Boys Unto Men

By Robert M. Bersi

From 1940 to 1950 four families in the great San Joaquin Valley of California struggle to raise their eight-year-old sons to manhood

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483425559

Book preview

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PROLOGUE

I n the summer of 1940, the gods of war were wreaking havoc on the wretched populations of Europe and Asia. But here in the United States, the north-central San Joaquin Valley of California with its sprawling vineyards, orchards, and open fields provided an idyllic greenhouse for a hardy crop of young boys. It presented a simple, uncomplicated universe where they could romp and ramble through one of the most formative periods of their lives. The daunting burdens of the times would be borne by elders who strove to shelter their children from the sobering challenges of that historic decade. Thus, for a brief, blessed patch of time, the events of their days would trip one upon the other, free of precedent and full of adventure. Their rite of passage into manhood would come soon enough.

The stories which follow revolve around a nucleus of four boys, all of whom celebrated their birthdays in the month of June. In the agricultural region surrounding the small towns of north San Joaquin County, California, the culture of the times and the lingering depression economy called for a more practical acknowledgment of the acquisition of another year than the flamboyant carnivals today’s youngsters have come to expect. Thus, four rural families had at some point settled on the economy of combining their June babies’ birthday celebrations into a single party. This year would mark the four boys’ eighth year on the planet, and Gus and Angelique Stark’s ranch would be the venue for the celebration. The four families had endured a grey decade of economic and social despair, but now a whisper of change was in the air. Angelique and the other mothers planned for a picnic table laden with special treats. The men had quietly agreed on the games and competitions that would mark the day. Before we join the party, however, we should acquaint ourselves with the families.

ONE

A s part of his winnings in a marathon open stakes poker game, Gus Stark’s father, a notorious Kansas City gambler, raked in a deed to ninety acres of undeveloped California land. Unable to turn a quick profit on the distant parcel, he simply set the papers aside. It was 1915, and Guntor ‘King’ Stark had other, more interesting enterprises and distractions. He owned a prosperous gaming establishment with dining and booze downstairs and girls upstairs. His elder son, Gus, ran errands for the old man and as the boy grew into a muscular, hardened teenager, he was pressed into service as a full-time enforcer and collector.

One late night during a violent argument, Gus felled his drunken father with a single blow, packed his knapsack, kissed his tearful mother goodbye and walked away. He was three weeks shy of his sixteenth birthday when a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter in Paris Island, South Carolina, looked into the steel grey eyes of the strapping six-foot youth, smiled, and nodded his head.

Eleven years later Gus’s widowed mother responded to a knock on her door and swooned into the arms of a tall, bronzed Marine sergeant leaning on a cane. Six months after returning home, he would elope with Angelique Piazza, the beautiful eldest daughter of a prominent banking family. As they hastily bid farewell to Gus’s mother, she pressed the forgotten deed into their hands.

Take this, she whispered, kissing them both. Go and build a new life far from this place. It was beginning to snow as they waved and drove west.

Look, Angelique exclaimed as she held up the document for Gus to see. Your father left you some land in California!

Gus took his eyes from the road long enough to glance at his father’s signature on the transfer. It was in his mother’s hand. He smiled and kissed his bride on the cheek.

Nine days and five flat tires later they arrived in California and took shelter in a dilapidated cottage which sat on the Stark property. Gus immediately set about laying the foundation for a proper house. A year later he moved a pregnant Angelique into their unfinished new home. Determined to build a life for his family that he never knew, Gus took whatever jobs he could while he labored to develop his own property. Six years would pass before the task was complete.

The Stark property measured a full quarter section and was shaped like a broad triangular slice of one of Angelique’s pies. It was bordered on the long curve of the crust by the Mokelumne River by a great earthen levy that buffered the fields from flooding. The headwaters of the river originated from high on the western slopes of the Sierra Mountains. A series of foothill dams regulated the seasonal flow of water into the valley. The ninety-acre property rose gently away from the river to a grassy hilltop upon which Gus built the main house. A large barn, water tower, pump house, and sundry equipment sheds were clustered on the western slope near an unpaved road leading to the acreage below. A tidy whitewashed shed sat equidistant between the main house and the county road. In the far distance, spanning the river, one could see a new concrete and steel Works Projects Administration bridge which replaced the old plank and timber span swept away by the flood of 1934. A large vegetable garden filled a half-acre plot on the south side of the main house near the kitchen porch. Rabbit hutches and a clapboard chicken shed flanked one side of the barn. Slightly below and downwind, a sturdy fence enclosed a pig sty and pen where two sows lay nursing their month-old piglets. A small mixed orchard of apricot, peach, fig and cherry trees occupied five or six acres of the lower slope. On the flood plain stretching to the river, seventy acres of trellised zinfandel vines were nearing maturity after years of cultivation. With a market price of eighteen to twenty-five dollars a ton, the outlook for growers remained bleak. Most families had hung on during the early years of the depression, but some had lost everything to the banks. The Stark ranch was owned outright and largely self-sufficient. There were no luxuries and little cash, but the family never thought of themselves as poor. A framed needlepoint hanging in the Stark dining room said it all: Use it up, wear it out; make it do, or do without.

- - - - -

Spiro Lucas completed his apprenticeship as a cobbler in his native Greece and at age nineteen immigrated to the United States. There he joined his cousin’s modest shoe repair shop in north central California. Within a few years, his industrious and frugal lifestyle allowed him to purchase an old truck which he converted into a mobile shoe repair shop. Circuit riding through the small communities of the Valley, Spiro’s business thrived. He became well acquainted with the farms and ranches and he privately dreamed of one day achieving what could never have been his in the old country. On a chilly November morning in 1929 he stood as the sole bidder at the county courthouse tax auction. For the sum of $1,217 cash, he became the owner of a one hundred and ten acre abandoned almond orchard located on the northwest upper bank of the Mokelumne River. Later that afternoon, Gus Stark, in the midst of repairing the roof of the barn, spotted Spiro’s truck on the far side of the river. It had pulled off the county road and come to a stop adjacent to the abandoned farm house. As Gus descended from the roof, he shouted to Angelique in the garden below.

Set an extra plate for dinner, honey; we’ve got a new neighbor.

Gus leapt into his dusty black model ‘A’ Ford pickup and headed for the county road. Crossing the WPA Bridge, he turned onto the long dirt driveway and soon stood offering his hand in welcome to Spiro Lucas. One year later, Spiro, his place restored from years of neglect, harvested his first almond crop. He announced one evening, while sipping a glass of Angelique’s lemonade that he would be departing in a few days for a brief trip to Greece.

Angelique refilled his glass. In all this time, you never once mentioned having family.

I do not. But I will… here in America. I will return with a wife.

Angelique looked at Gus who was peering at his folded hands trying to stifle a smile. Oh, tell us about her, she asked excitedly.

I cannot. We have not yet met.

Gus was struggling to contain himself as Angelique peered intently at Spiro. How then….

I have paid a woman in my village. She arranges such things.

A mail order bride…?

No. Spiro drained his glass, stood and turned to leave. We will choose one another. It is an old custom. Young maidens from good families will be presented. One lucky one will return to America as my wife. He climbed into his truck, started the engine, and turned to Gus. Thank you for irrigating the orchard while I am away.

Don’t worry about a thing. Gus took Angelique’s arm firmly and whispered, Stop asking questions and blow him a kiss.

As they turned back toward the house, Angelique paused to watch Spiro’s truck as it sped down the county road and disappeared over the bridge.

You knew about all this, Gus Stark, and didn’t share a word with me. I must have seemed like such a fool, asking such questions. Poor Spiro.

Gus placed a finger gently on her lips. Have you forgotten how beautiful you are? Encircling her slender waist with his powerful arms, he drew her close. "Spiro is an Ionian Greek. They’re hard as granite and just about as talkative. But I’m not really surprised that he opened up to you as much as he did. He’s been under your spell since the day we all met.

So. She raised her glass to her lips and, lowering her head slightly, peered up at him with her chestnut brown eyes. Are you going to tell me the rest?

Of course. Gus guided her towards the porch swing. They sat and watched the sun begin its evening plunge into the distant tree line that bordered the river. Spiro will choose one of the girls. There will be a big marriage ceremony, and she will leave home, probably forever, to make a life with him here.

Angelique shook her head and Gus continued. Wait; hear it all before you judge. They will not consummate the marriage until she enters her home here as mistress of the house. Only then has he honored the promise he made in Greece. But he won’t waste any time. Spiro wants three sons.

Angelique sat quietly for a while watching the sunset. I’m sorry we lost the baby, Gus.

He pulled her close. Don’t dwell on it, Angie. Doc Spencer said it was a blessing.

She buried her face between his neck and shoulder. Let’s try again when Spiro returns with his bride.

Okay sweetheart; that would be a good time… lots of happiness in the air.

At least the poor girl will know him better by then. Does she speak English?

My bet is not a word. Gus answered. Frankly, I don’t think Spiro wants her to learn.

Angelique sighed. She’ll need a friend.

Gus pulled her close and kissed her gently on the lips. Did it hurt, sweetheart, when you fell from heaven?

- - - - -

At six-foot-four and three hundred pounds, Columbo Baca was a brute of a man. His diminutive wife, Rosa, only served to amplify his imposing stature. That, however, is where disparity succumbed to reality. The Bacas owned and operated a large pig farm on an agriculturally worthless half-section of land that also served as a garbage and refuse dump for a scattering of small communities. Rosa administered the business with an iron fist. Columbo kept the battered trucks running and led a roughneck crew of men who worked twelve-hour shifts for good pay. He worked alongside his men and could lift and toss a full garbage barrel higher and further than any of them. At the end of a long shift, the wine and brandy would often flow and a jovial Columbo would succumb to the cheers of his crew and laughingly hoist one of the new boys high overhead and catapult him into a still loaded truck.

After paying for scores of masses, and praying over countless blessed candles, Rosa and Columbo had resigned themselves to being childless. They no longer spoke of the matter and turned their focus to the business and the occasional visit by a distant nephew or niece. Then one rainy day in October, 1931, Doc Spencer informed Rosa that she was not suffering from stomach flu. She should, he advised, work less, rest, and prepare to become a mother. The following, June Rosa Baca presented her ecstatic husband with a brawny baby boy whom she promptly christened Benito after the Italian dictator she so admired.

- - - - -

The Santiago family could trace their California lineage to the late eighteenth century when King Pedro III of Spain conferred generous land grants to those willing to settle in Spanish California. Political upheaval, absentee stewardship, and contentious land claims ultimately depleted most of the great Spanish concessions. For generations the Santiago family had bred, raised, and supplied horses to the military and other equine-dependent enterprises. By the turn of the 20th century, however, the horse was rapidly losing ground in a society intoxicated with the efficiencies of mechanization. Unable to convince his three older brothers of his vision for cultivating and farming the land, nineteen-year-old Juan Jose Santiago cashed out his quarter-share and accompanied by Josephina, his bride of three weeks, journeyed northward. There, in the rich flood plain of the wandering Mokelumne River and midway between the inland ports of Sacramento and Stockton, he encountered something he had never seen before: abundant water and virgin soil rich in nutrients that if properly managed would produce three crop yields per year. Juan Jose was convinced that he could grow anything on such land. Moreover, the populous markets of San Francisco and Oakland were less than a day away. He promptly paid cash for eighty grossly undervalued acres, built a small house on an elevated section, and began farming. Juan, with Josephina always at his side, worked the fields from dawn until dark. On a chilly, overcast day in December of 1910, Josephina was rushed from the fields to the farmhouse where she gave birth to a son, Ramon Jose Santiago. One week later, exhaustion and a relentless fever took her life. A crushed and embittered Juan Jose found himself alone with an infant son and forever deprived of the support and companionship of the only woman he would ever love. He hired a wet nurse, buried his grief in endless labor, and chose to sleep and eat in the bunkhouse with his braceros. During the next two decades he tripled his land holdings.

At six years of age, little Ramon began working in the fields carrying water to the men. His former wet nurse, Carmella, now kept house and supervised his studies until he began working and residing with the men full time at age twelve. In the summer of 1930, he married Carmella’s only daughter, Silvia. Juan Jose, too ill to attend the ceremony, deeded title to the rancho to Ramon and his bride. On a foggy October morning, with his family gathered about his sickbed, Juan Jose rejoined his beloved Josephina, calling out her name with his final breath. Ramon, saddened by the loss of his father, and distracted with the imperatives of running the rancho, failed to note the distant rumble of a crumbling national economy. Three years later, as dawn broke on the first Monday in June, 1932, Silvia gifted Ramon with a healthy boy, Jose Luis Santiago. That afternoon the bank repossessed the rancho with the exception of the original eighty acres and the house which Juan Jose had always insisted be held separately, free and clear of debt. Determined to recoup his honor, Ramon and his braceros labored through the years growing and hauling produce to regional markets. In 1939, he entered into a joint agreement with a major canning factory to supply beans to the U.S. Army. He promptly re-purchased the one hundred and sixty acres which had lain fallow since being lost to creditors. For the first time in nearly six years, Ramon Santiago spent an entire day away from the fields and in the company of his family.

TWO

V iewed through a 21 st century prism, the four birthday boys that sunny June day in 1940 might appear to be unremarkable children. A closer look would reveal otherwise. They were bountifully cherished and nurtured by their mothers. The fathers loved their sons no less, but instinctively began to pursue a more rigorous agenda. They resolved that the boys begin to acquire a foundation of principles and practices that would shape them as men. Thus, each father in his own way would seek to groom his son for the unforgiving world that he had known. And so, as the four families gathered at the Stark ranch to celebrate their blessings, each set of parents knew deep in their hearts that they must store up memories of this day. The years were rushing upon their unsuspecting sons.

The four boys, of course, remained unfettered with adult concerns. After all, they had just survived 2nd grade and another year of suffocating oversight by the nuns of St. Agnes Academy. It was June, and an endless summer filled with freedom and undefined adventures stretched before them. Empowered by youth and boundless energy, they reveled in the moment. By this point in time they had evolved nicknames by which they would be known to one another for the remainder of their lives. John Francis Stark answered to ‘Jack.’ James Gerald Lucas was forever branded as ‘Luke.’ Benito Baca’s size and strength quickly earned him the intimidating title of ‘Bull’ on the school playground. His three best friends, however, knew him to be a gentle giant. Bookish, brilliant Jose Santiago had simply been ‘Joey’ for as long as anyone could remember.

- - - - -

As the families arrived at the Stark ranch that afternoon, Gus promptly handed each boy twenty feet of light fishing line, a small steel hook and a wine bottle cork.

Are you carrying the pocket knives you got on your last birthday?

The four boys dug into their jean pockets and proudly held up their knives.

Good. Gus proclaimed. Remember, you never know when you’ll need a good knife. Today, if you’d forgotten yours, you would’ve had problems with the first contest. Gus flipped open the cover of his big onion pocket watch. You have to cut a pole, find some bait, and fish until I ring that bell over there to fetch you and your catch back up here. Go! Let’s see who is the best fisherman.

The boys scattered, kicking off their shoes as they ran through the fields toward the pond.

Gus turned to Angelique and the others. Now, how about we grown-ups have a glass of wine and a nice lunch. Spiro, you and Sophia can put the baby in the crib right here where we can watch him. And Sylvia, the twins can play inside with their dolls if they want. Gus smiled broadly. I won’t be ringing that bell for a good while yet.

When the bell was finally rung the boys came racing back toward the ranch house. Jack arrived first, holding a piece of line high in the air from which dangled four small sunfish. I win! he shouted.

Hold your horses, Gus admonished the boys. The four judges will decide who wins. Line up and let’s see what you brought in.

Jack continued to proudly display his four small sunfish; James Lucas soberly presented two sunfish and a bullfrog. Benito Baca arrived empty-handed and disgusted. Finally, Joey Santiago stepped forward, opened his water soaked shirt and dumped two large steelhead, still flopping, on the grass.

Put your fish on the scale. Spiro Lucas ordered and marked the weight as each boy presented his catch. When Joey Santiago placed his two steelhead and withdrew his hands, the arrow on the scale face moved far beyond the others. Spiro turned to his fellow judges and shrugged. No contest.

Joey Santiago was declared the winner and awarded the prize of a refurbished rod and reel which had been salvaged from Columbo Baca’s refuse dump.

As the boys were depositing their catch into a bucket of water, Gus nudged Ramon Santiago and turned to address Joey. There are no steelhead in the pond. Where did you hook those two?

I fished the river instead of the pond, Mr. Stark. Wasn’t that okay?

Nobody said you couldn’t, son. But what did you use for bait? Steelhead don’t go for worms.

I had an old piece of cheese in my pocket and I rolled it into little balls. They seemed to like it. I lost a really big one before I caught those two.

Gus looked at Ramon and touching his finger to his head, winked. Santiago raised his eyebrows and