LIFE STORIES
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Grand Central Station
By Rabon Saip
June 17, 2009
My earliest memories of after dark recollect the islands of illumination created by coal oil lamps. Everything that needed doing after the sun went down was done by their soft, sometimes odorous glow. And then one night, a bright and harsh bulb of stark illumination, hung from the ceiling by a thin dark wire, brought so much brightness one could see into every corner of the room. Such bright light seemed overbearing to me, like an alien imposition into the cracks and blemishes or our rural, bare wood existence.
The coal oil lamps were still carried to other parts of the house, where the magic wire had not yet been strung. And I noticed that Grandma seemed to prefer the old lamplight, as I did, except when she had sewing to do.
And then one day a thing came into the house that would change all our lives. It was a mysterious and powerful piece of furniture, with large black knobs and a long row of numbers behind a shiny glass window. It was majestic. In fact, although I could not quite decipher it at the time, the word “Majestic” was emblazoned on its wide, wood paneled facade.
For those of us who were too young to have a say, instructions were clear. Only my grandfather and oldest uncle were allowed to touch those large black knobs. They would determine the miracles of modern broadcasting that blessed our evenings of family entertainment. Amos n’ Andy, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, Allen’s Alley, Gangbusters, The Shadow, The Green Lantern, Superman, The Lone Ranger; how exciting and real they all were.
And how strong the memory, as we all sat staring intently at that majestic piece of furniture, as though the images inside our minds depended on looking deeply into the fabric behind the thin wooden filagree that covered the large speaker. In the dark recesses of that place, behind the bright, shiny veneer, was a magical world that sparked the awesome power of our imaginations. The sound effects were amazing; the crunch of gravel, the creaking door, the sound of breaking glass, and the wind storms. And how many times did I hear that same squeal of tires and the car crash that followed?
Then the miracle of Saturday morning, a blessing from on high, as we listened to the offerings of Let’s Pretend and Buster Brown. I can still hear the jingle about Cream of Wheat, “so good to eat,” and “Pluck your magic twanger Froggy,” which made me wonder exactly what was his “twanger.” Then, when I got just a little older, I even stuck around for the “crossroads of a thousand private lives daily,” as the announcer’s deep, sonorous voice called out, “Graaand Central Station.”
Eventually, when the newness of this miracle was beginning to wear off, I dared to approach that sacred machine for my own investigation. There was no one in the house. Grandfather and my uncles were gone working. Grandma was outside and my aunts were off someplace out of sight. I was careful to look around for my same age Uncle Sherrill, because I knew for certain he would tell on me.
I was holding my breath as I reached out for the big knob that turned the radio on. Carefully, carefully, keeping the volume low, I manipulated the master knob that scanned the world of radio frequencies. Voices spoke about adult things that didn’t hold my attention. There were the hillbilly sounds of Grand Old Oprey stars like Roy Acuff, Earnest Tubb, and my namesake Rabon and his brother Alton, who were known as the Delmore Brothers. Then suddenly, a radio station in Atlanta changed my world forever.
It was as though all my life I had been living in a box, and all at once the box was snatched away. The giant sound that poured into my brain was almost unbearable. I felt my head expanding, my body expanding. I felt strangely exposed. I had never even dreamed anything could sound like that; so full, so complete, so beautiful, like the whole wide world wrapped into one magnificent blast of harmony. Such was the music of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to a little boy down in West Macon.
I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I ran to tell anyone in the vicinity about my earth shattering discovery. Unfortunately, I had momentarily forgotten about the radio rules and received a whipping from my grandfather. But it was worth it.
Back to the Drawing Board
Part IV: Leddy Pet Park
By Virginia Graves
May 25, 2009
When we sold the ranch in San Jose in 1959, the main reason was that we felt we were being forced out because new housing developments were coming ever closer to our property. We knew close neighbors would not tolerate a dog kennel in their midst.
We searched for property, moving northward, but were turned down for use permits for kennels in the Sunnyvale area. There were already too many kennels in the area.
We ended up in Santa Rosa, where we built Leddy Pet Park on a 2.5-acre piece-of-pie-shaped parcel just west of what then was the intersection of Sebastopol and Occidental Roads.
We established Leddy Pet Park as a kennel for our dogs, a boarding kennel, a pet shop and a pet grooming center.
We moved ourselves from San Jose, constructed the new buildings and kennels ourselves. It was an enormous feat that involved the whole family.
We developed the complex and naturally Don had to keep improving and adding on. It became our own Winchester Mystery House! Additions to the kennel house were built during the day and painted at night with the aid of headlights from our cars. In the morning, everything looked like it had always been there. Don cajoled the building inspector with bottles of whiskey and other gifts whenever necessary to keep the project going with the same permit.
There had to be money coming in, so I got a job as a meat wrapper at Roger Wilco supermarket in Petaluma. I did this work for five years.
Don eventually hired a groomer, Dorothy, because he simply could not do everything himself. Unfortunately, having a groomer on site provided the opportunity for him to be absent from the business from time to time. (He began hanging out at Rocco’s, the Bank Club and other watering holes.)
It was at about this time that Don had a minor stroke which left his speech slurred for a while. When he recovered, his absences from the business became more frequent.
Dorothy couldn't’t handle the grooming, the pet shop and the kennel alone, so Don hired a drunken derelict to do clean the kennels.
Enter Poncho
Poncho was of Portuguese, Puerto Rican and probably Mexican heritage. He never mastered the English language very well, so it was sometimes difficult to understand his particular lingo. It was often funny when he spoke, but he became indignant if we laughed.
Poncho was a clown, a loveable clown, even when drunk. He certainly was the eccentric of the area. Everyone was fond of him, though, and put up with his antics.Poncho was a loyal employee, as he had been in the past for former employers such as dairies. Since he lived nearby in a little shack at the corner of Irwin Lane and Occidental Road, he used a bicycle for transportation.
His job was to let the dogs out of the kennel house in the morning, feed them (Don mixed the food ahead of time), clean their buckets and give them fresh water. Later, he was to pick up the empty food pans and wash them. Then he cleaned the kennels. Sometime around 7 or 8 o’clock at night, depending on Daylight Savings Time, his job was to return to the property and coax the dogs back into the kennel house to close them in for the night. The drop doors operated with pull ropes, like a Guillotine.This schedule allowed Poncho to have most of the day to himself. He would wile away the time at the Bank Club or Mac’s across the street, or he’d simply find a nice place to sit and drink cheap beer or wine.
One day Poncho stepped out of the Bank Club to discover he had a flat tire on his bike, so he called AAA for a tow. AAA responded even though Poncho was not a member. When the driver arrived, he asked who had called for a tow. Poncho spoke up – “I did!” – and showed the tow truck driver his bicycle. The good natured driver chalked up the experience as a joke and went on his way, but Poncho was furious that the tow truck had come and gone and he still had a flat tire.
“I’ll never vote for him again!” Poncho swore. He wasn't’ a registered voter anyway, and he apparently didn’t realize tow truck drivers aren’t elected.
Another time, Poncho came pedaling back to Leddy Pet Park as the sun was setting. We were sitting at the kitchen table and saw him through the window from the house. He entered the back door of the kennel house and began letting the dogs out into their runs.
Don yelled. “Poncho! It’s not morning! The dogs are supposed to be in for the night.”
Poncho stared back blankly.
“Wha-cha-mean? It’s not mornin’?”
“Look where the sun is, Poncho,” explained Don. “Does the sun rise in the west?”
“Huh?” came Poncho’s response. He didn’t know east from west. “Ohhh … well … I’ll bring ’em back in.”
Don and Poncho often got into arguments but they always ended up friends. Poor Dorothy often was caught in the middle of their spats. Poncho thought she was a threat to his position, so he silently spied on her while he went about his chores. Consequently, the relationship between Poncho and Dorothy was strained because Poncho could not keep anything to himself.
Don began to drift farther from home, spending more time at Rocco’s on old Sebastopol Road in the Roseland District. Poncho could not spy on him there and carry tales back to Dorothy or me.
I was not privy to all that went on during this time because I was working in Petaluma and gone from the place 9 to 10 hours a day.
Always eager to get into a controversy, Don decided this was the time to take on PG&E for having a pole on our property. He tried to force PG&E to buy that small tip of our parcel and even tried to simply deed that spot over to PG&E. He figured it would reduce property taxes. It was all to no avail. The pole had existed in that spot long enough to create a legal easement, which irritated Don no end.
While commuting to Petaluma five days a week and keeping the books for the kennel and pet shop, I was studying to become a real estate agent. Don studied with me and we took our first test in San Francisco and passed. The license had to be renewed annually by passing another test each year.
But by the second year, Don was bored with the idea. He was handling and showing dogs at American Kennel Club shows more and more often, hitting dog show circuits that took him away for 4 or 5 days at a time.
In the interim, however, he built a free-standing office on our property that would become my real estate headquarters.
Don failed the second test. I passed. However, constraints of time did not allow me enough to pursue the field of real estate with any passion.
I took night classes at Santa Rosa Junior College to increase my education. But again, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day for me to continue this endeavor.
By this time, Don’s health was deteriorating rapidly. I took time off work and accompanied him to Houston, Texas, where he went under the knife of Dr. Michael DeBakey to repair a carotid artery. He had to return again to have Dr. DeBakey do the same surgery for the other carotid artery.He had abdominal surgery in Santa Rosa for polyps in the colon. Then he became diabetic.
Between nursing Don and working in Petaluma and trying to oversee our business, I was burning the candle at both ends. The real estate idea fell by the wayside.
Additionally, we were breeding more St. Bernards, so the night vigil of sitting up with the bitches during whelping and putting puppies to nurse regularly, kept me sleeping (or, rather, trying to sleep) on the Army cot at night while driving to Petaluma and back during the days.
There was one period when I didn’t sleep in my own bed for three months straight as I mothered my broods. I was becoming a zombie and losing weight.
Dorothy and Poncho managed to keep things percolating with our business. Things were going along progressively – until Poncho caught Dorothy helping herself to pet supplies without putting money into the cash register. She raised miniature poodles at home.
During holidays and the days I spent cleaning the pet shop, I could see for myself what was going on. I fired Dorothy, quit my Petaluma job and decided to take the reins myself.
Don whined and said, “Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do now without a groomer and without your meat wrapping income!”
I retorted, “Then stay out of bars and tend to business here!”
He tried. But his drinking continued, now at home, and he often just walked away in the middle of grooming a dog to go into the house and “sleep it off.”
I bathed and groomed all kinds of dogs when there were no customers in the pet shop. Don had become quite proficient at grooming poodles. I could just do the simple whole body utility style, but he was able to use the clippers to make the fancy designs for show poodles.
Once I had the greatest grooming challenge of all: Two St. Bernard bitches were scheduled for bathing and grooming. These dogs belonged to an arthritic invalid and they always came in matted to the skin and very dirty. They weighed at least 150 pounds apiece, not unusual for spayed bitches.I nearly turned down this grooming job. I didn’t think I could manage these dogs.
Fortunately, the grooming table’s base was from a barber chair and could be turned toward the raised bathtub in the grooming room.
In turn, I hoisted each dog onto the grooming table and then pushed them into the tub. They were such loveable dogs. I had to get a box to stand on in order to reach around them. (I was five-foot-two then, though my height has shortened over the years.) I felt my insides were going to breach, but I completed the chore.
They were so beautiful when I was finished that I actually shed tears when the owner and his wife came to pick them up and exalted how lovely they looked.
As for Poncho, he developed a growth in his throat in 1968, so Don took him to a doctor. Poncho was admitted to Community Hospital, where surgery was done for a tracheotomy. We went to visit him often and took him candy since he couldn’t have his usual fill of sweet wine each day.
After being released, he returned to his shack and continued to smoke. He would laugh with glee when the smoke came through the tube in his throat. Poncho died of cancer shortly thereafter.
Although Don and I bred St. Bernards, we had other breeds of dogs as well. We bred some Boxers and a few German shepherd dogs. I bred a few litters of toy poodles and eventually ended up with Shih Tzus.
We sold Leddy Pet Park in 1975, though I was “in” Shih Tzus for probably 15 years, giving it up in 1985. We had moved to our home on Westvale Court in 1975, and I later worked for the Santa Rosa School District in order to provide necessary insurance benefits and additional income while Don was a virtual invalid.
I reached a point where I could not keep working for the schools, taking care of Don and keeping up the meticulous grooming required for my adorable Shih Tzus. I’d spent 10 years of caring for these dogs, which I kenneled in our garage. I gave them up entirely in 1985, including the paraphernalia and pens. It broke my heart. I haven’t had any pets since then.
Tea and Toast
By Kay Ashbrook
May 25, 2009
My father's family traces its heritage to England. In America we are descendants of John and, then, John Quincy Adams, and so, my paternal grandmother's name was Anna Louise Adams. My father talked at the dinner table about various Adams grandparents, uncles and aunts as if they were still alive and living in the area. When I read David McCullough's book John Adams, I felt as if I were reading about immediate family and friends and wished my father were still alive to enjoy the book, too. As a young girl, I came to idolize Abigail Adams.
One of the English traditions we enjoyed on most Sundays while I was growing up was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for mid-day supper after church. I remember when the new stoves came in about 1953 with ovens that had timers so that my mother could put the roast in before we left for church. In that way, dinner was ready a good hour earlier which was a real blessing for us hungry, impatient children.
My father sat at the head of the table in the dining room to carve the roast and serve the side dishes. I accepted the plates from him, handing them to my right in order to keep things moving along. We served ourselves the gravy for the pudding and beef. At these suppers we learned our table manners which included "speaking of things and not people". Gossip was never tolerated, which I found especially difficult as a teenager.
Allowed topics of conversation included mostly the arts, my parent's hobbies of flowers and gardening, and current events. My parents were Republicans and my brother and sister followed their beliefs into adulthood. My far-to-left pacifist and Civil Rights viewpoints by 1960 were not accepted, however, they were tolerated. My mother was from Arkansas and although she felt her values were wrong, she could not change them completely.
The rest of our Sundays were left to watching sports on TV, reading, visiting grandma, or finishing homework. At the usual dinner time we gathered in the kitchen for tea and toast. At this time my mother took over the serving duties. We sat around a chrome and Formica table with plastic yellow chairs. The toaster was moved to the table from the counter, and my mother would toast the white Wonder Bread. There was butter and an assortment of jams and jellies for us to choose from spread around the table. A large pot of hot tea was available, and we each had our favorite cup and saucer. Mine was a gift from my aunt Florence with a lovely purple iris painted on it. My brother's had The Lone Ranger and my sister had a palomino horse on hers.
As I think back on those evenings of just tea and toast, I wonder why we didn't get hungry with such a slim dinner. I think it was the tradition of it. We had a large, satisfying meal for supper and only needed tea and toast for the evening meal. We gathered together, passed the food around, had more family time, and ended the day. It's what my grandparents did, and it's what we did. I really had no other expectation for many, many years. My weekends always ended with tea and toast.