Charles W. Callow - My Autobiography

By Charles W. Callow

Charles William Callow was born in San Francisco, California on October 5, 1921. He grew up in Berkeley with his sister, Jean, and his brother, Merrill. He served in World War II, graduated from UC Berkeley in 1947, and went on to work as an electrical engineer for 39 years. He continues to enjoy his retirement in Walnut Creek, chasing golf balls and jitterbugging to the Big Band music that he loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312777705

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Charles W. Callow - My Autobiography

My Autobiography

Charles W. Callow

Copyright © 2014 by Charles W. Callow

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2014

We’re Sons of California,

A loyal company,

All shout for California

While we strive for victory.

All sing the joyful chorus

As her colors we unfold

Then, Hurrah! for California,

And for the Blue and Gold.

– Clinton R. Brick Morse

Introduction

Many famous people have written autobiographies and by writing them, probably made a lot of money. So it has occurred to me that I should explain why little ol’ me with no expectation of becoming either famous or wealthy, decided to write this.

The idea came from my sister, Jean. Sometime in the early 1980s I believe, she came across a book designed to help senior citizens write their autobiographies. The author pointed out that families in earlier generations tended to stay closer together. In many cases, grandma, grandpa, and perhaps even the great-grandparents lived in the same house with their children and grandchildren. Family history, life stories, and experiences were passed down from generation to generation just through conversation and interaction between members of the extended family.

As the author said, this is no longer true. Children leave home to get their own home or apartment and grandparents may be living in retirement homes or convalescent hospitals. Everyone has their own busy, busy lives with all sorts of new activities. The only way we can learn what kind of life our parents and grandparents lived, what they did, felt, or thought, is through autobiographies. She believed that this type of record might be the greatest gift one could leave for their descendants.

Recognizing that most of us are not accomplished authors, the book contained a series of questions such as: Where and when were you born? What are your earliest recollections? What teachers do you remember? Which ones were your favorites? What kind of houses did you live in? What games did you play, etc. It was suggested that all you had to do was answer these kinds of questions and voila! you have an autobiography.

That brings me back to Jean. One day, on a trip from her home in San Carlos to my place in Whittier, she and husband Gordon passed the time by asking each other a bunch of these questions. During their stay with me, Jean had me add my answers to see how my childhood recollections compared with hers. I soon discovered that this game was actually a lot of fun. Answering one question with a particular memory brought forth a whole lot more. The nostalgia began to run rampant. So I decided to try and write down some of the stuff. If, as the book’s author said, the story might be a nice thing to leave for the children and grandchildren, that will be a side benefit. I have to admit that a substantial part of the motive has been – and still is – rather selfish. I love to write! And I’m having fun!

I should add that writing this particular biography is a bit easier than some might be. I don’t have to rely completely on my own deteriorating memory. Mother kept boxes and boxes full of things that Jean, Merrill and I had accumulated including report cards, various announcements, awards, Boy Scout stuff, and letters we had written home from camp or wherever we might be. When she sold the family home, she packed up all of the boxes and gave each of us our own mementos. In addition, during my working years I kept little appointment books, which were almost like diaries. So, I have plenty of background information to help me.

The Beginning

World War I had ended three years earlier; Warren Harding was President of the United States; the Stock Market crash was still eight years away; my father, William Ramsey Callow was almost 35 years old; mother, Williamita Bayley Callow was 33; they had been married for three and a half years, and sister Jean Elizabeth was 2 years old when I decided to join the little group on October 5, 1921.

I said good-bye to the umbilical cord and hello to Mother at 9:40 on a Wednesday morning in the Franklin Hospital at 14th and Noe Streets in San Francisco.

San Francisco: 1921–1926

By the time Mother and I had left the hospital and returned to our upstairs flat at 37 Douglass Street in San Francisco, I had already cost my parents $93 (Mother saved the receipt - perhaps she had some idea about returning the merchandise). We moved from San Francisco across the bay to Berkeley when I was only 4 or 5 years old so my recollections of life in San Francisco are almost nil.

The house on Douglass Street was just a block or two north of Market Street near the point where Market makes a turn and wanders up and over Twin Peaks. Ed and Katie Swan with son Billy (about Jean's age) lived in the downstairs flat and Grandma Callow lived only a few blocks away on Caselli Ave. We were still in San Francisco when brother, Merrill, was born on July 19, 1923. It may have been while Mother was in the hospital with Merrill that the first crisis of my young life occurred or it may have been before that. In any event, I understand that one day, while under the care of a babysitter, I decided to have a can of talcum powder for lunch and it didn't agree with me. Mother told me that I was very seriously ill with double pneumonia, whatever that might have been.

I don't really know what our family's financial condition was at the time we children were born. That is one subject neither Mother nor Dad mentions in any of their memoirs. Mother had been teaching for quite a while and quit only a month or two before getting married. I also believe she had her own car for a while but I am quite sure that we were far from wealthy.

At the time I was born, Dad already had put in quite a few years with Dunham, Carrigan and Hayden. This was a wholesale hardware company located, I think, near Kansas and Division Streets in San Francisco. I don't really know how many years’ service he had with Dunham's but I think it was about 48 years. He retired in 1955 I believe, and was a buyer at that time.

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Early Years in Berkeley: 1926–1933

1528 McGee Ave. - The House

We moved to 1528 McGee Ave., Berkeley, California, in the spring of either 1925 or 1926. I have no recollection of the move and I am not sure of the exact year because there are references to both dates in Mother's records.

It was Grandpa Bayley's house and we lived there with him until his death on October 29, 193l. I don't know when the house was built but according to Mother's records, Grandpa and Grandma Bayley bought it in 1914. Apparently it was built before the general use of electricity because there were some pipe nipples in walls and ceilings, which had at one time been intended for, or actually used for, gaslights.

The house had also been added on to one or more times. A room we called the backroom was built behind Jean's room and the room that Merrill and I used was built above the garage. I suspect that the upstairs room may have been built sometime between 1920 when Grandma Bayley died and 1925 or 1926 when we moved in so that there would be enough room. I have a very hazy recollection of watching Uncle Preston, Grandpa Bayley's younger half-brother, sawing and nailing wall and floorboards.

That room upstairs was something else - a real boys’ room. I sometimes wonder how Mother ever let us do the things we did there. There were windows on three sides but the rest of the room, walls, floor, and ceiling, was 1-inch x 4-inch tongue and groove lumber, painted. Almost from the time I can remember, there wasn't much of the wood showing. Merrill and I had almost every inch covered with pictures of our college sports heroes. There were some newspaper clippings of guys like Ted Beckett, Rusty Gill, Hank Shelldack, etc. of University of California football fame, but most of the space was covered by cardboard posters which were about 2-foot wide x 4-foot high. They had a big colored drawing of a football, baseball or basketball player and below or to the side of that, large lettering FRIDAY NIGHT NOV. 10TH CALIFORNIA VS. ST. MARY’S, etc. These posters were published for each game and placed in the windows of stores around Berkeley to advertise the game. On the Monday or Tuesday following the game we would ask the owner or manager if we could have the posters and they were usually happy to give them to us.

To be truthful about it, I should add that Merrill usually asked for the posters or sometimes Mother would do it for us. I was much too shy and bashful. In any event we got plenty of them and attached them to the walls with thumbtacks. As I think about it now I just can't imagine letting kids ruin the walls of a house with literally hundreds of thumbtacks.

That was but a beginning however. We also played basketball in the room. We would set wastebaskets at each end of the room on a table or bookcase and after dribbling a tennis ball around on the floor we would take shots over the close guarding of our opponent. I don't remember breaking too many windows but we did manage to clobber the single bulb light in the middle of the ceiling a few times because the ceiling was only 6-foot high or perhaps less. When somewhat older, I recall replacing that bulb with a cleverly contrived recessed fixture which I made by cutting an 8-inch x 10-inch hole in the ceiling, putting in a reflector made from half of a large tin can and covering it with a picture frame having frosted glass and screwed directly into the ceiling.

More about our room later. Let's get back downstairs first. Heating the house was a rather unique activity although we certainly didn't think much about it at the time. We used coal for heating. There was a fireplace in the living room, a small stove in the kitchen and a fancy newer type heater in the backroom. On cold mornings Mother or Dad (probably Dad) would get up early and build a fire in the kitchen stove. Doors to the kitchen were closed to keep the heat there. When it was time for the kids to get up, we would crawl out from under our heavy blankets and quilts and rush to the kitchen to dress. At night, the procedure was reversed. An hour or two before bedtime Dad would build a fire in the backroom stove to warm up the bedrooms and would bank the fire when we actually went to bed so that some heat remained throughout a good part of the night. It seems to me that we also made good use of hot water bottles placed in the bed before retiring to lessen the shock of the cold sheets.

Another convenience missing from the McGee Ave. house until the late ‘30s or early ‘40s was a refrigerator. I think even the icebox in the ironing room (not too convenient to the kitchen) was added some time after we moved in. Forgetting to empty the pan at the bottom of the icebox and allowing the water from the melting ice to overflow onto the floor was a crime we were all guilty of at one time or another.

Most of our food was kept in the pantry or cooler, a room height, 1½-foot wide x 2-foot deep cupboard in the kitchen. The feature I remember most about the cooler was the small milk door which opened to the outside from the floor level of the cupboard. The milkman would leave full (glass) bottles of milk there two or three times a week and pick up the empties which were washed and placed there for him. Notes were left in the neck of the bottles to indicate whether we wanted more or less milk, eggs and/or butter on the next delivery.

Speaking of delivery, we got a lot of our groceries that way. Mother would telephone orders to the Varsity Market in uptown Berkeley (University Ave. at Shattuck) or while uptown shopping she would pick out what she wanted and then it would be delivered to the house. In later years we purchased our food primarily from Shaw’s at the corner of Vine and Grant Streets. In both cases the store kept a running tab and we paid by the month or whenever convenient. It was also common to send one or more of us to Thorburn's (two blocks east on Cedar St.) or Tansey's (two blocks west at Cedar and California Streets) to pick up a few things.

Occasionally on one of these trips to the store we had an extra nickel to buy a box of Home Run Kisses (salt-water taffy) or a chocolate covered marshmallow bar (the name of which I've forgotten). The candy wasn't important but inside the boxes were pictures of baseball players and these pictures were very valuable. We used them for collections and traded them back and forth and also for a boyhood form of gambling. We sailed them toward a wall trying to get them to stand up on edge against the wall or to get as close as possible I believe, and as I recall, if you could land your card or picture on top of the one your opponent had shot, then you got his picture. All sorts of tricks were used to make the best shooter including soaking the card, folding it all up and then unfolding it, waxing it, etc.

But it's time to get back to McGee Ave. The back yard, like the upstairs room, was also dedicated to the kids rather than serving as a showplace as were so many places then and now. I recall building several caves where we could hide. We would dig a fair sized hole in the ground, cover all but a small entrance with boards and then cover it over with dirt.

When we first moved to Berkeley, there was a chicken coop (area enclosed by chicken wire) in the rear corner of the yard. I don't recall any chickens but somewhat later we did have some rabbits and it seems like we always had a cat. We also had goldfish - mainly because I had a childhood obsession to build fishponds. The fish seldom lived very long however. I think you are supposed to treat the cement or somehow get rid of the lime in a new pond before dumping the water and fish in it. But I didn't know that. If anyone ever digs up the backyard at 1528 McGee Ave., they may find lots of old Mason jars with fish skeletons inside. Funerals were quite elaborate as I recall.

Toys.jpg

Toys, Fun, and Games

We spent a lot of time outside when we were kids. There were lots of other children to play with and lots of things to do and I suspect that I'll get to that eventually. But what did we do inside without television, video games, etc.? I don't know about Jean and Merrill but I liked listening to the radio. The first radio I remember was a crystal set in the dining room. It had two sets of earphones and I sat there spellbound one morning with Mrs. Trombly (a lady about Mother's age or a bit older who used to come over often to babysit, do housework, etc.) listening to reports of Charles Lindbergh's successful flight across the Atlantic. While still quite young, I became the proud owner of either that radio or another one similar to it. In fact it seems like I always had a radio of some type sitting on a little table next to my bed and I can still remember how much I enjoyed going to sleep listening to music or to the local radio hams talking to their buddies. W6JXI J Jamaica X X-Ray I Idaho W6JXI calling CQ, CQ, CQ. It is so strange that I should remember something like that.

Equally strange perhaps is the fact that I have no definite recollection as to what toy or toys were my favorite as a child. Like all boys, I enjoyed the toy cars. The deluxe ones then were constructed of heavy steel castings. Buddy-L toys we called them, and I had a beautiful replica of a Model T Ford coupe. Smaller versions, similar to the Hot Wheels of many years later were called Tootsie Toys. Some of the toys I enjoyed have survived the passage of time. Tinker-Toys, Lincoln Logs, and Erector sets were a few.

As I mentioned a few hundred words ago, we spent a lot of time outdoors playing with other kids in the neighborhood. The small hill on McGee Ave. between Cedar and Jaynes was great for coasting in wagons, homemade coasters, or on skates. One particularly exciting way of going down the hill was to put a board (about 5-inch – 6-inch wide x l2-inch – 14-inch long) across a skate, sit down on the board, grasp the ends with your hands, tuck your legs and feet up and let'er go. Sometimes we would do it in formation with three or four boys holding hands while still trying to balance on the board.

Rubber-gun wars were very popular. Two blocks of wood nailed together made the gun. Bullets were rubber bands made by cutting sections out of old automobile inner tubes and an old clothespin tacked to the handle of the gun made a good trigger. We made all sorts of guns including a machine gun that had six or seven clothespins so you could get off several shots before re-loading.

Kick the Can was another game that occupied a lot of our time. Whoever was it placed the can in the middle of the street and counted to 50 or 100 while all of the others ran away and hid. It then tried to find them. If he (or she) spotted someone he would run back to the can and yell 1-2-3 for Billy or something like that and Billy was then out of the game. But if one of the players in hiding could get to the can before the it spotted him he would kick it away which freed Billy and any others who had been previously caught and it had to start all over again.

I Was Somewhat of a Loner - And Didn't Like It

I was somewhat of a loner and didn't like to be it as I recall because I never could catch everyone and the game went on and on while I felt more and more like a loser. That is only one example of an inferiority complex and a lack of aggressiveness that I feel kept my childhood years from being as happy as they could have been. I always wanted to participate in all of the games and activities with the other kids but often would not because I was afraid that I wasn't good enough, afraid that the other kids might make fun of or laugh at me, or just plain afraid. Consequently I tended to be somewhat of a loner. I indulged in and practiced a lot of things that I could do alone and I was persistent.

When we all started skating most of the kids had fun together trying and falling and laughing at themselves and each other. But not little Charlie. Oh no. I would get off by myself and try and try. I watched good skaters and tried to imitate their movements. I even dreamed about skating and truly believe that I eventually learned to skate in my sleep because one morning it happened. I did not like the loner status, or perhaps I did, but I didn't feel like it was an acceptable behavior. In any event, I remember with a twinge of anger every now and then a statement my mother made to a friend or relative to the effect that Merrill always has to be with a group. He always has to have other children around. But Charlie will play by himself for hours. I have no problem with him.

Feelings Toward My Family

This is perhaps a good time to digress from the story. That's a laugh! This story is a whole series of digressions! But it may someday be important to someone to have some idea of what the relationship was between me and my mother, father, sister and brother because many years later in my life a counselor or shrink deemed it good therapy to have me write a letter to my mother telling her what I thought about the way I was raised and the way I felt about her. It wasn't to be actually sent but I read it to the shrink and he called it one of the most angry letters he had seen. Almost vicious I guess.

Apparently I did not really like my mother. Or perhaps I had the feeling that she didn't really like me. I never felt that she loved me. Yet I tried constantly in everything I did to make her proud of me. I suspect that pleasing Mother was the guiding principal of my early life and perhaps my entire life. But I seldom, if ever, did feel like I obtained that lofty goal. I grew up with the idea that even your best is not quite as good as it should be.

I think that I saw my father as being rather weak because I felt that he too was ruled by the Please Mother principle. He was always telling us what a fine lady she was and that we should help her as much as we could. I think that I wanted him to be more of a man, to be harder. I don't recall that he ever disciplined us or even spoke harshly. Perhaps he should have. Mother was continually putting him down also and I suppose that didn't help my image of the man. He wasn't a do-it-yourselfer or handyman like many of my friends' fathers. He wasn't interested in sports, he didn't hunt or fish, he never swore, he didn't smoke, or drink or even play cards. He was a very soft man. He loved everyone and everyone loved him.

Then there was brother Merrill. I can describe my feelings toward my brother very simply – I was jealous as hell of him. He was obviously Mother's favorite, yet he did hardly any of those good things that I thought we were supposed to do. He didn't help much around the house, he didn't study very much, he was often later than he should be coming home, and didn't wear his glasses like we were supposed to do. He just had lots of friends and lots of fun. Although two years younger than I, I thought he was bigger, stronger, a much better athlete, better looking (at least in my mind), and certainly more self-assured and popular. I don't believe that we could have been considered close to each other.

I was undoubtedly closer to my sister Jean. I didn't envy her or admire her as I did my brother but I felt that she was more like me, rather shy and withdrawn and I know that Mother liked me as well as Jean. Unlike Merrill she also wore her glasses and that damned patch over one eye.

Just a Cross-Eyed Kid

It might be good to elaborate a bit on the subject of glasses because I suspect that they may have had a definite effect on all three of us. I don't really know how old I was when I first started wearing glasses, but I was still very young – probably 6 or 7 years old and in those days very few children wore glasses. We could see all right without them but Jean, Merrill and I were all born with one eye crossed and the glasses were supposed to help straighten that eye. At times we also wore a patch over the good eye because that was supposed to make the bad eye stronger. When we were a little older, when I was perhaps 8 or 9, Mother started taking us to a doctor who claimed that the eyes could be straightened by some exercises.

Two or three afternoons a week for a year or more, Mother drove us from Berkeley to downtown Oakland and we would sit and watch arrows and dots and things moving on a screen for what seemed like hours. We were supposed to follow the moving figures and tell the doctor or nurse when two of the figures approached each other or something like that. We also looked at a lot of stereopticon slides while being questioned as to whether we saw one or two pictures. In thinking about those things now, I recall feeling extremely inadequate. The exercises were supposed to make our eyes better. We were supposed to start seeing something different. I tried and I tried and I tried but nothing seemed to change so I was convinced that it must be my fault. It was something I wasn't doing or I was doing something wrong.

More Fun and Games

Enough about eyes, let's get back to the games and toys. Having finished Kick the Can it might be time for Hop Scotch which everyone tried although it was considered more of a girls’ game as were Jacks and Jumping Rope with all sorts of variations including two jumping at the same time, Hot Peppers where the rope turners speeded it up as fast as they could, or Double Dutch using two ropes turning in opposite directions.

I never had a bicycle. I assume that we just couldn't afford such things in those depression days and I don't suppose anyone ever knew how very badly I wanted one. One of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood days came about because I didn't get a bicycle that I was sure I was going to have. Jean told me that the brother of one of her friends was going to sell his bike and would sell it to me for the few dollars I had managed to save. For some reason the actual sale was delayed several weeks and I went almost crazy with anticipation. I thought about it and dreamed about it constantly. 

I could see it clearly in my mind. I was going to paint it a beautiful blue with a white stripe. I even bought the paint and a brush, which added still more to the excitement. Then one day I learned that the bike had been sold to someone else. Needless to say, life at that point was very black.

Having my own electric train was another dream that went unfulfilled for years and years. It was clear that if I were to realize that dream I would have to save my pennies, nickels, and dimes and get it myself. Eventually I did and it was a beauty. However it had taken so long to accumulate the money that I was almost too old for electric trains by the time I actually had one.

Spending Money

We may have received an allowance now and then. I don't really remember. But we did start earning our own money at a very early age. I was a reluctant magazine salesman when I was 7 or 8 years old. Several mornings a week I would get up shortly after Dad did (5 or 5:30 a.m.) and go down to the Key Route train station at Sacramento and Rose Streets to sell the latest Saturday Evening Post to the commuters boarding the train for the first leg of the long journey to San Francisco. That was a weekly magazine that I believe sold for five cents and I got a penny or a penny and a half for each one. Along with the Posts, I also had two monthly magazines, the Ladies Home Journal and the Country Gentlemen. They cost l5 or 20 cents I think. In addition to the on-site sales at the train station, I had some regular customers in the neighborhood. I would leave the magazines on the porch and come around once a month to collect the payment. God! How I disliked that collecting! I didn't really like the selling either. People sometimes said No! and I guess I just didn't want to do anything that might bring about a rejection.

Selling Sunday morning newspapers was much easier. That was really Merrill's job but I went along with him. We stacked the newspapers in a wagon and went around the neighborhood and surrounding area yelling, EX-AM-IN-ER! CHRON-I-CLE! TRIB-UNE! SUN-DAY MORN-ING PA-PERS!

There was one other selling job that I recall that for some reason or another gave me a real sense of accomplishment. The Oakland Tribune advertised that by selling several subscriptions to the paper, you could win a large Shirley Temple Doll with eyes that opened and closed. I had to get that doll for my sister and managed somehow to sell the subscriptions (probably to parents and friends). I was probably more excited than Jean when the doll arrived and we opened the box it was shipped in.

Grammar School

Mother saved all of my report cards from school. I've studied them carefully hoping that the teachers’ names, the comments they wrote on the cards, the list of subjects, or the grades I received would refresh my memory as to which teachers I liked and which ones I didn't, which subjects I liked or disliked, what was I good or bad at, etc. But I keep drawing a blank.

I started the low first grade at Jefferson Grammar School in September 1927. Neither Jean nor I went to kindergarten. Our fifth or sixth birthdays may not have coincided correctly with the start of the school year or something but I believe that Mother also considered kindergarten to be a waste of time.  All you did there was play and you didn't have to go to school for that.  She did send Merrill however – probably because she couldn't figure out what to do with him at home.

Jefferson was only eight or nine blocks from home so it was an easy walk and as I remember we also walked home for lunch. Apparently Mrs. Tucker was my first teacher. In her first note, she stated that I had made a good start but she added that reading at home would help and she put a check mark after Industry indicating that improvement in this area was desirable. I don't remember any crash reading courses at home or becoming a very industrious little boy overnight but there must have been some improvement because I received Good Work marks for the next two periods of the semester and Very Good Work throughout the high first grade and all of the second.

Because her No. 1 son had not started his schooling with perfect marks, Mother may have decided that the problem was medical rather than mental. In any event, shortly after starting school I spent a couple of days in the Fabiola Hospital in Oakland (it later became Kaiser Permanente) having my tonsils and adenoids removed. I remember that rather clearly and the memory returns whenever I sense an ether smell.

But let's get back to school. In the third grade, we started receiving grades for individual subjects like language, arithmetic, spelling, reading, social studies, art, music, health education and manual training.

Aha! Finally a couple of recollections - manual training. I built a boat! Or I started building a boat. I think I worked on that thing off and on until I was 13 or 14 years old. It was of course only a model boat but it started out as a solid 4-inch x 4-inch x 16-inch or 18-inch block of redwood. I spent hours and hours with various chisels, gouges, files and sandpaper, forming the outside into a sleek V-bottom hull and hollowing it out much like the Indians must have done in making a canoe from a log.  I really loved that boat and was Oh! So proud of it.

But one day when the hull was very nearly finished, I was taking a little more material out of the inside and the chisel slipped. There it was! A hole right through the bottom. The second big crisis of my young life. First I didn't get my bicycle and now I had ruined my beautiful boat! I put it aside and several years went by before I decided to try again. I patched the hole with some plastic wood, built a deck and cabin, put on two or three coats of green and white enamel and installed a little battery driven motor and a shaft and propeller for which I had saved some money. I had it in the water a few times and I guess it worked fairly well. But as with so many of my other projects and endeavors it wasn't nearly as good as I had hoped, dreamed, imagined, planned and therefore expected it would be.

In addition to manual training, I also remember penmanship class. That was in the third grade I believe and no one escaped Mrs. Uhler. She tried and tried to get us to use the whole arm and not just the wrist in our writing. I don't know what her success rate was but my wrist is tired right now so obviously I wasn't one of her converts.

I also didn't get it when we spent an hour or so each week listening to the Standard Oil Company's Student Symphony program and the teacher assumed that we could all see the fairies tip-toeing around and the birds flitting to and fro when the flutes played; or be startled and frightened when the tubas and basses made it clear (to her!) that a big bad giant had arrived.

Banking I understood. Friday was Bank Day. We brought our nickels and pennies to school for deposit in our student savings accounts and the room or rooms with the best participation got to display a little American flag for the week.

If I were to summarize my performance in grammar school, I would call it average or perhaps a little better, a B+ or 2+ I guess we called it then. I missed very few days of school, paid close attention and did what I was told – but not much more! I didn't want to risk making any mistakes!

Reflection on those days at Jefferson would not be complete without some mention of the Berkeley Junior Traffic Police and the playground where we lived when not in school or sleeping.

Berkeley Junior Traffic Police

The job of the school crossing guard had not been created when I was in school. We had our own Junior Police Force, a paramilitary organization of fifth and sixth grade boys (girls didn't play policeman or soldier! That was for boys!!), with companies, battalions or whatever at each school. We had uniforms: yellow caps and bright red sweaters with a big yellow emblem or badge on the pocket. Instead of rifles we carried big red Stop signs attached to the ends of long yellow poles but we were a well-disciplined, well-drilled group of soldiers or policemen. One of Berkeley's regular police officers was assigned to each school and once a week or so he was there teaching us how to march, stand at attention, do column rights, lefts, etc. for an hour or two.

We performed our duties before school, at noontime, and when classes let out in the afternoon. After putting on the uniforms and shouldering our signs, we marched to our posts under the direction of the sixth grade Sergeant in charge. When he saw groups of children waiting at the various crossings and found a break in the traffic he gave a short blast on his whistle signaling the rest of us to swing our signs around to face the auto traffic. When the kids were safely across, there were two loud blasts of the regulation, official, police whistle and we moved our signs smartly to a position blocking the sidewalk.

After a prescribed period of time when all but the very tardy students were safely on or off the school grounds, three whistles brought the squad together again and we marched back in precise formation.

Once a year, we participated in a military review and marching competition with all of the Berkeley schools. It was one of life's big thrills with music by the high school band, white pants, white shirts, black bow ties and a mirror shine on the shoes to go with our red sweaters and yellow caps. We practiced long and hard to be the best. But what I really remember was the individual competition to determine who would march out in front carrying the Jefferson Banner at the review.

Several weeks before the big day, we held a Drill-Down similar to a spelling bee. Our police officer instructor barked out commands - Right Face! Left Face! Forward March: Squad Halt! and watched to see who executed the moves correctly. Those who didn't were eliminated. After 30 or 40 minutes, 25 or 30 of the boys had fallen by the wayside. There were only two left! Little Charlie Callow, little Four-Eyes was still in it!! One boy to beat! Either Louie Warner or I would be carrying that Banner! But Louie won!

I don't recall being very upset at not winning. Perhaps I was relieved. Maybe I was scared to take on that awesome responsibility or maybe my feelings were submerged by Mother's reaction, which I remember so well. She came in second - not me! She made it quite clear that Warner won because his mother was president of the PTA and my mother wasn't even a member. Mother didn't believe in the PTA. In her mind it was a group of parents meddling in the teachers' affairs. Teachers were second only to God! And I had the feeling that she may have considered even that a close race.

The Playground

One of the greatest things about growing up in Berkeley was the wonderful program of activities conducted by the city's Department of Recreation. School playgrounds were open every day after school, on Saturdays, and during vacation periods. City parks were open every day including Sunday, and those with lighted playgrounds stayed open in the evening.

There was a playground director, usually a physical education major or postgraduate student from the University, in charge at each location. He passed out balls, bats, and other sports equipment and organized, supervised, and sometimes played in games with us. He was our coach in games against other playgrounds. He provided individual instruction and was, in general, a sort of father, brother, friend and confidant.

From almost as far back as I can remember, both Merrill and I made good use of these playgrounds. We rushed home from school, changed clothes and rushed back. As a little kid, it was to play on the rings or the traveling bars. I got to the point where I could skip two bars most of the time and sometimes three. But by the time we were big third or fourth graders, we were more interested in playing in the soccer, one or two handed touch football, or baseball games. The most popular baseball game in grammar school was played with what we called a little indoor baseball. It was about the same size as a regular baseball but the covering was made out of a suede type material and it had raised seams. We used mitts because it was a fairly hard ball. At least it was when new. Those seams had a way of splitting open after a while. Mother used to sew them up for us but I eventually learned how to do it myself and can recall reconditioning quite a few balls.

I won my first (there weren't a whole bunch after the first) athletic award as a fifth grader when I received my block J for Jefferson. At the time it seemed as big as a college letter. Mother sewed it on my baseball cap and I wore it everywhere. But the award was given merely for participating in playground activities for a certain number of days, weeks or whatever. Later on there was a cloth star to go with the J and upon graduation from the sixth grade, a certificate for Leadership in Playground Activities. Hot Damn!!

Although sports were my life as a boy and I tried just about everything that came along, I really was never very good at any of them. When they would choose sides for a game, I was often the last one chosen. I was the right fielder. It bothered me I guess but in general I was happy if I just got to play. That provided at least some degree of acceptance by the rest of the boys. Merrill on the other hand was usually one of the first to be chosen and strangely enough I don't think that bothered me. I seem to recall a feeling that somehow this helped me. If they took him they would have to notice that, Oh yeah, his brother is here too.

Football Games at Cal

I was seven or eight years old. Football season was here. It was Saturday and Cal was playing at home. By 9:30 a.m. or so, with a sack lunch in my hand, a sweater tied around my waist and my Boys Rooting Section pass in my pocket, I was off to the playground again. There I met the rest of the gang and with our playground director doing his best to keep us together, we set out on the three-mile hike up to the stadium. We got there in time to see at least the last half of the freshman or junior varsity preliminary game, yelled ourselves hoarse during the varsity encounter, and then reassembled for the walk back to Jefferson.

This was another wonderful activity sponsored by the recreation department and the University. I don't recall at what age we became ineligible for this freebie but there were lots of fun and exciting Saturdays.

Kiddie Matinees

Saturday afternoon, during the off-season when there were no football games, would often find us at the movies. A bunch of us would walk over to the Oaks Theater (Solano and The Alameda - about one mile from the house) for the kiddie matinee: 100 or 150 kids watching a double feature plus the all-important western serial. You had to be there each week to see if the good guys in the white hats were going to catch the outlaws. I think the afternoon cost us 15 cents. The movie was 10 cents and the big bag of Queen Anne Butterscotch Butter Balls was a nickel.

Music-Music-Music

When describing the McGee Ave. house, I forgot to mention that we had a piano. I believe that we acquired it from Grandma Callow around 1928 or 1929 when she moved from Caselli Ave. to Aunt Edith and Uncle Clarence Bolton's home on 16th Ave. in San Francisco. It was one of the old fashioned player pianos with foot pedals that you had to pump. We didn't have a lot of piano rolls but I do remember If I Had the Wings of an Angel-Over These Prison Walls I Would Fly – a sentimental little ballad for sure.

At some point in time, probably when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, Jean and I took piano lessons. We played a duet for one of our teacher's recitals once but I don't think we kept at the lessons very long.

We also had a Victrola as the phonographs of the time were known. No electrical connections, no batteries, just a handle on the side that was used to wind up the spring-operated motor. Favorite records then were Lucky, Lucky Lindbergh - The Eagle of the USA and a comedy thing by The Two Black Crows, whoever they were.

The Star – A part of Automotive and Callow Family History

In late 1927 or 1928 Mr. and Mrs. Trombley (our previously mentioned babysitter/housekeeper) came over to Berkeley and I had my first ride in one of the new Fords. That's what the now famous Model A Fords were called in those days. Not so well remembered are some of the other cars of that era – like Packard, Cord, Graham-Paige, Nash, Willis-Knight, Hupmobile, Essex, Studebaker and of course the Star. Even the most ardent antique automobile buff might not recall that one. But Jean, Merrill, and Charlie Callow remember it well. It was one of the machines (all automobiles were machines to Mother, Dad and Grandpa) made by the Durant Motor Company.  Grandpa Bayley bought the car sometime around 1925. Neither he nor my dad drove but Mother made up for both of them. I have no idea how many miles she may have put on that machine but in the eight or nine years before she gave or sold it to Uncle Preston, we traveled to more parts of Northern California than many people do in a lifetime.

Vacations and Other Travels

Placerville

The first vacation that I can remember was a week or two that we spent at Ed and Lucille Barnard’s dairy farm near Placerville. I believe that Ed had been a boyhood friend of my Dad's and according to some old postcards that I found among Mother's souvenirs, we were on this vacation in the summer of 1927. I was 5 ½ years old – just the right age to be excited about living on a farm. The house had been built from logs cut from the surrounding forests. They had no electricity as I recall and we got water from an old-fashioned pump with its long iron handle. It was fun following Mr. Barnard around. I learned that the brown cows were Guernseys and that the black and white ones were called Holsteins. He also showed me how to milk a cow – my one and only experience at this activity and not a very successful one. I decided to leave the milking to him. However, after he was done and had poured the warm milk into bottles, I did help him deliver it. We drove around Placerville in