BOOMER by Tim Engel (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

each other a lot. We played games, rode bikes, played, went to the shopping center, hung out at the school. And as fast as I thought I was on my bike, Bill was the fastest runner. He was gifted. Faster than all of us.
One of the games we played was Stratego. It’s like a chess game but with a military theme. Bruce was smart and he often beat me at Stratego – much to my chagrin. I would protect my ‘flag’ with mines and bombs and all, but Bruce would somehow find a way to get through my defenses and capture my flag. It was one of our favorites. Another one we played was the game of Life. That was a cool game. “The Game of Life.” I can remember the song on the advertisement on TV. “What would you become?” “A lawyer, a plumber…” Spin the wheel travel around the board and random ‘stuff’ would happen and bills would come in to be paid. We played skittle bowl – it was a game with pins and a pole with a ball and you would push the ball like a tether ball and see how many ‘pins’ you could knock down. We played a game with a folding plastic casino type game. Kind of like Vegas for kids. You played with cards and it was a lot of fun. And we played Monopoly – who didn’t? And Risk. We played Risk a lot and that game seemed to last for hours sometimes.
We loved riding our bikes. Sometimes we rode down to Sears to check out the records. You could buy ‘45s’ there or ‘LPs’ /albums. Bruce had a paper route. It was around our neighborhood. Sometimes I would get up early and go with him on the paper route. It was o-dark-thirty in the morning on a Saturday and we were folding his newspapers. In those days you still put a red rubber band on each paper – fold it twice and rubber band. And his Sting Ray had the perfect handlebars to hold the double bag newspaper holder. This was like a custom made set of bags for holding the papers so you could ride with one hand and throw the paper with the other. We loaded up the papers and headed down the street. This was an adventure for me for a couple reasons. I had never had a paper route and I also had never been up this early riding my bike around in the ‘dark time.’ Bruce’s route covered about 10 blocks. I helped out a couple of times moving papers that went astray on the toss; but Bruce’s hand was pretty true and he did a super job of getting the papers where they belonged. After we finished the paper route Bruce asked If I wanted to head over to Stopps for something to eat. Wow! Eat out?! Just us kids? I was starting to feel so independent! But it was actually Bruce who was mature and independent. He was setting a good example. Sure – let’s go! So we went to Stopps and Bruce ordered cinnamon toast. Sounds great – I’ll have some, too! So early in the morning in 1966 we sat at Stopps eating cinnamon toast. Reminds me of a cartoon “Powdered Toast Man”. But that’s another story…
Bruce had a great family. He lived with his Mom Millie and sisters Carole and Shari. His Dad, Jerry lived in nearby Downey. They treated me like family and we treated Bruce like family. One time they were going down to Tastee Freez and invited me to come along. Turn down ice cream? No way!! So off to Tastee Freez we went and I was thinking how cool this was going to be. We got there and everyone placed their order. I saw ‘dipped cone’ on the menu and asked what that was. Oh, it’s a soft serve cone dipped in hot chocolate. Wow – that sounded great, I’ll take one of those! So everyone had their ice cream and we were headed back to Bruce’s house. We got home and we were all eating our ice cream and Carole looked over at me – a 12 year old who’s supposed to be a bit mature. And she said “Hey, Tim, it looks like you’re enjoying that ice cream…you look like a little kid with that chocolate all over your face!” Everyone looked at me and started laughing. I probably turned 3 shades of red. I went into the bathroom and looked and sure enough – I looked like a little kid with chocolate covering half my face. But I must say that ice cream was simply delicious! Millie, Carole, and Shari all had a good laugh. And I had to laugh at myself as well.
Sometimes I had sleep overs at Bruce’s house. We would play games and hang out and eat poor Millie out of house and home. Sometimes we’d play scary games with Carole. We’d hide in the dark and she would come in and scare the bejezus out of us. The Birdsongs had a rocking chair in their front room. I thought that was so cool. It had these cool pads tied to the top and base and made it more comfortable.
There were kids that lived behind Bruce who sometimes got into it with us. We would end up throwing stuff at each other. One time we really got into it and we decided it was time to bring out our secret weapon! Explosives! Well, not really – but yes. We had firecrackers and since it was summer, we had fruit. So these wonderful fruit trees in Bruce’s backyard were full of fruit – plums, peaches, nectarines. The plums were the beautiful, large, purple ones. So we selected a nice, ripe one. Inserted a firecracker and readied the weapon for delivery. “OK, you light it and I’ll throw it”, I said. “OK”, Bruce replied. He lit it and I threw it and Ker-pow it went off about five feet above the heads of the ‘backstreet boys’. The plum splattered all over them. Plum, plum juice, plum pitt. Yuck! After a second piece of fruit they basically waved the white flag and conceded defeat! We won the day and thank goodness no one got badly hurt!
Bruce’s Mom’s Dad lived right catty-corner from them. They put a gate in so they could go back and forth to each other’s homes. I thought that was so cool. Bruce and the girls called him “Poppy”. I remember being in the yard one day and this gate opens and a nice man comes through and says hello and he goes to Bruce’s house.
So one Saturday I had arranged to go over to Grandma and Grandpa Warner’s house to mow the yard. I wanted to help out and it would be a chance to visit with them. This time I was a bit more careful about my ride and there was no incident. I got to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and said Good morning to Grandpa. “Hi, guy!”, he said. I remember the first time he said that I looked around to see if there was another person there who might be named “Guy”. Youth is funny sometimes. So I went to the garage and got the mower out. It was a basic push mower with a catcher. I mowed and grandpa edged and we made quick work of the front and back yards. Then we swept up and as we were finishing Grandpa asked if I was hungry for breakfast. “Sure!”, I said. Wow, how cool is this – Grandpa is going to cook breakfast. “Do you like eggs?” “Sure do!” “I like em scrambled.” So Grandpa cracked some eggs and mixed in some milk and stirred em up and made some of the best tasting scrambled eggs I’d ever eaten. I was really surprised because I didn’t think Grandpas could cook. Grandma must have gotten a kick out of that.
Grandma Warner was very sweet and I loved her very much. She called me her little lamb. When I was little and we were visiting she would make me a little palette on the floor so I could take a nap. Grandma was a wonderful woman – very classy. In pictures she usually wore a long blue, black, or grey skirt with a white blouse. And in earlier days she wore a tie. I thought that was a bit unusual, but from my point of view, wearing a suit to Kindergarten was cool. So for Grandma to be formal with her ties, that was AOK with me. It looked classy and dressy and I would later see girls wearing this kind of outfit at McDonnell Douglas.
One of the favorite places for Grandma and Grandpa to take us was Pier Point Landing. Pier Point Landing was the place to go by the ocean where you could visit shops, enjoy rides, feed the seals, and eat at restaurants. Superman and Lois Lane at Pierpoint Landing.
There were all kinds of shops that you could walk thru and it was right on the Pacific Ocean so there were fishing spots close by, too. Grandpa would take us fishing sometimes. We weren’t the most patient fishermen; but he did very well catching bonita and mackerel. Even some halibut. Tom and I would find ways to torment the poor fish that Grandpa caught. It was bad enough to be out of water, but we also had to play with the poor guys. There was a cool ride where you got into a ‘Seal’ and rode around on a track – like a small scale roller coaster. And they had seals you could feed. For a small fee you paid for some minnows and the seals just loved you for feeding them. Every time we went down to PPL we had to feed the seals.
Pierpoint landing is still there in Long Beach, but it’s primarily an embarkation for fishing ventures.
KYLE AND EVELYN
Mom and Pop were married and about a year later Mom was expecting. Long into the pregnancy we thought there was only one baby and then right near the end the doctor said he heard an echo. Well, it wasn’t an echo! It was two babies! Mom gave birth to 2 beautiful healthy babies. Kyle and Evelyn. As an eleven year old newly moved to Lynwood in our new, wonderful home, here comes more wonder into our lives! What could I expect? What was this going to be like? I’d always been the ‘baby’. Well, in retrospect, all I can say is it was wonderful.
I know there are all kinds of theories about birth order and where were you? Were you first, middle, last, etc – I know Kyle and ‘Sister’