Civil War - Can't We All Just Get Along Now?

Happy Flag Day! Look, I'm not a big flag waver. I'd prefer a "World" flag, but then again, I'm an old peacenik. Anyhoo, there's a lot of news of late about taking down statues and Confederacy icons, which is really about time. It's been 155 years since the end of the American Civil War (which was not so civil, when you think about it). 

Now, I am a Daughter of Union Veterans (three of my direct ancestors fought on the Union side in that war), but I am also the direct descendant of Confederate soldiers. My 3rd great-grandfather Benjamin Franklin Hammett was a Lieutenant who was wounded at the battles of Gettysburg and Chickamauga. My 3rd great-grandfather Thomas Cox Bowen fought in the Virginia Cavalry. Both of those veterans were my Grandpa Bowen's grandfathers, but not once did Grandpa wave a Confederate flag or even discuss the Confederacy. 

There's no honor in losing, sorry. It would be like having souvenirs of my two great uncles' "service" in San Quentin for armed robbery and kidnapping proudly displayed, or the moonshine still from another ancestor dug up and displayed, etc. Well...maybe the still woulda' been cool! 

Some things you just put away, acknowledge that they are part of history, and MOVE ON. The flag we use today is based upon the flag that our Union ancestors fought for, and won. 

I don't lord it over the "losers" - I am part of them, too - I'd just like to think that there is now just one side, "our" side.

I Talk Funny to Cats

When I was young, I was talking funny to dogs, since that is all that we had.

I am not sure why I started out  conversing normally with an animal, then suddenly my voice takes on another
personality.

To be honest, this post should be called: "I talk funny to animals because I have talked to any furry creature I encountered (and a few non-furry ones) with a funny voice. I even funny talked a gopher out of a hole so that my photographer husband could get a shot of him (or her). 

When it was my family pets - or rather, pet family - I had a 
different way of speaking with each pet.  If I go any further in 
describing this, it all sounds a little nuts.  I somehow influenced my daughter, I guess, because she speaks funny to animals, as well. 

Maybe it isn't so weird to speak to animals.  After all, I am 
sure that St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, 
spoke to animals.   If not,  Dr. Dolittle could be the patron saint of talking to animals.....

It's All About the Stories

We hope that our stories will live on after we are gone. We want some bit of immortality, to not be forgotten.  Each of us adds pages to our "life-book" with these stories.

My own memories and experiences are interwoven with the stories told to me...added to the many stories I discovered when doing my genealogy.  

History and the tradition of storytelling among all cultures links us to the past, and the stories we hand down to our grandchildren links us to the future.  What stories will you tell?

For me, accuracy is important.  In genealogy, I verify the facts with documentation & cross-referencing. For those who do not have the advantage of obtaining the records, you might at least connect to your ancestry through DNA testing. That way, you can find matches who may have that information - family trees which lead back to you. 

My grandfather, on the other hand, told tall tales.  He embellished his stories to make them more interesting to listeners. We would enjoy his descriptions of his country boyhood in Denver City, Texas - a place that he was eager to leave. His parents must have felt that way, too, because he and his family moved to San Francisco when he was 14.  Once he met my grandma - a San Francisco native, a city girl - he never looked back...except in his stories.

Grandpa also told us that we had a great-grandmother who was a Cherokee Indian princess. We believed this, and I only recently discovered through DNA that I have not a trace of Native American in my blood.  Maybe Grandpa was told that story by his folks, and believed it. DNA has changed the stories! 

Mostly, I don't want my loved ones to be forgotten, that their lives mattered. I have lost two siblings, and I want some of their stories to continue - even if they are through my own recollections.  I would hope that others might do the same for me. 

We Owe our Existence to H.M.S. Pinafore

My mom often told us about how she met my father.  They were both students at Mission High School in San Francisco.  He was Class of 1949, she was Class of '50.  Mission High had about 1,000 students, even back then, so it wasn't a given that they'd ever meet.

I guess I owe my existence to H.M.S. Pinafore, and the Mission High drama department, because that is where they met, in 1949.  Mom was playing the character of "Little Buttercup", and my father was "Dick Deadeye".  Good casting.  

Both parents also performed in other musical productions at Mission High.  For example, my father played one of the Guards in "The Mikado".

Mom wasn't in that one, and she didn't perform with Louis Hagler in another play, so she may never had met our father but not for "Pinafore", as Lou was due to graduate soon after that production.  

Mom did get a nice mention in the S.F. Examiner about her role as "Little Buttercup".

This is one of those "what if?" moments.  Mom could have married this guy, George somebody(?) who she said was "very nice, a sweet boy, but dull as dishwater."  That's mom and George at the Polo Field in S.F., 1948.    And couldn't the photographer have left his shoes out of that shot?!?!? 

A Moving Experience

When we moved to our present house in 2002, I vowed that I would never move again.  This was the first home I had ever owned, and moving was so exhausting, that I just didn't think I could go through that, again.

Added to this was that I love our little home.  Two bathrooms, my own office, and other extras.  Mike has a walk-in closet and en suite in the master bath. Open concept kitchen and living room area.  Great neighbors, short hike up our hill to view Mavericks, beautiful scenery and the harbor nearby. 

The HMB airport is our neighbor - I spent a lot of time at that airport as a child.  The location is not too far from our gallery, a 15- minute drive on a good day. 

Our home is a mobile home, in what used to be called  a "trailer park".  The houses today are by and large called "manufactured homes". To those of us who live here, they are real homes.  We have maintained the property since we bought the house. New washer, screen door, energy-saving refrigerator and overhead lights, paint, redwood fencing, and garbage disposal.  In 2015, we had the house repainted white, with turquoise trim.  

Recently, to make the house compliant with park regulations, we had our front porch stairs replaced, including handrails and awning supports, for almost $9,000.!  Features listed of our house include:

2 Bedrooms, located at opposite ends of the home

Walk-in closet (master bedroom)

Built-in book case (Master Bedroom)

2 full bathrooms, located at opposite ends of the home

En suite  (master bath)

Generous open-concept kitchen-living room area

Central heating in all rooms

Washer and dryer

Screen Door in rear of house

14.8 Cu ft. Energy-Saver Frigidare refrigerator

Garbage Disposal

Energy-Saving light fixtures (kitchen and bedrooms).

Gas stove & oven (especially great during electrical outages)

Dishwasher (only used twice in 18 years)

40-gallon hot water heater

Redwood fence

Generous rear deck

Reinforced fire-resistant front stairway hand rails, and supports

We pay a monthly lot rental fee of around $1200. per month;  we paid off our home when we bought it), which has never been an issue, as long as we are working.  But we now wish to retire, and if we do that, we will no longer be able to live here. 

My husband Mike had an idea last year, which coincided with a significant uptick in our workload, due to the only other custom picture framer closing shop.  We were both exhausted every night after work, and at times overwhelmed. We are in our late 60s, and only make so much in Social Security payments -  certainly not enough to pay the lot rental here if we retired. What to do? 

Mike remembered that his mother would be willing a duplex to him, and he thought it would be even better if we moved in before she left us. He approached her with that idea, and she agreed.  That way, we would pay no rent (after helping pay off the property), and could afford any other expenses with our Social Security income. Consider this:  property values have gone through the roof (so to speak), in the Bay Area. When we purchased our home in 2002, we paid $79,000, fully expecting it to depreciate in time.  But because the housing market has changed here, our home will be worth close to $200,000 - and more, if we are lucky enough to have a bidding war when we sell.  Crazy! Long story short - we are in the process of moving. 

Little things I've learned along the way:

 1.  If it doesn't fit, get rid of it.  I had clothes in my closet that I was waiting to lose weight to fit into again.  After 18 years, I have finally realized that was not going to happen - unless I get really sick, and lose a lot of weight - and even if I do get sick, I won't want to wear those clothes again!   I don't have a huge wardrobe as it is - my closet is only half full - so will be easy to re-locate my threads! 

2. Pace yourself.   Last time we moved, we had to do it in just a few days.  This time, we bought a shed, and have started moving stuff a little at a time.  We are not youngsters in our early 50s anymore. We have to guard our health.  Anything too large will be handled by professional movers. 

3. Label those boxes! 
Last move, I distinctly recall looking around for our kitchen implements and other items in hastily-packed boxes without labels. Very frustrating!  Best to label on both top and side of each box.  

4.  Have friends help out, when they offer!  We have friends with skills and tools that we do not have. Door hangers, window installers, carpet cleaners, carpenters, etc.  We can trade favors - for instance, our friend Bob modified shelves in our new shed, and we are custom-framing a photo for him.  Bob did a wonderful job making the shelves fit in a way that we could not.

 

5. If you don't use it, lose it.  Moving is a great opportunity to dump stuff that you will never need.  Anything that you just store and don't use, in reality, is just a waste of precious real estate.  We are downsizing - our new place will be smaller - which makes this rule even more imperative.  Donate to your favorite local thrift store or have a huge yard sale.  We do plan to "yard sale" some things, after moving.  I'm not saying that I have "all" the answers (as if!) but it is good to plan accordingly.  Looking forward to retiring in our new home! 

See's Candy and Mission Paks for Christmas

I've been seeing this display since I was a kid - and that's a LONG time ago! It's the SEE's Candy Santa Display in South San Francisco.

 

My Auntie Arlene used to work at that See's Candy Store in SSF. Any time we were there, we'd ask our mom if we could visit Auntie, but Mom didn't want to disturb her sister-in-law at work. That was Mom's story, but she also never got us the cakes or sweets at our church bake sales or when the Bread Man rolled around. Maybe she was doing us a favor, not loading our bodies with sugar(which we have more than made up for since then). Auntie Arlene and Uncle George used to send us Mission Pack fruit baskets for Christmas (remember those t.v. commercials? I still remember the song).

Mom would torture us by having us look at that thing until Christmas Day. We kids were hungry/starving most of the time, so food was always a great gift choice. Meanwhile, Auntie, Uncle, and their lucky kids would go off to Hawaii for Christmas. Mahalo, Auntie and Uncle! mele Kalikimaka!

Dog Gone Sad

I probably should preface this by saying that if you don't want to be sad, don't read this blog, and leave it at that. 

A friend had recently asked me what my most exciting Christmas gift as a child was.

That would have been in 1958. My sister, brother and I saw a large box by the tree. We went to the box, and saw a puppy. We were THRILLED. We had never had a pet before. We took him out of the box, and just played with the puppy - who we named "Chauncy" - all day. Had to go to mass, and were impatient to get back home to play with Chauncy. 3 months later, Chauncy was sick - apparently, he had distemper. My parents had bought him at a pet store in SF. He had to be put down, of course.  We were DEVASTATED!

Our next puppy was 6 years later - half chihuahua, half cocker spaniel. My father named her "Lisbeth Tailears." We had Lisbeth for 3 years. We ADORED her! 

My sister Susan holding Lisbeth Tailears.

But we stupid kids were walking her around Pacific Manor one day, and decided to take her off-leash (there were no leash laws then). We were blabbing away, crossing the overpass - that one that they just re-did in Sharp Park. We suddenly noticed that Lisbeth wasn't with us. We looked around, and saw that she was crossing the freeway, below us. She was afraid of heights, I guess. We looked down, saw her look up, and then saw her being hit by a car! We rushed down to where she lay. She was killed instantly. The driver stopped and apologized - he felt horrible. We reassured him it wasn't his fault, that our dog wasn't supposed to be on the road. My brother Arlo and I were just sobbing, almost hysterical. My sister Laurie picked up Lisbeth's body, and I ran to a pay phone to call our mom. Laurie told Arlo and I to stop crying - that Lisbeth was "just a dog".  I remembered Laurie's comment 5 years after that - 1969 - when she was killed in a car accident. More grief. 

We had other dogs - Laurie's dog Lucy was hit by a car and killed a month after Laurie died. Lucy was LAURIE'S dog, no other, and she grieved, that dog just mourned for my sister (as we all did). 

Around 1970, my brother had a dog named Nina that had puppies. We were excited about the pups. A couple of days after the pups were born, we looked everywhere for the, and couldn't find them. Our mom told us that they had all died. We were freaked out - a litter of 6 pups all died? Years later, my mom confessed (while drunk) that she had drowned them all in the tub. I guess she was feeling overwhelmed. I can't have pets - I'm bad luck for pets - they all die on me. 

The second most exciting Christmas gift was the Beatles Rubber Soul album.