Life Is a Donner Party #2

By Tarry Stools

I didn't go looking for a fight. Just a little sunshine. I had intended to go to the university, but I got a different education entirely.

When a kid from the city lands in Humboldt County, California, the locales put on a show, essentially resulting in murder.

When values clash, common sense goes out the window. A high-tech murder is sanctioned by law enforcement as the culture grapples with its identity.

Culturally, we learn from each other. We take from each other. Life is a Donner party.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669814542

Tarry Stools

Tarry Stools lives in the United States. The author is now a disabled person still living in Northern California.

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Copyright © 2022 by Tarry Stools.

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.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/30/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

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CONTENTS

1st Grade

Basketball League

Avion

Korea

Logging

Scrandos

1ST GRADE

I N 1974 I was five years old. We had moved to the top of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle from just south of the city in Federal Way. I was about to start the first grade. My new school was three blocks away. I would walk myself to school. That was no big deal, I had walked myself to kindergarten the year before, and that had been much further.

The fog that frequently hung on Queen Anne kept most of the world a mystery. Revealing it only gradually as I walked along.

In 1974 Queen Anne was very much middle-class. At least a-lot of it. There were many houses on the market at prices that relative to average incomes were easily attainable. As I made my way to school I was blissfully unaware of what would happen to my city.

I don’t remember any cars driving on the streets. It may have been due to the fog, but everything was silent.

West Queen Anne Elementary is a beautiful brick and Terracotta building on Galer Street.

The walk to school was neither short or far. Down one block past the Masonic Lodge. Then cut across the street before the corner so I could cut – through the Carnegie Libraries grounds. Past the Methodist church, and down the last block after making a left at the church.

Ms. Axely dished up the ABC’s.

Adam Greenfield was the star in the class because he was on the intro, to Boomerang, a local kids show.

Tiffany Leach chased me around the playground, and I her. Two perfect balls of light. Un-bothered by any concerns whatsoever.

Milk cost fifteen cents. Hard currency, placed in my hand every morning. And I don’t even like milk.

Nelsen’s Grocery was at 325 West Galer Street. One block east of west Queen Anne Elementary.

I can’t say why I decided to give myself permission to deviate my route home. I certainly didn’t ask permission.

I walked east instead of north with my milk money. I pushed open the door to Nelsen’s. Don was standing behind the till, one foot up on a shelf under the counter, puffing on a cigar. He was talking to another man on the other side of the counter.

When I walked in, they both stopped talking, and looked at me.

I had walked up to the end of the counter. I felt Mr. Nelsen’s gaze. I held out my hand, palm up, with my fifteen cents prominantly displayed. I said nothing.

Mr. Nelson leaned to his right and jiggled the box with the small boxes of Boston Baked Beans, and the box with the small boxes of Lemon heads in it. Then he said.

And these are a penny.

He said this pointing to an assortment of small jaw breakers and bubble-gum.

I don’t remember having any trouble calculating what I could get. Although, it’s possible he taught me basic math.

Whatever the case. I decided to make Nelsen’s my second home for the next fifteen years, so did many others.

John Briggs, Gary Schubert, and Chris James composed the Torrid Trio. They put the bar for standards of behavior in the basement. We all looked good in comparison. They were the older brothers - older than me by quite abit, five or six years.

Most of my peers at Nelsens were a couple years older than me. My brothers class 1985.

Most of my interesting (at least to me) memories don’t begin until teenage years. Mr. Nelsen was there all the time between. Extending credit to us, that we would fulfill with paper-route money.

My tastes grew with me. I went from the candy, to the ice cream. To the frozen pizzas and french dip sandwiches. Nelsen had it all covered.

Video games appeared. Galaga was one of the first real current games we got. The high-score finally ended up with Chris I believe.

The Walkman, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, everything up to and in-between seemed to run-through but the Ramones were king.

Brian figured out he could call a cab anytime he wanted to go anywhere. He shunned the bus, and explored cabbie-culture.

Brian assigned a strict criteria for tipping a cabbie. All of the following qualified the cabbie for a 50¢ bump in his gratuity. This was probably 1983. I’m thinking Brian was about 15. The qualifications were these: If the cabbie smoked anything +.50¢.

If the cabbie swore. (used profanity) +.50¢

If the cabbie talked sports. +.50¢

If the cabbie talked politics. +.50¢

I’m not a good person to describe Brian. We had way too much fun together. Spanning multiple continants.

Generally, we behaved for Mr. Nelsen. Occasionally getting out of hand. One day Brian got into a heated argument with my brother, Andy. Andy got popped. He took it with good grace. Usually when we acted-up, Mr. Nelsen would grab a short wiffle bat and chase us all out.

There milk crates in-between the candy-racks to sit-on. In the opposite corner was a microwave, small fuzzy t.v., and a stool.

It’s strange. I don’t remember any fights surrounding seating. There must have been understandings, but I don’t remember.

Brian was competative at everything. An example of this was one day when we were hanging around outside the store chewing gum. Brian said:

I bet I can spit this gum out of my mouth, and kick it across Galer. (the street)

Bulls#@t! I said.

Brian stepped back so his back was against the store. In order to have the whole width of the sidewalk for his kick. He looked across the street focusing on the telephone company building. Took one slow step with his left leg while spitting out his gum so that it fell almost straight down. His right leg swung through perfectly timed, and thwack! The gum not only cleared the street, it stuck to the telephone building above the row of windows on the first floor.

It was on. It didn’t take long for others to join in. By the end of the summer the telephone company appeared spackled with a rainbow of colors. Several of us actually achieved kicking gum up onto the roof. No one that I know of complained. We called it Gunting. After several weeks of this, our shoes (kicking shoes) were covered in bright colored slime.

Troy’s dad had a plumbing service. This gave Troy the ability to make significant money even though he was only seventeen, he had been able to buy an old Ford Bronco. It had the smaller stock type tires. The small-block V8 struggled to get any spin out the tires. Despite this Troy would occasionally smoke-ém.

It was a sunny warm day. There were a group hanging around the outside of the building, maybe eight or nine of us. Troy decided to go.

There was a little boy from next door in the apartments hanging out with us. He had a vest, cowboy hat, and a plastic rifle.

Troy had gotten into his Bronco and had driven up to the stop sign before turning onto Galer.

We all started yelling at him to light ém up!

Troy looked over with a big smile and revved the engine.

The little boy hanging out with us identified that Troy’s Bronco had become the focus of the group.

Troy revved his engine again.

The boy raised his rifle, pointing it at the Bronco.

Simultaneously, the boy yelled Bang!

At that moment Troy dropped the clutch trying to produce at least a chirp.

Instead of burning rubber, there was a loud, actual Bang! from underneath the Bronco. The Bronco remained motionless other than the driveline dropping and hitting the ground.

He killed it!

The little boy turned around and looked at us with an amazed expression.

Troy sheepishly got out of his vehicle. Pulled the driveline out, putting it in the back. He put it in four-wheel drive and drove home.

The little boy went running home to tell his mom.

As we got older, our debts to Nelsen started running into the hundreds. Fortunately, Olympia Pizza, at 1500 Queen Anne Ave. N. was hiring.

I started folding to-go boxes for Spiro when I was 14. The only way to get a raise from Spiro, was to get fired. Other than changing jobs. Such as bus-boy to cook. It went like this. Spiro would get furious, somtimes over trivial things. He would yell a string of expletives and tell you to get out, the next night Spiro wouldn’t be able to figure out why you weren’t there. He would call Nelsen’s, a few blocks away, to find you. Once he had you on the phone, he would call you stupid for thinking you were fired, and that if you came in you’d get 35¢ more an hour. Most of us have that story.

One day, before we opened, I was sitting folding boxes, the linen delivery guy showed up. He came in carrying bar-towels and shirts to replace the dirty ones. He set the bar-towels on the counter and walked to the back with the shirts.

Spiro went over to the stack of bar-towels and started counting.

When the linen guy made his way back to the front, without the shirts, but with a bag of dirty laundry. Spiro had already re-counted the bar-towels and was fuming mad about it. It was a combination of Spiro’s extended index finger, the yelled profanity, and sheer craziness that drove the linen guy backward. All the way until his back was against the far wall. Spiro kept yelling until the poor guy had grabbed what he could and escaped out the front door without so much as a word. This was the day we switched uniforms, and linen services. After the linen guy left Spiro added a few more explitives and said: "There were only 49 towels in that bundle. They charge me for 50.

I’m not painting a flattering picture of Spiro. He had good qualities too. They were just more subtle.

Olympia was loud and obnoxious. Customers were frequently heard to cheer on Spiro while he was yelling at us. Give ém hell Spiro!

The restaurant was always loud especially of course, when we were busy which was usually.

The cooks were calling out waitresses names, to-go customer names, and crashing the pizza pans into the bin.

The waitresses were yelling at the bus-boys.

Bob and or Spiro were yelling at everyone.

On Friday nights there was a line down the block. People waited hours for an Olympia Pizza.

Brian would usually answer the phone and bus tables. One night Brian decided he’d gotten tired of Olympia Pizza and wanted somthing else for dinner. He called Dominoes and ordered a pizza to be delivered.

The Dominoes driver had to fight through the mob already struggling to get in the door.

Finally he made it up to the front counter, in his uniform, holding up his pizza.

Spiro finally laid eyes on the poor guy, who appeared thoroughly confused. Just as Spiro was about to eviscerate the poor guy, Brian stepped in and claimed the pizza.

Spiro was cranky for awhile, then decided it was the funniest thing ever.

They were running Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns back to back on some chanel. Neal was beside himself to get his shift at Olympia covered, so he could watch. His only hope after exploring the issue otherwise, was to get his older brother Gary to cover it.

Gary, not surprisingly, had no intention of working when he wasn’t scheduled. There was nothing Neal could do but miss it.

I happened to be working that night. I can verify that Gary, though unscheduled and not being paid. Spent the entirety of that night, draped over the Hobart mixer in the back of Olympia’s kitchen, smoking cigarettes, while Neal worked.

Before Bob the manager, there was Vascilious. (I am just guessing at his name spelling). I think it was Rick who refered to Vascilious as Dirt Soily. He kind of was.

Mr. Petersen enjoyed our pizza and would frequently come in. Mr. Petersen wasn’t mentally healthy. He was badly obsessive compulsive. He could never trust that when he had completed a financial transaction, the appropriate amount of money would make it to his pocket. In fact, Mr. Petersen continually scanned the ground, for money, I guess.

When Mr. Petersen would pay Vascilious for the pizza, Vascilious would intentionally drop his change on the floor.

This act would send Mr. Petersen into a phrenetic search. It’s not funny. Vascilious was an ass-H#@e.

Of course, as high-school age males, our sense of humor maybe ranged a little more widely than adviseable or kind.

An example of this was a label created and placed by my brother. Not characteristically accurate of his normal behavior.

In all fairness to Andy, the dad could have trimmed his eyebrows before they had become the crazy un-ruly mess that hovered above and in-front of his eyes. And... maybe if the dad had trimmed his eyebrow, maybe his son would have trimmed his. And... if the men in the family were tending their facial hair... I don’t think I’ll finish this one.

There were plenty of others. Rick dubbed the grocer in the 20th Century market: "Patchwork Quilt-Head due to... Never mind.

Part of Hal’s job was putting raw sausage pieces on pizzas. Un-fortunately for Hal, this was un-acceptable. Each time Hal had to make a pizza with sausage, it set off a chain of events that were mysterious and entertaining.

First, the order was received with a quietly stated F-bomb. Audible only to those behind the counter.

Second, Hals level of apprehension would rise as he started making the pizza, sauce, spread it around. A little cheese. Hal muttering expletives under his breath. Most of the toppings, a little more cheese. Now it’s time for the sausage. Hal cannot be spoken to while he