My "Wally World" Experience

I couldn't wait. I'd been anticipating the day for weeks. I was nine, and we were going to Disneyland.

I'd only been a few times before, and it had been a couple of years since the last trip. What I could remember was that half of the park was inaccessible due to expansion and "modernization" of the existing -lands.

There I sat in the backseat of Nana's Nova, ancy as all hell, fidgeting with my pack of goodies; peanut butter and butter sandwiches, chips and candy and the likes. Nana didn't go anywhere without a packed sack of goodies, and almost always peanut butter and butter sandwiches.

Thirty miles later and we had finally arrived. Something wasn't right though. We drove on up through the parking lot straight up to the front row. There were a couple dozen or so other cars parked, a few people walking around, most just sitting in their cars.

It was closed.

Disneyland, was closed.

There would be no It's A Small World, no Pinocchio, no Sleeping Beauty's Castle, no Haunted House, no Pirates. No Disneyland. I was devastated.

And then, as we drove out of the parking lot, we noticed somebody giving directions to another theme park, just down the street.

So we went.

And there we were, at Knotts Berry Farm. Not Disneyland. At first I thought I'd been fooled. I saw no theme park upon entering the not so fantastic gates of this not so fantastic place. I saw nothing but shops. Food, clothing, collectibles, JELLY AFTER JAR AND JAR AND JAR OF JELLY....And then, finally we stumbled into Camp Snoopy.

There I sat in a covered wagon with a popsicle that dripped all over me and attracted every bee in the neighborhood. I Went on the Log Ride, which wet my pants and forced me to walk around with wet denim chafing my thighs. Not to mention the wet socks that were creating air pockets in the arch of my foot with every step I took. It was hot. I was crabby from all the window shopping, turns out Knotts Berry Farm was more for the grandparents than the kids. That is unless you enjoy stationary covered wagons with sticky benches, walking dirt trails in wet shoes and dodging the bumble bees from your cherry flavored skin.

Theres something wonderful and happy to be said about walking in wet shoes, swatting bees, sticky cotton-candy-fingers, sunburned shoulders, long lines, window shopping and hot peanut butter and butter sandwiches...if you're at Disneyland.

Do you know the way, to San Jose?

No, no, no. This has nothing to do with Dionne Warwick, or Frankie...

Or does it?

My mother left me at Cheri's doorstep as she and my brother went on to our new house to unpack. It was time for me to bid farewell to my only real "pal" from our old neighborhood. We were moving. I had an hour to do so. I was only 6. What did "moving" mean? Where was I moving? What was moving?

Cheri wasn't home. My only friend, for the last two years, wasn't home when I came to say goodbye.

Instead, I sat on her living room couch waiting. With her mother. While she cleaned the house. I was devastated, my mother told me to say goodbye, and I couldn't. She wasn't there.

I waited an hour. Sitting, waiting, thumbing around my friends living room, downstairs from the room I played in so many times. Where I played with plastic horses, plastic familes in big plastic houses, with plastic furniture.

Finally, my mother returned, and I had to leave. No goodbye. Just a "my mom's here, I gotta go."

I shoulda known, sure we "penpal-ed" for a few years, but that all eventually came to an end.

We did see each other one time after my move, she came to my home while her parents were in town.

When it came time for her to leave, it was my mothers job to drive her to the hotel near the airport. My mother had no idea how to get to the airport. We drove out of the way, all over town, for hours, trying to get to the airport.

Now, everytime I drive down Sunset Blvd - that oughtta tell ya how far out of the way we went - in Hollywood, I always think of that day we spent in the back of the 76 Monte Carlo, saying goodbye.

Bubble Gum Ice Cream

Do you remember your first trip to 31 Flavors? I do. We had just moved into our new house, in a new neighborhood and had ventured to the shopping center across the interstate.

Gemco....remember that? And Safeway. A few other shops that I don't recall, and then, there on the end of the strip sat the marvelous 31 Flavors.

What did I get, every single time? Bubble Gum Icecream. No mint chip, no chocolate chip, no sorbet, no rocky road. Only that horrible, at-first-it's-white-then-it's-a-horrible-shade-of-a-blue-mess bubblegum ice cream.

You never knew just how many balls you'd find in there. Maybe three....maybe nine. I saved every last one till I was done with my ice cream.

I'd suck on'em, then spit them to the side of my dish and chew them later.

God I loved those cold, hard, balls of ick.

Maybe this is why I had no BFF's...?

My mother told me once that I was just like Lucy, from Peanuts. I was mean to my friends. Rude. Mean. Sometimes, inconsiderate of others.

Nah, not me.

I was just honest. And well, sometimes I didn't think before acting.

Scenario:
My friend Hai, a boy my age also in my 2nd grade class, is playing with a twig in a puddle of mud. There he sat squatting over the puddle of mud. Totally at ease, content. Happy.

My Thoughtless Action:
Big brother: Hey, why don't you throw this rock in the mud?

Me: Ok.

Outcome: Mud, all over Hai's face and clothes. Splattered from head to toe. He's sobbing. He's running. Straight to my mother.

Scenario:
I'm rollerskating around the neighborhood, being chased by the obnoxious "colored" boy (as my nanny would say). He's chasing me and chasing me, laughing and threatening to push. I'm skating faster and faster.....finally I skate into the grass and come to a stop. Boy teases and pokes fun some more...

My Thoughtless Action:
Me: Leave me alone.
Boy: No. Neener neener, nanner nanner, I'm gonna push you.....
Me: I'm gonna kick you.
Boy: No you're not, I'll tell my mama and my sisters and you'll get it.
Me: Oh yea?

Outcome: Swift kick to the shin, with my rollerskate. Boy running, screaming in pain straight to his mama, and his two very large, older sisters.



My mother once made the mistake of telling me what she thought about my friends mother. The mother who didn't work, sent her kids out to play all afternoon till dusk, gave them sticks of french bread to snack on instead of a sandwich, and sat in her recliner smoking all the while.

So, the next time I went to that friends house, I told her mother that my mother said she does nothing all day but sit in her recliner smokin cigarettes.

She called my mom.

So, yea. Sometime I didn't use my head. Sometimes I spoke too soon and acted to quickly, but who didn't.

BFF's

So, I'm going to blame my parents, mostly my father, for the fact that I have never had any BFF's. Not when it mattered most anyways.

We moved a lot. No, not a military family, but just as bad.

My father worked in aerospace. I had no idea what that was at the time. But in my early years, he worked for a handfull of different companies.

When I was 4, I assume 4 because I was in Preschool at the time, we moved from my neighborhood to a city almost four hundred miles away, for what I presume to be my fathers job, relocating him. I don't know for sure, I was too young and I haven't asked the reason, but I assume it was a relocation.

So there we are, in a new town, new house, new school, new neighbors.

Once we were settled, I took my favorite baby doll down the street to greet another new settler. Cheri was her name, and she had dolls too, but she favored horses. Plastic horses with legs bent in weird positions that were no fun at all. Except for their long stringy tails.

We played together day in and day out, I learned much about her. She was an only child and spoke to her parents with a wicked little tongue. I couldn't understand how somebody could talk to their parents the way she did. And she used the F word a lot. Either way, she had a great inventory of toys and dolls. And that dollhouse.

Next thing I know, we were moving again.

It had been two years, my kindergarten and first grade years, since I walked down that hill to introduce myself. I knew Cheri was somebody I'd miss, and I'd make it a point to stay in contact with her. I was aware even at the age of 6 that this was somebody I enjoyed and didn't want to lose.

She wasn't home the day I went to say goodbye. I sat on her couch with her mother, waiting. She never came home. So I left. I promised her mother that I'd write.

So there I am, first grade just ended and I'm headed to a new city. It seemed like a days drive, but it was only 20 miles South.

There we were, in another town-home. This time I had a handful of children to befriend, from all over the world, I didn't know who to run to first.

I met Dao and Hai, first. They lived the closest, and had very mean parents. Parents that chased them out of the house if they even came home for a drink, or to use the restroom. Those kids had fear in their eyes at the mention of their parents.

I made my first "colored" friends, as my nanny would call them. Two little girls, sisters. One was named Camille, I don't recall the other. I remember Camille because she'd run around the track sidewalk singing Boy George's Karma Chameleon till her throat went sore.

The neighborhood was infested with huge, fat, furry caterpillars. They were dark brown, and when you stepped on them they oozed green guts. I started collecting these caterpillars, making homes for them in shoe boxes filled with leaves and twigs. My brother would torture me with threats of squashing them. They'd soon be replaced with snails which didn't escape as quickly as the caterpillars did.

One day, swinging on the tire swing, dangerously high above the bark lined playground, I met a girl named Valerie. Freckles all over the place, and kinky, curly brown hair. She looked like Strawberry Shortcake with a perm. Maybe that's what attracted me to her, I loved Strawberry Shortcake.

Valerie took me home to meet her brothers and sisters. Diedre was her older sister, my age I learned. Valerie was the 2nd child, a year younger than I. Jonathon a.k.a John Boy. He was diabetic but didn't let that stop him from following the ice cream truck around the neighborhood or smuggling Snickers bars in his pockets was next. Next came little Patrick and then 5 year old April.

Their mother was a stay at home mom, their father was never home. The few times he was at home, if he'd had a few beers he'd pull out his guitar and sing "my ding-a-ling" to us kids.

Sonia and Sofia came next. They lived out of the park, down the street in a track home, along with their brother, Tyrone.

The one thing I remember about them was the stash of chewed bubblegum they stored in the egg compartment of their fridge. If we wanted some bubble gum we would simply thaw a piece out under running water, and pop it back in their mouth for more chewing, regardless of who previously chewed it. Blue gum, red gum, green gum, you name it. They had it. The longer you thawed it, the more flavor actually came back.

Again, the time came for me to move. Second and third and fourth grades had passed, and we were off. I was 9 years old, heading to a new city, to make more new friends, and leave more friends behind.

I hadn't seen Cheri but once or twice since moving away from her, I had a feeling I wouldn't see these friends again, ever.

The day my parents packed the U-haul truck, I sat in the grass with Sofia. Sonia, Valerie and Deidre weren't talking to me, Sofia told me it was because they were mad at me for leaving them. So I didn't get to say goodbye to them, or gather contact information.

Back down South, 400 miles...back to where we started. I'd gone through Kindergarten, first, second, third and fourth grades, only to return to point A, to make new friends.

We moved in to my grandmothers house for a short while, until we found our next home. I'd start Fifth grade temporarily in my grandmothers neighborhood. I think I've mentioned "Emily" in a previous post. Yea, that was fun.

Thinking back, I don't think it was a relocation that had us move from Northern to Southern Cal. Given the amount of time we lived with my grandmother I can only assume my father was job hunting.

Finally, we found a house, not a town house, a house. With a yard. And a driveway. Having neighbors on each side, the promise of new friends was in the air.

The second week of fifth grade brought a new school, and new faces. By the end of 6th grade, I'd made a slew of friends, yet none would be my BFF. They already had their BFF's. Friends they'd made in their early years. Junior High brought much of the same. High school also.

BFF's are formed in the early years, I think. When we're blind to the faults and disadvantages of our playmates, before we become judgemental and suspicious. Before we even know the definition of jealousy.

I'll later touch on the moments spent with each of these people that made them memorable in the first place.

Is that you, Santa?

Christmas Eve is supposed to be fantastic, filled with eggnog, stocking-stuffers and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers singing about love, Christmas style.

Not for me. Well, I had the eggnog, and the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers tunes, but fantastic? More like nightmarish.

Christmas Eve for me meant sitting in front of the television watching Christmas specials - usually the Smurfs Christmas or The Chipmunks. Or that blasted Dolly Parton Kenny Rogers special. Now I understand why my father enjoyed watching Dolly sing. And then there was the other option, staring up the trunk of the artificial tree we had every christmas from birth till my teens. Counting the lights, losing track of my count because one flashed off, my eyes crazy from staring, darting off in another direction. Recount the lights. Annnnd one, two, three....

Once I was summoned to bed, seeping was impossible. Not when there were things lurking in the hall, just outside my bedroom door.

Every year during my unknowing and uninformed youth, I'd lay in my bed staring down the dark hall way, covers pulled up to my nose, sweating, wide awake - watching those figures float up and down the hall, in and out of rooms. Gone, there, gone, there again. No matter how hard I tried to focus on these figures, all I could see were those bright little stars; a result from staring at the on off, on off, on and off again christmas tree lights, flickering away. But they were there. Who, or what, was it?

I'd eventually fall asleep and wake up to a quiet house hours later. My view of the christmas tree down the hall was good enough to see the pile of gifts, sending me flying down the hall to dig through and form my inventory pile.

Mine were easy to spot, the ones marked "To: Jenny, From: Santa" written in a penmanship much like my fathers. All caps. And written nervously, with a shake.

I finally caught on when my father told me go into his desk drawer to retrieve "the one from him" and I noticed the writing on the tag, miraculously the same as the ones from Santa.

Mr. Toads Wildest Dreams

There is one particular childhood memory that haunts me to this day.

I'm thinking - based on the scenes I have in my head of the night it all went down, that I must have fallen asleep on the ride home from somewhere, and dreamt something wild. Somehow my mind has lumped pieces of the car ride and the dream I had while I lay asleep in the backseat, together, forming one memory of one that would make Mr. Toads Wild Ride ... a lot less wild.

Either way, this is how it went down...

First scene: I'm with my mom, my brother and my aunt. We're at a shopping center, mini mall if you may, and we're walking towards my mothers Monte Carlo. I get in the backseat with my brother.

Second Scene: We're driving down a dark street, I look out the back window to see Frankenstein, or something much like Frankenstein, following us, on foot, at a reletively fast pace.

Third Scene: My mother hits the brakes, I slam my head into the "thank-god-it's-a-big-car-with-even-bigger-seats" headrest in front of me. I look back out the rear window, Frankenstein is nowhere to be found. We speed down the street, arrive to my home, and run inside.

Fourth Scene: I'm in my bed, with a wash cloth on my forehead.

And that's it. Now, I know I was pretty young because the bed I was in, was in a room with Raggedy Ann wall paper and that was when I was a tot.

So, you tell me....Frankenstein is alive, wandering the streets of Glendora? Or way too many cookies before bed?