The Clam Diggers' Kids

By Robert (Bob) Hart

Ordinarily, when we kids go with our parents at night, we stay in the car bundled up together on the leather back seat of the car. This is a totally new and different kind of experience. While in the parked car we cannot see the lighted lantern, which is normally set on the sand behind the car, where it is easily seen by Mom and Dad when digging clams. But now we have no car, no back seat, and only a blanket on the sand to lie upon, with the lantern lighting the surrounding area -- corpse, sand fleas and all --- the lantern serving as beacon for Mom while in the ocean, and for Dad when returning. The sand fleas, while harmless, are everywhere around us -- thousands of them some on us, some on the corpse, but most attracted to the bright light, jumping all over the lantern.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477233078

Book preview

The Clam

Diggers’ Kids

Robert (Bob) Hart

US%26UKLogoB%26Wnew.ai

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2012 by Robert (Bob) Hart. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/05/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-1649-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3307-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012911645

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

DECISION

MOVING

GRANDPA

OUR CARS

DANGERS

HOME ALONE

DRESSING FOR DIGGING

LAWFUL LIMITS

NIGHT DIGGING

INVENTION

DIGGING

SAVING CARS

LOST AUTO

FRIENDS

THE MOORES

OUR WELL

PLAY

OUR DOG

DUNE DWELLERS

HOBOS

TRAINS’ ENGINEERS

SANDFORDS

WHITES

BETRAYED

PROHIBITION

KIDS CLAMMING

MY BIG TOE

SCHOOL

DISCIPLINE

MORE DISCIPLINE

SCHOOL YARD

TO AND FROM

RECESS

MY PROTECTOR

SMOKING

BLACKSMITH

DROWNINGS

MORRO BAY

FLOOD

HAULING SAND

RIPTIDE

FILIPINOS

A SPECIAL PLACE

TAR

BUGGY TRIP

SHELL BEACH

OTHER WORK

RAILROAD TRACKS

FRANK’S BROTHER

SUN PORCH

HUNTING

TOOTH

STOVE

THINGS OF INTEREST

RIGHT RESULT

27843.jpg

DECISION

The year is 1924. We are living in rural Southern California. Montebello is just nine miles east from Los Angeles.

Mom is quite ill. She has a really huge goiter, and now has neither strength nor endurance to walk across the room from one chair to another. She’s been told by Dr. Brown that thyroid removal is much too risky, that what she needs is daily intake of iodine from a natural source. The question is—how can that be made available?

Dad farms a small acreage of fig trees. That’s been the source of our living for as long as Betty and I can remember. My sister is seven years old and I’m just five. She has started to school, but I have not. Dad’s meager living is made by selling packed boxes of brown turkey figs in Los Angeles. They’re loaded onto his horse drawn wagon for an overnight trip to the wholesale food market. The horse knows its way home, so that’s when Dad sleeps.

Our grandmother, Dad’s mother lives about two hundred miles away, in San Luis Obispo county, in a tiny village named Oceano. Most folks there are poor, and many eke out a living by digging and selling Pismo clams. These are found in the sand beneath the shallow ocean water during low tide. The Pacific Ocean is only about a mile from town. Dad decides to lease his farm to a near neighbor, and move north to Oceano, expecting to make such living as may be possible by digging and selling clams. That is so Mom can absorb iodine from the ocean water. This is thought to be the only real hope for overcoming Mom’s thyroid illness.

MOVING

Our move to Oceano happened without incident, at night while we kids slept under old woolen army blankets. Our family’s collie dog, Laddie, horse, Dick, and cow, Bonnie, come with us. Once we are all in Oceano, we stay with Grandma for a while. Dad orders a ready-cut lumber kit, for building a small two-bedroom house, to be located on vacant land next door to Grandma’s place. It doesn’t take very long before we move into our new home.

GRANDPA

Our Grandpa, Dad’s father, had died before either Betty or I was born, so when we arrive at Grandma’s house we become acquainted, for the first time, with the person we come to know as Grandpa. He