Category Archives: Special Tributes

My Daddy, Laural, known as Skippy, Skip, and the Skipper, was two years old when they arrived. The town folks gave Laural the “Skippy” name from a cartoon of a “street-smart kid” in the funny papers at the time and it stayed with him the rest of his life. Laural didn’t like wearing shoes and left them in the crook of the tree in front of their house as he left for school. Grandpa Sexton did odd jobs at the school so he’d find out Daddy was barefoot and give him a reprimand, but the next day would find his shoes in the crook of the tree again. Skippy was one of the early surfers during his young years in Coronado, surfing on his paipo board. Our home now boasts a large poster made by his grandsons, Kevin and Jef, dedicated to their beloved Bapa. He worked many jobs at an early age to contribute to family finances. It was the 1920s, and another child had come into the family – my aunt, Lucille Sexton Bandel, age 94, a life-long supporter of St. Paul’s Methodist Church at Seventh and D. Skippy had a paper route, then worked as a soda jerk at Bill Smith’s Malt Shop on the island. He operated the first malt machine to come to Coronado and received it as a gift from Bill Smith when the malt shop closed. I still have that malt machine.

Skip’s graduation gift from Coronado High School in 1929 from the family was a trip to Washington D.C. He and his older brother, Charlie, who had graduated from college, were driving East when the car broke down in Salt Lake City, Utah. They went to get a sandwich at a place near the car repair garage and, in the wink of an eye, my Daddy fell in love with the waitress! Yes, I do believe in love at first sight because that chance meeting ended in 45 years of the happiest marriage ever! Daddy went on to D.C. and worked in a cigar store in or near the Senate building. I have many signatures he received from Washington dignitaries — he was well-liked for his happy personality and easy smile. After one year, Skipper returned to Coronado and wrote to ask my mother, Billie, to come and meet his family. She did come, accompanied by her mother, and Skip and Billie were married two years later. I made my appearance in April, 1934. They suffered the loss of several children so I was the only child and got lots of love! I never heard angry words spoken in our home — I do remember Daddy going for a walk every now and then! Hmmm, ever the peaceful man!

Daddy, Momma and I were a trio — we’d put on our roller skates and skate to the movie house, leaving our skates in the lobby, and they’d be there when we came out! We’d go for a “toot” around the island after dinner to watch the sun go down, with me riding on Daddy’s bicycle handlebars. He’d show us a house he was working on and tell us about the families living there. Many families were Navy and would have to leave things behind so I was the recipient of many nice toys — a beautiful doll house with lights, Story Book dolls and once, a little black Cocker Spaniel puppy we named Cinders. Skip was an Air Raid Warden for our block at 4th and E Avenue during WW2. He would walk our block just after dark to make sure no lights were shining from the windows of the houses. Gas masks were issued to island families and I remember Daddy gently instructing us how to put them on, though I’m grateful we never had to use them!

Daddy loved to go fishing and made me my own fishing pole out of wood doweling and an empty spool of thread that he’d fill with fishing line. I did catch a few fish at Lake Cuyamaca with those home-made poles. We all remember his chuckle as he told a funny story (he had many) and his deep laughter when he heard one. We all miss his deep baritone as he sang, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” all during the holidays.

I always treasured the trust my Dad gave me. He gifted me with a silver charm of Jiminy Cricket when I was 14 and said, “Always let your conscience be your guide.” I wore that charm for many years and have been guided by his words many times in my life. Thanks Daddy and Jiminy!

Skip loved his Coronado home and only left for a few years during WW2 to work in a defense plant in Los Angeles. Our family returned home to Coronado after the war and he returned to painting houses. Daddy figured he painted most of the houses on the island in his lifetime and had much pride in his work. The people he worked for weren’t just customers, they were friends. If someone didn’t have the money to pay for his work then he’d barter for health care, groceries, car repair, etc. But Daddy wouldn’t go into debt to buy a car or a home — he always paid cash. So he never owned a home but treated every rental like it was his own. I started school when we lived at 412 E Avenue (the house was offered to Daddy for twelve hundred dollars in 1942 – imagine that!) and it brings many memories when I pass by now. We also lived at 536 ½ C Avenue during my high school years (CHS 1952) until Daddy’s death in July 1976. That home gave way to a modern building a few years ago.

A heart condition retired the Skipper and not being one to sit and watch TV, he had received a “start” for Shepherd’s bread from a real sheepherder, a relative of my Mother’s in Utah, and had kept it “alive” for years. He made loaves of bread from that start in coffee cans (a popular thing in the 70s), and while the bread was still warm, would deliver loaves to friends. Kimmie Dill says she remembers that bread — and my Daddy!

Skip’s grandsons, Kevin and Jef, were born here in Coronado, in 1955 and 1957, and loved spending time with their “Bapa”. He taught them to fish, both on the ocean and the bay, took them on helicopter rides over the ocean, and taught them his magic tricks. The best “magic trick” of all was his disappearing act on the walk home with the boys after playing in Spreckles Park — later he would just tell them he “fell in a hole!” Now the boys know the “hole” was right behind the VFW Hall and they laugh! The Skipper is still remembered by family and friends for his laughter, love of life, and his gentle spirit.

Of course, none of this was necessary. It became apparent to us all that Nancy had escaped the confines and dictates of her world in search of a bohemian adventure. By the second day, hair was freed from skull-ripping bondage; bongs and Birkenstocks came out of closets – as did sexual partners – and birth control found its way back onto nightstands.

Nancy loved it.

“If I were just twenty years younger…” she sighed, admiring one of my bare-chested housemates flexing his yoga-fit muscles as she tapped her foot to The Grateful Dead.

She cooked us lavish vegetarian meals, fattened us with her killer cakes, and laughed at our stories until tears streamed down her tanned cheeks. Her blue eyes twinkled with mischief, and I wondered when they had last done that. She flirted and debated and watched foreign films out at the Russian River with us – and defiantly “forgot” to check in with her husband.

“F–k it.”
I didn’t even know she knew that word.

“If your father hadn’t come along and made an honest woman out of me, I think I would have landed in Paris in the company of artists and writers,” she confided while sitting on my balcony sipping a Sonoma Valley Chardonnay. “What do you think about oral sex?”

The day before Nancy was to return home, she confessed that the week had been one of the best in her life. “You kids have the right idea,” she remarked. She sighed then smiled. “I want to do something for you. I want to leave your home sparkling,” she said with a mixture of resignation and pride. Ever the Patron Saint of Diplomatic Janitors, Nancy scrubbed, polished and vacuumed our home into respectability without a single judgmental shake of her head or cluck of her tongue. Mats of hair resembling dead rats were pulled from bathroom drains; goat turds were fastidiously swept, dropping by dropping, into a dustpan and dispatched to the vegetable garden. Every inch of the house was treated to Ajax, Pledge, Lysol or Spic’n’Span. She ground down to nubbins Brillo pads and sponges, and worked her way through three mops.

Banished from the house for the day, we took Oso the dog, Rufus the cat and Lick the goat out into a field for a family picnic and baseball game. Lick repeatedly tried to eat the baseball. Rufus hunted field mice. Oso ran off into the nearby woods with his girlfriend Bo, the neighbors’ Beagle. Joints were smoked; beers were drunk. Someone dropped a tab of acid. At 7:00 that evening, Nancy called us in.

“Wow!” exclaimed one of the guys, staring into his glass bong. “I can see my reflection!”

“Well, I’m glad you’re pleased,” replied Nancy with a modest smile, “but a vase pretty and unique as that one should have flowers in it.”

“Boy, Mrs. Lewis, you even cleaned my diaphragm case!” enthused the tab-dropper, dissolving into giggles.

“Just make sure it isn’t the only thing that’s clean when you use it, honey,” Nancy replied sotto voce.

I walked away from the group of appreciative folk surrounding my mother and felt my feet glide over floors so clean I knew we could eat off them. I ran my fingers over mirrored surfaces of mahogany that had been in my family for generations. I moved from room to room, breathing in the familiar scent of Olde English furniture polish. Nostalgia stung my eyes.

Entering the dining room, I let out a shriek.

Oso and Bo lay exhausted beneath the dinner table. Between them they had placed the day’s quarry from the woods.

“Well, there they are,” said Nancy coming up behind me. “Looks like they had fun today.”

I turned to my mother. She caught the look of horror on my face and returned it with one of curiosity. “What is it?”

I pointed to what lay between the snoring dogs. “I’m so sorry, Mom! They’ve ruined your beautiful floor!”

Nancy walked over to the table and crouched down. She reached for the object. “Why do you say that? It’s just a – ”

“No!” I lunged at her. “Don’t touch – !”
“ – stick, for heaven’s sake, Suzi.” She stood up holding it out for me to see. I backed away.

“Mom, it’s not a stick.”

She looked at the object more closely, a slight frown creasing her face. “Yes, it is.”

“Mom!” I yelled. “Sticks don’t have hooves!”

Nancy studied what was now obviously a deer leg in her hand. Slowly, she crouched down and returned it to its place between Oso and Bo. With uncharacteristic affection, she smoothed her hand down Oso’s wooly Cockapoo coat.

“We all have our own particular passions,” she whispered. “Let sleeping dogs have theirs.”

The very afternoon escrow closed, Fran gathered a merry band of helpers onto the property. Included were: 16-year-old daughter Lynne, her pal Jeannie Ackerman, Alan Graham, Anne Graham (Jim Morrison’s sister), and Don Edge. Tentative plans for the new garden were discussed at length. Nobody had ever put a large working garden right smack on Orange Avenue before until Fran came along. Some folks thought she was crazy, but that only added fuel to her magically eccentric fire.

The old beauty shop had to go. First at bat were Lynne and Jeannie. They were outfitted with coveralls, safety helmets, goggles, and large mallets. Their job was to bust out all the old windows. They did the job with much gusto and enthusiasm! Next up were the Big Boys (Alan, Don, and some other local guys) They finished off the beauty salon, leveled the land, turned the soil, installed irrigation, and got everything ready for planting.

The “Orange Avenue Garden Club” lot was very long and narrow. Preparations took some time, and the Guys worked tirelessly taking pride in their job(s). Finally, it was time to plant! Fran had it all mapped out. No surprise that she really did her homework. She also brought in her dear old friend, Gurson Kantor, a professional horticulturist. Everyone helped with planting. It was very much a fun, party-like atmosphere. Fran would spring for sandwiches and beverages. “People work better when they’re fed properly,” she would say.

Alan Graham, (extraordinarily talented wood craftsman) constructed a lovely sign that said “The Garden”. He presented the sign to Fran and she displayed it proudly there at “The Garden” for all to see. From that day on it was just simply “The Garden”. People would walk by and stare in amazement at “The Garden” amongst the bars. It was all so lusciously Bohemian!

Fran and her merry band of helpers grew squash, zucchini, carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, and just about every sort of veggie that will grow in Coronado! Her pride and joy were the pumpkins though. Oh, how she loved growing pumpkins. Fran’s favorite time of year was Halloween. Her favorite color was orange. Fran loved to wear her orange “flight suit” as others might wear overalls. It was just her thing. “The Garden” served many people well over several years. All its offspring were shared generously with the community. Those were Camelot times!

Nothing lasts forever though. It had come to Fran’s attention that the City of Coronado was badly in need of a new Veterinary Hospital. Fran’s love for animals ranked even above and beyond her love for gardening, so the solution was really a no brainer. Fran not only donated “The Garden” property for the new Vet, but she also went one better and funded the entire building as well! Everyone involved with “The Garden” was sad to see it go, but they were also very happy about Fran’s decision to build the Vet there. Little did they know, Fran had already purchased a new property, “The Garden II” near her home on Bay Circle.

“The Garden II” was smaller than the original, but still quite adequate for Fran’s purposes. She enlisted a smaller band of helpers for that garden. Fran proudly tended “The Garden II” for many years. She’d be seen faithfully working and weeding on her hands and knees every Tuesday and Saturday up until several weeks before her death on April 7, 2010.

Even after her death, “The Garden II” continues to live on. It is still lovingly preserved by the “The Garden II” crew, minus one. Though she’s no longer physically tending her beloved “Garden”, Fran’s spirit is alive and well in everything that grows there. She’s keeping close watch from her new “vantage point” in the sky.

Lovingly submitted by Lynne Harpst Koen

My mother smoothed her full-skirted dress then carefully folded her dishtowel. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Well, I don’t think that will ever happen,” she replied with quiet but brutal disappointment.

“Why the damn-hell not?” I shouted. Stomping my way to the front door, I barked over my shoulder, “I’m going to Whimpy’s. When Brutus comes home, tell him I wanna be on the damn-it-to-hell TV!”

My mother and father fought over whose fault it was that their youngest daughter behaved like a maniacal cartoon sailor with Tourette’s. I don’t know who won that argument, but the final verdict, declared every week of my childhood, was: “You’ll get yours someday, Suzi Lewis. Just you wait.”

Well, I did – and I did.

Thirty-one years later, I was ten hours into labor with my first child and tasting blood in my throat. I’d been pushing for almost four hours, nonstop, with no drugs to take the edge off the pain or to relieve those present on the maternity ward from the vile words screeching through my vocal chords. No one was spared, not even the Marcus Welby-esque Dr. Berry and his tireless and efficient assistant, Nurse Glenda, whose sunny words of encouragement only managed to produce in me the kind of violence usually reserved for puppy killers.

“I’ve never heard such filth,” she whispered to the doctor, shaking her head while glaring at me over the tops of my knees. “What does that even mean, what she just said? Can you even imagine it? A donkey doing that to a parrot?”

“No wonder the kid doesn’t want to come out,” muttered Dr. Berry from behind his mask as he stared disapprovingly at my stretched but uncooperative nether regions. “He must be terrified.”

As it turned out, the doctor was wrong. Thack wasn’t hiding in the birth canal those four hours, afraid of meeting his sewer-mouthed mother; he was comfortably tucked in between the folds of my warm and pulsating flesh, fastidiously taking notes.

Thack’s dad Mads and I had always been careful. Except for my notorious trawling in Satan’s rectum in the birthing room, we had swept the gutters of our mouths and rid them of all foul words and colorful metaphors. I had treated my child – in utero and out – to my alto warblings of Julie Andrews, Burl Ives and that rock star of the preschool crowd, Raffi. And while Bach and Mozart didn’t find their way into our CD player, I don’t think anyone could have argued against U2 and R.E.M.

They might as well have been Lil Wayne and Ozzy Osborne.

Thack was three and one-half years old when he offered his own version of his brother’s birth to an exceedingly handsome man standing in front of us at the checkout counter.

“Hi, I’m Thack,” he announced to the man, his clear blue eyes sparkling beneath a heavy fringe of white-blond hair.

“Well, hello, Thack,” replied the man, looking down with open interest at my angelic Nordic son. Thack jerked his thumb in Hansie’s direction. “That’s my baby brother.”

Hansie nearly gave himself whiplash wrenching his neck from where he sat at the front of the shopping cart. Anything Thack did was tantamount to witnessing Jesus give sight to the blind with his fingers while turning water into wine with his toes. To Hansie, Thack was Messiah and Houdini in one magnificent, big brother package.

Thack jerked his thumb toward me. “And that’s our mom.”

The man smiled at me and said, “Hi, Mom.” I considered hiding my post-baby weight behind the candy stand but the irony was just too brutal. I opened my mouth to say hi back, but Thack was already moving on, tugging at the man’s sleeve.

“So, anyways,” he continued, “my mom pooped me out of her bottom, but that one,” – again, the thumb-jerk toward Hansie – “she had to be cut open like a big ol’ pig to get him out.”

Suddenly my fat ass was nothing compared to my son’s big mouth. I frantically reached for Thack, as if hoping to find a STOP button. He swatted away my hands. As for the man, he made busy work of rearranging the bread, eggs and orange juice he’d placed on the counter, refusing to look at us. Thack pushed on.

“And she had this big cut on her tummy, like this” – he held his hands up about a foot apart – “down where it’s hairy, but it wasn’t hairy cuz it got shaved, and there were staples, and she couldn’t even fart in case her guts spilled out all over the damn floor.”

“Uh, that’s too bad, pal,” the man said with unconvincing sympathy and stepped out of the line, abandoning his groceries. I wondered how he would explain it to his wife and what she would say in reply – “What do you mean, you barely escaped with your life? And, no, I will not get my tubes tied!” – but thought it better for my mental health if I just let it go.

Later that night, after I’d put the boys to bed, I made Mads a late dinner and told him of the earlier events at the grocery store. He laughed so hard the piece of pork chop he’d been chewing shot out of his nose and landed in his wine glass with a – “Woople!” – as if pleasantly surprised by its sudden and unexpected trajectory. I felt betrayed by both pigs.

The next day, I tried to explain to Thack about “right words” and “wrong words” and failed spectacularly.

“Honey, can you please take your Spiderman underwear off your head when I’m talking to you?”

“No.”

“Well, okay. So, Spiderman, what are some right words you can say to the bad guys?”

“Where the damn-hell’s my boots?”

“No; even bad guys deserve the right words. You would say, ‘Please, Mister Bad Guy, do you know where my boots are?’”

“Why? Are you missing your freakin’ boots too?”

Like Stan the plumber, who periodically rescued everyone from Barney to Batman from our kids’ toilet, I summoned my patience and good humor in helping me get through the ordeal of extracting the right words from my son’s mouth. It became something akin to a religious ritual, practiced five times daily, with Thack’s wrong words being the call to get down on my knees once more and pray to all that was holy for him to be one of those children on Art Linkletter’s show rather than the kind of child I had been: the wrong-words kind.

My heart swelled with pride when, at age four and one-half Thack announced he wanted to bake Santa Claus some cookies for his long trip over the rooftops of the world, but stopped beating in my chest when just a few weeks later he called a restaurant patron “dickhead” for complimenting him on the new Robin costume he had insisted upon wearing, despite it not being Halloween. A week after that, he blasted a boy at his preschool for accidentally hitting him during a play. “Son of a bitch!” was recorded on every video camera running in the room but mine. Call it what you will – fate, miracle or missed opportunity – it was my luck – good or bad; I’m not sure – that my camera’s battery died one second before my son shouted those words.

It was time to ask for help.

At Thack’s pre-kindergarten exam, I informed his pediatrician – a highly credentialed man with a corny sense of humor that either greatly charmed or deeply annoyed – that Thack had trouble with “potty mouth” and “mean talk.” “He probably gets it from other kids, you know,” I lied. I had yet to share with anyone my theory of Vaginal Audio Transmission – or VAT.

The doctor made a goofy face at Thack and said in a sing-song voice, “Oopsies! Is someone being a bad boy?” Thack burst into tears. “I’m gonna kill you and feed your private parts to Godzilla, you fucker,” he cried, then stormed out of the examination room.

Clutching his breast, the doctor turned on me. “Just what kind of a mother are you!” he charged.

“And what kind of an asshole are you?” I shot back before running after my child.

I changed doctors and continued my right words/wrong words tutorials with renewed fervor.

That summer, we moved into town to be closer to the public school Thack would be attending in the fall. One morning a crew of coarse-whiskered, Camels-smoking, orange-vested men with grit under their nails and asphalt in their boot heels drove trucks, backhoes and steamrollers into our cul-de-sac. They stopped right in front of our home, immediately becoming the biggest attraction since Mads had brought home a bright red Honda VFR and let the kids stagger around in his AFM-certified helmet like drunken Martians.

Thack’s hero at the time was a guy on PBS called Mike. Mike wore a hard hat – though he more resembled a Midwestern Ag teacher than a road worker – and taught kids everything they ever wanted to know about road-work vehicles but how to hot-wire one on a Saturday night. Every afternoon, wearing his Fisher-Price hard hat and surrounded by his yellow toy earth movers and dump trucks, Thack sat in front of the TV to watch Mike climb into the cabs of vehicles seemingly made for giants. Thack never said a wrong word in front of or about Mike. He slept with an autographed photo of the man hanging over his bed. If Thack was Hansie’s Messiah, Mike was his – and mine. I gave thanks to him every day.

The men repaving our street adored Thack and soon became my family’s heroes. Outfitted in his yellow hard hat and red rain boots, Thack greeted them each morning with a hardy, “Hey Mikes!” “Hey Thack!” they shouted back, waving with one hand while holding a thermos cup filled with black coffee in the other. Thack took up his post at our picket fence, one foot crossed behind the other, his slender arms hanging between the wooden slats. He stayed like that for hours, sometimes instructing, sometimes asking questions, but always ecstatic.

“Oi! Mom!”

I turned from the kitchen sink where Hansie and I were putting his teddy bear through the rigors of a bath.

“What is it, Thack?”

“Don’t call me that. I’m one of the Mikes now.” He swaggered up to me.

“Sorry. What is it, Mike?”

Thack jerked his thumb in the direction of the open front door. I could hear the rhythmic hum and chunk of the equipment tearing up the pavement outside. “Me and the other Mikes are hungry. Fetch us some grub.”

My soapy fists automatically dug into my waist.

“Well, can’t you and the other Mikes wait until I’m done here?” I jerked my own thumb in the opposite direction where Hansie stood on a chair by the sink, stroking his teddy bear’s tummy with a garlic press.

Thack’s fists flew to his waist. “Well, damn-it-to-hell, Mom! Us men are starving out there!” He stomped over to the refrigerator and threw open the door. “Jesus!”

“That’s ‘Cheeze-its’, buster!” I yelled. “Remember? Right words! Rights words! Fucking hell!”

“Sucking bell!” Hansie growled at his teddy bear. He tried to decapitate it with a rubber spatula.

Thack closed the refrigerator door. “Mom,” he said anxiously, putting his hand on my arm. “Don’t say the wrong words in front of my baby brother.”

Dropping to the kitchen floor, I covered my face with my hands and moaned.

I was plunged through a memory wormhole that dumped me into 1960, with my mother clutching Johnny to her chest, her left hand pressed against his right ear. “Suzi! Don’t say those words in front of your baby brother!” And me, fists digging into my pudgy waist, yelling back, “I’m not Suzi, I’m Popeye! And I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam!” before stomping out of the house and slamming the door behind me.

A year later, we sat with the kids’ paternal grandparents at the Oakland Fairyland lunch grounds. Mads had gone off to buy Thack and Hansie their favorite crap food. Sonja joked around with the kids while Lars smiled to himself, blissfully tuned out. He’d turned off his hearing aides the moment we walked through the park gates.

Thack had recently passed kindergarten with flying colors. “There’s something very special about your son,” his teacher had stated as we sat together watching him play with his classmates on the last day of school. “He’s so thoughtful with the underdogs, and yet also very tuned into the geniuses. He identifies with them both.” She looked me in the eye with a frankness that scared me. “I think we are going to discover some things about Thack next year when he is expected to perform real academics.”
“What do you mean?” I asked defensively.

She selected her next words carefully. “I think what we have here is a brilliant and highly imaginative child, with a naturally sweet and insightful disposition. We all adore him – he’s a hoot; an original – but he processes the world differently than other kids, and when he’s having a hard time with – ”

“I know!” I cried. “He’s always had trouble with his mouth!”

The teacher squinted at me. “His mouth?”

“You know. The wrong words. Bad words.”

The teacher shook her head. “I don’t hear anything inappropriate from Thack here. What I find is that the stimuli of the classroom cause him to lose focus and get a bit disruptive – but never, ever does he utter an unkind or bad word.” She offered a reassuring smile. “Thack is a beautiful boy, Suzi. But I believe sensory integration issues will become increasingly problematic, as will problems with focus. We’ll keep on top of it – don’t you worry – and will make the necessary evaluations. Meanwhile, watch his stress level. I think what you are trying to tell me is that Thack loses it sometimes, probably when he’s feeling anxious, threatened or frustrated. Like I said: He’s really bright, and when he gets together with the other bright kids in my class, I tell you, the sparks fly. But there’s a reason why he is so quick to defend the underdogs, and I think it’s because he feels as much kinship with them as he feels with the smart kids – more so when challenged by the world’s demands.” She shook her head. “It must be really difficult to feel incapable of delivering what others expect of you.”

“I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam, so fuck off.”

The teacher chuckled. “I guess you could say that.”

I rubbed my hands through my hair, hard. “No, that is what I said, over and over again, to my mom and dad – well, not the ‘fuck off’ bit – but it was never enough.”

The teacher looked me in the eye again. “Is it going to be enough for you? With Thack?”

Now Mads approached our bench carrying a box loaded with corn dogs, fries and packets of Catsup. I smiled at him; he smiled back with a slight roll of his eyes. Something about the direction in which his eyes moved caused me to look behind him. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

A family of three followed in his wake: two pleasant looking parents in their mid-forties and their son, who looked to be around Thack’s age. The son suffered from what must have been a horribly disfiguring birth defect. He lacked nose and ear cartilage, and his eyes were set far apart and sloped at an impossible angle. The boy’s mouth was a perfect O. The father carried their own boxes of fast food while the mother walked with the boy holding his hand. Nothing in the parents’ demeanor betrayed their own suffering. They appeared for all the world to be perfectly happy folks out with their perfectly normal child. I admired them beyond belief.

Thack sat with Lars – across from Sonja, Hansie and me – with his back to his dad and the approaching family. Sonja spotted her son, then noticed the people behind him. She covered my hand with her own, for a highly charged, split-second panicking squeeze, then, raised it in greeting.

“There’s your dad!” she called out brightly. “Finally! We have hungry pioneers at this table! Bring on the grub!”

As Mads set down his box, the other family took over the table next to ours. Again, Sonja covered my hand. “Breathe,” she whispered.

Corn dogs were passed around and water bottles were produced from my backpack. I focused on doling out the fries and squirting globs of Catsup onto paper napkins. Sonja chatted away at the kids while I silently prayed that Thack would not look over at the other table.

Years before, Thack had been abusive toward a man in our neighborhood who was severely mentally retarded and disfigured. The man and his caregiver used to walk past our house to and from a local fruit stand. Thack would yell at him from the upstairs window – for the man to go away, stay home, die – out of fear of the unknown. I managed to help Thack overcome his fear by stopping the man and his caregiver one day and introducing myself. From the window, Thack watched the man hug me. He saw the caregiver and I chat and laugh like normal people. Then we waved good-bye and I returned to Thack, unharmed and smiling. After that, he left the man alone.

But how would Thack react to a child his own age with such severe disabilities? I had no idea, and I didn’t want to find out.

Thack picked up his corn dog and stared at it. “I know what this is!” he announced.

“WHAT DID HE SAY?” Lars asked.

“HE SAID, HE KNOWS WHAT IT IS!” Sonja shouted. “TURN ON YOUR HEARING AIDES!”

Lars waved away the suggestion as if it were a disagreeable odor.

Thack stood up at the end of our table, his back to the other family.

“I said, I know what this is!” he shouted, holding up the corn dog for all to see.

I glanced at the other table. The father gave me a look that said, “Yeah, we have one too. What can you do?” I was pretty sure they didn’t have one too, and I sure as hell didn’t know what I was going to do with mine.

Thack positioned the corn dog suggestively over his pants zipper. “It’s a weenie!”

Mads choked on his corn dog.

“WHAT DID HE SAY?” Lars asked Sonja.

Sonja shook her head. “NOT WORTH REPEATING!”

I reached for the corn dog. “Uh, Thack, that’s not – ” Thack turned to face the other table. “ – oh God.”

“Hey!” Thack called out to the other boy. “Wanna see my weenie?”

I gave the parents my most remorseful look: Please, oh please, forgive us our sins. They sat utterly still, their eyes flitting between my son and theirs. From their perspective, this must have now seemed a very very bad day at Fairyland.

“Thack!” Mads barked, standing up to tower over his son. Thack ignored him.

“You have one, too!” Thack enthused to the boy.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” shouted Lars. He looked over at Thack and saw the pornographic corn dog, which Thack was now wagging back and forth. “Oh Jesus,” Lars muttered, covering his eyes.

The boy stared at Thack’s face then at Thack’s corn dog and finally at his own corn dog nestled in its bed of fries. Deliberately avoiding his parents’ clenched-jawed panic, he stood up from his bench, grabbed his corn dog and wagged it in front of his pants zipper.

We adults let out a collective gasp as we were subjected to the two boys standing in front of each other wagging their corn dogs with obscene pleasure.

Then the boy threw back his head and let out a wolf-like howl. Thack threw back his head and joined him. And everyone over the age of six dissolved into nervous hysteria.

Thack and the other boy took off. Hansie hopped down from his seat next to mine and trotted after them. With his corn dog twirling above his head, Thack shouted over his shoulder to the other boys: “Let’s run like hell and let our weenies fly!”

Maureen and I found each other while commenting on the picture of 1022 on Facebook’s Coronado Kids. I recognized her maiden name because our moms played cards together in the 40s and 50s, and her mom came to my first baby’s shower! We started sharing memories. Then Helen also commented on the house as she’s also a former owner. In addition, our mothers were best of friends for many years after Helen’s mom, Mallie Nichols, came to Coronado in 1937. They also worked together at the Coronado Pharmacy for years. I also worked for Mallie at the old and new Coronado Pharmacy’s soda fountain in the early 50s. Maureen, Helen, and I continue to share many memories about 1022 Park Place and this wonderful little town we were so fortunate to grow up in — Coronado!

Art continues on at 1022 Park Place, as the present owners, Don and Kay Hubbard are very gifted as well as good folks. Don is a published author and a marine artist of Gyotaku. Kay is a water-color artist and has a shop in Spanish Village. They have invited the three of us to revisit 1022 Park Place and we all met for lunch at the Brigantine in December when Mo visited for Christmas in Coronado. They invited my granddaughter to visit their home to see their art when she visited us in January because Tiara was studying Don’s marine art while in college in Edinburgh, Scotland. It really is a small world; especially if you’re from Coronado!

Ten Twenty-Two Park Place — a home that holds memories for all of us.

Don Hubbard is the author of Neptune’s Table “Cooking the Seafood Exotics” and “Gitmo: The Missile Crisis” a Kindle e-book available at amazon.com.

GYOTAKU (The Japanese Art of Fish Painting)

Don Hubbard, Marine Artist, P.O. Box 180550, Coronado, CA 92118
Tel: 619/435-3555, e-mail: dhubbard1@san.rr.com
www.coronadoartassn.com

It all started with 1022 Park Place, Coronado, California. This is where my grandparents, Alfred and Mary EllenVingoe, came from England in the 1920s to settle in Coronado. As my mom’s siblings matured, they spread themselves out through Coronado and San Francisco to make their own homes.

I was born at the Coronado Hospital in 1946. Dr. Booth delivered me there and said at the time that “I was going to be a showgirl in Vegas.” Little did he know, I spent 37 years there in the gaming business, and DID dance VERY often at all the clubs there.

All these years later through Facebook, Aleene Sexton Queen and Helen Nichols Murphy Battleson found we had more in common then being raised in Coronado. It was “1022 Park Place”, where Aleene’s aunt and uncle lived for quite a few years in the 1930s; then many years later, Helen and her family owned the house, who then sold it to Donald Hubbard, the present-day owner.

I had been by “1022 Park Place” many times to look and stare and wonder what it was like to live inside that beautiful home back in the 20s. Finally, one day while HOME for the 4th of July Class Reunion last year (2010), I was taking a picture of the house with my best girlfriend, Carolann, and Don Hubbard came out and jokingly said, “We charge for pictures you know.”

That’s when after all these years of wondering what it looked like inside, Don invited Carolann and I in for a tour of the house. (What a kind and wonderful man he is. He and his daughter are both authors of wonderful stories.)

This meeting brought Aleene, Helen, and I into full circle. They are both just a tad older then me and wouldn’t have noticed me as a kid running rampant in Coronado. Aleene and I had a closer bond then we thought. My mom and her and other great friends use to play cards together — one of the friends being the fire chief at the time, Ted Kohl and his wife Edna. Now that we are all older, the age gap has closed between us and we have MANY fond memories to share.

DR. MUSHOVIC & NAVAL LIFE

By Polly Coleman

I remember being ten and holding my baby brother while Dr. Mushovic gave him his first shots, and my Mother and I both getting a shot in the buttock and it hurt! We went to him instead of base doctors as it was so much better. We lived at 641 Coronado Avenue. My parents bought the house before Dad spent four years in ‘Nam. Went to Crown, junior high, then 9th and 10th grades in Coronado. Then we were off to D.C., as he did a tour at ComCruDesPac Pentagon duty. Yuck!! Good times, but bad times too. D.C .was not good for a Cally girl in the early 70s. Went to SuperFly premiere at Constitution Hall and got mugged. And I wasn’t a racist! The bad times…I loved D.C., but only in the earlier tours. Coronado was the best. You know my boyfriend was Jim Longino Jr., who was the son of Admiral Longino of NAS North Island at the time. They lived in the Commandant quarters and they were so beautiful, all white, out on the bay. We both went East at the same time. His parents moved to a Georgetown brownstone and he was off to a college in Colorado Springs. Then he died in a skiing accident. Don’t think I ever got over that. Such is Navy life that we didn’t ever seem to talk about. We just said our goodbyes so many times…Too many times. This is so theraputic LOL xxoo Polly