Near the Top of the Stairs: Thoughts and Memories of a Life Through Time

By Don Bondi

Near the Top of the Stairs begins as a poem and ends as a biography.

It is a journey of specific memories during the times and locations of a young boy looking back at 80 years of a life.

The author looks back through the eyes of his youth and reveals the remembered events that have become his life as he nears the top of the stairs.

His early childhood and parents begin the journey followed by an uneventful telling of high school followed by revelations in college that exposes his sexuality and his joy of dance and learning.

He learns responsibility as an army officer in South Korea where he learns to teach, and he learns compassion as a high school science teacher where he finds his worth through the development of innovative teaching techniques.

HIs shyness gives way to questioning authority that leads to the revelation that his ego often gets in the way of accepting who he has become and what is important in this becoming.

Now near the top of the stairs the young boy looking up the stairs acknowledges the creativity associated with dance that freed him to explore and develop to become the young man of 80 near the top of the stairs. And life still inspires him and maybe you to dance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514427767

Don Bondi

Don Brady Bondi - born in Los Angeles, California on 25 March 1933. The memories and thoughts of a child of the depression and what he has both lost and gained, given and received in his journey though time. His life explorations as an educator, dancer, choreographer, biology teacher, arts administrator, and mentor of young adults. A journey of seeking. A Rite of Becoming.

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Copyright © 2015 by Don Bondi.

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.

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.

Rev. date: 12/09/2015

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Contents

1 EARLY CHILDHOOD AND FAMILY

2 PARENTS

3 WWII (JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL)

4 UCLA

5 ARMY

6 WILSHIRE WARD

7 HAMILTON

8 USC

9 NEW YORK

10 LACHSA

11 PERFORMANCES/DANCES

12 GLORIA/BELLA

13 SPAIN/CHINA

14 TRAVEL

ADDENDUM

JOBS (other than performance)

GRANTS

AWARDS

CONSULTANCIES

PUBLICATIONS

P.S.

for Stella Matsuda

Without her insistence and constant encouragement,

these memories would never have been put to paper.

sitting near the top of the stairs

how many more steps to the top of the stairs

how quickly the thoughts

how quickly the desires

how quickly the words

appear and disappear

sitting near the top of the stairs

sitting there near the top of the stairs

gazing back from near the top of the stairs to near the bottom of the stairs wanting then to know what is near the top of the stairs

what is near the top of the stairs ?

wondering then

wanting then

reaching then

straining to take the steps

running up the steps (sometimes two at a time)

skipping steps

what is on the next step

and the next

or the next

needing to know

trying too hard

searching too long

hoping too much

wanting to find some unknown, some new stair way

another way

leading to near the top of the stairs

now sitting near the top of the stairs

seeing

finding

too soon

how quickly

all stairs lead to near the top of the stairs

Early childhood and family

A s a young boy I used to love hanging out the laundry to dry on the clothes line in the back yard. (I wonder why?) Whenever I do the laundry now using the dryer, I think about this. Also, I still remember how to fold pants as my mother taught me so you did not need to iron them - put the two inside inseams on the legs of the pants together, put the end of the legs under your chin and press down the length of the legs with your hands, fold once over and there you are, pressed pants with no ironing.

Listening to the radio while doing homework was OK, but listening to the radio while building blocks or setting up the electric train was the best. My mom would let me keep up the train and the blocks that I had built into some fantastic city until she had to Hoover the rug. Sometimes if I complained she would Hoover (vacuum) around them.

Sunday afternoon and early evening was the best day for listening to the radio. But I had to be in bed by 10 p.m. and, I Love a Mystery (a favorite) came on then, so depending on the good will of my mother I sometimes could listen but most of the time I had to go to bed. Of course, The Lone Ranger and Tonto was a must for after school listening, and being able to use the decoder badges to get updates on the next show was a highlight. When Billy Fox, my best friend across the street and I both had the chicken pox we used our decoder badges to send secret messages back and forth via our parents. We also had mumps and German measles at the same time thus, more chances for sending secret messages. (No vaccines then, only smallpox.)

I got an allowance of 25 cents month. On my dad’s payday my dad, my mother and I would sit around the big heavy dining room table with spiral wooden legs that I had to wax and polish. (For some reason I hated that chore.) Then my mom would portion out all the money into little piles - this much for the mortgage, this much for the water bill, this for electricity, this for groceries and house expenses, this for my dad, etc., and finally my 25 cents. (Where were the telephone and television? We didn’t have any.) All these bills were of course payed in person in cash traveling with my mother to the various collection points. (What was a check!) A big treat for some reason was when we all got in the Chevy and went to pay the couple who owned the mortgage. They lived in Silver Lake in what I thought then was a grand house near the water. The couple were very nice they always gave me a cookie. Another reason I liked going to pay the mortgage. (P.S. I now live in Silver Lake!)

When I was about 10, I would spend part of my allowance to go to the movie matinees at the Arroyo theater across from Nightingale Junior High. It cost 10 cents and I would walk the 2 miles there and back. My favorite movies were the musicals - Fred Astaire and later Gene Kelly. My mom said to come right home after the movie, but if it were a musical I would stay to see it a second time and on the way home I would dance down the sidewalk.That is I would dance until I saw the lights of a car then I stopped. My mom would bawl me out but I continued to do it. (Today she probably would be accused of child endangerment by allowing me to walk alone.) The only time I was upset seeing a movie was during the scene in Frankenstein when a little girl is playing along the river and the camera keeps shifting between the approach of the monster and the little girl playing. It still is a vivid memory to me, and the only time I have ever felt scared during a movie.

When my uncle Sam (my mother’s younger brother) came to live with us before entering the Navy, he would give me an extra 10 cents when he was home and the ice cream truck sounded its tune. What a treat, that, along with stealing ice from the ice truck when it came by to deliver block ice for those who had an ice box. (We didn’t.) Sam was also the one who cured me of crying at bedtime when the radio was on. My parents always gave in and turned the radio way down. But one night when Sam was baby sitting, my parents came home late, they heard the radio blaring and found me and Sam sound asleep. He wanted to listen to the radio! That ended my tirades at bed time.

My mother’s older brother, Bud (Carlos), lived with us on and off over the years. He was an excellent painter and general handyman, so whenever the house needed work he came to stay. He was very tall, very good looking, but he drank - he was a severe alcoholic even experiencing delirium tremens. (At that time I did not know what that meant.) He would get the shakes, lose control of his body, slur and sloper his words. I was angry, disgusted, and mean to him. But when not drinking, he was nice and tried very hard to relate to me but I could not accept his kindness because of what I had seen. He also loved to listen to the news; over and over. I could not understand why. (Now I understand as I too like to listen.) My mother too drank, mainly on weekends. When drinking, getting drunk, she would be mean and vocally aggressive mainly to my dad. I hated this and would go to my room to get away from her, but there were times I still could hear the loud cussing and would get up out of bed even late at night and yell as loud as I could for a 7 year old boy telling my mother to STOP. Usually she did. (Maybe that is where I developed my loud voice, which I still can use when needed.) Also, I am sure that is when I developed my dislike for drinking and did not have my first drink until I was in my 30’s, a ramose gin fizz. I also hated smoking, the smoke bothered me. Both my mom and Rose smoked, so whenever they put their cigarette in the ash tray I would snuff it out, much to the anger of them both. Don’t you know cigarettes cost money. I never smoked.

My mother had a large collection of 78 shellac records which we would listen to on her portable wind up Victrola phonograph and use as she taught me the different ballroom dances. When she wasn’t near by I would sneak out her records to play. I had to be very careful not to scratch or break these brittle records. I guess that is where I learned the songs I still remember, that and the radio show, Your Hit Parade, were my music education and the beginning of my dance education. My favorite big band was Glenn Miller. I loved to dance the New Yorker to his music. My mother’s favorite singing group were The Ink Spots singing If I Didn’t Care. She had a large collection of their songs and I was intrigued to hear the spoken word as part of the song.

By the way, my mother’s brothers lived in the South - Savannah, Georgia, where the relatives on my mother’s side came from. Every summer until I was 15 my mother and I traveled to Georgia until I rebelled and stopped going. My mother drove all the way cross country until my father started working for the Santa Fe during WWII, then we got a pass. I hated going South in the summer - the heat, the insects, and especially the gnats and mosquitoes, which I was allergic to. My whole face broke out in scabs, and nothing seemed to help until my grandmother found an ol’ timey doctor who concocted a salve that smelled terrible but worked good. I did not go back until I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Basic Infantry Officers’ Training School during the Korean conflict. (Yes, I was an Infantry lieutenant in South Korea.)

My grandmother was a caution as they said at that time. She was an evangelical preacher with a store front church. The blacks sat on one side, the whites on the other with an upright piano in the middle. Her church was one of the few at that time that had a mixed congregation. Sister Roache, as she was called by both sides of the aisle had a charismatic voice and played a mean piano to accompany the hymn singing. My grandmother could not read music, so when I asked her how she could play she said, When the black notes go up I go up and when they go down I go down and for the rest I just sing loud. She was tall and skinny with sharp features and long white hair tied in a bun at the base of her neck. She wore her dresses long, ankle length, with a white lace add on collar and cuffs. Her bedtime stories were all from the Bible - Daniel in the lion’s den, David and Goliath, Samson, Joseph and his brothers, Jonah and the whale, Moses, etc. I still remember all those stories, they were great.

When she took me shopping in downtown Savannah on Broughton Street, her stride was wide, purposeful, and fast, so fast I could barley keep up with her. We would go in the 10 cent stores and I was allowed to pick one thing. But the stores had air conditioning that to me had a sickening smell, so I could not wait to get out, even if the heat was stiffing outside. To this day I am not fond of air conditioning ever though the smell has disappeared. During one of these outings when we got on the bus to go home, I saw a seat near the back, so after my grandma sat down, I went back to sit. There was an older Negro woman sitting in front of me who got up and moved further back as soon as I sat down. My grandmother got up and took me by the arm, sat me down where she had been sitting and apologized to the older woman, who said, He’s just a boy, don’t worry. Later my grandma explained that where ever a white person sat on the bus the blacks had to sit behind them. I was young and coming from California. I did not understand. When grandma explained, I felt terrible that I could do such a thing - I did not know - no one told me. On that outing I learned or rather understood what segregation was about.

My other bout with segregation came during the next summer. There was a small park of sorts with two enormous oak trees, a slide, and a Merry-go-round that you pushed and then ran to get on. This park was up from her house on Collins Street. The park was a dividing point between the blacks on upper Collins Street and the new housing development on lower Collins Street for whites. Again being young I forgot, or chose to forget, and began playing with a young black boy about my age. We would meet there, climb the trees, slide, and ride the Merry-go-round. It was fun, he was the only playmate I had as there were no young children in the housing development. A few weeks into our play time I went to the park - he was not there - nor was he there the next few days. I was really unhappy. I had lost my only playmate. Finally, I saw him and asked why he was not coming to the playground. Another devastating yet memorable moment in my young life, His mother told him he could longer play with me because the park was for white kids only and even though I was the only white kid using the park he could not play there. So again I spent another summer with no one to play with. But then spending all my life as an only child I was used to that.

Summer afternoon serenades - Butterbeans, get your Butterbeans. Blackeyed peas. Blueberriees. - Son, go out a get your grandma a quart of those butterbeans so I can add them to the mess of greens for dinner. My grandma was a great cook - chicken and dumplings, blueberry pie, hop-n-john, fried chicken, corn bread to sop up the pot licker from blackeyed peas and okra, grits and eggs for breakfast with biscuits, or grits and fresh caught fried fish for dinner, and of course butterbeans. We had squirrel once when Bud came home from hunting.

Summer memories are for the most part a blur of heat and boredom with occasional visits to relatives of my grandmother, the DeLoach’s were of Huguenot ancestry. My grandfather Roache was of Irish ancestry and we did not visit them. This difference of ancestral background to Southerns was very important. The Roaches’ being Irish were at that time considered beneath the French Huguenot DeLoaches’. Every time I was introduced to grandma’s relatives there was a whole litany of listing the background of each relative and who was related to whom that ended with who I was; my mother was Lillie Maude the daughter of Maude Lillie and I was the son and grandson. My father’s name, Bondi, was rarely mentioned. After all he is Italian, and at the time of my mother’s marriage the only other race of people in the South acknowledged were Greeks, and these for the most part were merchants who had little connection to the real South. Thus, when my mother brought my father to meet her family he was a foreigner. They had never seen an Italian before, but they liked him anyway. My dad was very friendly and outgoing: Very different from my mother who was circumspect and proper, except when she drank, which she did not do when at her mother’s home.

My father was Italian to the core - as often he was told - he had the map of Italy written all over his face, even though he had a broken nose as result of a boxing mishap as a young man. If ever he was called wob or Diego he responded,NO, I am an American. Specifically, his father was Sicilian and his mother Neapolitan, and they both had different dialects, which my dad could speak and understand. My grandfather ran away from a small village near Palermo as a teenager and stowed away on a ship bound for New Orleans where he jumped shipped and became an American. He married a sister of a distant cousin of his who came over from Naples to Ellis Island for their arranged marriage. They were married in Denver, Colorado and had 10 children, my dad being the oldest. My grandfather saved his money as a peddler of vegetables and fruit to the coal miners and much later bought a 2 bedroom brick house with a full basement. He learned English listening to the radio and reading the Old Testament and passed his citizenship exam. My grandmother never really learned English. She became a citizen because 4 of her children enlisted in the armed services during WWII and a legislator petitioned for her citizenship. Because of the distance, they lived in Denver, I rarely visited and language was a barrier, I was never close to these grandparents. However. I knew all my aunts and uncles because at one time or another and at different times they all lived with my mom and dad. By the way, I never verbally called any of my aunts or uncles Aunt or Uncle, I always used their first name. (Why? I have no idea.) Also, contrary to opinion the Bondi family was not Catholic. My grandfather hated the church and would not allow them to attend or receive any instruction. However, he did acquiesce in their baptism because of my grandmother.

My aunt Rose I knew and loved the best. She lived longest with my parents moving in at 17 to help my mother and take care of me when I was born. I was born by cesarean section and my mother had a very difficult time. She also had a second cesarean birth when my brother Frank was born. Within a day after his birth my brother Frank, who I never saw or knew, died from lack of oxygen due to the umbilical cord around his neck.

My mother was in serious condition, hospitalized for over two weeks and thought to be near death. Cesarean births were serious operations in 1939, women were advised not to have more than two so my mother’s tubes were tied so she would have no more children and I was destined to be an only child. This she explained to me not long after returning home from the hospital to help me understand what had happened to her and the baby and what I had seen in that hospital room. Then children were not allowed to be on the maternity floor, but because of the seriousness of my mother’s condition, Dr. Portogallo, the family doctor, a concerned nurse, and my father had to sneak me up the fire escape, and with the help of Rose I visited my mother. This was my first experience seeing a person with tubes in all parts of her body and machines making noises monitoring all her vitals. I was very quiet, I did not know what to say or do except to wonder at the environment of my mother in a hospital bed with things protruding all about her. I had never seen nor was I prepared for this. I only stayed a few moments, my mother could barely speak, she just looked at me and took my hand. Then Rose took me back down the fire escape and to the drug store across from the French Hospital located in Chinatown, Los Angeles. We had a fountain Coke-a-Cola and she let me chose a stuffed animal to take home. I chose a rabbit, I don’t know why. I kept this forever, in fact I still have it, but I never liked it. I really liked my teddy bear but for some reason I felt I needed to equally like the rabbit. So I have them both, a bit the worst for wear now some 75 years later. The only other time at a young age I was in a hospital room was at the same hospital when I had my tonsils removed a year later at age 7, a very different experience - I had ice cream.

My mother was taken to the hospital on the afternoon of my birthday party. Rose had decorated the dining room with crepe paper on the backs of chairs and with streamers of crepe paper coming down from the chandelier. A colorful paper tablecloth set off the decorated cake Rose had baked with 6 candles. There was ice cream of course and paper hats and noise makers for my young friends who had brought me presents. I did not have time to play the games or to even open the presents for my mother and me to see before my father drove her to the hospital. A birthday party to remember! I had never had a party like this before (or since). My mother never thought it important to decorate: The store bought cake with candles and ice cream were good enough. So to think my mother would end this special party early to go to the hospital was hurtful. WHY? Sad to say, this is what I remembered then about the birth and death of my brother; that, and later her hospital room.

When I was about 8 years old my mother decided I should be baptized by her mother, who was in Los Angeles at the time. I had been going to Sunday school at the Christian Church near our home, but my mother wanted me to be confirmed by Sister Roache, her preacher mother. So I was baptized at home. Several months later my Sunday School class was to do a presentation at church. After the presentation I decided to stay for the services. At one point the minister called for any parishioners who had been newly baptized to come forward to be blessed. I had been newly baptized so of course I stepped forward, at which time the minister read the baptismal certificates and blessed each one. When it came my time, feeling very proud, I gave my name -- twice. But my name did not appear. How could that be? I had just been baptized a short time ago.Yet, it was not there. How could God/Jesus, the church not know? This was my first unknown questioning and the beginning of doubt. How could I know then that each church had its own interpretation and belief of baptism. In Sunday school it was never discussed and my mother and grandmother never thought to inform me either until I had suffered my childhood embarrassment in front of an entire adult congregation. I never went to church again, but did continue Sunday school until about the age of 12 when I stopped. It was not until many years later that my religious education would continued.

My mother and father met in Denver. He was working as a clerk in a grocery store and she was with a group of women selling magazines. She tried and succeeded in selling my dad a subscription to Colliers Weekly for $3.00 a year. My dad was smitten so he asked her for a date. They went out on a double date with a friend of his and a friend of hers. She left the next day. She had signed up with a touring sales group of female magazine saleswomen. They began in Georgia and traveled cross country to California stopping in major cities selling magazine subscriptions along the way. To make some money and to get to San Francisco to attend the Glad Tidings Bible School, my mother joined this group and sold magazines.

The group arrived in San Francisco. She enrolled in the bible school. After a couple of days she realized religious life was not for her so she returned to the touring group leaving for Los Angeles. The group continued on to San Diego and she went back to Georgia. Without much money she took the trolly as far out of LA as it would go. Changing to boys clothes and with her bobbed hair and cap looking like a young boy, she hitchhiked and road the rails to Atlanta. In 1929-30 there was not the same angst as now and my mother was independent and fearless then. She changed clothes again in Atlanta and took the bus to Savannah so her mother would not know. Arriving in Savannah there were letters from Bondi now living in Los Angeles.

Everyone called my dad Bondi (his given name was Orlando) even by his mother, sisters, brothers, friends, and my mom. I too am sometimes called Bondi but mostly Don or Donnie but rarely Duck which Rose christened me at a young age. He asked my mother to come to Los Angeles, sent her bus fare and said she could stay with his sister Kay until they knew each other better and then get married. (That indeed was a different time.) She did, they did, and were married in the County Court House of Los Angeles in September 1931, celebrating their one day honeymoon on Catalina Island. Two years later I arrived. (YEA!) After my mother convinced my father in 1932 to buy the 2 bedroom house at 3004 Asbury Street for $3000.00. (The furniture cost $3750.00.) The mortgage was paid off in 1941, and they lived there the rest of their lives and I with them until I left for the Army after graduating from UCLA at 21.

Living at 3004 Asbury, a very short street on an incline, became my boyhood playground. Then it was OK for children to play unsupervised, and in the street where we played football, baseball, and kick the can. No basketball, who had the money for a basket and net. We even played cowboys and Indians in each others back yards using cap guns, and played war using rubber-guns. And I was very good at hopscotch! I know boys were not supposed to be good at that, but I was very agile and more coordinated than the other boys my age. The biggest problem evolved when more residents had cars and started parking on the street interfering with our ball games. (Who did they think they were, this was our street for play not for parking.) Near dusk when it was time to come in, my mom would honk the car horn three times and I knew to get home now or else.

Christmas Day was another street event when all the kids brought out their presents to show off. My best presents were an electric train, roller skates, and a bicycle given at different times. The skates were relatively easy to manipulate, but to learn to ride the bike took time and patience. (I did not have much of that then and still don’t.)

The holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, were not particularly happy days. My mom was a good no frills cook so the diners were great, but the atmosphere was not - she always drank too