Thoughts on a Rainy Day

By Robert Ross

ROBERT ROSS WAS BORN IN THE EARLY 20S IN SAN FRANCISCO IN THE COW HOLLOW DISTRICT WHICH IS NOW KNOWN AS THE MARINA DISTRICT HE SPENT HIS EARLY YEARS WITH HIS GOD PARENTS WHO RESIDED AT A NOTORIOUS GAMBLING HALL DURING THE PROHIBITION YEARS. AFTER SPENDING A YEAR IN THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORP HE JOINED THE MERCHANT MARINES AND SERVED IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR. AT THE END OF THE WAR HE MET AND MARRIED A LOVELY YOUNG WOMAN THEY HAD SIX CHILDREN TWO GIRLS AND FOUR BOYS. HE AND HIS WIFE MARCELLA SPENT FIFTY FIVE YEARS OF WEDDED BLISS UNTIL HER PASSING ON JULY 24TH 2000. HE BEGAN WRITING AFTER HER PASSING TO PASS AWAY THE LONELY HOURS. HE WROTE THREE OTHER BOOKS, HIS AUTOBIO A WESTERN AND A DRAMA THIS BOOK IS HIS REFLEXIONS ON HIS PAST LIFE AND TIMES. THERE HAS BEEN MANY CHANGES SINCE HIS CHILDHOOD WHICH HE REMENISCES ABOUT IN THIS BOOK.THIS IS HIS PERSONAL THOUGHTS OF HOW THE WORLD HAS CHANGED FOR THE BETTER OR THE WORSE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469118260

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Copyright © 2007 by Robert Ross.

ISBN:                        Hardcover                        978-1-4257-7001-3

ISBN:                        Softcover                          978-1-4257-6998-7

ISBN:                        Ebook                               978-1-4691-1826-0

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Contents

Preface

The Twenties

The Thirties

The Forties

The Fifties

The Sixties

The Seventies

The Eighties

The Nineties

The 2000s

Final Thoughts

Preface

As I sit here in my lonely room gazing at the heavy rain drops falling outside of my window and hearing the distant thunder, my thoughts drift back to the early years of my past life. The memories come fleeting into my mind of the past eighty years of my experiences. So much has changed of how we have progressed from my youth. I remember some of the times when I was a child being boarded out as my mother who was my only parent had to work to support us. I will begin my story in the era of the nineteen twenties. I will only use first names in most instances of the people I will mention in this book. I believe that I have enjoyed a bountiful and full life. As time winds down and the years dwindle away we seem to fall back on our past and reminisce of the most memorable times that we shared. I dedicate this book to those wonderful people that I had the pleasure to have known.

The Twenties

I remember when I was very young and I was living with Daisy and Nat in their large house on Greenwich Street in the Marina district of San Francisco. The house was a two storied building with a large ballroom and bar and a poker room on the main floor. Upstairs was the bedrooms and a large kitchen and spacious living room.

Daisy was a very devoted housewife and she spent her waking hours toiling in the kitchen cooking delicious meals for her family. In those days she had to cook on a wood burning stove, not like today’s electric or gas stoves. As I remember the kitchen was uncomfortably warm when the stove was burning. When we had finished our meal she would collect the dishes from the table and place them in a tub of hot water which she had boiled in a large kettle on the stove. She would proceed to wash and then dry the dishes and utensils with a large clean towel. Today we just place them in a dishwasher and let the machine do the dirty work. After completing the dishes she would bring out the ironing board to press some clothes from a wicker basket that she had brought in earlier from the porch where she had washed and scrubbed them in a sink with a washboard. She had then had to hang them outside on a clothes line that her son William had erected on the back porch. Today we have electric clothes washers and dryers. She had to heat the clothes iron on the stove and then press the clothes. This was a usual day in her life. In those days people just thought that it was natural for women to have to do those chores to keep a happy home life. Her husband Nat spent his late nights downstairs in the poker room overseeing the games. He would sleep most of the day as Daisy went about her daily chores. Some days I would join him at the table when he would have his meal after awakening from his sleep. I liked to hear him speak as he had a distinctive southern drawl and told some very funny jokes.

On weekends Nat would hold dances in the ball room and people from the Bay Area would crowd in to the establishment for a night of fun and dancing. There would be fine ladies dressed in their best gowns and men formally dressed with patent leather shoes, some wore Spats. There was a small Jazz Combo set up at the far end of the ballroom consisting of some of the local musicians. Many celebrities appearing at some of the theaters would attend these functions.

Daisy with my help would make the home brew for them to serve from the bar. She would cook up the brew and then bottle it and I would attach the caps to the bottles. Nat had a supply of bootleg whiskey and gin stored in a store room next to the dance hall. Nat’s nephew Bill would help out by serving the customers and keeping the peace in the place. Some times there would be fights and he would have to separate the combatants and eject them from the place. The fights were mostly over some woman. One night Stella who was Bill’s woman friend cut him on the shoulder over some jealous incident. He was brought up to the kitchen bleeding profusely and Daisy sat him down in a chair and stifled the bleeding and bandaged him. She always knew what to do.

Some days I would go into Daisy’s bed room and sit and stare out of the window at the corner grocery store across the street where Tony the owner of the store kept his horse and wagon. I would watch the people come and go into the store to make their purchases. When ever I had some money I would go to Tony’s to buy me some Eskimo Pies which I craved at that time. Tony was a heavy set jovial Italian who would let me pet his horse. Some days he would take me along with him to make some deliveries. I enjoyed riding with him in the wagon watching as he handled the horse so handily. Now we have Super Markets where we can purchase most anything we need. Back then if you needed meat you would have to go to a butcher shop. I recall when Daisy would send me to the butcher’s for meat she would tell me to ask the butcher for some bones and scraps for Newny her dog. The butcher would always give them to me for no charge and he would tender me either a hot dog or a slice of bologna. This can not happen today.

There was no such thing as a refrigerator or freezer to keep the food from spoiling. Daisy had what was called an ice box that held a large block of ice in the upper tier and the food on the lower tier. Twice a week a man who she called the Ice Man would deliver a large block of ice. He was usually a big strapping man wearing a large leather strap over his shoulder. If you wanted some ice for your drinks you would have to use an ice pick and chip the ice off of the block.

In that era most of the Dairy products you needed were delivered by the milkman. I remembered a delivery man bringing bread to our house several times a week. The Insurance man would come to the door to collect his premiums.

Today we have the internet to receive most of the necessities we need. We no longer have to stand in long lines at banks; we can visit the shopping Malls and find most anything we desire. Do we really appreciate the progress of the many improvements today from the past? I wonder.

Once a week Daisy would treat me to a movie. She loved going to the local theater on Union Street and I remember seeing a movie titled Ingagi. It was a very scary movie about a large gorilla terrorizing a family. After seeing that movie I would sometimes have nightmares about the gorilla stalking me. I would awaken in a sweat and be grateful that I was only dreaming. I remember seeing Charlie Chaplin in the Gold Rush where he was a starving vagrant and he took off his shoe and boiled it in a pot of boiling water and then proceeded to eat it. The memory of that episode stayed with me the rest of my life.

My mother would pay us frequent visits when she had the days off from her job. I missed her very much. I think of the Saturday nights when she attended the weekend dances and I sneaked down the stairs to peak at the people in the ballroom dancing and having a festive time. I saw my mother dancing with several men and enjoying her self. She was a very popular woman with the men. Later that night when she was preparing to leave she came up the stairs to wish me good night. She kissed me on the cheek and told me to behave myself and obey Daisy. When she left my room I sneaked down the stairs to watch as she entered somebody’s car and they drove off. I watched as the car disappeared in the distant and tears came into my eyes.

I think of when I went to stay with my sisters and Ernest. My oldest sister Ernestine who is ten years older than me was in charge of me and Helen who was six years my senior. Ernestine was a very devoted daughter to Ernest and did most of the house work and cooking. She was a very good cook. She was an accomplished pianist and I liked to sit listen to her play. She and Helen were very good to me. We attended Yerba Buena Grammar School at various times.

Helen was somewhat a tomboy and she had a temper. I remember her coming home from school one afternoon with some scratches on her face; Ernestine asked her what had happened? Helen responded that she and another girl had an argument and she had socked the girl and then they began to fight and scratch each other.

Ernestine would sit down with me at the kitchen table and show me how to make paper dolls and paste together miniature cars from paper. She would sometimes let me sit at her piano and play the Pianola rolls. I really enjoyed being with her as she seemed to care a lot for me. She would cook up a pot of fudge and the three of us would eat to our hearts content. Some times Helen would bake some cup cakes which I liked very much. It seemed like just as I was getting used to being with them my mother and Ernest would have a spat and she and I would leave. It was back to Daisy’s and Nat for me.

The Thirties

San Francisco elected a new Mayor and he brought in his administration that changed things as far as Nat was concerned. The new administration closed down the gambling houses and prostitution. The businesses had to go under ground to exist.

Nat sold his gambling palace and purchased a lovely three storied home on Buchanan and Union Streets. He also found a place to rent on Geary Street in the Fillmore District to operate his gambling business. It had a storefront where he installed tables and chairs to give the place a look of a social club. In the rear there were two rooms, one which he used for his after hours customers to purchase bootleg whiskey and gin. The other room was for playing poker. There was a side door to the building where the patrons could enter.

During the change over Daisy decided to acquire a job working for a noted lawyer family as a part time house keeper. She would take me with her and I would help her clean and dust their home. She would also do other domestic jobs for some other wealthy families. She was helping Nat while he was setting up his new business.

My mother had found a place for us to stay on Sutter Street with a gentle Panamanian woman with two daughters near my age, Beryl and Edna. Their mother like mine was a single mother raising two daughters. I took a fancy to Beryl who was the oldest and we would play together. One day I asked Beryl and Edna to follow me into the hall closet. I asked Beryl to take her panties down which she willingly did. I then didn’t know what to do as I was very naïve and so was she. I heard her mother walking down the hall and I whispered to the girls to hush. Later that day as we were sitting in the kitchen watching Mrs. Rodriguez cooking supper Edna tells her mother that Beryl had taken her panties down in front of me. I was astounded and flushed when her mother and mine looked at me. I stammered that Edna was lying. Beryl denied it also. Mrs Rod chastised Edna for lying and sent her to her room. I guess she didn’t want to believe such a story about her daughter. I felt a deep sigh of relief but I felt sorry about poor Edna. This was my first awareness of the difference of boys and girls in an affectionate way. I realized that there was a difference between the feelings of a male towards a female. I felt a sense of the need to be liked by Beryl. I believe that Edna was jealous of how I felt for her sister. Looking back now I guess she was my first crush.

I think back to my early school days. In junior high school I met some unforgettable school mates. There were many ethnic nationalities in my home room class. There were Jewish, Russian, Italian, African American, Scottish, Japanese and a girl who was born in Turkey. Our teacher called us the melting plot of the country. We were a close knit group of children. The girls always looked neat in their blouses and skirts not like today’s young school girls who now dress in mostly baggy jeans and loose tank tops. Back in those days the girls appeared more feminine than they do today. I am surprised how many young girls today get pregnant as they don’t really look that appealing. Pregnancy in the thirties amongst young school girls was a rarity. We would have our dates like going to the park or a theater and maybe do a little smooching but that would be the extent of our relations. I believe that we had a little more respect for ourselves than the youth of today. There are still some children who have the values passed on to them from their parents and grand parents. I believe that the movies that are depicting the schools of today are exaggerating how teen-agers are conducting themselves in schools and colleges. I realize that there are some incidents of intolerable behavior by some students which make it hard on others. We were no Saints but we did behave in a different way back then. Today we witness so much disrespect between children and their parents. Young people are having large families that they cannot afford to take care and feed properly. They depend on the tax payers to support their families Today they have birth control but it doesn’t seem to be working as planned.

My thoughts drift to the stock market crash of 1929 and then the Depression years of the thirties. There were bread lines where people lined up to get some food. Today we have the homeless problem. Fortunately my mother managed to have her job and Daisy and Nat were surviving as his gambling business still managed to thrive.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932 and he set out to end the Depression. He ended prohibition and created the NRA which stood for the NATIONAL RECOVERY ACT. New Jobs were created such as the Civilian Conservation Corp. that took young men off the streets and put them to work with the Forestry Units. Also there was the WPA which stood for WORKS PROJECT ADMINISTRATION. The country began to slowly get back on its feet.

My mother decided to send me back to live with Daisy when she moved in with her new boy friend Lloyd Evans. This happened shortly after Edna’s telling her mother about me and Beryl. Could that had been the reason for our leaving?

While staying with Daisy I met the Grant children, Warren and Donald and their two sisters Joyce and Althea. The two boys and I would hang out together and spend most of our time at the Funston Park playing pick up baseball with the boys from the neighborhood. We accumulated some very valuable knowledge of the rudiments of the game from an elderly ex ball player who was known as Spike Hennessey who spent much of his time teaching young boys the game. Some Saturdays when we had the money for the admission we would go to Seals Stadium to see the home team, the San Francisco Seals play. We witnessed some very good games in which we saw young Joe Di Maggio perform. He was the ultimate player who could hit with consistency and run the bases. He had a remarkable throwing arm. We saw him throw a runner out at home plate with a terrific throw from center field. He made deep fly balls to the outfield look like routine outs when they were tremendous clouts that many an outfielder never could retrieve. He made the catches look easy. We were also fortunate in those days to see Ted Williams play when he was a young up and coming star. There were numerous former major league players in the Coast League at that time who had played out their youth in the big leagues or who were sent down to the minor leagues for more seasoning. There were special Kids Days at the stadium when they gave out miniature baseball bats and balls to the attending children. We would buy Zee-Nut candy which contained a picture of a famous baseball player. We would collect them and sometimes trade them with each other. Baseball was different then. The gloves were not as large or supple as today’s are and the uniforms were quite different with having to wear baggy pants just below the knees. We didn’t know the first thing about wearing gloves or leg protectors and of course the wages were no where what they make today. Most players would have another job after the season. The media today is always coming up with who are the greatest ball players and I don’t believe that you can say who is greater or better in any era because there are so many great and talented athletes in our generations that there is no way to say one person is better, they were and are outstanding athletes.

I recall as I was walking up Sutter Street to visit with a friend I heard a steady roar from an engine overhead. I looked up into the sky and was surprised to see a large oblong balloon hovering so close so that I could see the captain clearly in the pilot cockpit staring down at me. I saw the letters GRAF ZEPPLIN on the side of the airship. I never forgot how awesome it felt to witness such an event.

In the thirties the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay Bridges were completed and the city celebrated the events. My then girl friend Anita and her brothers accompanied me walking across the Bay Bridge that eventful day with thousands of people feeling proud of the achievement.

My early teen age years were spent sometimes with Daisy and sometimes with my mother. My mother introduced me to a Mr. Lloyd Evans of who she was living with at the time. He was a very handsome young man somewhat younger than my mother but he responded to me with a hearty embrace and asked me to call him dad. We would spend many evenings together while my mother was at work listening to the music from a small radio. He seemed to know some of the singers and musicians and would relate some tales to me. We were living on Powell Street a few blocks from China Town.

We would take walks in summer afternoon through China Town and watch the butchers kill the chickens and pluck them so that the customers would receive fresh birds for their dinner tables. I was awed by some of the curio shops and their wares.

When I was getting used to living with Lloyd my mother left him and married a Mr. Khan an East Indian who resided in Berkeley. That marriage only lasted six months. She divorced him and found a nice two bedroom flat on Geary Blvd. in San Francisco.

I was enrolled at John W. Geary Grammar School where I became re acquainted with my childhood friend Merle. We were happy to see each other as we hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years.

On weekends I would stay at Daisy’s and meet with the Grant Brothers and the neighborhood kids. We would play stick ball and street hockey on the street in front of Daisy’s house. In those days there weren’t many automobiles and we could play in the street safely. Today this would be impossible. We had many places to spend our idle hours such community centers, large playgrounds where we could play touch football, tennis, shoot horse shoes and play checkers. Today there are not many places for our young children to spend their idle time. Maybe that is why we have so many problems with them. Today boys are chasing girls and vice versa. They spend too much time dwelling on sex in the school yards and they are deluged with the loud rock music of today which really is not actually music in the sense of the word. They have rock and roll which some bands are called heavy metal which could harm their ear drums. They also are into rap music and hip hop which isn’t really music. Today’s music and song writers do not have the talent of the early composers such as Rogers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, George and Ira Gershwin, Lerner and Lowe and Hoagie Carmichael who wrote Stardust an ever lasting song and there were many more, too many to name. We would go to the theaters or auditoriums and enjoy the wonderful tunes but today they have rock concerts where the people stand and yell and scream as the groups perform on the stage. There is too much drugs apparently at these functions and sometimes things get out of hand. We never had such events as Raves which today’s youth are participating in. In the seventies they had the