Part Two: Stella Dalla, Jack Armstrog and Wait until Christmas

When we at last had to come in because it was dark.  We listened to our hour of radio shows.  Our radio  came in two separate parts, the radio part and the speaker.  Our speaker was on a long cord so I could pull it down on the sofa and put my ear right next to it and not bother my parents  The shows we listened to were Captain Midnight, Tom Mix, Jack Armstrong The All American Boy and Little Orphan Annie.  You could send away for wonders such as  Secret decoder rings or a desert gold mine map or Shirley Temple blue glass dishes.  My friend Boonie (TFS) than me always got far  more than I did because she and her brother ate more cereal and drank more Oveltine than I did.. That gold foil seal from under the lid of a can of ovaltine was truly precious.  The one thing I wanted more than antyhing else was my own Radio.  So starting in October I began pleading, whining, and fussing for a radio for Christmas.  Now one of the unbreakable rules in my family is  that presents were NEVER opened before Christmas morning.  They just lay tantalizing you under the tree.  About a week before this Christmas there appeared a radio sized box, weighing about what a radio might  weigh and in a plain brown wrapper.  I couldn't stand it!  My whining and begging reached epic proportions:  "Please couldn't I just open one package before Christmas morning"  Finally my father gave in.  I tore open the wrapper of the "radio" box opened it and found stones and sticks wrapped up in newspaper.  I was truly heartbroken.  My father smirked.  I was  awakened on Christmas morning by music.  Music playing from a radio right next to my bed on a special new table.  Happy ending and I learned the lesson....and now I could listen to the Loan Ranger at 7:30 just like everyone else.

My mother and I spent each summer with my grandmother in Portland. There never were any other youngsters to play with so I spent my time climbing trees and listening to Soap Operas on grandma's radio (not at the same time).  It was wonderful  I listened to Stella Dallas  and my favorite Our Gal Sunday,  The story of a little orphan girl left on the steps of two old miners in the town of Silver Creek Colorado.  The story that asks the question Can a little girl from a small town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy AND TITLED Englishman ? Then there was Helen Trent who searched for romance at 35 and even BEYOND.  Also Ma Perkins, Just Plain bill barber of Hartville.

If all else failed we played with paperdolls.  We took the bus down town, went to Woolworths and for 10 cents bought a paperdoll book. Almost every book had the dresses of a famous movie actress and then costumes  from the latest movie. All we needed was scissors.

After my horse phase and my dog phase and my Little House in the Woods phase I became fascinated with the occult.  Sax Rhomer anf Edgar Allen Poe were my meat.  So I decided to give a Seance.  First I took the bus and went down town to Woolworths and bought glow in the dark paint. I came home and painted creepy faces on about eight shirt cardboards. I attached these to a string that I could pull across the room near the ceiling.  It looked great.  Then I dismantled my light which had a globe attached and used it for fortune telling.  I lighted it with my flashlight and changed colors with various scraps of fabric held over the flashlight.   I had a friend to help me with knocking and moaning.  Our Names were Swami and Logi.  I planned to hold the Seances in my closet.  So Logi and I made tickets and handed them out to the adults in the neighborhood. Then my father found out and began shouting about how I could never have the neighbors in my closet.  That was the end of that.

Kick the Can, Paperdolls and Flexies

Almost everyday after school all the youngsters in my neighborhood went outside. Little kids played Mother May I or Run Across the River or perhaps tag or hide and Seek. Our favorite game was Kick the Can. First, you found the youngest kid in the neighborhood, usually a 6 year old. they would be made 'It'. They stood on Base while the biggest boy in the neighborhood kicked a can (28 oz size). 'It'had to run to the can and count to 100 and bring the can back to base while everyone else hid. Then 'It' began to search . The ones who were hiding tried to sneak into base where they would then be free. If and when 'It' saw someone he had to run back to base first. This went on until everyone almost was at base either free or caught. If a hider could sneak into base while the seeker was off seeking he would kick the can and everyone was free and would go hide again. We usually played all afternoon. My friend Boonie (who was taller, faster, and smarter than I) and I had scoped out a perfect hiding place. It was the crawl space under a house. We even kept a small supply of food. I remember a tin of cocoa mix and some graham crackers. We were never found.

We also played Army. Everyone was given a ranking pfc, Sergeant etc, and then we drilled with fake weapons and marched about. I loved this game until I made a horrible mistake and I chose myself as Corporal instead of General. Everyone in the entire army could tell me what to do. We also were very fortunate in our location. We had many vacant lots, including a very long and steep hill and The Rock. Vacant lots were for building forts in the deep grass and then collecting grass bombs. Next came war, until we all ran out of grass bombs and had to start over. I have one strange memory of finding a dead possum and deciding to cremate it. All I can say is it takes a long time for a possum to cremate. The steep street was for roller skating. We used skates that fit on your feet and had to be tightened with a skate key, your most precious possession. Then we raced down the sidewalk, except for the girls. We put on a show. this involved taking the bus downtown and going to Woolworths and buying lots of different color crepe paper. We cut in to strips and made costumes. There was one big flat driveway where we held the show. After selling tickets we began the show, performing all the tricks we had seen ice skaters do in the movies. The lady who had the driveway didn't like us much. The Rock covered about five city lots and was as tall as a six story apartment. The games on the rock mostly involved a competition jumping from one place to another. There were peaks and valleys and steps and even a cave- Lots to do. Also, we had dangerous things. We had knives. They were about eight inches long and the game was to hold them by the tip and throw them underhand on to marks on telephone poles. There was on boy who circled our neighborhood like a border collie and carried a bull whip. I don't know what a bull whip is but this one looked like the one Indiana Jones carried. Everyone was afraid of him. There was also a mean red-head bully who played with sometimes. He was about twelve and Boonie (Taller, Faster, Smarter) was about six and she ran up to him socked him in the face so hard his nose bled. He ran home crying and never came back. This feat became a Santa Barbara Road legend. The only other dangerous items were our Flexies: A sled on wheels and very fast. I think they have not been made for a long time becase cars backing out of driveways could not see them coming. MY flexie was painted white and said "Willie fastest thing on earth"..

To be continued...
-Louise

Protesting

I have been thinking about the Occupy Oakland protest. I understand the frustations that drive people in the cold and rain to occcupy the Plaza in Oakland but I am a little confused about the the expectations of the participants and what I should or could do myself.

I was born in Berkeley in 1929, went to Berkeley High class of 1947, and have lived in Berkeley nearly all my life. I learned about protests late in life, when they came to my backyard with the Free Speech Movement. Before that I had thought we had free speech but I was far better acquainted with Betty Crocker and Dr. Spock (when he just stuck to advising mothers) than I was with the bill of rights or the constitution. It is hard to believe now but neither UC professor nor student had the right to say what they think. So watching Mario Salvio stand on top of the police car and listening to those words "Let's Take the Park" was a wake-up call. The students were right.

I wasn't exactly prepared for the Vietnam protests but I knew where Vietnam was and I knew we were fighting a war we could never win (if anyone ever wins wars at all). While the protests were growing, American soldiers and Vietnamese people were sinking into the mud, being hit with bullets and agent orange, and dying. The protests came and so did the soldiers and the National Guard. Berkeley was occupied. One memory that stays with me is the the night I took my two little girls to their piano recital promising them if they did well we could go out for ice cream afterwords. Good idea, except we couldn't get out. We were blocked at every intersection. The helicopters roared, the guards shouted and others like us, honked our car horns. The girls cried when I suggested we not might get ice cream that night. Of course at last the protester went another way and we could move again. This happened just a few days before my son was tear gassed at his middle school. The same school where one boy, mistaken for a protester, was shot. As maddening as this was, it only gave me a tiny glimps of what it might be like in another country, and also what protesting truly was about.

So I went to a real protest. Actually by mistake. I was told it was a Mother's Day celebration in Golden Gate Park. It was, but the mothers' protested. We all marched and I shouted "L.B.J. how many boys have you killed today" right along with the rest of them. Now I think protesting is a way of communicating with people who won't hear what you have to say. It's a way to make them listen. Perhaps because they were raised in Berkeley most of my children by now have protested for one cause or another and it is my granddaughter who sleeps in Ogawa Plaza. I have a hard time explaining to her why I am not there.

What I have learned from the protests of my life is one fact: If there is any question in your mind or even if there is not, go with the young people! They have the most to lose and history seems to prove them right most of the time. The young people are tasked with cleaning up the mess we leave behind. Not just in our country but in the world. When I say the world I think of the young people in Egypt who rose up to seize their freedom and who I now see in pictures in Cairo with Occupy Oakland and Solidarity with Oakland signs. When you have any question, ask someone under 40.
-Louise