BOOMER by Tim Engel (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

out of the car to ‘crush’ him. But Mom stopped him. Later at the snack bar we saw a friend of Dad’s who was a cop and he told Dad – you should have flattened him. Dad was a gentle giant. He really loved most everyone. I never saw him have to beat up on anyone. He felt bad when as a teenager he went out for football and broke a guys’ leg. I think this made a difference in how he lived his life. This was even before he started lifting weights.
Dad lived throught he depression and it made a big impact on him. Mom was a post depression baby. I remember Dad said he once played this ‘game’ where a guy would toss a dollar into this throng of boys and they would duke it out to ‘win’ the dollar. I guess it was sort of a cheap replacement for Saturday night at the fights.
Back to Hayter Avenue. The Owins boys. The lived next door. I believe there were three of them. They were a bit older than Tom and it seemed like they were always causing trouble. One day the Post man came running up and asked to borrow my bicyle. Why, we asked. He replied – because someone stole my mail truck and I want to see if I can catch them. Doug Owins!! Not good. The law kind of frowns on messing with people’s mail. Perhaps at this tender teen age he failed to grasp the brevity of what he had done. I think he ended up doing some time in the big house for that one. And then there was the time that I was with Mom and one of the Owens boys was giving Mom a hard time. It may have been that he was ogling, or staring, or made a comment. But I remember Mom ‘unloading’ on Mr Owens. In no uncertain terms he got a piece of Mom’s mind. I was pretty impressed. Because I had never seen this side of Mom. And I would suppose that she may have threatened telling Dad. And if she did – Dad would have probably laid the ‘board of education to the seat of understanding’. If you know what I mean! To this day Desire Olsenz still asks about Doug. But I don’t know where he is. Mom might know – she has an amazing network and very sharp memory.
Dad was all about getting the work done. Making things right. Mom was about love and hanging out. But Dad did that too. I remember Mom would work on my math with me when I was a kid. Mom and I were very close and could pretty much finish each other’s sentences. On the first day of Kindergarten, my legs suddenly became ‘paralyzed’. I couldn’t walk. Mom played along with me for awhile and finally I saw the futility of this whole act and was suddenly ‘healed’. Joy!!
Dave Julius lived across the street. He was about Steve’s age but didn’t really hang out with him that much. Many years later we would run into (not literally) at McDonnell Douglas. He worked in the same line of work – Business Management – as Steve and I. We did schedules and I think he did as well. We were all amazed to meet up with him again all these years later. We felt it was great to see each other again.
4th grade. It was like graduation! You moved to the other side of the school – you matriculated. Moved on. It was like going to High School or something. We moved over to the East side. On the other side of the incinerator. You know I had a problem. I tended to sometimes want to do things that were possibly unacceptable. Like writing on the wall of the bathroom. I wrote on the wall with a felt marker in my own cursive writing style. Which is why it was probably easy for them to trace the writing back to me. I think I said something choice about one of my pals with whom I’d had a disagreement at school. I think it was confined to one or two of the squares of tile in the bathroom.
When I was called into the vice principal’s office they let me know in no uncertain terms that they knew it was me. And I quickly confessed. I was in trouble with a capital T. How was this all going to go down? Would I be expelled? Suspended? I knew if you were suspended it was for a brief time of a week or so. If you got expelled, you were done for the year. Possibly out of the school for life!
But these were not to be. They actually treated me like a mature 4th grader…they told me to go home and talk to my parents about it and figure what should be done. Now this was certainly hard for me to go through with. It was the honor system. So that night after dinner I broke the news to my parents. I think they were glad to hear me confess; but sorry to hear about what I had done. Mom and Dad told me how important it was to respect public property and that it was their money that paid for all of the wonderful resources that we enjoyed. Like schools, parks, teachers, and the like. I told them how sorry I was and that it would never happen again. That was the end of my tagging…for now.
DIVORCE
It was 1965. 45 years ago that Mom and Dad decided that they were going to separate. Dad had bought a second car. A 1946 Willys Jeep Station Wagon. How cool was this? I knew something was up when Mom asked us to come sit down in the front room and talk with us about something. We must be in trouble or something. They told us that they had decided that they were going to live apart for awhile. That they were separating. Sha-bam!! It hit me like a frying pan. Like a brick. I’m not sure how Tom took it at first. I was in shock. Later when we talked, I knew that he was in shock as well.
I had been living in Camelot. The perfect world. Mom and Dad were the Queen and King of our enchanted world. A world full of love, plenty, fun, good times, and warm feelings. Warm fuzzy feelings. And now it appeared this was coming to an end. How did I feel about this? I felt like I was body surfing and got caught In a large wave that was tossing me about; somersaulting and twisting and not knowing which end was up. For awhile I thought there might be hope. Mom and Dad were certainly civil to each other. There wasn’t much fighting that Tom and I could see. “Tom, what’s going on?”, I asked. “I guess Mom and Dad are getting a divorce”, he answered. “What will become of us?” “We’ll probably go live with Mom.” In 1965 there wasn’t nearly as much divorce as there is now. It’s about 50/50 now. I think in those days it was more like 10/90. Only about 10% divorce rate.
But certainly what did not change was the fact that all 4 of us loved each other. It was just clear now that Mom and Dad for whatever reason weren’t getting along and had decided to go their separate ways. I remember not long after that we went to the IHOP at the corner of Candlewood and Lakewood Blvd for dinner. Funny place to have dinner, huh? But we loved that place. Of course, we also loved Love’s BBQ which was right next door. But we were at IHOP and I remember Dad saying “we will keep ‘her’ here as long as she’ll stay.” We loved IHOP and you could actually eat any meal there. Brother Tom and I loved our hamburgers…I think it must have been the German blood? So the IHOP menu had an item called the “Our Own Burger”. I think it was called this because they knew that people would be in awe of the fact that they could make pancakes and hamburgers to boot. When Tom ordered the “Our Own Burger” his upper lip would curl up. Just like Elvis. And yes, for the record, Tom IS that cool. So I kinda got the impression that Mom wanted out of the marriage, but that certainly didn’t make her ‘at fault’ for the separation. It may have been Dad – or both. But in retrospect, I understand that sometimes things just happen. I have survived 2 divorces of my own. I know I’m a ‘bone head’. No doubt about it. Sure, I can do some things and I love my family dearly, but I have made some very bad decisions in life.
Going forward what would it all mean? What puzzled me was that I was under the impression that Mom and Dad were fine. I had heard them fight a time or two. And that was never good. I think I even saw Mom hit Dad once – on the shoulder. Maybe not. But Mom could definitely stick up for herself. I didn’t dislike or have anger toward Mom or Dad. But I felt really bad that Camelot was no more. That innocence was lost. It happens sooner or later. The loss of innocence. Whether it’s the first time you lose at a game, lose a loved one, get sick, get an F, get ripped off. It’s life. Living with imperfect people. I hear people complain about work. The politics. They don’t like Bill or Joe or Pat. But I tell them if you go work at General Electric, Southwest Airlines, Fiji Water, or Farmers Insurance, there’s going to be a Bill, Joe, and Pat. And they are people who are imperfect. And all you can do is do the best you can at your job and move forward. Try to help and be a team player and excel in your field.
At this point I don’t remember if I cried or just sort of wore the pain in a ball in my stomach until it gradually wore away and dissipated over time. We ended up moving to the apartments on the east side of Lakewood Blvd just south of Del Amo. They were cool, clean little apartments and were certainly in the same neighborhood. We could continue going to our same schools. Me at Riley and Tom at Hoover Jr High. By this time we were blessed to have 2 bikes each. Our Schwinn Sting Rays and 10 speeds! I think the 10 speeds were Royce Unions. Sounded pretty cool! They were definitely fast bikes. Those 10 speeds made you into a fledgling bike