Journal 1993

By Joseph Sutton

"Journal 1993" is the ninth in a series of yearly journals by San Francisco author Joseph Sutton. It shows the ups and downs Sutton experienced as a dedicated but unpublished writer. It covers the relationship that he, a former college football player, had with his baseball-loving 12-year-old son. Also included are what he learned from his therapist—how to deal with a meddlesome mother-in-law and how his athletic ability saved him from being stifled as a young boy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Sutton
• Release date: May 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215296516

Joseph Sutton

Joseph Sutton was born in Brooklyn and raised in Hollywood. He played football at the University of Oregon and graduated with a degree in philosophy. He earned a teaching credential and a degree in history at Cal State University Los Angeles and taught high school history and English for many years. Sutton, who has been writing for more than 50 years, has published over two dozen books. His essays and short stories have appeared in numerous national magazines and journals. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan.

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JOURNAL 1993

by

Joseph Sutton

Copyright 2023 by Joseph Sutton

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Description

Journal 1993 is the ninth in a series of yearly journals by San Francisco author Joseph Sutton. This journal shows the ups and downs Sutton experienced as a dedicated but unpublished writer. It covers the relationship that he, a former college football player, had with his baseball-loving 12-year-old son. Also included are two important things he learned from his therapist—how to deal with a meddlesome, controlling mother-in-law and how his athletic ability saved him from being stifled as a young boy.

Monday, January 4, 1993

The Most Important Room in the House

Home. What does it mean to me? It means closeness. It means my mother and father and five brothers.

The true meaning of home to me were the dinners we ate together. My mother, may God rest her soul, was one tremendous cook. We all sat around the breakfast room table in the evening, six hulking boys and our thin father, and we dug into her fabulous creations. It was mainly regular fare during the week, but come Friday night, Shabbat, that was special, that's when we all stood, with Dad, a glass of Manischewitz in his hand, saying a short prayer in Hebrew. After finishing the prayer, Dad took a sip of wine, handed the glass to Mom, who took a sip, and then passed it on to our oldest brother Charles, and so on down the line to Dave, Bob, Maurice, me, and Albert. We went around the table, kissed our parents on the cheek and shook hands with each other, saying "Shabbat Shalom"—a peaceful sabbath.

Then the Friday night meal of our Syrian Jewish heritage was served. It consisted of white rice and a large chicken roasted in the same pot with diced potatoes. Mom made a vegetable topping for the rice called sour soup—a lemony tasting concoction made up of little meatballs and cut up celery. She would maybe make a vegetable dish of string beans or of zucchini stuffed with rice and ground lamb called mechshi.

Home wasn't home without all of us sitting around the breakfast room table. Mom didn't sit until the meal was almost finished. Most of the time she was going into the kitchen for more food or arguing with Dad to eat more.

Why didn't Dad eat much? He was a depressed man. He drank whiskey on the sly to escape his depression. He never showed that he had taken a swig or two or three, but sometimes you could smell it on his breath, or you could smell Sen-Sen, a licorice-smelling breath freshener he took to hide the liquor smell. He didn't want to be bothered with anything when he left his small retail linen store on 7th and Hill Streets in downtown Los Angeles to take the bus home to Fairfax Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. He didn't want to be bothered by his wife or sons. Oh, sometimes he'd complain about business being slow, but most of the time he and Mom would be arguing at the dinner table. Raymond, eat your food. You can't survive if you eat like a bird. No, Jean, I'm not hungry. Dad was skinny, almost all bones. I, along with my brothers, didn't say anything to them while they argued. All we did was eat the food of our ancestors while we discussed President Eisenhower's decisions, Marlon Brando's roles in Viva Zapata and On the Waterfront, or whether Bob Waterfield or Norm Van Brocklin should play quarterback for the L.A. Rams.

Eat, Raymond, eat. No, Jean, no. You need strength, Raymond. I'm not hungry, he'd say. She would then go into the kitchen for more food. While in there, Dad would quickly transfer half the food on his plate to one of my brothers' plates or mine, depending who was sitting next to him. When Mom came back with more food, she never seemed to notice Dad's almost empty plate.

Home was the breakfast room where we ate dinner because it was closer to the kitchen than the much larger dining room. Those Friday night meals were warm and filled with mountainous plates of Middle Eastern fare. It was all of us being together that made the breakfast room the most important room in the house.

Wednesday, January 6, 1993

Family

I'm at the Koret Center at the University of San Francisco. Koret has all the exercise machines I need—bicycle, step, treadmill. I'm going to set a weight and get down to it, no matter what. My goal is to get down to 185 pounds. Will I do it? Right now I weigh around 200. If I lose 10 or 15 pounds I'll feel better about myself. I'll be lighter, stronger, have more energy, and look better. I'm determined to do it. I'm committed to do it. I will do it. I'm doing it.

I saw my therapist Richard Vogel this morning. He thinks I'm making great progress. My former therapist at Kaiser gave me the shock of my life when she told me I was a depressed person. Richard thinks differently. He said that a depressed person doesn't do what I'm doing, like exercising and setting goals for my writing and weight.

Our visit to Los Angeles in December was very rewarding—especially for our 12-year-old son Ray. He got to see and know his cousins better. He has no cousins here in San Francisco. The three things that stick out in my mind are the conversations I had with my three older brothers.

Bob, five years older than me, while we were eating lunch in L.A.'s Chinatown, said to me, I never got married because I didn't want to give up my acting career. Bob has gotten a bunch