Carry Your Own Guitar: From Abandoned Child to Legendary Musician - the True Story of Bill Aken

By Bill Aken

Here we go, you think, another entertainers autobiography. WrongYou have never and will not ever find another story like Carry Your Own Guitar. How an abused, abandoned, 8 year old little white boy adopted by a beautiful Mexican woman who was working under an assumed name in Hollywood films, managed to be transported from a California barrio to the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York City, and survive an horrendous automobile accident after being read The Last Rites. This is only the border of the puzzle of Bills life. Fill in the middle with the part where he went on a fishing trip with Rick Nelson and married a beautiful blonde girl that he had only known for three daysA marriage that is still going strong after more than 50 years.

Next, find the pieces that fit the years Bill was a member of the elite L.A. recording studio band that played on hundreds of major hit songs in the 60s and 70s. Some guy named Elvis, used to call Bill, The Fixer because of his unique musical ability and insights. No stranger to trouble, the young guitarist almost ended up as a missing piece, when Bill made fun of a foreign dictator over the air on a San Diego radio station. He got put on the rulers international hit list. That could be one of the reasons Bills lifelong friends and members of Los Nomadas used to joke: Dont let em kill the white kid. But, the puzzles not done yet. So, youll have to read the book to see the whole picture. Hold onto your sombreros. Youre in for quite a ride Cant wait for the film version.

Holly Rose Garrett,
Front Row Lady Music BMI

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493164301

Book preview

Carry Your Own Guitar

From Abandoned Child to Legendary Musician - The True Story of Bill Aken

Bill Aken

Copyright © 2014 by Bill Aken.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4931-6429-5

                eBook            978-1-4931-6430-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 01/14/2014

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1:   Come With Me Niño

Chapter 2:   A Nickel And Change

Chapter 3:   Los Nómadas

Chapter 4:   They Don’t Speak French In Paris

Chapter 5:   Don’t Call Me Ricky

Chapter 6:   "Like Custer… They Never Saw Us Coming’

Chapter 7:   Living At 45-Rpm

Chapter 8:   Family, Friends, Fame, And Payola

Chapter 9:   Trip To The Big Apple

Chapter 10:   La Familia Es Para Siempre (The Family Is Forever)

Chapter 11:   "J Is For Juilliard’

Chapter 12:   One Step And 2,785 Miles From Home

Chapter 13:   No Self Pity Allowed

Chapter 14:   Everybody Has Hang-Ups

Chapter 15:   ‘Lightning Strikes’

Chapter 16:   Adios To The Fast Lane

Chapter 17:   He Was A Mean Dragon

Chapter 18:   Governors And Kings

Chapter 19:   ‘Long Beach Country’

Chapter 20:   Winding Down The Sixties

Chapter 21:   Moving To The Boondocks

Chapter 22:   Movers And Shakers

Chapter 23:   It Was A Time Of Turmoil…

Chapter 24:   Moving On

Chapter 25:   Going Home

EVERY BOOK MUST HAVE A DEDICATION, SO:

For my adoptive mother Lupe Mayorga, who took a broken little boy, gave him a shoulder to cry on, values to live by, and made him whole again… For my father Francisco ‘Frank’ Mayorga, who gave me the world of music…

For Grandfather Carlos Mayorga, who will ride forever across Heaven with Pancho Villa…

For Ozzie and Harriet Nelson simply for being themselves…

For ‘Los Nómadas’ . . . Chico Vasquez… ‘Mi Hermano,’ who had a love affair with the piano… . Jose Diaz (J.D.) Moreno… my second brother… whose drums were the beat of a generation… . Abel Padilla… my third brother… and Bass player like none other in the world…

For my ‘Soul Brother’ Charles ‘Del Shannon’ Westover… I pray you found peace…

For Eric Hilliard Rick Nelson… My Gentle Friend… We were so young, and we owned the world… And in the end, we paid for it with the tears of 1985 . . . .

For Elvis Presley, who would refer to me as ‘The Fixer,’ because of my guitar work, unaware that the nickname he gave me would follow me throughout my whole life and around the world…

For Holly Rose Garrett… For all her help with Minnie’s Memos… Gracias Senorita.

And most of all . . . To my loving wife Minnie, who lived it with me . . . and who kept after me for years to put this all down on paper . . . Te amare por siempre.

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CHAPTER 1

COME WITH ME NIÑO

MINNIE’S MEMO: There are many new and unexpected things my children are going to learn about their parents, when they read their father’s book. Much of it happened long before they were born. On some occasions, when their father would try to tell them a bit of family history, they would say, That’s nice, Dad, and rush out the door to be with their friends. So, kids, if you’re surprised now… . Don’t complain.

My personal memo for you is Your own children probably won’t pay attention to you either… . until they’re forty.

*     *     *

I’ve read a few rambling dissertations as written by various philosophers and pundits, who advance the supposition that your entire life is determined by destiny and will happen ‘As It Is Written’ in one great book or another, depending on their particular view of what is referred to as Fate. My loving and life-long partner, my wife Minnie, is a firm believer in this viewpoint of life. To her, whatever happens is ‘meant to be.’ This was also my mother’s belief. They could be right.

But as I grew older, I tended to agree with people who think of life as a path that your own choices allow you to deviate from. You travel this path from cradle to grave and I suppose, if you have to insist on technicalities, you could say that it would lead to where It was written that you will wind up. But just suppose that you choose to step off the path. One step to the right, or to the left, and your final destination will change. This is commonly referred to as What If? ‘What if you had enlisted in the army? What if you hadn’t? For some, these choices resulted in a much shorter path through life when young people went off to war and never came back. ‘What if some of these young people were traveling down the path to finding a cure for Cancer? Or Alzheimer’s? What If? Who the hell really knows?

I think of these choices as ‘Side Steps’ in life. One step to the right and you become a lawyer or some such professional guru, a step to the left and you’re a Rock and Roll musician… . Or a fry cook… . When you are very young, these steps are entirely out of your control. Other people called ‘parental units’ (an impersonal label created by today’s new brand of progressive thinkers) make these choices for you. The first choice for me was an arbitrary one, made by my biological half-breed Cherokee Indian mother in January of 1944. She was a very unhappy and bitter woman and she was almost totally devoid of any kindness towards her three children. In the movies, mothers hug their children… but she never did… Never! Never!

I remember my ‘punishment’ bedroom being a closet in which I would be locked into at night with a dirty gray colored blanket and old pillow. Any noise or disturbance that I would make before the door was unlocked in the morning would bring a loud verbal tirade and swift physically painful retribution. I learned to blend into the background and be as quiet as I possibly could in order to escape her attention. Especially when she had one of my numerous ‘Uncles’ staying overnight… I also learned to stay at least five feet out of her reach to avoid her fits of temper from inflicting their rage onto me. My two older sisters had both left home earlier, in search of an escape from whatever paths they were trapped in at the time, and we were not to be permanently re-united for many years to come. As a result of upcoming events in my life, my oldest sister Lillian and I would be estranged for more than thirty years.

The first major side step in my life that I can remember was an abrupt right turn that would make the remainder of my childhood much happier than it might ever have been and changed the course of my entire life. The woman who gave birth to me deposited me in the Office of Social Welfare in Madera, California and walked out. According to my two sisters, she had never legally married my biological father and was evidently unwilling or tired of trying to raise an eight-year-old bastard son on her own.

This action may have seemed to her as her only way out of her particular brand of misery. Or as my two sisters always maintained, (with no small amount of sarcasm and bitterness) simply dropping off the last of her excess baggage. The only other lasting memories I have of her are those of a sadistic and always angry woman who took her anger out on her three unhappy children. In retrospect, sometimes I think she was trapped in her own personal cycle of misery, but that was no excuse for child abuse.

The bulk of my memories of those early days have long been lost and forgotten with only a few exceptions. I do remember her burning my shoulder with a hot flat iron during one of her periodic rages. The theory that American-Indian children inherit a stoic genetic ability to never show emotion is pure ‘Hog-Wash.’ Then again maybe I just didn’t inherit the gene since I am only one-quarter Cherokee Indian. Even an eight-year old boy can reach a threshold where hatred causes every emotion to boil to the surface and self-defense becomes an instinctive reaction. I vividly recall the evening when I had finally had enough… . I screamed as loud as I could that if she ever came near me again, I would cut her throat while she was asleep.

The next morning all the kitchen knives had disappeared and it was on that very same day in January of 1944 that she dumped me in the California State Social Welfare office in Madera, California and disappeared from my life. This ‘barbaric’ (Judge Ramone Garcia’s word) treatment, although quite painful, once brought out into the light of day was actually of great benefit to me in the long run. It gave the judge a legitimate reason to declare my home life unsafe for me. (Which placed my adoption under the guidelines set forth by the federal government in 1944.) The federal policy stated that if a child’s home was proven unsafe, the preferred alternative was immediate adoption by another family. This federal guideline also gave Judge Garcia the authority to prohibit her from ever having any contact with me after I was adopted.

My very first pleasant memory is that of a beautiful Mexican woman in that very same welfare office who put her hand on my shoulder, asked if I was hungry, and brought me a sandwich that I believe came from her own lunch. After several hours I fell asleep on the bench and awoke to find that she had covered me up with her own jacket to keep me warm. Although I didn’t know it at the time this was the woman I would call ‘Mother’ for the rest of my life… and hers.

Lupe Mayorga was a part-time movie actress/singer and a full-time welfare worker for the State Of California. As there were no available facilities open to take in a young boy on a late Friday afternoon, she decided to temporarily take me home for the weekend with her. I can still vividly recall that cold winter afternoon when the office was closing, she took my hand, smiled and said, Come with me Niño (child). And she took me home with her. In today’s day and age, this would never have been allowed. But to my lasting benefit, in the small California towns of 1944, it was a totally different and much more innocent kind of world. ‘One giant side step.’

Her husband, Francisco ‘Frank’ Mayorga was a classical guitarist and music teacher at the Madera Union High School. I have no clue whatsoever as to just how he reacted to the addition of a scrawny, malnourished, eight-year old Caucasian boy the night Mother brought me into their home. I was much in need of a bath, which was the first order of business before sitting down to supper. There must have been a private discussion of some sort that I was never privy to. All Dad knew about me, was that I was a raggedy-assed little white boy that had been suddenly dropped into his life with a note that only gave my name and age. I spoke no Spanish whatsoever, totally distrusted the entire world, and ate like there was not going to be another meal to be had tomorrow. (Which there usually wasn’t.)

Initially I was somewhat afraid of this big brown giant of a man, but that fear quickly subsided under the calming effect of his surprisingly gentle voice. Prior to then I had no male role model in my life whatsoever. My temporary ‘Uncles’ had never paid any attention to me at all and I had no clue as to what to expect from this Mexican man who would become my father in the not too distant future. In my childhood insecurity, I was sure that Mother taking me home with her was just a temporary layover like a ‘whistle stop’ and I was prepared to keep my guard up to avoid being hurt any further.

I had absolutely no idea whatsoever that the moment I walked out of the welfare office with Mother, I was on my way to a brand new life. I was simply resigned to going wherever I was told to go, and avoiding punishment from strangers by doing whatever I was told to do. I was unaware that I was leaving a life of abuse, hunger, and poverty far behind me as I followed her out of the office door.

The table I was eating my first supper at with Mom and Dad was a huge Spanish style oak table and I could barely reach my plate. Then with a smile, Dad lifted me right up out of the chair and slid a stack of magazines underneath me to sit on. This was my very first encounter with three brand new life encounters; having meals together as a family, saying grace before meals, and Mother’s homemade tortillas. Having never seen a tortilla in my young life I was unsure what to do with it. Dad held up his tortilla, smiled at me and broke his tortilla into four pieces. Then he dipped it into his beans, saying Like this. This was my first introduction into the culture that would become such a predominant part of my makeup and heritage. And at that precise moment I knew that I had absolutely nothing at all to fear from him. When I grew older with a family of my own, Dad would sometimes smile and joke with me in one of those ‘Father to Son’ personal talks; We had to take you that year since they were all out of puppies.

The gentle smile that Mother gave me turned my entire life around in a heartbeat the very first night that she took me home. I had never before known a woman who never screamed at me and never raised her hand in anger towards me. The first gentle hug and kiss she gave me that night as she tucked me into bed on their fold-out sofa won me over completely. Circumstances that I knew nothing about at the time caused my temporary weekend to become days; days became weeks and then months.

I was totally unaware that Mom and Dad had very quietly arranged to be my foster parents for the first eleven months that I was with them. During that first eleven months, every morning was one of childish insecurity and the nagging uneasiness that comes from not knowing what the future held in store. I only knew that for the moment I was safe and protected. Mother later told me the reason they hadn’t told me was that they didn’t want to get my hopes up while they were still trying to adopt me.

There had initially seemed to be insurmountable barriers to the inter-racial adoption but if my mother was anything, she was tenacious. Since she worked within the system, she knew how to make the system work for her. With Dad’s backing and moral support, she overcame the objections and prejudices that stood in the way and this would finally result in victory.

Then in November of 1944, The Great State of California gave its official consent to Francisco (Frank) and Lupe Mayorga becoming my adoptive parents and legal guardians. I don’t know for sure exactly when Mom and Dad decided they wanted to keep me, although Aunt Marisa later told me that Mother had decided this the moment she took my hand to take me home with her. The adoption was done in spite of the objections of my oldest sister Lillian, who I later learned from Uncle Benito, threw a royal tantrum. The only part of the ‘sibling’ fuss she made that I witnessed was during the final three-hour court hearing in November of 1944.

In later years, Uncle Benito would fill me in on most of the details of the adoption that I was not aware of. The judge compromised with Lillian, telling her that since she was only 16 years old and in no way able to take care of me, she should basically ‘butt-out.’ But he satisfied her request, with Mother’s consent, for me to retain my real last name. But Mother then insisted that ‘Mayorga’ should be added as part of my middle name and Judge Garcia ordered it done. By doing this, Mother created a familial bond for me with the rest of the family and gave me immediate recognition and acceptance as one of its members. This also gave me a genuine Mexican style name William Earl Mayorga de Aken, which indicated both of my family lineages, as was the custom with some families in Old Mexico.

Mother told my sisters, that they were both still a major part of my family and they would always be welcome to come visit me anytime. Knowing my mother the way I do now, I firmly believe that if the girls had also been young children, Mom and Dad would have taken us all in. This seemed to satisfy the misgivings of my sister Joy, but Lillian remained belligerent and skeptical. Joy (She always preferred to be called Jo) always maintained that Lillian had some underlying ingrained racism and that might have been the cause of her animosity towards my mother. Her animosity would be the major cause of a decades-long chasm between us that would never be fully resolved.

But Lillian would tell me, decades later, that as a child she had also had major problems at home. I think this helped to shape her cynical attitude and mistrust of most people in general. But I still don’t, and never will condone that as a reason for racial prejudice of any kind. Some years later Jo would tell me that she personally had come to the conclusion that adoption by a Mexican couple was much more preferable than my being sent to one of the California State juvenile institutions. In the 1940’s those institutions were nothing more than dumping grounds for unwanted children where they were herded together like cattle until they were old enough to be put out on the street. Jo made her opinion quite clear to the court in a written statement. I had no voice in the matter at all until the day of the court hearing when Judge Garcia talked to me in the privacy of his ‘Chambers.’

Although I didn’t know it at the time, the adoption had posed an unusual and difficult problem for Judge Garcia and the California legal system. Inter-racial adoptions were virtually unheard of and regarded as strictly ‘taboo’ by most of American society. In some states they were totally unlawful and subject to severe social penalties. But in small towns, things have a way of working themselves out. The adoption was quietly given the State of California’s seal of approval by that very same judge. He also took into account the fact that both Mom and Dad were employed. Mother was also a state employee as well as one of Madera’s local celebrities, being a recognized Mexican film actress, so there would be security and a stable home life for me. (Thank the good Lord for political connections.) And the fact that I had Cherokee Indian bloodline in my lineage helped in a small way to circumvent the racial problems of my adoption.

As Mother once said while explaining adoption to me, You were waiting for us and we were looking for you and now we are a ‘familia.’ And that’s how God does things. I had a real home for the first time in my life. I remember so well, the very first time that I instinctively called her ‘Mother.’ I received what could have well been the biggest and longest hug the world had ever seen. For the very first time my life was one of having enough to eat, clean sheets on my bed, pajamas to wear to bed, and someone to tuck me in at night after I said my prayers. What had previously been Mother’s sewing and storage room underwent a total makeover with the addition of brand new child-size furniture and my very own bed.

I would no longer have any fear of waking up in the morning and stepping out through my ‘always unlocked’ bedroom door. Norman Rockwell could not have painted a happier picture of a young boy rescued from abject misery. Uncle Benito would often smile and say; You’re lucky that the judge was one of your father’s friends. And I can still remember Aunt Marisa nodding in agreement and adding, God’s hand touched your life.

I later learned that Judge Garcia’s son Joseph was a professional friend of Dad’s, doing many radio and movie ‘gigs’ with him. Joseph played guitar and sang with Dad and Luis Santos in a vocal trio that did Mexican and American films, radio programs, and records. One of these films was one that Mother had a major role in and sang two songs. The trio was called The Guadalajara Trio and their background was kept shrouded in mystery with stage names and fabricated details by their agent to hide the fact that they were not from Mexico at all. Dad was an American, born in the Bronx borough of New York City, while Joe and Luis were from California’s San Joaquin Valley. Even today, many of these same fabricated stage names and details are accepted as actual historical truths by some researchers. The agency’s publicity ‘hucksters’ had done their job well. In later years I would become well acquainted with their methods of putting a ‘spin’ on my own background.

My childhood became one of mandatory elementary school attendance, which up to that time had been random at best. I was barely able to read and write my own name until Mother started to oversee my education. I was introduced to Sunday Mass at the Catholic Church, which was also mandatory. Although, according to my sister Jo, I had supposedly been baptized as a Catholic while still an infant, Mother was taking no chances and had me baptized again.

When I was nine years old, the Nuns seemed to be fearsome creatures that seldom smiled, and did not take kindly to little boys making any disturbances or whispering in church. The priest’s Latin droning was an even stranger language to me than Spanish (which I eventually came to understand to some degree). I recall one Sunday Mass when I whispered to Mom, I can’t understand what the priest is saying, and she whispered back ‘Neither can I… . Now Shhhhhhhh. Suffice it to say that I never developed any ambitions to be an altar boy, but the belief in God that was instilled in me by my devout Mexican mother would be an ever-present influence on my entire life.

In later years, other musicians and people I worked with would ask me what life was like for a white boy to be raised by Mexican parents. I always considered this to be a stupid question and really none of their damn business. As far as I know, there was very little difference from that of any other family. People are people regardless of race and my mother had no tolerance whatsoever for prejudice of any kind. She took great pains to impart these beliefs to me and in the future with the help of my wife; I would likewise pass this same ‘credo’ on to my own children. My wife Minnie would later teach our children that The world was God’s garden filled with many flowers of different colors. In later years, I would be surprised by Elvis Presley’s complacent attitude towards my Mexican heritage. Even though he was from ‘The South,’ where racial prejudice was an everyday occurrence, he never once cast any aspersions on my parentage in the way that others would sometimes do when they thought that I was out of earshot.

I believe the main difference in the way my parents raised me lies in the fact that children in most Mexican families with traditional views are made to feel safe and secure within a fixed family routine. You are always aware of what is expected of you as a member of the family and the ‘Familia’ is your permanent place in the world. Of course, I can only speak from my own experience. I was very fortunate and blessed to grow up in the kind of atmosphere that gives a child a sense of self-worth and confidence in their own abilities.

As Harriet Nelson once told me, God was surely watching over you when he sent your mother to you, and added with her own brand of humor And I’m still not sure that you deserved her. I also remember when I was older and wiser, my Aunt Marisa once saying to me, A mother is not always the woman who gives birth to you, but is the woman who gives you a mother’s love for all of her life. One of the biggest blessings of my childhood was that I soon forgot that I was adopted. My new mother was and always will be ‘My Real Mother.’ Case closed…

Like almost every child has experienced, there was the dreaded ‘Report Card’ day that promised foreboding doom if you got any D’s or the dreaded ‘F’ that I once brought home. (From an elective high school class in contract law) Most weekends were spent in bringing my scanty education up to the level of other children of my age. If Mother had chosen to be a schoolteacher, I feel she would have been very successful at it. In less than two years I was reading and comprehending close to a Junior High School level.

But my new life was not all study and religion. There would be plenty of weekend baseball games, fishing, horseback riding, and other activities with my parents that gave me a normal childhood. Even watering and weeding the large garden patch we had on Uncle Benito’s farm was a ‘family affair.’ There were holidays such as Day of the Dead, (actually 2 days, one for adults and one for children), Cinco de Mayo (which is not a real holiday in Mexico), the original Mexican Independence Day on September 16th, and others which were only celebrated in the Mexican community.

And contrary to some misguided popular conceptions, laziness was not an accepted virtue. The stereotype of the lazy Mexican loafing in a hammock is the figment of some idiot’s imagination and is personally degrading to me. Each family member was expected to do their very best, carry their weight, and bring no dishonor to the family. Lying to your parents was a sin and rudeness was not to be tolerated. (A trait that is sadly often lacking in the family traditions of this day and age.) And, if you gave your word of honor, that was never to be taken lightly and handshakes were ironclad promises (which I learned later on, did not really hold much weight in Hollywood).

In 1945, there was a war still being waged overseas, and I wasn’t really sure as to just what a war really was. I was aware that there seemed to be more women than men in Madera, but I was simply too busy learning what family love and a child’s happiness were to pay much attention to outside events. As a schoolteacher and local air-raid warden, Dad’s occupation was considered to be ‘necessary to the war effort’ and so he was never drafted into the military. Then again, at the age of 46, the odds of him being ‘called up’ were exceedingly slim. (And we never once saw a Japanese airplane fly over Madera during the war.) I knew there were certain items that were in short supply and were being rationed. People would say they would be able to buy a new car when the war was over and they started making them again.

There was news on the radio, but to me, never as interesting as ‘The Edgar Bergen Show with Charlie McCarthy.’ The animated film ‘Pinocchio’ was the movie that was a ‘must-see’ for all the kids, and The Bells of St. Mary’s was Mother’s new favorite movie. That would be replaced in 1956 by ‘The Ten Commandments’ in which Mother had a small part as an Egyptian girl. The war would end that year and everybody celebrated the victory over Germany, and then Japan. Dad was saddened by the loss of Glen Miller the orchestra leader, whose airplane vanished over the English Channel and there were numerous musical tributes to him on the radio.

I recall people driving through Madera who would stop to visit Mom and Dad. Since our house was basically at the halfway point between Northern and Southern California it was somewhat of a ‘rest stop’ for traveling musicians. At the time, names like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lionel Hampton, and Tommy Dorsey meant nothing to me at all… sometimes they would arrive in colorful (though often in need of a wash) ‘band’ buses that they would park in front of our house. They would all sit down to some of Mother’s home cooking and talk about ‘grown-up’ topics for hours.

Sometimes our house would reverberate with impromptu jam sessions that would often go on for hours. Father could always be counted on to pick up his guitar and join in. I would sit quietly on the couch listening to the music and absorbing the jargon of the musicians. When it came time for me to go to bed I would say goodnight to the adults, crawl into bed and then drop off to sleep, lulled by the jazz rhythms of the music emanating from the living room. I was traveling through my childhood surrounded by a unique world of rhythm and music made by musicians who, although mostly unknown to me, were famous people in their own right.

Benny Goodman taught me a few neat riffs on the saxophone, which I was struggling to learn without obliterating the hearing of those around me. I surely must have given my elementary school music teacher a sense of despair at my tremendous lack of talent on this instrument, but Dad never said a word to disparage my genuine lack of affinity to the saxophone. One of my elementary school music teachers, in infinite wisdom, would later switch me to the clarinet, which I would become quite good at. Because of my fragile stature the lighter weight of the clarinet made all the difference to me. One of the first songs I would master on the clarinet was Benny Goodman’s classic Memories of You.

I remember the first time that I met Tommy Dorsey; I whispered to my dad that Mr. Dorsey had bad breath. And I was immediately ‘shushed.’ But Dad had a smile on his face that said he agreed with me. Tommy and Dad had once worked together in the 1944 movie Broadway Rhythm. These famous musicians of my youth never considered me to be anything except ‘Frank and Lupe’s kid’ with no questions asked.

I later learned that in his youth, Dad had been a professional jazz musician in New York City and had worked with a host of big-time bands, including Ozzie Nelson’s orchestra. He had also done movie work, mainly in Mexican movies, with a few parts in American cowboy movies with Johnny Mack Brown, Duncan Renaldo (The Cisco Kid), and Roy Rogers. Mother, who had a beautiful singing voice, had done a few short musical videos for a Mexican film company in the 1930’s. In 1925, Mother had also appeared in a few silent movies that only required her to look beautiful with a minimum of acting.

Mother would eventually appear in over thirty-one movies and television shows until she retired in 1957. One of the early films was in a 1945 Cisco Kid movie with Duncan Rinaldo, South of the Rio Grande, in which my father appeared also. But Mom never really got serious about or cared much for the entertainment business at all. She considered it as just a way to bring in extra income for the family when the opportunity arose. Later on when I was in High School and beginning to follow in my father’s footsteps, she would insist that my schooling take precedent over any musical endeavors.

Occasionally, Dad would be called upon to make a trip to Los Angeles for a record date with one of the big bands or a jazz group, but I had no idea whatsoever as to what a ‘record date’ was. To me it just meant that we had a little bit of extra money for the family. When he returned from those trips, he always brought me a small paper bag filled with ‘La Moderna Surtidos’ (Mexican cookies) that are still my favorite to this day. He would often be called to do instrumental and arrangement work on various movie soundtracks in films like Walt Disney’s animated film ‘The Three Caballeros’ and the Gene Kelly—Frank Sinatra film of ‘Anchors Aweigh.’

In many of those films like ‘Broadway Rhythm’ and the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movie ‘My Friend Irma Goes West,’ Father never received any screen credit for his contributions until years later. I am glad to see that most film historians have finally corrected most of those omissions. But he was, as I learned to be, content to take the money and leave the ‘hoop-la’ to someone else. Now and then a record would be played on the radio and Mother would say, Your father played on that one. The same thing my wife would say to our children years later. During the war years, some Mexican musicians and actors would start to gain a respectable foothold in the movies as many of the other professionals had enlisted in the military or had been drafted and sent overseas.

Sometimes Mother would be gone to Hollywood for a few days at a time and Dad explained that she was working at a studio. I had no inkling at all as just what a ‘studio’ was or how involved she was in the movies until I was about eleven years old. That was when my parents took me with them to the Hollywood premier of ‘Forever Amber’ in 1947 in which she played the part of Catherine, Queen of England. I do remember my great surprise at being told that I was to wear my ‘Sunday Church Suit’ in order to attend the premier with them.

Ah, the radio… the big magic box that stood in the corner ready to transport you away to countless imaginary adventures simply by the twist of the dial. I believe it was a Westinghouse, or possibly a G.E., and there was an antenna in the back you would rotate to bring a station in clearer. There were quite a few all-female radio stations, since most of the male announcers had been drafted into the armed forces. Women who had been ham radio operators were quickly trained to be radio engineers and they kept the stations on the air throughout the war.

One small local station in Fresno played Mexican music and that spot on the dial was marked so it could be found easily for Grandmother Reyes who occasionally came to visit us from Mexico and supposedly spoke very little English. She spoke enough English to say, on her first look at me… You are too thin, or something to that effect. Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, and other radio programs were welcome diversions to grownups that were weary of war. And every month, there was the music magazine ‘Downbeat,’ that came to the house for Dad, which he would read from cover to cover.

Madera was a predominantly agricultural community, whose population would be bolstered at harvest time by migrant workers and their families. Mainly hard working, god-fearing people who were sorely under-paid, but whose labor was appreciated in ways we have forgotten today. The townsfolk did not discriminate against these people, and some of them would return year after year to the same farms, knowing they would be treated with the respect due to hard working people. In many cases some of the local farmers were as poor as the workers they hired and it would be hard to tell them apart if you had to. My Uncle John in Madera still owns his mother’s old family farm, but today the land is worth a hundred times what it was then.

I believe the small town farmers knew they could never make a living without migrant laborers to help them make it thru the year. It was a good atmosphere for a young boy to grow up in, though in later years I was totally unprepared for the racial prejudice I would encounter as the Caucasian son of a Mexican couple, and the prejudice that was running rampant all over the television news. I do remember how, during rainy periods when the migrant workers were unable to work in the fields, Mother and some of the other women in town would gather a supply of sandwiches, milk, and other food to tide the workers over until the rains quit and they could go back to work. Even hot coffee, which was poured into small metal Milk cans for transport. I was often drafted to help load the cars that would deliver the necessities to the migrant camps. If anybody in the world ever positively found the right niche in God’s scheme of things, it was when my mother became a social worker.

I have always been deeply disappointed by the fact that I have very few pictures of my youth in Madera. Most were lost in an old photo album that was left in a box on my uncle’s back porch for over thirty years until practically all of the old photos emulsified beyond recovery. In 1968, my wife Minnie and I sat in Uncle Benito’s living room, not more than thirty feet from the box with the photo album in it and we were totally unaware of its existence.

One of the pictures that survived was taken when I was eight years old and riding on Dad’s horse ‘Chief.’ I was never allowed on Mother’s spirited sorrel stallion ‘Lancer’ unless she was in the saddle with me. Mother was the real equestrian in the family as she had grown up around horses in Mexico. My father once loaned ‘Chief’ to Roy Rogers for the old cowboy movie ‘Hands Across The Border and I still have a faded film shot of the occasion. My sister Lillian had some old photos of me in her possession, including one of me in overalls leaning against a tree and playing my newly purchased harmonica. Lillian would give the old photos to my wife decades later.

My twelfth birthday was the ‘magic’ one. Becoming my father’s ‘Shadow,’ I had been pestering him to teach me how to play the guitar. On that birthday he brought home a junior sized guitar that he had found in some pawnshop or music store. This event became the second big side step in my life although I didn’t know it at the time. During the previous four years, the change in my personality was as radical as day and night. I was no longer the frightened and broken little boy that Mother had taken home in 1944.

Like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar I had become a typical twelve-year-old child who was secure in knowing that he was loved and protected. I was eager to emulate my father and his love for music. But the guitar sat in the corner, until I had mastered the great mystery of the written sheet of music. It was no doubt the cheapest guitar he could find, as he was not inclined to spend money on another instrument for which I might also have had no great talent.

Learning the notes, time signatures, staff, sharps, flats, etc, was a mandatory prerequisite. Dad believed that If you can’t read music, your ability will be imprisoned in a box of your own making. He was determined to make sure that I never suffered from a lack of musical knowledge. There were also hand and finger exercises, which at the time I considered a total bore, but were designed to give me strength, speed, and agility. Try squeezing two tennis balls, one in each hand, for 30 minutes and you will soon see what I mean about boredom. When I begged my father to teach me to play the guitar I had no idea whatsoever just how much hard work I was letting myself in for.

But in later years, when I was auditioning before the faculty of The Julliard School of Music in New York City, as a prospective student, I would appreciate the abilities that had been thrust upon me. To tell the truth, I was not all that keen on practicing, and Mom always seemed to know when my interest was flagging, as she would say, That’s enough, go outside and play with your friends. Baseball games, ‘skinny-dipping’ in the irrigation canals, games of kick the can, and movies with my friends would always win out over guitar or saxophone practice. Not until much later did I become really serious, when I discovered that playing guitar was a great way to meet girls.

On Saturday afternoons, Johnny Palameras, (my best friend who lived next door), and I would sneak in thru the back door at the old Rex Theatre to see the latest Mexican cowboy movies that were playing there. The music in the films would have been strange and unfamiliar to kids who went to see Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and Gene Autry, but I instinctively learned the rhythms that would stand me in good stead in the coming years. At the time I was unaware that the owner of the theatre was a good friend of Dad’s and knew exactly what Johnny and I were doing, but never said a word. Looking back, I think I might possible owe him a small fortune in theatre tickets.

Johnny and I were as close as brothers during our childhood years and we both got caught trying to shoplift comic books from the local dime store. Our two respective fathers whipped our respective butts and nipped our criminal careers in the bud. When my father questioned me, I told him the truth about the whole escapade so my spanking wasn’t near as severe as it should have been. He told me that day that telling the truth literally ‘saved my ass,’ and then said, I hate liars worse than thieves because you can always lock things away from a thief, but nothing is safe from a liar. Mother’s voicing of her disappointment in me was a much more severe punishment than any spanking could ever be.

Fifty years later, my wife and I ran into Johnny in Las Vegas. He was standing in the middle of the Greyhound Bus Depot, talking to somebody else and they mentioned Madera. We spent the next hour laughing over the dumb things we used to do when we were kids. Johnny filled my wife in on some of our really stupid childhood antics, which I had neglected to tell her about; like playing in the rain while wearing our Sunday church clothes and gleefully pelting each other with mud, to the dismay of both of our mothers. In defense of that, I still maintain that the events had totally slipped my memory. It was a chance happy reunion of two-boyhood friends that could only happen once in a lifetime.

Small things about Madera add up into a collage of large happy memories. There was the cage of monkeys at the Madera City Park that never failed to delight the children; though I have no idea as to how happy the monkeys really were, living in a cage. There were many Sunday afternoons when we dined after church at the Fruit Basket Restaurant, which was owned by two of Mother’s friends. This was another long cherished memory, although in retrospect, the restaurant was much smaller than it seemed to be when I was young. The new ‘Fruit Basket’ restaurant that was built in 2004 to replace the old one had none of the nostalgic grace, charm, or aging beauty of the original. Then sadly a piece of my childhood disappeared forever in 2007 as the restaurant went out of business.

Along the highway that ran through the middle of town, there were countless trees lined up like soldiers on parade. I still remember as a young boy, when it rained, how a myriad of puddles would form in a row on the highway with raindrops making random patterns in them. It was a boyish pleasure to ‘slosh’ through a few of them on my way home from the grocery store. Sadly now, those beautiful old trees are gone and their majestic quiet parade along the highway has been replaced by modern apartment buildings that have none of ‘Nature’s Soul.’ My elderly Uncle John often comments, You won’t know the town anymore.

Even the grassy area across the street from the school where we gathered to smoke cigarettes at lunch break as teenagers, evoked memories of young friends who, like myself, were all trying to look Hip. Nobody in our group had even heard of cancer, let along the cigarette’s connection to it. Mom objected to the tobacco smell on my clothes, but there was no inkling of any kind of health hazard. She did maintain that breathing in anything but God’s good clean air could not be beneficial to anybody’s health. My main regret is that I didn’t heed her wisdom. The main reasons that we were not allowed to smoke on the school grounds were that cigarettes could be a fire hazard, not to mention cigarette butts on the ground. My father smoked Lucky Strikes, so naturally, I smoked the same. Even Grandmother Reyes smoked small brown cigarillos that she brought with her from Mexico and smelled much worse than Lucky Strikes. Now and then I would ‘borrow’ a few from her. (Without her knowledge… . or so I thought.)

A trip my wife and I made to go back and visit Madera in 1966 was somewhat disappointing, with the change of ownership at the restaurant, and the empty monkey cage across the highway in the park. The day we went back, I recall it was a gloomy, rainy day, which made the attempt to recapture past memories a bit futile. I had wanted to show my children the places where their father had learned ‘happiness’ as a child. But to them it was just another small town with nothing special in it for them. It was cold and wet, and they were eager to return to Los Angeles. In later years some of my children would become interested in the heritage they had been handed down. But I am sure that at the time, they were too young to be interested in my efforts at showing them my childhood.

We stopped to visit family, friends, and my sister’s husband’s brother John, where we left a few copies of our latest record. I played a bit of a Mexican guitar duet with Dad and my Uncle Benito, who was not overly impressed with rock and roll or country music, and said so in no uncertain terms. But Uncle Benito thoroughly approved of my wife Minnie, and wondered aloud, how in the world I had ever managed to marry such a beautiful woman. To which Aunt Marisa replied He has always been watched over by Saint Catherine (Whom the Catholic Church regards as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers). Mom was always convinced that Minnie and I were destined to be brought together, and nobody else would have been a match for either one of us.

At sixty-seven years of age, my father was beginning to show small signs of the Alzheimer’s disease that would take him from us in 1974. But he was still the gentle, caring, and soft-spoken giant of my youth who always made me feel safe and protected in his presence. At sixty-three, Mother still had the radiance that was reminiscent of the youthful beauty that comes through in the old movies she made. But in her senior years, she