Looking back for some is not always easy.  I think that was the way it was for one of my sisters today.

My days are always so full and I always think I can just squeeze one more thing into this minute or that minuet.  At least I’m optimistic.  It seemed as if all day long I was always a little behind.  Ever have days like that?  Get up late…talk too much…try to accomplish more than earthly possible, drive long distances only to be bogged down in CALIFORNIA TRAFFIC, miscommunication, too far to go in too little time, get lost on the freeway system, forget to use the cell phone for pictures so you can put them on the blog???  You know, that sort of thing.  Well, it was one of those days.

I met my sisters Velma and Faith again today at Velma’s house.  We had lunch, had a late start for our adventure and I don’t think we really had time to finish it like we intended.  Velma drove us over to Rodeo, the place where I spent my years from kindergarten through 7th grade.  My younger sister was born while we lived “there”.  “There” was at that time a little bay side town of about 3,000  population.  My older sisters were in Junior high and High school when we moved there so we were pretty strung out in age and interests.  We lived in a government subsidized housing project that had been built for the war workers during World War II.  The apartments were located next to an oil refinery.  I remember huge black plumes of smoke that rose up into the air and when the wind was blowing a certain direction it would bring all that toxic oil waste across and int0 our apartments and into the grammar school which set on a terraced hill facing the refinery.  My younger sister Faith wanted to go back there because she had so many lost  memories and broken memories.  I was the one that remembered the apartment and school locations and where to go to find what we needed.  So off we went.  All the land that the apartments occupied is now fenced in with no admittance signs everywhere.  The school land is enclosed with high fencing and is also  not accessible.  All buildings on both sites are totally gone and the land is considered toxic.  It was found later that the people who lived in the buildings and attended Hillcrest School were victims of lung disorders and diseases.  I was six when I moved there so I guess I was fortunate that I did not breathe that air as a baby.  My younger sister was born there and breathed that air from birth until she was six years old.  When she saw the toxic wasteland and I told her the facts that had surfaced in later years she turned to me and asked, “I wonder if that is why my lungs have been so bad all these years”.  So many sad stories linger in our memories from that time.  Faith stood there and cried.  I told her tears could be healing but she wasn’t crying for herself.  She quietly told me she hurt and was crying for all the years our mother lived there and how hard it was for our mother.  I look back and I remember the tears my mother cried and the sobbing I would hear in the night.  Poverty is real.  Poverty is hard.  Especially with a mother who more than anything wanted to do the best she could for the 5 children still at home.  Our brother was grown and married by the time my younger sister was born.  Our father was an illiterate laborer but worked steady and hard.  The refinery is still on the hill, larger than it was even back then.  The smoke is still belching but it isn’t black anymore.  I’m certain by now there have been a lot of restrictions put on the amount and kinds of toxins that are excreted by the huge smokestacks.  I couldn’t even bring myself to take a picture of it.

My family may have been poor but my mother was never poor in her spirit.  As a kid I didn’t know what “slovenly” was but as I look back I remember some pretty grim families that lived in those cramped quarters.  We were a family of seven in an estimated space of about 800 to 900 square feet with one bathroom and shower.  Later we were given an apartment about twice that size in the same building.  Some families were even larger than ours.  One of the things my mother did not allow was a messy dwelling.  Not just picking up things (of which we did not have much) but I mean we had to scrub the walls and ceilings and floors.  I was 12 when we moved from the apartments so it was the next place we lived where I was the ceiling scrubber, and that was living with a wood stove for both cooking and heating.  Same stove did both.  More black belching smoke to inhabit our lives.

My mom kept her girls spit polished.  Our hair was either in ringlets, which was like murder to sleep on the rag curl wraps,  or hair was so tightly french braided that I used to cry because I could’t bend my neck down because it would painfully tug the hair on the back of my neck.  One time the school teacher actually had to undo my braids and allow the hair to loosed because I wouldn’t stop crying.  These are some of the memories that came flooding back as I looked over the hills with cement slabs still in large pieces where the foundations were.  No trees lived among those hills.  However the acres and acres of former school property was planted with all kinds of trees.  Beautiful trees like a new forest.  At first I thought that perhaps the birds had planted them with seed in their waste but when I now remember the stark contract between no trees and a new forest growing I realize they must have been planted for a purpose.  There were no trees on the school grounds when we were attending there.

Not only did my mother have the absolute cleanest apartment she also had the cleanest kids when we walked out the door to go to school.  She made all our clothing including our underwear. And it was clean.  I know, because when it was hung out on the line I had to guard it until it was dry and then bring it in.  If it wasn’t watched it sometimes disappeared, especially diapers.  I took my job seriously.  To be truthful, I sort of like…bossed the neighborhood!  I was a nice boss though, organizing all the kids to play games and draw on sidewalks with sheet rock chalk scarfed out of the garbage cans when apartments had to be repaired because of holes in the walls (of course there were no holes in our apartment).  There were so many memories that came flooding in when I stood there but these are the ones safe to repeat.

My sister stood there and cried.  I stood there and patted her back.  The pain for me is all gone.  I have been healed of anything and everything that happened there in the past.  I hope someday all my sisters can be healed from any memory that may hold them captive.  For me it was good to go there and realize just how free I am from that place.  I hope it ultimately will be the same for Faith.

After we left the hills we drove down into the little town that is’t so little anymore.  My favorite place as a child was the library.  It was a little building that looked like a little house made over into a charming story book library.  It was so awesome as a child to walk through those doors and be in a room full of books that I could take home.  I had permission to bring home as many as I could carry.  We had no bags or containers so it was usually a stack of 10 or 12 children’s hard backs.  We didn’t know what a paper back book was.  When I walked into the library today I could feel a great big smile come alive from the inside out.  Then the tears came.  I couldn’t even talk (I tried) for a few minutes.  I was in a place that held such awesome memories.  When I was about eight, nine and ten years old I could not walk far, run, play recess or do things which required strenuous activity with my knees due to a condition I had. The “disease” is called Ozgood-Schlatter Disease. (Actually I just looked it up to see what the information on the internet actually described it as).  All I knew at the time was that I wasn’t allowed to do much (except some work) and had to rest.  During the summers my mom would drive me to the library and it was such a privilege to be able to go there, check out books, and have enough to read for about three or four days and then beg to go back.  Usually I just read them over.  Henry and Ribsy and Ramona became my good friends as did Anne of Green Gables and all her stories.  Well, when I was in there today I was talking to the librarian and told him that Henry and Ribsy had been some of my favorite books and pointed to the place where they were kept.  The librarian said that was exactly where they still were.  I took one out, sat at the little table (which was not the same scarred wooden table of yesteryear) and held the book in my hand remembering.  The librarian took a picture of me and then I asked him to take one on my IPhone so I could share it with you.  This was a big moment for me!  I hope you don’t quit reading my blog for an older woman’s reminiscing but this was almost 60 years ago and that little gingerbread library is still standing and servicing little kids just at it did me.  I can now see why people donate and will money to libraries.  Books may someday become obsolete in the electronic age but just to know that this little library still exist gives me a little hope that there will be those in the future who value the actual book.

And at this point my day is only half over!

We left the library went to Velma’s and I headed out on my next saga.  And what a wonderful evening it was.  My cousin Steve Robinson and his wife Lucy live in Antioch about 30 or 40 miles from Velma.  But…and this is a big BUT…it was 90 minutes away driving.  I hit the traffic jam hour.  I did get there eventually.

Steve has a busy happy house.  His son and his son’s girlfriend live with them AND their two little twin babies.  Baby boy Adrian and Baby girl Aria.  These babies are healthy and alert 8 month olds who were born almost 4 months early.  Both weighed over one pound and were in the hospital for the first four months of their lives.  They are now alert and smiling and “talking”.  Such a joy to see them so normal and healthy after all they contended with at birth. Steve and Lucy’s other son Ryan and his wife Jo live across town from Steve and we stopped by so I could see his son all grown up.  Both sons are fine young men.  Beautiful and loving.  Ryan and Jo have 3 children and a fourth on the way.  I have a picture of them on my cell so it is on the blog.  Carrie’s family is only on my camera so I put some single shots of the babies on the blog.

Though my visits were short I so enjoyed seeing Steve and Lucy’s family.  I didn’t have a chance to see their daughter Mae, and her three children.  Maybe next time.

Steve and Lucy treated me to a wonderful dinner and we had a quiet time visiting and getting caught up.  There is so much more I could say but due to time must close.  Before I close however I would also like to tell my family I had a chance to again meet  my cousin Paul Michael’s son, Michael.  He didn’t remember me but that is okay because I remember him.  Again, I didn’t get a photo of him  on the cell phone either.  I’m trying to remember!

If you read through this I want to thank  you.  This blog has turned into a bit more than just my outward journey.  It has replaced some of my writing that I normally do in my journal.  I don’t have time for both so I just add a little of my heart to the blog and share what I usually just keep to myself.

Goodnight