My Stories

I spent a lot of time ruminating this week on this theme of talking with my ancestors. This has been a difficult one to write about, who are my ancestors? Seems my ancestors are people I know little or anything about and did not know existed until three years ago. Did they ever cross over and talk to me or give me a sign? And if they ever did, what did they talk about and what advise have they given me. When we drove cross country ten year ago, I was attracted to getting off the interstate in Eastern Pennsylvania to see the Amish Country. We saw the horses and buggies going down the highways with Amish men, looking much like Hassidim, galloping past. Was I attracted to the novelty or was there some internal messaging to see my roots? Or then again, was it because we read about a good brewery just miles off the interstate and wanted to bring special beers we were collecting along the route to our children? I have nothing in common with these people. I feel no certain affinity as a dig d...

Thursday was Liver and Onion Day in my house growing up. I can still smell that liver frying to this day. It was a disgusting smell, sort of like the smell you get passing those steers waiting for slaughter along Interstate 5 near Kettleman City. Wait, that smell is more pleasant to me than the smell of that liver cooking. I tried to stay outside or in my room with my door closed and the window open. Seems nothing worked to hide that smell. I remember my parents trying and trying to make me eat that liver, but I just couldn’t. And the smell led to me just hating the look of that slimy purplish red blob wrapped in white butcher paper. Once cooked it turned a hideous rusty brown. So that pungent smell went on to affect all my senses toward liver. Once my parents finally figured out, I absolutely would not eat that organ on the plate, my mom decided to instead serve me the over-boiled chicken which was nearly as bad but not intolerable. Okay, a bit more about the chicken. My mom would buy...

Runaway I was a round ten-years old. I decided to run away, not sure why now, but sure I must have had a good reason. Where to runaway to? Around the corner was a street at dead-ended into Swanson’s Nursery. At the back of the nursery was an old woodshed where they kept some tools, hoses, and fertilizer for the plants. We kids often went into the shed for our games of hide-n-seek and war. Either the Swanson’s did not know we were there or didn’t care that were there as this was an area behind the nursery and we never went to where the plants were growing. I think they did kick us out once or twice but for the most part we played back there all the time and it was fine. I remember it was dark and I was hanging around the shed. Going inside and then going outside to see if the search party was out looking. I had brought some extra clothes along in a duffle bag but no blanket or sleeping bag. I think the duffle bag idea came from an episode of Lassie where Timmy decides to run away from h...

 The first pet I was aware of was my parents dog Taffy, a Chihuahua. Taffy died when I was around six and my mom almost immediately went to the pound and got a dog named Jinxy, I'm not sure why the name and if we named her or if she came with that name. Jinxy was a white, with some brown, Fox Terrier mix. She was a great dog but had two problems. The first is that she always urinated when anyone pet her. And when the door bell rang and she ran to the door excited, there was always an accident including urinating on several guests shoes. Because of this, Jinxy was confined to the service porch with our washer and dryer or the backyard. This leads to the second issue - She loved breaking out of the yard and run (sort of like Almas). Not to long after we got Jinxy, my parents did get another Chihuahua, which they named Chico. Jinxy was "my dog" while Chico was my parents. The dogs got along well and I've got cute pictures of them laying together. However, Chico always ha...

 My name is Thumbelina. I’m a 30-year-old miniature horse and I live on a farm near Petaluma. I used to live in a smaller town called Occidental. Many years ago, when I lived in Occidental, I had a dear friend I use to play with all the time named Jammy. Jammy was a potbelly pig and we use to have so much fun running and playing in the fields. As we were both small and the owner was gone most of the day at work, we spent many a happy day romping in the grass and weeds. We liked to play as we were both “close to the ground” as our owner would say. While my original owner abandoned me and the Humane Society found me the home in Occidental, Jammy came from a good home and her old owners came to visit Jammy all the time. I still recall their names after all this time, Jerry, and Susan. How could I forget their name? Jammy talked about them all the time: “Susan this and Jerry that.” To be honest that is the one thing that drove me crazy about Jammy; she could not stop talking about Susa...

It was the Summer after the Summer of Love, 1968, I was eighteen, and five of us jammed into my 1961 Chevy Corvair and headed to San Francisco, the then action spot of the world as far as the five of us teens were concerned. Interstate 5 was not yet open all the way to "SF" as we in Los Angeles called it. There were almost no has stations and the freeway would stop and start taking you onto the old California Highway 33. It was along one these stretches of Highway 33, reminiscent of a John Steinbeck novel, that the car ran out of gas. I remember that Louise, my high school prom date was already not in the best of moods and running out of call in the middle of nowhere land did not help. Besides, it was after dark and about 110 degrees outside, at least so it seemed. The cars in those days had no air conditioning, or at least my old Corvair did not. After taking the rath from everyone in the car for not filling it sooner, an old man in 1950's pickup came along and offered m...

 I'm the Wizard, do what I say to get back to Kansas. Did you hear me Dorothy, do exactly as I say to get back to Kansas and you can return to your normal life. Wash everything down. Do not use your own little basket when you pick flowers, berries or your ugly dog. Make his walk. Use strong sanitizer and bleach on everything. Keep your food outside for a day before you bring them here to the Oz Palace or anywhere else you sleep. Make sure you sanitize each and everything you touch. Wash all your fruit and veggies several times, and preferably outside before you bring them in. Take off your clothes and wash them immediately after you come in contact with anything from the outside. Stay away from your dog and spray him often. Don’t walk near that Lion or the Strawman nor your dog Toto. Its probably OK to be close to that Tin Man, just spray some bleach on his every few minutes. Do not worry, he should not rust with that bleach. You all need to wear masks. That should also help you ma...

 This from a recuring dream. The van is sitting still. All at once it starts rolling backwards. I tap the brake and it doesn't work. I try the emergency brake it doesn't work. I'm looking backward but just through my rearview mirror. I’m talking to someone sitting next to me in the passenger’s seat. We are gaining speed as we go through an intersection in reverse. The hill is getting steeper. I look both ways. I'm in a panic the car keeps going. I even try changing gears and strip the transmission. I tap on the brake and I try the emergency brake. The car is on the side of a cliff it continues going backward but I don't crash. It goes, and it goes, and it goes. Then, all at once, the brake works the van comes to a stop and all is well.

 What a last three weeks it has been. Its like when we go from winter to spring. Everything blooms at once. It was just three weeks ago that Susan was fully vaccinated. Almost instantly we came out of winter’s hibernation. A short overnight trip to see our daughter, son-in-law and our two grandsons. It had been thirteen months since we last had seen them at their old home in San Francisco. In those thirteen months they relocated to Sacramento and purchased a house that we had never seen except in photographs. We also instantly vacated one year of Tipsy Tuesdays via Zoom and reverted to gathering at our homes. We noticed that instead of it ending by 8:30, we were all still talking till nearly midnight. We have forgone the weekly Zoom for every two weeks get togethers. We had our sons-in-law’s family here for a week. They stayed at the local KOA but came here for breakfast every morning and dinner every night. We have been to our neighbor’s Paula & Jerry’s house two evenings now ...

I am at an exceptionally large house in the Bellaire neighborhood of Los Angeles. In fact, the largest house I had ever been in before or since (a first). No kidding, beer is flowing out of a fountain in the dining room (another first and probably last). It is 1971 and I am at a birthday party for someone I hardly know. And the party has only four of us, or is it six? As I recall the birthday boy had a hired date (also a first and last experience for me). Lots of stories of what happened while in the house, but I am limited in words here so will forego any further embellishment today. I will save it for another writing prompt. After a couple hours in the house, it is time to go to dinner so into a limousine we go. Another first, my first time in a limo. And the driver is named James, no, that cannot be his real name, but it was. We drive to Marina Del Ray for the birthday dinner. A special table in a special room. A nice large room made to seem larger by the fact that there were so few...

We must love all beings What a strange water layer. How do we break it open? That being trapped inside this liquid bubble. You go in from the bottom and I will go in from the top. They have no face, no mouth, and yet I can hear them. I have no idea what they are saying but the sound is one of anguish. What is that liquid they have surrounding them. Is it toxic? What will happen if it breaks, to us and to that being? They seem to be laying on that board left from the craft when it exploded. The board itself is translucent. Their body seems to protrude outward on both sides of it as a mirror image. How much time do you suppose we have to break it open and get to them? Whatever being it is and from wherever it came, we must burst the bubble and let it come forth. We must love all beings from wherever they come and however they look

That evil house I am hiding. I am hiding from those people. I spent so much time in that house, that dark old place. If I stay low nobody will see me. The other people there, they scared me. But they were not near as bad as the staff. If I stay low on the ground nobody will see me. Once it turns dark, I should be able to leave. I am on the lookout. I do not see anybody. Hopefully, I am safe from those evil people. Those people tortured me every day I was there. I stole this dress from a closet. I do not know to who it belonged. I had to get out of those smocks they had me dressed in. Do you see that little house behind the big house? That is where they would take me. It had such an awful smell and was so dark, without a window and without light. Sometimes I would have to sleep in there, once for several days. That only made me worse. I would have those nightmares of water filling the room and choking as the water-filled my lungs. This field is wet, and this dress is getting drenched. I...

 KGUA Writer’s, Episode #46 – Is there a debt you would like to repay? As many from the Mendonoma Coast know by now, I found out a couple years back that I was adopted at birth. My adopted parents never told me, and I never suspected it, and never had a reason to doubt they were my biological parents. It was quite a revelation to say the least. I was an only child, and quite a spoiled one at that. Looking back over old family slides that I am just now converting into digital images; I see I was showered with gifts from an early age. I was in YMCA, Cub Scouts, and Little League. I had piano lessons, golf lessons, swim lessons, dance lessons, to just name a few. I went fishing with my dad, golf with my mom and dad, and camping trips to National Parks all over the US and Canada. We went to professional baseball, football, basketball, and hockey games. I was at the LA Coliseum for the Dodger - Yankee first exhibition game in Los Angeles here they honored Roy Campanella and over 100,000...

Social Media should pull people together and not apart. This is particularly true in a small area like ours. The more positive the picture or story the better I feel. The more politically charged, the angrier I get. We live in such a beautiful place, nature abounds around us. Let those magnificent redwood trees, Gualala River breaking through sand, soaring eagles, fox, ocean waves crashing over rocks, rainbows over water, seaside daises, scrumptious foods, smiling faces, poetic words, happy cows, galloping horses, winding roads, endless sands, bowling ball seascapes, passing gray whales, brightly colored red beaked oystercatcher, fog beams through the forest, passing container ships, lighthouse glows, the Milky way, quaint town views, Dungeness crabs , and yes, sunset after sunset, after sunset flood us on social media.

 I have had my share of rememberable experiences in my life. Some are personal ones like my marriage, my children and grandchildren being born, finding out I was adopted, and my parents’ deaths. And there are impersonal ones; the assassinations of the 60’s and 70’s, Nixon leaving office and the World Trade Center bombing, just to name a few. And then have been natural disasters I experienced; two or three earthquakes and Hurricane Sandy, I am still sorting where the COVID year fits into these; what lasting impression it will leave. I do know this last year has made me feel that I am so lucky in life. All at once something happens that you do not expect, and you are strong and you make it through. That is a wonder. The pandemic got me thinking about how nobody in our immediate family has a debilitating illness like cancer. No one has been in a lot of pain. I have never really been sick. Susan had a brush with a serious heart issue during the pandemic, but the outcome was positive an...

 Plecostomus Hi, my name is Plecostomus but my family just calls be Pleco. My job is to suck, not blow. I really do love to suck. And I can suck all hours of the day and night. I love to suck in those tight little cracks. I love the sense of those little food morsels, those tiny crumbs that are in dark corners, sliding up my nozzle and into my hose. Once in a while I can even find some of those little black mouse droppings hidden inside the cabinet under the sink. When they are dry and there is a pile of them, they make the slightest of sounds as they bounce off my apparatus going up my chute. It’s such a titillating sensation. While my favorite position is with my long apparatus on, I do also have to do what I do best. Slide across nylon with my spinning brushes. The brushes can be set high to just tickle the top of the surface or can be set to dig deep into the pile. I love when it is set deep. I can really feel those little curled ends pushing against my brush. Its like a battle...

This is the story of my first-time using Facebook. While most people may not remember their first time using it, I remember it clearly. Before I retired, I had an employee who was in the military reserves and was called up for his annual two weeks of training. The two weeks ended, and I get a call that the duty has been extended for another month. While it seemed out of the ordinary my employer, the State of California, was one that allowed all military leave requests. I told him to stay safe and that I would see him when he returned. A few days later, one of his coworkers in passing talks about this person having a wonderful honeymoon. I did not pick up on what person they were talking about, just that this somebody was off on this wonderful boat excursion on the Mississippi River. Several days pass and I hear another story about this same honeymooner. Until I hear it a third time do I figure out that the person on this fantastic honeymoon is no other than the employee who is supposed...

Line from Sue Miller "I wonder about my future and how the next years will play out also. Aging gracefully is my wish. Will it happen that way is anyone’s guess. If I was to divide my years" Family History Form You know, you go into a doctor’s office for the first time and you always must complete that form on your family medical history. Each time, you sit there thinking about the health of your parents and sometimes even of your grandparents. Each time you sit there you must dig back and think and conjure up any health condition they may have had. Sometimes you not sure as perhaps they never disclosed certain health issues, so you are left surmising. And of course, each time you do a rerun of your life, rather quickly, to come up with hints and clues to the genetic being. Sometimes, you do it rather quickly and sometimes, you are left to wander into your childhood images while sitting in that waiting room. For me, I work back from when my dad died when he was 89 years old. ...

This is my draft letter to my siblings that I never sent. It was drafted May, 2018. Sort of gives you the history we talked about earlier today on Zoom. I was scared to send it and never did. Turned out my half-sister JoAnne did her "23 and Me" several months after I had drafted this. I figured I showed up on Joanne's as her borther and also, that she wanted to know her relatives or she would not have done the test so I called her up on the phone. From there I ended up calling Mary, my full sister, and she then did her DNA shortly thereafter. She visited here right after our call and her DNA came back in January 2019. The next month we traveled to LA where I met Joanne. And we stopped near Pismo Beach and met my half brother Bob. We have been to Bob's a couple times since then and also to Joanne's. We've met Mary twice then then in Oregon. I have not met my borther Ray who lives in Palm Beach nor my brother Jim, though we've now talked in the phone. ******...

 Dear Gary: This is your mom here. Oy Vay, stop that ridiculous story about the stuttering and that it started with you talking to me on the phone. That never happened. I remember that picture and it was posed by a picture studio when we bought a package from them after I was home from the sanitarium. They allowed you to come to visit me at the sanitarium one time before I was released. As I recall, you did not stammer more or less that day. By then,I was already aware that you talked very fast and very loud. There was nothing different or unusual about that day. I was just so very happy to see you that it really did not make a difference. Perhaps someone asked you to quiet down. You were bouncing off the walls as I recall. You stuttered long before I went off to the City of Hope. You started stammering when you were two years old and first starting talking, always a mile a minute. Boy, could you talk. That stammering never slowed you down. I did not even think of it as stuttering ...

 Title: The people who learned too late. by Palmer, Gary B-9 English, Period 1, January 20, 1965 Topic sentence: The old woman stood on the steps of the church. The old woman stood on the steps of the church. She was seventy-three years old and had an unfriendly grin. She hated people and cared nothing for religion. She had just walked out of the church in a hurried way. Then all at once, she was called back in the church by the man she hated most. The man she hated was her husband, a pastor at the church. As she went back in she tightened up and acted scared. Her husband and she had been married fifty-one terrible years. What a difference in personality. He was a man who loved to help people and loved God. She a person hater and no care for any religion. Why then did they stay together? Some little thing, the littlest thing it must have been, had kept them together even with this terrible hate for one another. After about an hour in this place, she started screaming I have to go! ...

Dear Gary: Congratulations on turning 70 this year. You turned out okay. Your headstone can read Good father, good husband, and good boss. I do not think you’ve made too many people mad in your life. Not always sure of yourself, you have had lots of positive affirmation of late. What makes one’s life a “Success”. First I would say is being happy. You have always been happy with life; never really depressed. Another is being loved and loving. I can feel your love of family, friends, and of life in general. Another thing that makes life positive is being charitable. I know you have always been focused on helping others and shying away from taking any credit. I agree with you that taking credit is unnecessary. Just do things silently and unnoticed is best. Give credit to others. I know you pride yourself on your family. Your wife and your daughters are your most precious joy in life. You’ve been a good and caring father and both girls are a joy to your life. And while not always a perfect...

  Oil Me Up Oil me up all over.   My head, my face,  especially my ears, on my chest,   between my legs, all the way down my legs.   Oil me up.  That fragrance is heavenly.  That oil is warm on my body and is so soothing.  Now oil her up the same way.  Put it on her head, her face, especially her ears, on her chest, between her legs, and all the way down her legs.  We’ve both been oiled.  Now, it’s time for our walk.  Hopefully, this new oil really works and will keep those fleas and ticks away.  Just Two Pills Two pills Martha,  two pills.   Jim this is wonderful I can't believe you got them.   I stood there waiting for such a long time. but in the end, I got them.  .Martha should we take them now?  Yes, Jim as soon as we can.  Jim, I took the pill,  I took the pill.   Now take yours.  Martha, I can't find the pill.   Martha,  where is it?    ...

  Wet Lips Don't go out on that rock.  I'm following you, please come back.   Where are you?   Aah,  this water is cold.   I'm numb from head to toe.   I'm gasping   Bright lights.  I hear voices. Where am I?    I smell urine and hot water.  Oh, I just pissed all over myself.  Who are those people standing over me?  Where are my clothes?   Now I see a face.  Who the hell are you staring down at my breasts?  Now I feel your wet lips upon my naked body.   I hear, lady, wake up.  You almost drown,  your dog is safe. I feel her wet lip again New Red Lights Got those new red lights.   I’ll stop that old man.  He’s driving too slow anyway.  This is a dark spot without many cars.  It worked, he stopped.   Give me your money you asshole.  Shit, can’t you hear me?  Your money, your money, give me your money.  Don’t open the door or I’ll shoot.  I’ve go...

Here I am in this dark smelling room.  The mysterious woman is telling me about my life, what came before, and what will come after.  It is October 1984.  How I decided to get up and go to Nepal, a place, I’ve never heard of, is still a mystery.  And now, one day after landing, I find myself in this sacred space, the grounds of which are surrounded by monkeys, and drawn into this weathered ancient-looking building without a door but instead some rugs hanging down to block sunlight from the outside. It is Spring of 1984 and I’ve separated from my wife.  I have a daughter, Aviva, who is four.   I am invited to stay in the house of my friends Bill & Annie and their two children.   I stay there for some amount of time, that time now a blur,  and then I am invited to stay in the dormer in the attic of my friend Shirley.  The attic is only partly finished with painted walls in the dormer but an unfinished attic in the remainder.  It is the...

I enter a dark room.  There is an old, very dim, filament light hanging from the ceiling and there is diffused light coming from the edges of the opening into the room that has a thick rug hanging off the rafter.  As my eyes adjust, there are candles along one wall, most of them just barely alive as they are melted flat.  There are some red flickering objects which upon further study are the butts of incense sticks stuck between wooden slats in the walls.  I can not see anyone else in the room except the woman who solicited me to come in with her.   The smell of the room is overwhelming.  I can smell burning wax and incense,  normally inviting smells, but not this day.  They make me gag at first.  There’s also a mustiness and the smell that comes with old and dark places.  And there is a certain smell from the woman who brought me here, a smell I can not quite make out.  And perhaps I am smelling garbage, cow dung, bird droppin...

As I bicycled away from my younger self some fifty years ago, I wondered what impact I may have had on my younger self that day.  Was it a dream or can we really move in our consciousness through time?  Are we a continuous living soul that regenerates ourselves over and over through time and can influence ourselves through our consciousness as we travel the road?   I arrive in Katmandu and on the first full day there I visit Pashupatinath Temple, an ancient religious complex in the hills above the city, holy to  Hindus.  I arrive there with my fellow group of trekkers, whom I just met,  by bicycle.  The fragrances are mysterious and both inviting and repulsive at the same time.  There are monkies all over the place.  Cows walk freely around the grounds.  The colors are bright with oranges, reds, and blues, there are prayer flags and prayer wheels at every turn.    I hear chanting, see monks, a chicken that appears to be pa...

I’m eighteen.  I’m riding my bicycle on the boardwalk in Santa Monica.  I have just graduated high school last week.  It is a clear day for the beach with lots of sounds coming from screaming children, roller skates with their identifiable hum, and clapping sounds from games beach volleyball.  Suddenly another bicycle bike pulls up from behind me that I had not heard until it was upon me.  Normally someone yells “passing on your left”  but they did not yell.  Instead, they slowly pull up alongside.  I looked left to see a man with a familiar face but I do not quite figure out who he is.  He looks to be about seventy years old.  He speaks to me, his tonal quality and matter of speech strikingly familiar.  He calmly says, let’s stop and sit on that bench over there, I’m the older you and I’ve come to give you some advice.  My first reaction is to try and get away but the face, the voice, and his overall mannerism make me grasp on...

 I have studdered for as long as I can remember.   I know I studdered but now can't really recall any certain instances as a child or any specific incident of embarrassment though I'm quite sure there were many.  I did give a Bar Mitzvah Derasha, or at least a thank you speech,  so I must have had some ability to speak in public.  I also ran for a student body office during my senior year of high school. and won.   Certain stories, or things, I do remember.  I remember have a small tape recorder and taping "Hello, who's calling?"  I did this as I had a terrible fear of answering the phone and getting "Hello" out.  The trouble was having the tape recorder ready and at land.  The phone is deadly for someone who studders.  All you have is your voice.  No one can see you and gestures won't work.  And the long "E" in "Hello" is a killer.  Another killer is your name.  That's because it is fixed and everyone ...

  The other day I posted an old picture on a Facebook Group Page.  The Facebook Group is of the San Fernando Valley in the 1950s and 1960s.   The picture,  my Sixth Grade class photo.    I got a comment about the class photo stating that they were in that same class and that most people in the picture went on to the same Junior High School and High School as did I.  I commented back about how Sixth Grade was very tough for me as I had changed schools, left behind by best friends,  and had a bad stutter.  They comment back that they did not remember the stutter but then accurately pointed to which of the thirty student pictures was me.  Then a few minutes later, commented again that I was a left-hander.   The little known fact about me is that I am a left-hander when it comes to baseball and bowling but a right-hander for golf and writing.  I guess I  was born left-handed but like so many children in my day was fo...