoes to my mom," said Leslee, remembering the dust bowl.

Just then, my little brother, Steve came walking along the fence top. Pestier even than Annette, he wanted to see what we were doing.

"HEY!" He shouted at us.

Just then, Mrs. Certa began to open the patio door, her voice ahead of her, talking loudly in Italian. Steve hightailed it, and that distraction allowed Leslee, Annette and I to creep out the gate unnoticed. All the woman could see was the back side of my brother before he dropped into another back yard for safety.

Annette quietly went home, out the gate and through her own front door. Leslee walked down the street to share the produce bounty with her family.

Steve came home a few hours later after playing somewhere with his friends. He'd left his skateboard behind a previous visit, so was traveling via sidewalk rather than fenceline. He came running up from Hillcrest Avenue all sweaty and excited.

"Some Gyspy lady was following me!" he said. "I started up our street from Madeira Way and she was walking behind me. I didn't want to come all the way home because then she'd know where I live. I went around Duke Way and there she was again!"

He looked at Mom and Dad, who were a little doubtful. Steve was supposed to be home an hour earlier to clean his room, and it seemed a likely story.

"I went around Pestana Way and down to East Avenue, then up Hillcrest to get away from her. I think she's trying to kidnap me!"

Mom gave him chocolate milk to calm his nerves, then he went off to his room. Leslee and I had moved to the kitchen by then, and were examing a bottle of baby aspirin next to the toaster. She was just about to suggest we eat a few of those, when the doorbell rang. Mom yelled at Steve to answer the door.

He performed the duty and gave a loud scream, "It's her! Mom! It's the Gypsy and she's here to get me!"

We ran to the front room to rescue my little brother and see the Gypsy.

Little brown-eyed Annette peeked out from behind the colorful skirt of Mrs. Certa.

"She thinks he stole her strawberries," Annette said, eyes downcast.

The next time Annette came into our house without knocking, Mom put her in our bathtub.