Seeking More of the Sky: Growing up in the 1930'S

By Charles N. Stevens

The stories presented in this book follow the life of a young boy growing up in Inglewood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, during the 1930s. The author lived during the depression when unemployment was affecting many and banks were closed, while the clouds of war were gathering in Europe. But he was lucky enough to be raised in a loving family, the power of that love reflected throughout his stories.

The day when boys would have cell phones, television, smart phones, and Ipads was in the far distant future. Boys made do with what they hadold tires, bottle caps, marbles, spools, and anything else they could find around the house, forcing them to be inventive in their play.

It was a period when milkmen delivered milk in bottles, icemen brought blocks of ice for the ice box, and the sound of steam locomotives echoed through the town.

These true stories take the reader back to a simpler time. Older readers may find a little of themselves in the stories while the young may be amazed by how boys lived over seventy-five years ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496954824

Charles N. Stevens

Charles N. Stevens, or Norm as his friends call him, grew up in Inglewood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. His parents moved from Los Angeles to Inglewood in 1932, partially because his father enjoyed the refreshing sea breezes that sprung up nearly every afternoon from the nearby Pacific. It was a time when the country was struggling with a deep depression and had not yet entered World War II. He attended Inglewood schools from the second grade through graduation from Inglewood High School in 1942. Not long after graduation, he was inducted into the service. He became a bombardier in the Army Air Corps, serving in the Eighth Air Force in England from which he participated in thirty-four bombing missions over Germany and occupied France. He was awarded the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, aided by the G. I. Bill, he enrolled at UCLA, graduating in 1951 with a BA degree in psychology. After earning a teaching credential at UCLA, he became a teacher, continuing in the profession, primarily in Montebello, California, for thirty-two years. He taught science and math in his beginning years, then after getting a master’s degree in English at California State College in Los Angeles, he taught English and American Literature. He is the author of three books about his military experiences. They are An Innocent at Polebrook, which is about his bombing missions; The Innocent Cadet, which concerns his cadet and crew training; and Back from Combat, which deals with his retraining as a radar bombardier after coming home from overseas. The author lives with his wife of forty-three years, Dolores Seidman, in Monterey Park, California. He has two sons by a previous marriage, Jeffry Stevens and Greg Stevens. He has five grandchildren (now adults): Eric Stevens, Michael Stevens, Beth Stevens, Brenda Sherry, and Sharon De Beauchamp. He also has four great grandchildren: Ryan Stevens, Colin Stevens, Guinevere Sherry, and Malcolm Sherry.

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© 2014 Charles N. Stevens. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   12/01/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5481-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5482-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921147

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Introduction

When There Was A Santa

Shaving

The House Started Shaking

Winter Surprise

Surf Fishing

Faces In The Forest

Boiled Ham Sandwiches

Geraniums And Fox Tails

The Ninety And Nine

Waiting For Conoco Maps

Victorian Grandma

Centinela Elementary School

Girlfriend

Alameda Street

Banishment Of The Banty

Through Open Windows

Hoochie Coochie

Cowboys And Jungles

Radio Waves In The Night

Wild Oats

Even Marbles Can Race

To Nap Or Not To Nap

Itchy Sunday

Generations Of Cats

Brett Street Butterfly Hunts

Tracks

Clucking And Crowing

Good And Evil

Surf And Sand

Easter

Mom

The Printed Word

Caves, Boxes And Hideaways

An Affinity For Rain

Seeking More Of The Sky

Abstract Horses

Trains Top Music Lessons

Casuarina Trees

The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

Milk Bottle Caps

My Hero

Kid Haters

Meeting The Noon Freight

Warmth From Below

A Step Up Into Railroad Heaven

A Parade Of Men

Tamales

Old Automobile Tires

Listening To A Freight Train On A Rainy Night

Raiding The Ice Truck

Kick The Can

Air Races

Cow Path To Town

Crazy Man

Texas Invasion

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

The Fall Of The Fort

My Life At The Movies

The Fourth Of July

A Passion For Bottle Caps

Thoughts About Dancing

Rainy Days

Survival

More Than A Dog

Piper Cub

What’s On The Table?

What’s That Smell?

Filling The Time

Downtown

Triangles In The Sky

The Heart Of My Hometown

Behind The Wheel

Stilts And Stuff

A Barrel Of Laughs

A Trip To San Berdoo

Fun At The Fun House

Grandma’s Potato Masher

About The Author

Introduction

Roosters crowing, glass milk bottles rattling in the milkman’s wire basket, our neighbor’s car purring as he left early for work and, if we were lucky, the melody of a steam locomotive whistle drifted into my open bedroom window every morning. Sometimes I even heard the hollow roar of the # 5 trolley as it rolled past the cemetery. I knew it was about time to get up.

Still sleepy-eyed, I padded to the moist warmth of our bathroom where my father was busy shaving with his straight razor.

After a breakfast of chipped beef gravy on toast or bacon and eggs, my father left for work with his lunch pail. My mother cleaned up as my sister and I dressed for school.

That was a typical morning at our house in the nineteen thirties.

The 500 block of Brett Street in Inglewood, California was a street of typical middle class families living in modest frame houses on deep lots, lawns in front and pine-like casuarina trees towering in every parkway. Fathers worked as gardeners, salesmen, mechanics, accountants, teachers, stock clerks or even piano movers while most wives remained at home. A majority of couples had children, some as many as four, so playmates were always available. Since most families were stable and rarely moved away, we were able to form lasting friendships. As the young ones interacted, the parents were also drawn together; especially the wives who often visited each other for talk and sometimes gossip.

The economy was sluggish and business poor, the nation attempting to stagger to its feet after the stock market crash in 1929 and the ensuing depression. Far-reaching government programs put some people back to work, restoring their dignity and stimulating the economy. Our mothers and fathers lived in that climate, the effects of which filtered down to us.

My father, Charles K. Stevens, moved from a farm in Indiana to California in 1916 while my mother, Pauline Weeks, followed a few years later to train as a nurse. They were married in 1924, and I was born nine months later in the same year. My sister Charline was born twenty months after me. After living in Long Beach, San Pedro and three places in Los Angeles, my father wanted to move to Inglewood to take advantage of the cool sea breezes he dearly loved. We moved to Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles and only about 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean in 1932.

There was nothing unique about our neighborhood, but it is where I grew up and is what I know about. To me it was special because I enjoyed my friends, my home life, the wind in the casuarina trees, the crowing of roosters in the morning, even the smell of the distant oil refineries during rainstorms. I look back on it as idyllic although undoubtedly there were days of frustration and brief periods of unhappiness. I remember the good times best.

The stories and accounts presented here are all true within the limitations of my memory. Since I am the one who wrote them, they express my slant on what happened. They are about my experiences from ages eight through fourteen, living in Inglewood, California during 1932 to 1938. Even though the stories are about me, they could have been about anyone, anywhere in suburbia, growing up at that time. My hope is that some will see a part of themselves in my stories. The stories were written in chronological order although some overlap in time. Many of the stories are about railroads and weather and the collecting of things, since those were my passions.

Boyhood then was not like boyhood now because times were different and technology has advanced exponentially. In the thirties we built our play around simple games and constructed toys out of wood, clothes pins, old rubber tires, boxes, used roller skates, rubber bands, coffee cans, glass jars and anything else that was lying around. We had no television, cell phones, smart phones, video games, personal computers, CDs or simple calculators. We didn’t have power mowers or leaf blowers, using push mowers and rakes instead. There were few organized sports, all of us generally getting together to play our own games. We didn’t have skate boards or plastic toys. Our parents had no microwave ovens, garbage disposals, garage door openers, dishwashers or clothes dryers.

We did have radios, but not FM. We had to use our imaginations to picture what the people looked like in the programs we heard. We had dial phones anchored with cords and simple phone numbers with letters. Ours was ORegon 8-1483. For many years we had a party line, several people using the same line. If we lifted the receiver, we could hear them talking and couldn’t make a call until they were finished. Dogs and cats ran free as there were no leash laws. We used an ice box for many years finally getting a used electric refrigerator from a friend much later. We had washing machines, but had to run the clothes through a wringer to squeeze the water out of them before we hung them up outside on a clothes line to dry. Men delivered milk in glass bottles, ice for our ice box, eggs, vegetables and bakery goods. Mail was delivered twice a day and buses and street cars provided good transportation. We burned our paper trash in incinerators and our tree, bush and grass clippings in a pile in the back yard, creating palls of irritating smoke. We and many others raised chickens in our back yards.

The whistles of steam locomotives echoed through our town four times a day, and I loved their sound. Inglewood had 5&10 cent stores, where items offered were actually what it said or just slightly more. Sally’s Restaurant sold 5 cent hamburgers.

Dogs ran free and so did we. It was a freer era with few restrictions. We could buy firecrackers–now forbidden–and fireworks–now outlawed in many areas. We played with chemistry sets consisting of glass test tubes, alcohol burners and some chemicals that might not be allowed today.

We were resourceful and creative in our play, using whatever we could find to have a good time. If I had been brought up today I’m sure I would have indulged in technology. I would have watched color HD television on a large flat screen, texted my friends on my smart phone, perused the internet and sent e-mails. I would have joined Little League or a soccer team, maybe even Pop Warner football. Boys are basically the same no matter what era in which they were born, latching on to what is available for having a good time, filling their hours with fun and excitement.

Once all my stories have been read, the experiences come together, piece by piece, to form an accurate picture about what life was like for a boy growing up in the thirties.

A normal day ended in our living room, my father listening to the radio or reading the Examiner. When my sister and I were small, he’d wrestle with us in that same overstuffed rocking chair. My mother mended clothes or darned socks while my sister and I dabbled at our homework. Kittens often scampered across the rug and over the furniture in their excited play.

I am writing this book for my sister Charline, my wife Dolores, my two sons, Jeffry and Greg, my grandchildren (now adults) Brenda, Eric, Sharon, Michael and Beth, my four great grandchildren, Ryan, Colin, Guinevere and Malcolm and all who come after them who might find it interesting to peer into the early everyday life of a man related to them who lived so long ago. Now, as I approach my 90th birthday, it is a good time to let these past times live.

I believe it is important for everyone to document one’s life for the benefit of those who come after them. If not, all those human experiences are lost forever. I know little of my father’s life other than the snippets I heard from him as I was growing up. I know that he was raised on a farm in Indiana and drove with his family to California when he was 16 years old. I know they heard the coyotes howling as they camped along the road at night and that they broke a car spring on the rough, almost impassable roads of that time. What a story there is there! But not a word of it was ever written down and I didn’t ask him enough about it before he passed away. All the joy, apprehensions and daring of that trip are lost.

I would like to thank my wife, Dolores Seidman, for sharing our busy computer with me as I wrote these stories, and for her discriminating eyes that helped with proof reading as well as all the other help she gave me. I would also like to thank my writing group, the Wordknots–Davin Malasarn (our leader), Marie Shield, Alice Hayward, Maggie Malooly, Frances O’Brien, Sue Coppa and John Young for listening to and reading my material as well as suggesting improvements. And a special thanks to my son Jeff Stevens for scanning the photographs and supplying valuable technical help. I am much indebted to all of them.

When There Was A Santa

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Having Christmas Eve dinner at Auntie’s house was a family tradition. She wasn’t really my aunt. She was my mother’s Aunt Laura, but we all called her Auntie. When we arrived, we had to enter through the back door because the front door led to the living room where the Christmas tree was, and viewing it before Santa Claus came–well, you just didn’t do that. Next to the living room was the dining room where the table was set for dinner. Auntie’s son-in-law, Ralph, a tall, heavy man with a thin black moustache, had hung a large white sheet across the spacious entryway between the two.

Santa won’t come if he thinks we’ll see him, said Ralph, breathing heavily as was his habit. He only works when he’s alone. If we didn’t put up the sheet, he’d surely pass us by.

All during dinner I looked at that whiteness behind which that jolly old man was sure to make his entrance. I wondered when he would come.

How does he know when he should be here? I asked.

Oh he knows, said Dorothy, Auntie’s daughter. He won’t be around until after our supper, so you can just settle down and eat your meal.

How could I settle down? I squirmed in my seat, giggled and barely touched my oyster stew. I didn’t like it much anyway, real oysters floating in warm milky broth with tiny puddles of melted butter. I tried one of the strange-looking lumps. Part of it was chewy, but another was soft and icky. Sand gritted between my teeth. They had sand in them! I protested. I felt my father’s vice-like grip on my leg beneath the table. The more I rebelled the tighter he squeezed until I shut up.

I wanted Santa to stop by. That’s all I could think about. I eyed that snowy drape, listened for the first sounds of him.

Well, the chili was good, hot and spicy, beans and chunks of ground meat. I ate with gusto and thought about gifts. The quicker this meal was over the sooner he would come. But they talked a lot. Auntie sat across from me. I liked her. She was old now, her skin wrinkling, her pale blue eyes even paler. She had a prominent nose, hawk-like with a crook in it. She was married once, but her husband was killed. I think I heard that a train hit him.

After dinner we had mince pies with hard sauce. I liked the sauce because it was as sweet as candy, but only tolerated the pie. I couldn’t tell what was in it. All the adults had coffee.

Soon after the pie was gone and the last of the coffee cups drained, a commotion happened at the front door. Then heavy footsteps!

There’s Santa! exclaimed Dorothy. We’d better all be quiet.

My mouth dropped open, and my eyes felt as large as quarters. He was in there! I could hear his boots pounding on the floor, the rustling of his fur-trimmed suit. When he emptied his sack, and the presents tumbled under the tree, they sounded like soft thunder, like a bag of potatoes emptied on top of a base drum. The ornaments tinkled as his bulk brushed up against the tree. I saw him in my mind, the roly-poly old man in the red outfit, his white beard down to his chest, tramping around in the living room, dumping the gifts, some of them for me, his sacred hands actually touching them.

Ho Ho Ho, he bellowed in his deep, full-bodied voice, Merry Christmas!

He plodded toward the door. I heard it slam. With one more Ho Ho Ho, he was gone.

Can we go out there now? I asked. Can we?

We’ll wait just a few minutes. We’ll let him get back to his sleigh, said my mother.

Ralph suddenly entered the dining room from the kitchen. He had missed the whole coming of Saint Nick. I supposed he had been cleaning up a few of the dishes out there. He walked up to the sheet and took it down. I slid off my chair and ran to the living room. The colored tree lights gleamed on the array of gifts, the gay wrapping paper and bows. I was surprised how carefully Santa had arranged them.

I looked for mine. I found one tag that read To Norman from Santa. Then another!

After the reckless tearing of paper, the wrecking of the carefully crafted ribbons and looping bows, my hastily opened gifts lying in disarray, I had one more wish. I wanted to see Santa Claus.

I walked outside into the cold nose-numbing night, pale blue moonlight bathing the street and the dark rows of houses with their lighted windows and Christmas tree lights. Maybe I could catch a glimpse of him skimming over the rooftops in his sleigh, his reindeer galloping before him. Maybe his silhouette would pass by the moon. I heard a noise down the street, a rumbling, a banging of doors. Perhaps he was at another house, but I couldn’t see anything. The chill air penetrated my jacket and pinched my cheeks, and I knew I would have to duck back in without ever a peek of that wonderful man who generously brought me gifts every year.

Shaving

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When I was a boy we had only one small bathroom. Often when I got up in the morning to use the toilet, my father would be shaving. It was always warm and cozy when he was in there performing his morning rituals. The sweet smell of shaving cream perfumed the moist air. He wore a fluffy beard of creamy lather. His razor scraped as it cut through his softened whiskers, the sound like sandpaper rubbing against sandpaper. Now and then he wiped the blade on folds of toilet paper leaving dollops of snow soiled with cut off bits of whiskers.

When the razor dulled he honed it on a long leather strap with a practiced rhythm gained from sharpening knives on a steel. The metered swishing of it was like a strange beat, a cadence around which a melody might be composed.

Sometimes he wore his greasy skullcap to tame his thick but unruly hair. Later he would comb the waves straight back. If he had used the toilet, he burned a wad of toilet paper in the bowl to mask any odors. The sharp smell of it sometimes lingered.

He always had a good word for me when I came in. There he is, he would say. I, still heavy-eyed, hair askew would mutter, Hi papa, then breeze by him to the toilet. There was no modesty in our house. Bare bodies and bodily functions were never very private.

You know, he would say, This is the best way to keep your face really clean. The suds get right down into the pores.

Being in that room with him was always comforting. I felt his love and his protective strength. Watching him shave fascinated me. I noted the curly dark hair on his chest and arms. Sometimes I placed my small fingers on one of his biceps, marveling at its swollen hardness, its iron suggestion of power.

I hoped I would be like him one day, pictured myself being the image of him years from then. Someday I would shave, my muscles would swell and I would grow hair on my own chest and arms. And my face would be extra clean.

The House Started Shaking

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I was walking across the living room when it began to shake, a trembling at first then a violent jolt, the floor rolling beneath my feet. The whole house creaked and swayed as though we were a ship on a turbulent sea. Something fell and then something else, thumping and crashing onto the rugs and hardwood floor. What was it? What was happening?

My mother, preparing dinner in the kitchen, yelled, Earthquake! Earthquake! Get out of the house! Heeding her warning, I ran for the front door, a vase falling from the top of our Victrola striking me on the back as I scampered by. I leapt from the front porch, shot across the driveway to the neighbor’s lawn. I fell on my hands and knees, my fingers clinging to the grass, trying to hang on as the earth moved. My startled father stood by his car in the driveway, the model T still shaking.

Continuing to grip the lawn, I looked up at him. It’s okay now. It’s over, he assured me. I relaxed my hold on the grass and walked toward him. The car had stopped shaking. You should have seen the telephone pole back there, said my father. It was whipping around like it was going to fall, but it’s okay now. That was quite a shake! My father didn’t seem frightened, but almost amused, as though, now that it was over, he had enjoyed it.

Everyone on the block had vacated their houses, our neighbors gathering in hushed yet excited groups to discuss what had happened. They remained outside for hours, afraid to go back into their houses, fearing another quake. They assessed their damages–cracked plaster, broken window glass, smashed glassware and dishes. Aftershocks rumbled through the rest of the day and night, reminding us that whatever the matter was with the earth, it was not over yet, our fears leaving us with a queasy feeling in our stomachs

As night descended some neighbors refused to enter their houses, choosing instead to sleep outside, some setting up tents on their front lawns. My father decided that the worst was over and that it was safe to stay in our house.

We listened to the reports on our new Zenith radio. Although the quake was strong in Inglewood, it was more severe in Compton and especially Long Beach where a whole brick school collapsed. If it had happened just a few hours earlier, hundreds of students would have been crushed. Stores and even houses had collapsed there, and cascades of falling bricks had pummeled cars and injured fleeing people. Reports said that over one hundred people had been killed, mostly by falling debris as they tried to run out of buildings.

I didn’t understand it. Why would the earth shake like that? Radio commentators spoke about the quake of 1933 occurring on the Newport-Inglewood fault and that its strength was 6.4. A fault was a big crack in the ground, miles long and very deep, but I was too young to comprehend it. I couldn’t see any crack like that and couldn’t imagine it. The ground I lived on was always stable and firm up until now, but I learned in those few trembling moments that it wasn’t always like that.

My adventurous father decided to take us down through Compton and Long Beach several days later to get a firsthand view of the damage. I had never seen any destruction like that. In my young world all buildings were intact and just were. Now I peered at buildings with their sides gone, revealing all the rooms where people had worked and lived. The rooms had been painted all different colors. They reminded me of my sister’s doll house where the rooms were all revealed and were open so that miniature chairs and tables could be placed in them. Piles of fallen bricks were everywhere and whole