Tree House to Palm Trees: My Life from Childhood to Grandchildren

By Gene Thomas

Eugene F. Thomas was thirteen years old in 1961 when his family stuffed its belongings in the 1954 Chrysler and left New York for new opportunities in California. Having just finished eighth grade, Thomas wondered what adventures awaited him on the West Coast.

The oldest son of Gene and Vivian, Eugenealso called Genelearned the way any teenager wouldby trial and error. In this memoir, he narrates his lifes journey and lessons learned this way: moving across the country, growing up in the turbulent sixties, enduring puberty, serving in the military, working as an air traffic controller, teaching college students, practicing religion, getting married, and mastering single parenting.

In Tree House to Palm Tree, Eugene tells how he came of age in California, showing a true example of a man who learned what it was like to dream of things and, by his actions and courage, turn them into reality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462062881

Gene Thomas

About the Author Gene Thomas has had several major careers. His first career was in air traffic control. Another was a Defense Contractor during the Reagan era. After a career in Education and extensive travels to different countries, Gene now devotes the majority of his time to pursuing his first love, writing. You will find that Gene’s writing style has always been characterized an easy read. His books in print (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) “Tales from the Tree House, 2010”, “Tree House to Palm Trees, 2011” mark the start of a prolific writing career that includes a collection of short stories, poems and novels already posted on sites like http://www.readwave.com/doceft/ . “Rock Hands” – a Depression Era saga reminiscent of John Steinbeck will be coming out later this year. The rights to that book are currently under contract with Quattro Media Publications. Gene has finished six 26 mile marathons and thousands of shorter races and still maintains an active exercise routine that includes walking no less than four miles a day. Gene currently lives in Belize, Central America, but was born in Brooklyn New York.

Book preview

The Couch Went in the Swamp and We Went to California

For several years when we lived in New York, my brother Gonki and I watched TV and pretended we were riding horses while riding on the back of a big green couch in our living room.

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When we started watching Flash Gordon and Captain Midnight, the inside of that same couch bed became our spaceship.

Partially unfolded, the couch’s bed and interior made a great secret compartment that we turned into our version of Flash’s trusty space cruiser and Captain Midnight’s Silver Dart.

Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy,

circa 1950s

The play horses we rode were to tag along with Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger and of course, Spin and Marty on the Mickey Mouse Club. Gonki (who was 18 months younger) and I fought pitched battles over who was going to ride that horse when our favorite show came on.

The loser was relegated to an arm of the couch and his imagination. Even though we were both happily engaged in imagining what it would be like to be on the back of a real horse.

I don’t know about Gonki, but it was nearly a quarter of a century before I actually rode a horse. By then, my family had pulled up stakes and left New York headed west to California, the land of opportunity.

I was finishing my eighth grade year and looking forward to getting promoted to Andrew Jackson High School, where all my close friends and classmates were headed.

My brother had his sights set on Brooklyn Tech and was lobbying hard for me to go there too. Even back then, we all knew what a nerd was, and Brooklyn Tech was full of them. I wanted no part of Brooklyn Tech.

One afternoon when Gonki and I got home from school, our parents were waiting for us in the kitchen with news that changed all our lives forever.

I just accepted a job in California, Our mom announced. We will be leaving sometime after Labor Day. We were stunned.

What kind of job? I asked, hoping there was some mistake.

I will be the new Director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mom replied, smiling. It’s a wonderful opportunity and a huge jump in salary for me. I looked over at Dad, who looked away and lit a cigarette.

You could always tell Dad’s moods by the way he handled his cigarette. If he was happy, he would puff slowly, enjoying the smoke as it passed through his nostrils when he exhaled. If he was angry or upset, he took short, quick pulls and expelled the smoke quickly.

When he was lost in thought, my dad would take a long, deep drag and hold it in until he had to release the smoke. When he did exhale, it came out of his nose and mouth in a fog that covered his head and temporarily obscured his face.

Dad was taking short, quick pulls.

Even though I saw his mood, Dad’s feelings were not what I was totally focused on at that time. I was more concerned with what was going to happen to me and all the dreams of high school I had running through my head.

Do they play handball out there? I asked, trying to wrap my mind around California.

I’m sure they do, my mom said, smiling. In any case, we will be starting a new life in sunny California. Aren’t you all excited? she said. No one answered. We were all lost in our own thoughts, and none of them were happy.

Over the days and weeks that followed, and after we realized we could not afford to buy a truck or trailer to haul our things, we began to get rid of our furniture and all but a few pots, pans and dishes.

It didn’t take long to realize that a lot of the furniture we had was in such bad shape that it didn’t make any sense to keep it. No one wanted furniture that had been abused so thoroughly by two very precocious boys. In fact, nearly all the furniture was falling apart.

Two weeks before we were due to leave for California, our dad began to throw away the old furniture—dressers, beds, nightstands, and tables—in the only place that would hold a five-bedroom house of old stuff: the swamp next door.

With each passing day and as each piece of furniture was eased into the swamp, Gonki and I became more aware of the one thing we were losing that meant the most to us; our television and the programs we had become connected to.

Gradually, it got down to just two pieces of furniture in the living room; that old green couch and our box cabinet TV.

Now that I was a teenager (at 13) I no longer wanted to ride the back of the couch and pretend it was a horse. Gonki occasionally rode the couch, but he too was beginning to feel odd about jumping on its back.

Finally, the day came when my dad, Gonki and I lifted that old couch—minus the bed springs inside, yanked it out the front door and around the corner to the side of the house nearest the swamp.

As we stood it on its side, I remember saying to Gonki, Well, there goes our trusty old steed. So long, Silver.

Then, my dad and I shoved the couch over the side of the embankment and down the ten feet or so into the reeds. At first, the couch stuck out as if it had decided it didn’t want to go just yet.

But after a few moments, the weight of the frame gradually forced the couch further down the bank and into the dark, muddy water surrounding the reeds.

When we came out the next morning to look for the couch and some of the other furniture we’d thrown into the reeds and mud, only the edge of the green couch was visible.

Two days later, as Gonki and I sat in the back seat of our dad’s car, looking out the back window at the swamp, I remember Gonki saying, I hope they have swamps in California.

Dad just laughed and said, I hope they don’t. We might find someone else’s couch sticking out of the reeds reminding us of what we left behind.

I realized at that moment that my dad really didn’t want to go to California any more than I did. There was no job waiting for him there; eventually, he had to rely on our mom’s contacts to land a teaching job at a nearby high school. Turns out it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

As we drove away, I thought about what they both said. It occurred to me that while I had outgrown playing in the swamp altogether, I would certainly miss that old couch. With its help, I had traveled to so many far-off places—without ever leaving my living room. What a sad end for my trusty old steed.

Hi-yo Silver, away!

Route 66: I Think We’re on a Mountain, Gene

The week after Labor Day, 1961, we left New York in a ’54 Chrysler stuffed to the gills with people, clothes and dreams. Most of what left New York in that car made it to California. I think everyone in that car agreed the trip seemed to last forever.

1954 Chrysler New Yorker

The passengers included four grownups: my mom and dad, my mom’s brother, Uncle Val, and his son-in-law, John Kelley. John Kelley had a profound although brief impact on Gonki and me, which I will go into more detail later.

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My mom was a medium build woman who was very conservative and demure, even by the standards of the times. At five feet five my mom was considered relatively tall for a woman in those days. Her complexion matched that of my grandmother; a dark almond color but free of any blemishes. She always kept her hair at or near shoulder length.

My dad was slightly opposite in complexion. His skin was light for a black man, and you could actually see his freckles when the weather turned cold. My dad was slightly built to thin when he and the rest of our family left New York. In fact, some people would have called him skinny. But make no mistake; he was a very handsome man—and he knew it.

Uncle Val was a sturdily built man of medium height (again, for the times), with the same complexion as my mom. Uncle Val was six years younger than my mom, but his hard drinking and occupation (he worked in the New York subway system repairing broken rail cars) made him look a lot older. Uncle Val was also a very plain spoken, sometimes vulgar man. If he didn’t like someone or something, he had no reservations about saying so.

Gonki, David and I shared the back seat with one of the grownups all the way to L.A. Uncle Val and John Kelley came along to drive because my dad had lost his license and mom had never driven a car in her life.

Everything else in the car was what was left of our clothes, some dishes, food, and water. The food was gone before we left Pennsylvania.

Soon after we entered Ohio, the car began to run rough. As we pulled over to the side of the road, Gonki and I announced that we were out of gas or had a flat tire, mostly because those were the only things we knew could go wrong with a car.

It had been raining for some time before we pulled over, so the men grumbled a lot about having to get under the hood in the rain to figure out what the problem was. Since he was the youngest and most proficient with cars, John Kelley was elected to get out and see what was wrong.

It’s the points, Dad, John Kelley said calling back from under the hood of the car.

Can you fix them? Uncle Val shouted back over the noise of the rain from inside the car, his head sticking out the front driver’s side window.

I don’t think so. John Kelley called back. We’ll need to get new ones. Coming closer to the right side of the car, John Kelley pointed off in the distance behind us.

We passed a filling station a few miles back. I can walk back and get some new points, but first I’ll have to take out the old ones.

That brought a groan from my mom. We can’t stay out here. Looking around she continued, Did you see any houses back there too?

Nope, John Kelley replied. I haven’t seen a house in a long time, just that filling station.

What are points? My mom asked.

Ignition points are what make the spark plugs fire in the right order. Uncle Val chimed in. If they burn out, the plugs don’t fire, or they fire in the wrong sequence. In any case, if the points are burned out, we’re not going anywhere.

Turning to John Kelley, he said, You’d better get going. That store might close, and then we’ll be stuck here until tomorrow.

John Kelley nodded. After he took out the old points, he grabbed his navy pea coat from the back seat and headed towards the filling station we passed sometime back.

Besides the rain, it was starting to get dark. Gonki and I both had to go to the bathroom. Wait until it gets dark; then go over to that ditch and do what you have to do there. My dad said, pointing to a ditch in front of the car near a stand of trees.

Back in those days, the only rest areas were in Arizona and New Mexico. Such places were years away from being built in Ohio and Illinois.

It was early September and the weather had started to change. All kinds of small animals were on the move, looking for places to bed down for the night.

When we finally did get over to the ditch, we found an angry raccoon and her babies had decided that the ditch was where they were going to spend their evening.

As we ran back to the car screaming, our dad, who had seen the whole thing, laughed and opened the back door to let us in. So you forgot about going to the bathroom huh? When you get your guts up, you can stand outside by the car and pee.

It had been two hours since John Kelley had removed the points and left to find the