Cord in the Kitchen: Adventures of a Thirteen Year Old Adolescent

By Malio Valente

This story is about a thirteen-year-old boy who finds himself living with a family of people who are half Native American and half European. The boy had been abandoned by his birth parents, and he had become a member of Oregons Foster Care System. He has difficulty adjusting to his life in foster care and almost finds himself being sent to reform school, but his best friend ever, Kenny Proud-foot Schneider, saves him from being sent to reform school.

Frankie Martin follows his nose and his heart, and with the help of God and his guardian angel, he finds himself working at a reform school as a mechanical drawing teacher, where he discovers a startling fact about himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499071382

Malio Valente

Malio Valente was born in Oakland, California and spent his formative years in the Pacific North West United States, in Oregon and Washington. He is a graduate of the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. He worked in the electronics industry for thirty years and spent the final sixteen years of his work history as a middle school math/science teacher. He retired from a middle school teaching career in 2009. Today he lives in Northern California where he enjoys his retirement, cooking and writing.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It was early March, a typical, dreary, overcast morning, in the little town on the Oregon Coast and I was getting ready to go to school.

It was 1957 and few people owned their own T.V. The Internet hadn’t been thought of and if you wanted to make a telephone call you made one from a black rotary phone, connected to a cord in the kitchen. No touch tone, no speed dial; nothing wireless.

Someone had just walked into my home. It was 8:00 a.m. and standing in the front doorway was a strange looking man. He was middle aged, his eyes were beady, he had a flat nose, as you would expect to see on a professional fighter and he was dressed in a cheap brown suit that hung loosely on his slightly overweight body. He was hatless, he wore his hair in a comb over on his partially bald head, and he had a Lucky Strike cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. I could see the package in his shirt pocket.

I was 13 and my Life was about to change forever. I had come into this world in 1942, in Oakland, California, and had lived happily with my father since. That was about to change.

Get your things you’re coming with me! said the ugly man standing there in the middle of the living room with a disgusted look on his face. His suit was slightly wrinkled and in need of cleaning …Who are you? I asked. I am Ned Scarponi! He said. You’re coming with me and you’ve got ten minutes, now git dressed! I thought about my situation. There was no plumbing nor was the house wired for electricity. The drinking water came from a pump located outside, next to the front porch, my food had been purchased at a local Mom & Pop, on credit, and lately Mom & Pop had been asking me when I would be making a payment on the food bill. The house was heated by a wood stove in the kitchen but there wasn’t any wood to burn. Any standing water was usually frozen the next morning, including liquids in a ten gallon can on the floor in the room that was supposed to be the bathroom. I was scared! I didn’t trust this stranger who called himself Scarponi.

I wasn’t dressed for school yet but decided to make a run for it! I sprinted for the back door of the house, as fast as I could run, but Scarponi was surprisingly quick for a slightly overweight, middle aged man, and as graceful as an antelope. He had me before I could open the backdoor, grabbing me just above my elbow, on my right arm.

Where do you think you’re going son. Did you really think I was just gonna let you take off like that? I stood there halfway up on my toes. Scarponi was holding my right arm tightly, in a death grip, high above my shoulder. Are you gonna cooperate with me son? Scarponi glared at me as I stood helplessly in his grasp. I didn’t know what to do or say. I was terrified! What was this ugly man trying to do? He had dirty fingernails and he reeked of cigarette smoke. My arm hurt where he held it.

What are you doing? I said trembling, almost in tears. What do you want?

Scarponi turned out to be an employee of the Oregon Welfare Departments, Child Protective Division. I’m taking you to a group home! He said. I’m not gonna hurt you but you gotta come with me! Anyway! You’ll like it there. Lot of other kids your age! Now git dressed!

I could see that Scarponi wasn’t going to take no for an answer so I quickly got dressed. I put on my shirt and shoes and was ready to go in less than a minute.

Up until now my life had been pretty much care free. Protected by my best friend, my father, I felt loved and cared for; do you know many adolescents who own a Camel Hair sport jacket?

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Frankie and his Dad

The group home wasn’t that far from my home at Stark & Norman in Empire. It was less than ten miles away and in a nice part of town that had sidewalks, indoor plumbing, electricity and full basements. Nice, new, well-kept cars were parked on paved streets. No pot holes, no junked out wrecked cars. Everything around me in that neighborhood seemed fixed in place. It had a feeling of quality and permanency. I liked it there in that neighborhood.

As I entered the group home I could smell something cooking on the electric stove, in the kitchen. It smelled great. The front entrance to the house was encased in a covered, veranda that looked out on Liberty Street. We were in the small hamlet of North Bend, Oregon, located adjacent to Empire and Coos Bay. The three little towns formed an equilateral triangle of sorts. The combined population of the three little towns was about 15,000 people.

The view from the back yard of Liberty Street showed the vast Coos Bay with its scenic view of the majestic North Bend Bridge and the meandering bay stretching beneath it. Later on I would be reminded of this bridge in North Bend, as I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin County into San Francisco. Not surprisingly, the people of both Coos Bay/North Bend, and San Francisco/Oakland/Marin County, refer to their regions as the Bay Area.

The Living room at 2517 Liberty Street actually had furniture in it and a floor. The floor of the house in Empire was only a sub-floor that had never been finished and from wear and tear, cracks had appeared here and there and if you got down on your knees and looked closely you could see the ground below. I remember peering down at the ground, through those cracks, with the excitement of a child’s imagination as I explored that mysterious, dark, area under the floor of that primitive house. I never had the nerve to crawl under the house at Norman and Stark and I was always content to let that mysterious dark area under the floor be what it may.

During the short ride from Stark & Norman to 2517 Liberty Street, I felt apprehensive and giddy at the same time. I was alarmed to find myself in a car with a complete stranger I knew nothing about, and I couldn’t believe that strangers could actually barge their way into houses uninvited, and order people around against their will. That wouldn’t happen if my father was home but he was out of the country working construction and I didn’t know how to get in touch with him.

I learned that a group home was a temporary housing unit designed to provide temporary shelter for displaced children; who live in group homes until rulings are made about the suitability of their previous environments.

The process involved gathering evidence that Oregon’s Social Workers could examine to consider if adult supervision was adequate, if the shelter was adequate, and was the hygiene acceptable. Were the adults responsible? Was the shelter structurally sound? And, was the environment healthy?

Anyone eighteen years or younger, not managed by a responsible adult, is considered to be displaced, and if their environments don’t pass the Child Protection guidelines the children are made wards of the courts. I would learn a few days later that I wouldn’t be returned to the house in Empire, at Stark & Norma, it didn’t pass the guidelines, and during the early spring of 1957, I became a member of Oregon’s Foster Care System.

The group home in North Bend was managed by one of the nicest people I had ever met or would ever hope to meet. Her name was Grace Welch and she and her husband Art, a mill worker, ran the group home at 2517 Liberty Street. Both of these people were kind, honest, hard-working, and as dependable as the sun that rises in the morning. I immediately felt drawn to Grace that damp, overcast, morning..

She was wearing an apron, and she wore a genuine smile. It wasn’t a restaurant give a waitress a tip smile. It was an honest to goodness nice, warm, smile. Her smile said I’m glad to make your acquaintance and I am your friend. She had warm, hazel, eyes, gray hair, combed, and such a nice easy way about her. She immediately defused any resentment I had carried with me from Empire and the way Scarponi had barged in on me that morning and suddenly the sun started shining. Where it was damp, dreary, and foggy just minutes earlier it suddenly became sunny, bright, and warm.

She met Scarponi and me at the front door. Big smile! Come in! she said smiling at Scarponi and me. What do we have here? Grace was still smiling, as she looked me in the eyes and suddenly, I felt at ease. I felt welcomed. I felt safe. I have met some, wonderful, gifted, people, in my 72 years of life on Earth and standing before me was the nicest, warmest, most considerate individual, I would ever meet.

I was asked to sit on the couch while Grace and Scarponi went into the kitchen to talk. After a short period they both came back into the living room. You’re going to stay here awhile! I was told by Scarponi. Just do what you are told to do and everything will be fine! With that he was out the door leaving Grace and me alone together. I sat there staring at Scarponi as he exited Grace’s house, not realizing I would be seeing him soon.

Make yourself comfortable. Grace said to me. I’ll fix some lunch. The other kids are at school right now and won’t be home until after 3:00 p.m.

And so began my new life as a ward of the State of Oregon’s Child Protective Agency. I had come into this world in 1942, born in Oakland, California and at age thirteen, I would begin a journey that would take me too many parts of planet Earth and I would visit many of the major continents of the world before I would return back to the Pacific Northwest. Along the way I would be convinced to my very core that God had been with me the entire journey and he had assigned an Angel to watch out for me, to protect me and keep me out of harm’s way.

I would see much in the coming years and each adventure would reinforce my belief that God was with me and my good Angel was protecting me. It wasn’t luck or a random occurrence that had Scarponi at Stark & Norman that morning in 1957. Scarponi had no choice in the matter. God had wanted him there!

Before my involvement with Oregon’s Foster Care Child Protective Agency, I had lived happily with my father for thirteen years. We were poor and by today’s standards we would have been classified way below the poverty line, but it didn’t seem so bad to me back then and it didn’t really seem to matter. I wasn’t aware we were so poor, although it was strange one Christmas when my neighbor friends showed me their cool trucks and toys while I showed them a quarter my father had just given me that morning.

I grew up thinking it was normal to shop for school clothes at the Salvation Army. I had never gone to the dentist before I became a ward of the courts and if I got sick I simply rode it out. I remember one time, when I got the Mumps; I had been lying in bed for a few days and had struggled into the kitchen for as drink of water. I was home alone at the time and I was startled to see a grotesque figure with a head the size of a basketball staring back at me when I looked into the mirror. My head had swelled double its normal size.

It had been me and my father since I was 9 years old. In 1951 my birth mother decided to abandon me and my father. I will refer to the woman whose body brought me into this world as my birth mother. I am grateful to her for bringing me into this world but she wasn’t much of a mother to me so I will refer to her as my birth mother only. Grace was my mother.

I was happy living with my father. He was a good man and I loved him. We may have been poor but I never went to bed hungry and I always had a roof over my head. The main thing about my father was his love. He was my best friend and he loved me. I could see it in his blue eyes when he looked at me. I didn’t miss my mother at all when she left, in fact, I was glad she had left.

One time I remember running to my father, at age six, terrified and desperate. I can’t remember what I had done to set her off that morning but something had her chasing me like a maniac and I ran for my life to my father. I found him before him before she found me and I remember my relief, with him smiling down at me while I reached up to him for protection and his words of comfort telling me everything was OK! She wouldn’t bother me now with my father there. I felt safe!

As a first born male child of a Spaniard, I held a special place with my father. Ours was a relationship based on love and it wasn’t something we had to speak of or even mention. Something intuitive between us; something we felt. My father made me feel special, important, cared for, and safe. I knew no matter what I did or didn’t do my father would be there for me and I felt protected and comforted by him.

CHAPTER TWO

As I sat there waiting for Grace to fix lunch I thought about what had happened to me that morning and the rough treatment I had received from Scarponi.

Who had called the Child Protection Agency on me? Was it Thelma, my father’s friend, who was supposed to be taking care of me while my father worked overseas? Was it her who had tricked my father into letting me become a ward of the Oregon court? Did she realize how difficult it would be for me under the thumb of the Oregon Child Protection Agency? I didn’t think my father would ever turn his back on me so it must have been her.

As it turned out someone from the neighborhood had called the Oregon Child Protective Agency. The neighbors could see children running in and out of the house at Stark & Norman, indiscriminately, and they didn’t want their children unsupervised. But it was Thelma, I am positive, who talked my father into letting me go. She knew I hated her and ours was a spiteful, nasty, vengeful relationship and with me out of the picture she would have my father all to herself.

My father had met Thelma in a beer joint when I was 10. He had brought her home with him and she never left. I was in my 20’s and a member of the U.S.A.F. before they finally married. Thelma was Scotch/Irish, she had been raised by a single, school teacher mother. Thelma was divorced, a mother of two children and I couldn’t see, for