California Here We Come

In 1952, Lyle answered an employment ad for a Technical Writer in an Electrical Engineering periodical. We were elated when Lenkurt Electric in San Carlos, California hired him and immediately made plans to move to this small town located about 25 miles south of San Francisco.

We didn’t have a lot to move other than wedding gifts, a kitchen table set, a sectional sofa, chair, and a paint-it-yourself bedroom set. Friends came to our apartment to help pack our dishes in tall cardboard barrels. We upgraded our car from the 1937 Ford to a 1950 used Chevrolet and headed south, leaving a van to pick up our household goods.

It was March, 1952 and California had never looked so beautiful and green. As we drove into the bay area, we whipped out our Argus C-3 camera and photographed the velvety green hills, the crisp blue skies and puffy clouds.

A motel along the railroad tracks in San Carlos, a half-mile from Lyle’s job, was our home until we found an apartment. There were less than a half-dozen apartment buildings in town and we felt fortunate to find one for $85 per month. The frugal landlord supplied only four 40-gallon garbage cans for all eight apartments. The cans required his constant attention and he came over once or twice a week to crawl into the cans and compress the garbage. The cans were visible from our kitchen window and we tried not to miss this interesting little ceremony that we referred to as “The Stomping Of The Garbage.”

I found a job at a bank four blocks from our apartment. Bank work was a bit like working in the Shipyard. There were basic routines in place that were rarely changed. We had a certain routine just for arriving at work in the morning. Never did we congregate outside the bank door to await admittance at 8:00 a.m. Instead, we gathered unobtrusively in front of stores across the street while the Chief Clerk unlocked the bank door and went in alone. He turned on the lights and inspected the place to assure there were no bad guys hiding around. After he was certain the place was secure, he maneuvered the front window blinds to a specific position. This was our signal that all was okay and we could now tap on the door and be admitted.

In 1953 we purchased our first home in Redwood City and after I worked a couple years at the bank, we decided to start a family. We did just that in 1954 when we had Joel. Linda arrived in 1956 and Grant finished things off in 1959. All three were smart, brilliant, handsome, perceptive and above- average, just like you.

Like oiled grapes we popped them through progressively larger portholes leading to the next expanded compartment of their lives. Sometimes they slid through the next opening with no effort. Other times an application of grease and a shove on the bottom was needed to slip them through while their reluctant fingers were frozen in a vise-like grip on the porthole frame. They were Boy Scouted, Indian Guided, and Campfire- girled, baseballed, and music-ed all the way up the scale. They pursued their interests, got out of various schools and escaped from parents who were very reluctant to see them go and who tried hard not to leave claw marks on their back as they went out the door. They are three distinct individuals, all living their lives in their own way. The way it should be....but that is their story to tell.

(Above 3 photos by Jack Parton, now of Tacoma,Wa)

As the children moved away, Lyle was busy at his job and I was free to spend more time with drawing pens and paintbrushes. I immersed myself in a splurge of creativity.

One Sunday afternoon while Lyle was at a 49er football game, I set up a stool on a sidewalk and began to sketch one of the interesting homes on a nice Redwood City Street. A Realtor happened to be holding ‘Open House’ in a nearby residence. He stopped by, checked my work and asked me to draw a lavish Sausalito houseboat he had for sale. I was soon doing drawing jobs for many of the major Realty Companies on the Peninsula.

Sitting on location to draw homes for private individuals and Realtors was time- consuming and usually required three hours time on the first visit. One or two follow up visits were often necessary to collect further architectural details. The drawings were used to produce sales brochures, calendars, personalized stationery and notepaper. As I became more busy, it was necessary to streamline the drawing process by doing only quick thumbnail sketches of details while at the location and working from my photographs at the drawing table in my home studio.

One private client, living in an exclusive area in Portola Valley, commissioned me to draw her home for use on personalized notepaper.

After an introductory visit to review this secluded ranch- style home, it was evident that this well-to-do client was anxious for a way to tastefully exhibit as many material acquisitions as possible on forty square inches of paper. In addition to the home drawing on the front of the notepaper, she wanted her Doberman dog, poodle, three cats, rooster, stable and tennis court depicted on the inside of the card. Sure, I could do that, and I tried to avoid the ostentatious by showing a mere corner of the stable and a hint of the tennis courts. It was an challenging assignment.

I arrived on the job the following morning grateful to see the sun would be on my back. After unloading the folding chair and coffee thermos from the trunk of the Honda Accord, I sat down with the 14”x 20” drawing board in my lap and began work.

Before long the garage door opened and Mr. Homeowner backed his fine car down the driveway. He paused the automobile near my chair, introduced himself and added, “Watch out for the rooster,” before driving away. What could he mean by that? I concluded there was a pet rooster needing watching so it didn’t get and get killed on the road. This experienced former farm girl could easily watch a rooster. Indeed, I was a rooster specialist.

After a half-hour, the sun warmed the cement driveway enough to attract a scruffy gray poodle who stretched out to absorb the warmth and immediately began a frenzied, ceaseless clawing of fleas. He was a perpetual scratching machine. Soon, two cats stretched out beside him.

Before long a small Bantam red rooster strutted from the side yard randomly pecking invisible seeds and insects as he crossed the driveway. He seemed unaware of my presence. He and the dog should have formed an alliance, he probably could have eaten those irritating fleas.

When it was time to move my chair to a new location with a better view of front door details, I stood up. Wrong move. The little rooster threw out his chest, did a few quick, prancing stomps and quickly high stepped in my direction. For such a little fellow he did a first rate job of looking menacing. I had to smile for I was experienced. I had been chased by setting geese, turkey gobblers, cows, bulls and rams, but never a rooster, and a comical little pipsqueak at that. I ignored him, picked up the chair and walked to a new site. The rooster was so challenged by my movement he came flying at my legs, claws first. No problem, I thought, just give the little twerp a swift kick and hope that Mrs. Homeowner wasn’t looking out the window. It was not a good decision. He wrapped both claws around my kicking leg and held on. I could feel the claws penetrate my skin through the denim and he refused to let go. Since he already had one of my legs tied up and bleeding, and I needed the other to stand on, I swung at him with my drawing board until he retracted his claws.

From that point on I used the drawing board like a bullfighter uses a cape. When I was seated, he had no interest in me, but to stand up was to galvanize that rotten little bird into action. He would come flying at my legs, claws first. A lowering of the drawing board and he walked away. Olé - When it was time to pack things in the trunk to depart, the little beast charged again. Olé - I now knew why I should, “Watch out for the rooster”.

Drawings of all the animals were printed on the back of the finished card, as requested. It was terribly tempting to draw a little cloud of dots hovering around the poodle to represent a cloud of fleas.

A Realtor telephoned, asking me to draw a house at the corner of University and Hale Streets in Palo Alto. She apologized for not remembering the house number of this new listing, but assured me I would have no trouble finding this big brown shingled house at this intersection. She was in a hurry, hoping to have a finished brochure to hand out at the same time she put up the ‘For Sale’ sign.

I drove down to begin my drawing and was dismayed to find TWO big brown shingled houses on opposite corners of the University and Hale Street intersection. The front door of one faced Hale Street and the other home faced University Avenue. Since I recalled her saying “University” first, I was confident I was dealing with the house that faced University. A ‘For Sale’ sign would have been a real help.

I set up the aluminum chair on the sidewalk in front of the house and spent three hours sketching. Soon the sun was glaring off the white drawing paper and I left. The following day I set up in the same location. After working about an hour, the lady of the house wandered out with a cup of coffee in her hand to inquire what I was drawing.

“I’m doing this for the Realtor,” I replied. “She wants to have the brochures ready early.”

“Oh,” my new friend said, “I think you probably want to be over at that house across the street. I understand it is for sale.” She looked at the drawing, took my card and went indoors. So there I had a useless drawing and three hours wasted.

I went across the street, did the new drawing and had the Realtor’s order out on time.

Two years later the woman in House #l on University Avenue telephoned to see if I had finished the drawing that had been begun in error. I quickly finished the details. She ended up buying it as well as a bunch of note paper. Those three hours weren’t wasted after all.

I had a job down in Atherton, another one of the expensive, exclusive residential areas on the San Francisco Peninsula. The Realtor wanted the garden area drawn, overlooking the pool toward the house. I made an appointment to go down and take photographs. It was always important to knock on the door to introduce myself, leave a card, and give the owner an opportunity to lock up any dogs.

The housecleaning man answered the doorbell. He had a couple spray bottles hanging from his hip pocket and a towel in his hands. He told me the lady of the house was busy right now, getting ready for a luncheon, in fact, he added, “She was in the shower.”

From where he stood in the entrance hall, he heard of flurry of noise coming from down the hall and glanced that direction. His eyes widened, and he said, “My God, she’s coming in a towel!”

Indeed she was. A 75-80 year old lady appeared, wrapped in a towel, tied like Dorothy Lamour would have tied a sarong. Her gray hair was beautifully coiffed, not a hair out of place. Her makeup was impeccable, but she was dripping, shiny and wet. She was preparing for a luncheon engagement and somehow managed to shower without disturbing anything from the neck up.

A young Realtor in Burlingame wanted me to draw her own home for use on all her advertising, and a nice house it was!. She was in her early thirties and lived with her much- older husband in a very impressive gated home.

During the first visit to meet and show my portfolio, we sat in her dining room. Pairs of eight-foot tall wooden doors with 20” square glass panels lined the wall of the dining room and led to a deck facing the front yard. Her two adult Rottweiler dogs that she referred to as “Pussy Cats”, restlessly circled the table, their toes click-clicking on the slate floor.

We made arrangements for me to return the next day and photograph the front of the house. Since she would be gone, she planned to leave one of the iron gates open for me. She also assured me the ‘Pussy Cats” would be in the house.

The following day, the gates were open. I parked my car in the street so it wouldn’t be in the way of my photographs. The first photos were a few long shots taken from just inside the gates,. Then it was time to get closer to the porch to get details in the shadowy areas under the wide roof overhang.

By then the two Rottweilers in the house had seen me through those glass paneled dining room doors. They began to bark. I wasn’t afraid, because they were behind locked doors. But as I neared the house their barking became more frantic and they began to charge the glass doors, jumping as high as they could against the panels. I could see the upper part of these tall doors were actually bending outwards, and realized the weight of those dogs could easily break one of those panels of glass. I wasn’t worried about the doors breaking, but I was concerned about getting chewed. I decided to settle for pictures already taken and hastily retreated. So much for Pussy Cats and Rottenweilers.

I first met Eliza when our outdoor painting class arranged to paint at her home. It was located in what had been a logging town at the turn of the century and had developed into an elite area. Her rustic cottage contrasted with neighboring luxurious homes that were secluded behind iron gates, some with private vineyards. She had occupied her little house since 1918 and was now in her mid-eighties. She seemed to enjoy having a dozen artists at their easels in her yard. We sat on stumps during our coffee break and listened to this eccentric old woman as she stood by a stump in her garden and read her poems. She was happy to have an audience that appreciated creativity.

The artists were delighted to find so much to paint. Her yard was festooned with old chipped enameled pots and pans, bent teakettles, and enameled milk jugs. Most of the items were hung decoratively about as flower planters or they were spiked on the claws of dead trees. Old tattered bird’s nests spilled from a rusty World War I German army helmet swinging from a branch. Copper boilers, round galvanized wash tubs, old paddle type washing machines, kerosene kitchen ranges, rusted iron bed frames, all somehow fit into her rustic garden forming artistic arrangements that rusted and aged in place. Wonderful painting subjects.

I knew during the first painting session that there were many pictures to be painted at this location, not just one. With Eliza’s permission I returned alone for several months completing over twenty paintings of her things. As my visits continued we became well acquainted.

Whenever I made the three mile trip to her house I always telephoned to see if she needed anything from the grocery store. Her wants were few, she was frugal, but very fussy about the milk products. Her faith in Christian Science did not permit her to drink milk that had the Vitamin D additive and this was the only type available in the major grocery stores. Her requirement meant a trip to an independent grocery store that purchased milk from a small supplier.

As I finished the many paintings, I was frequently invited indoors for different reasons. These meetings almost always ended with her saying, “Do you want to hear today’s poem?” So I sat for many poems that were usually upbeat, some simple, and some obtuse to the point of abstraction --make that ‘distraction’. She made great use of similes, and metaphors, frequently with religious overtones. Most of the writings were open prose, a few rhymed fitfully.

She wrote a poem ever day on any available piece of paper. Envelopes were carefully pulled apart and spread flat. Once the date was written at the top, the flattened envelope was ready to receive her poem of the day. The finished poem was inserted like a pressed flower between pages of her Mary Baker Eddy Christian Science book. The years of insertions of daily poems had bulged the yawning book into the shape of a fat fan. She took great pleasure in this daily burst of creativity and it was unthinkable to not accept her invitation to listen. To her, reading poems were like eating peanuts - one was never enough. Sometimes I really didn’t want to take the time, but I always sat down and prepared myself for not one, but several poems, complete with line by line interpretation.

She would sit on the hard bench by the kitchen table, put on her eyeglasses and switch on the molded green glass table lamp. The cord of the lamp rose like a charmed snake from the kitchen table winding toward the ceiling where it shared a double socket with a naked light bulb dangling on a thirty inch cord. Her white hair was tied with a red ribbon and her well- worn cotton dresses were always spotless. The floral patterns of the cloth had faded from many washings with her home- made lye soap. If a dress neckline gaped, she would gather the excess material in the front neckline, form a wide pleat and pin it in place with a two-inch safety pin, carefully inserted horizontally. It was like costume jewelry. She wore sturdy oxford shoes.

I knew when she opened that stressed Christian Science book and her poems spilled onto the table that I was in for at least twenty minutes of listening, probably more. Even if that day’s poem was only eight lines long, she could prolong the reading with lengthy explanations. She would interrupt the poem to explain the significance of any similes, and there were many. Not only did she read the poem to you, she diagrammed it, spliced it and diced it. She defined wordy phrases as she came upon them with a torrent of more words right in the middle of a poetic phrase. When she began those lengthy explanatory insertions between words, I would get lost right after the second line, not knowing when the prose resumed and the explanation ended. Any magic contained in an aesthetic arrangement of words evaporated.

Before long, my mind wandered to other things, but I would be brought up to the present when the tone of her voice signaled the end of the poem. Thank goodness she didn’t ask questions and give quizzes on her readings for most of the time I had absolutely no idea what she had been talking about. She seemed pleased to have an audience and I was pleased when the poems were over. Mutual pleasure.

The funny thing is, I truly enjoy poetry.

In the late 1800’s, redwood logs were harvested from the low Coastal Mountain range that rises between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Logging was a big industry. They hauled the logs by team and wagon from the hills and shipped them from the port of Redwood City located on San Francisco Bay. Redwood City now is the county seat and its downtown is mainly business offices and restaurants. In 1976 Main Street was a series of Thrift Shops. It was the place to find old furniture to refinish and other collectibles. I made many trips to that area and always admired the decaying buildings.

I decided to paint some pictures of this area before the buildings disappeared, one at a time. I loaded a divided plastic mop bucket with my painting tools. Paint rags and paint thinner went in one cavity and brushes and tubes of oils in the other. A collapsible aluminum easel, my wooden paint box and a small canvas camp stool were kept in the trunk of the old 1968 Rambler. I dressed warmly in denim pants, sweater, a worn denim jacket and protected my head with my self-woven straw hat. The whole outfit was covered with a paint-encrusted white butchers apron. I was dressed to meet and greet the denizens of Main Street as I worked on location, painting over a dozen pictures in that area.

The old Sequoia Hotel was built in 1906 at the corner of Broadway and Main Street. The broken neon sign on the roof still read ‘Rooms $6.00 up’. It rented rooms by the week or by the month. Lace curtains screened the large curved glass windows in the lobby where not a hint of former elegance remained. It had been stripped down to the basics and it was stark. Lobby walls were lined with a row of straight chairs, with brown leatherette seats. Their wooden arms touched. The bare-bones, Formica-covered plywood counter had an occasional male attendant. When the sun beamed in the big window at midmorning, a few chairs were occupied by vacant- faced old men, some with a cane between their knees, each searching inwardly for comforting thoughts. They came down from their austere upstairs rooms to absorb a little warmth in the sunny lobby and await the arrival of their favorite crony. *It was a gathering of lonely men who had either outlived their relatives or been disowned for some social infraction such as drinking or crime. Some had mental quirks and personality peculiarities. They appeared harmless, old and inactive. Main Street was home for the down-and-outers.

I placed my canvas on an easel outside the double swinging doors and began painting the decorative entrance facade. The old fellows eyed me curiously from their sunny seats in the lobby. I avoided eye contact, not wanting them to feel uncomfortable or to think they were being watched, If our eyes chanced to meet, I tried to look friendly.--but not so friendly that they might approach me for a handout. A tall angular woman, probably in her late forties, came and went occasionally from the hotel. She always wore a stocking cap and was frequently accompanied by a handsome, cleanly- dressed black man who seemed to be her husband. I spoke with her a number of times when she stopped to look at the canvas. Once she mentioned she was on her way to get her noon meal at St. Anthony’s dining room, a church that dispensed free meals to the needy.

Looking up at the second-floor windows from the sidewalk, one could see how hotel residents extended their small living areas onto the wide brick window sills. There were no window screens. Some panel curtains, their hems gray and worn, flopped and waved from the windows, brushing the exterior walls and picking up additional smoke and dirt on the hems. Other curtains were tied in a loose knot so the curtain would not impede airflow. Some roomers had a small fan on the inside sill and a quart of milk cooling in the shade on an outside sill. It was interesting to spend a couple hours at a time in these sites and note how people lived. After two hours on location, the moving sun and shade patterns changed the scene so much it was impossible to continue painting. It was time to pack things back in the car and head for home. The same painting would be continued on another day at the same time and in the same spot, hoping for similar light and shadows.

I began a painting of a lovely pink Victorian house that had been built on Elm Street in 1906. It had followed the trend of many of the older houses in the Main Street neighborhood and become a boarding house for older men. One morning an old fellow staggered by, pausing to look at my painting.

“Shay,” he slobbered, “Thish playsh has a really purdy Newell Post at the bottom of the shtairway, wanna come and sheee it?” I declined.

Later in the day a little second grade boy stopped by. When I asked where he lived he answered, “I live in those two houses across the street.” When I inquired why TWO houses he replied, “Oh, it was one house. Then my Dad cut it in two. Now it is two houses.” It certainly made sense to me. Painting of the Elm Street House with the ‘purdy Newell Post’

A demolished building had been extracted between two old buildings on Main Street leaving a gap like that of a missing tooth. Advertisements, painted on the scarred brick walls of the adjacent buildings, were suddenly revealed. I stepped around the broken bricks and litter onto the empty lot, placed my easel in the shade of one of the remaining buildings and began a painting of the aged brick wall.

It was a private place, only ten feet off the sidewalk. I felt quite secure because I was visible to anyone walking by. One day, shortly before noon, a sturdily built young man, wearing denim and a baseball hat, laboriously swung my direction on a pair of crutches. His left foot was in a heavy sock. I knew he was going to be my Main Street Friend of the Moment. He moved in close behind me, closer than I preferred, and silently scrutinized the painting.

“What are you painting?” he asked. It is the most frequent inquiry made to a plein air painter. The following question is usually, “How long does it take you to do a picture?” As he exhaled that question over my shoulder, I was immediately enveloped in an bubble of alcohol fumes, and not very good alcohol at that. I know, because I saw the label. As he leaned against the building he reached under his jacket and offered me a drink out of the bottle in his paper bag. I declined and quickly changed the subject to his foot problem.

He was happy to tell me about the bad foot and quickly whipped off his sock and said, “See, I have no toes.” He was absolutely correct. There was not one toe on that foot, although it appeared from the scars that there had been toes there at one time. He also told me he was a jail trusty up at the Sheriff’s Honor Farm about fifteen miles away up in the hills near Skyline Boulevard. He had been given a half-day permit to come down and visit a doctor regarding his foot. He produced the signed Permission Slip from the Honor Farm as if there was a need to prove to me that he was out of jail legitimately. I noticed the handwriting on the bottom of the Permission Slip read, ‘Come Back Sober.’ I don’t think he made it.

There was an odd little man about 65 years old whom I saw regularly on Main Street. He usually wore an old suit jacket, overalls and a felt hat and was always accompanied by a small, leashed Chihuahua dog. It was hard to tell if this little old guy consumed booze, drugs or if he had a mental problem. He was very loud; one could hear him approaching from a half block away as he shouted at anyone he saw across the street. Sometimes he was just singing and shouting to himself.

One Sunday morning, at 10:00 a.m., I unloaded my art supplies and set up my easel on the sidewalk to begin a new painting. There were several bars on Main Street and it was impossible not to be near one or two at all times; however, I was sure the Saturday night drinkers were home sleeping off their previous evenings indulgences. It seemed reasonable to expect to spend a quiet morning in that location. Wrong. Suddenly, I heard the yippy barking of a small dog and recognized the shouting of the loud little man coming from within the bar across the street. It was but a moment before he came dancing right out the saloon door with a jeans-clad, middle-aged woman in his arms. The dog was dragging the leash and yapping wildly at their heels. After a few ragged twirls on the sidewalk, they stepped off the curb to dance in the center of Main Street. The parking meters and trash receptacles had no doubt inhibited their sidewalk performance. They supported each other for more erratic dancing and like a whirlwind that spins to an abrupt halt, they lost their momentum in the middle of the street and hung onto each other as they stumbled back to the bar. The little dog quietly followed, still trailing his leash.

On the evening of Halloween I was once again painting on Main Street and recognized the loud voice of this same little man who, this time, was approaching from behind. By this time we were on speaking terms, we didn’t know each other’s names but we knew where the other often appeared.

“I smell banana oil, I smell banana oil,” he yelled as he whiffed fumes from my jar of paint thinner. As he passed me I couldn’t help but laugh. He had dressed for Halloween and was wearing a black, long coat, black derby and carrying a cane.

The little Chihuahua was wearing a billowy, orange cloth bag with a drawstring pulled snugly around his neck. His skinny little stick legs poked out some holes in the bag and he was tripping on the dragging fabric . He was supposed to be a pumpkin.

I went on location one morning in 1996 to begin a painting of a colorful florist shop in Palo Alto. I placed my easel off the sidewalk, down in the gutter, in order to keep out of the way of workmen who were remodeling the store behind me. It was a protected location behind the bumper of a parked panel truck. I proceeded to work the canvas.

After an hour, a man driving by, stopped his car and commanded, “Lady, read that truck!” He pointed to the rear of the paneled truck at my elbow. I turned my head and read ‘B & L Painting,’ in nice big six inch letters painted on the rear doors of what was a Painting Contractors truck.

The observant man in the car then added, “I saw that, and saw you standing there painting and I thought, “My God, she’s got her own truck”. We both grinned.

It would be nice if every painting was a success. The comment of a local art teacher is encouraging to painters. He pointed out that bad physicians can kill clients, and indeed, bad lawyers deprive clients of life or liberty, and even bad mechanics can cause serious problems, but bad art never hurt anyone. May I add that my art isn’t hurting anyone.

I encountered many indigent people on Main Street. They seemed to be men down on their luck for some real or imagined mishap in their lives. Many were drinkers, most were lonely, and some simply found this an cheap area to rent a room and stretch a meager income. Only one man, of all whom I encountered, seemed to be a true hobo. He was a fit, wiry man in his mid 50’s, with a leathery face, and carrying a well-used backpack. He approached me, not for money, but to see if I could direct him to the Labor Hall. He related that he spent his summers in Oregon doing roofing work and in the winter he tried for roofing jobs in California. He had slept outdoors during the twenty-five years of this vagabond life and had noted the reduction in the number of songbirds both in California and Oregon. A frying pan hung from his backpack. I have since read of a well-known hobo known as ‘Frying Pan Jack’. I wonder if I was talking to old ‘Frying Pan’ that morning.

At age 67 I began taking piano lessons from Mrs. Evens, the same woman who gave lessons to our kids 28 years ago. I was immediately assigned a song to perform at the Halloween Costume Recital Party. The assignment was not surprising. Our children always enjoyed this kids-only, annual costume party at which they performed piano selections for each other before having refreshments.

I remembered this recital for kids, by kids. Where else would I find a sympathetic audience of young students? I practiced that recital song as if it were going to be performed for the Queen instead of other students, children at that.

Since I was probably the only adult student of Mrs. Evens, it seemed wise to be a good sport and wear a costume. I selected a worn pair of large, bib, farm overalls , formerly belonging to my brother, Howard. A large fanny pack stuffed with small towels was strapped over my belly to fill out the big bib. A denim shirt, hiking boots and a well-washed, yellow farmer’s billed cap with a DEKalb Seed Corn logo completed the outfit. After brushing a little mascara mustache on my upper lip, I was ready. Off to the party. I was going to wow these little kids with my funny outfit. They would scarcely notice my lack of piano skills.

Unfortunately, when arriving at the party, I learned that things had changed in 28 years. The teacher had about ten students, the youngest was a 7th grader, the rest were high school age and older. Only the 7th grader, the teacher and myself were in costumes. There were no grade school kids there. What a disappointment.

I was further appalled to walk into the living room wearing my stuffed, worn overalls and see twelve nicely- dressed adults sitting in rows of straight-backed chairs, as if for a formal recital. One Chinese couple had four of their children as students. That’s not the way it was 28 years ago. Not only was I the student with the least expertise, I was the oldest and most bizarrely dressed. I longed to be elsewhere.

After we students performed, a more interesting program began. Some of the adults in the audience played quartets and duets. One man performed his own fine composition. The highlight of the afternoon was the performance of a 60 year old Chinese man who was visiting from Hong Kong. He sang Come Back to Sorrento in Chinese. It sounded just as nice as if it were being sung in Italian.

It was incongruous. Sitting in a front row chair in Howard’s ridiculous padded overalls, wearing a seed corn cap and a mascara mustache and listening to a man from Hong Kong sing Come Back to Sorrento. It was a pleasant afternoon; however, I could have done without the mustache.

We had a fifteen-second, 7.5 earthquake on October 17, 1989. That fifteen seconds seemed more like five minutes, maybe more. I was delivering a drawing job to a client at an old Woodside estate when it hit. We sat in the office as Jensen and his tall blonde lady friend looked over my drawing of their house. There were men painting on the second floor, inside and out. Their aluminum ladders were leaning against the veranda roof.

Suddenly the floor began to vibrate, and the little wooden figures on the shelf behind the desk began to tumble. “An earthquake!” we all said simultaneously. I knew the big old house had been built in the 1920’s and all I wanted to do was get out of it. The long legged girlfriend and I bumped each other trying to be the first out the front door and Jensen was on our heels. Running down three wobbling brick steps made one’s knees feel like rubber.

The tall flagpole by the porch swayed from side to side and the huge round Italian stone pines were dipping and bouncing their heavy heads toward the ground. Down the slope towards the tennis courts about eighty apple trees simultaneously were being shaken free of their ripe fruit. As we stood in the parking lot trying to collect our wits, a wave of water spilled through the juniper embankment and ran across the cement toward us.. It came from the swimming pool which was located on the upper terrace, The painters, who were working on the second floor, called out that all was well upstairs, and told how they had watched as the earthquake caused a two foot wave form on the swimming pool, travel its length and slosh down the hill in our direction.

The bay area telephone system was jammed with calls. Jensen fired up his generator and we were able to see television pictures of the damage to the Oakland Bay Bridge and elsewhere. I called home on his cell telephone, learned that Lyle was alright and then drove back to town.

We were fortunate at our house, there was only a broken bottle of wine, a broken champagne glass and a shattered bottle of Paul Newman’s salad dressing. There was general clutter caused by things falling off our casually loaded shelves and closets. All the kitchen cupboard door s and drawers were wide open. It seemed the earthquake lasted awfully long and was scary. One of those is enough for a while, and for some people one of those was too much!

Annually, some elegant home on the San Francisco Peninsula is lavishly decorated by local interior decorators in a charity sponsored event. Tickets are sold to the general public to view the fine room displays.

Additional funds are raised when they serve tea or lunch in the pool house or cabana, and almost always there is a boutique shop where artists and craftspersons leave their work to be sold on a commission basis.

In 1995 I was again invited to put some of my work in one of these shows. When delivering my notepaper and framed watercolors, I was directed to the pool cabana where the boutique was assembling. The man in charge told me to hang my three watercolors wherever I wished, an opportunity never offered at previous Showcase houses. Usually the docents and volunteers had specific ideas how they wanted their little gift shop to look and preferred that artists leave the items for the staff to hang or display.

There was only one other person hanging pictures in the cabana at that particular time. I inquired if she was a docent, for I needed to borrow hammer and tacks. She replied that she was an artist. I politely commented how lovely her things were, noted her name and added that I had heard of her. She then asked me my name. I told her. She then said, “Well, I’ve NEVER heard of you!” I hung my work and quickly slithered out of there, appropriately humbled. Gee, she could have lied just a little bit.

The newest word around our house for a while was ‘Tai Chi’ and it was used in surprising ways. I started a Tai Chi class that began at 7:45 a.m. that was taught by a man in his 40’s. You may have already taken one of these classes or seen those beautiful rhythmic exercises performed like choreography in parks in China. The practice of Tai Chi supposedly improves one’s general well being and balance, and I was getting close to the age where I might tip over once in a while and thought it a good idea to be prepared. This small class had nine experienced students, three of whom were men. I was the only beginner.

Tai Chi is a quiet activity. Even the breathing is done with your mouth closed. There is no music, no lute, no talking and no gongs. Breathing was tolerated IF you were quiet. The teacher stood in front and everyone emulated his movements which were very slow and circular.

During the second session, the stillness was broken by an unfortunate older lady (aw, we are ALL old, she was just OLDER) with a flatulence problem. Like gunfire on a quiet street. We pretended to be deaf and concentrated on our programmed movements. She was a consistent contributor to our class each session! It gave Tai Chi a new dimension.

I finally found a beginners class in Tai Chi. It was a class of eight people taught by a woman at the Senior Center. I had learned that Tai Chi had somewhere around twenty to thirty different choreographed moves that made up ‘the form’. The ‘form’ was always done in a certain order, like a dance routine. We finally reached move #1 on our fourth lesson, which happened to be the last lesson in the series of four. I computed that if she continued to ration only one new move a month, we would be her students the rest of our indentured lives and she would have employment forever. She used up 50 minutes doing slow twisting, turning exercises.

She had an interesting way to end the session, which must have been her own innovation as it was not done in my previous Tai Chi class. Students gave each other a stand-up massage. It made you feel awkward and I would gladly have done without it. I felt sympathy for the only man, about 70, in the class who was being asked to rub the back of the strange woman next to him. The massage included patting down the outer sides of her legs from waist to ankles. My sympathy, for what I imagined to be their combined embarrassment, might have been a little misplaced. I noted the two women who were his subjects the second and third sessions were giggling like flirtatious schoolgirls at the beginning of the massage time, so perhaps both the quiet old gentleman and the woman- of-the- day were enjoying the chance to get their hands on each other. The old man did not show up for Session #4. He probably didn’t want to watch these old ladies pushing and shoving for a spot next to him so they could be his partner.

One morning in 1997, I taught a craft project in a class of about 30 first graders. We divided them into two fifteen-kid shifts and the teacher assisted. I brought enough small- sized, outdated mail-order catalogs so that each child could press and flatten the paper project. I left at home any camping catalogs that displayed guns and knives -- no need to cause an unnecessary problem.

I neglected to sort out the Hanes ladies hosiery catalog and it did not take very long for one little first grade boy to see my error. He became so involved in looking at a hosiery catalog that he was ignoring the art project altogether. I had forgotten there were photographs of women wearing slips, panties and bras in the back of the booklet. His little finger was tracing the outer edge of the ladies nylon stockings and other pieces of lingerie. I quickly whisked it away and gave him a different catalog, and pretended to lose the first one. At the end of the project for the first shift of children, this same little boy volunteered to help with the second group of fifteen kids. I didn’t realize he enjoyed the project so much as he had participated so little.

While the second group of children filed in, he hurriedly circled the two round tables, peeking into the catalogs at each place setting, looking for another ‘good’ one. Ah success! Before long he was at my elbow with another Hanes hosiery catalog. He asked if he could have it.

“Oh no, I’m going to need that,” I replied, as I took it. He then moved about behind the seated children, always eying the catalogs in front of them, frequently reaching over shoulders and lifting a catalog page to peer at the bottom pages.

As we cleaned up afterwards, he asked if that first catalog had been ‘found’. Nope. I felt like a purveyor of kiddie porn. He could have been the most popular boy on the playground during recess.

One day we made the 4 mile drive to Woodside to lunch at the Stage Coach Restaurant. Woodside is a charming, carefully controlled village with citizens of great wealth. Many CEO’s and other Silicon Valley elite live there. It is rumored that zillion dollar deals, with important details scribbled on paper napkins, are contracted over a Stage Coach power breakfast or coffee

It was almost 12:00 noon. A well-dressed young man sat alone in a booth near us pretending to study the open menu. He opened his briefcase and carefully removed a rather large, shiny aluminum, mechanical device about the size of a five- pound sack of sugar. He placed it carefully at the edge of his table for all to see. He laid a sheet of paper beside it that read: ‘Low Tech Entrepreneurial Investment - Please Inquire.’ This young man had converted his luncheon booth to his own sales room and was trying to lure anyone with deep pockets who might pass his table. It took only five minutes to lure the manager who asked that the sign be removed. It is all right to do big business at the Stage Coach, but one must be more subtle. They allowed him to casually lay the mechanical device on the table visible to all. No sign.

Ever been to an ‘Arthritic Swim Exercise Class’? I attended my first session at the YMCA. This class did not allow flotation devices or rubber duckies, none of that frivolous stuff. These aged students were there for the serious business of moving joints.

The blonde young lifeguard sat in her throne at the end of the pool witnessing the ‘Stepford Grandparents’ at the shallow end of the pool. These gray headed bodies, in water up to their chests, moved in a slow glide, taking invisible underwater steps, back and forth across the pool. They seemed in a trance, each seemingly mesmerized by the activity of underwater walking. Soon they were gliding across in pairs, murmuring to each other. Then there were pairs that faced each other, talking softly, as they walked across the pool with one person walking backward. Back and forth they went, going nowhere. Just intent to go back and forth, back and forth.

The gray heads in the pool grew to a group of 30 women and ten men, many of the women protecting their hairdos with billowing plastic shower caps. Back and forth they silently stepped in this invisible water ballet. After fifteen minutes of hypnotic gliding, the older woman instructor, who had joined us in our watery walk, reached out of the water, clapped her hands and brought us all to attention. She put us through maneuvers that used all available bones and joints. We worked hard at some very good exercises. Many pendulous breasts, unencumbered by undergarments noisily slapped the water as they bounced freely while performing aquatic jumping jacks. Oh we were an exciting bunch. A couple of the old men couldn’t stand the excitement and left early.

I met a lively little 84 year old Korean woman, Gladys Loo, while painting on a residential street near her home in Palo Alto. I admired her ixia flowers and offered to trade some of my flower bulbs for some of hers.

Within three hours her large older-model sedan pulled up in front of our house . All you could of this short little person as she peered over the steering wheel was her baseball cap. Its bill was heavily decorated with scrambled gold braid, similar to the caps worn by astronauts when they come back from outer space. She parked three feet from the curb. I went out to greet her and suggested she pull the car in a little closer. She gave the curb and car a glance and said, “Oh, that’s good enough.”

She had outlived most of her old friends, and those who survived were not as mobile as she. She was enthusiastic about her garden and happy to find a new acquaintance. We exchanged plants and she drove away. She called me again the next day to tell me of this wonderful marmalade she had made, She wanted me to taste it -- now. She arrived within 20 minutes with marmalade, and hinted that she had not had her usual cup of afternoon tea. We enjoyed some tea and toast with her fine marmalade.

As a ‘thank you’ for the nice marmalade, I sent her away with a copy of Serve with Wine Cookbook that I had illustrated a few years ago.

I didn’t realize what I had started. A few days later she dropped by with a little basket filled with home-baked apricot bars. We had a cup of tea and I sent home a little package of my hand-made notepaper in thanks.

A few days later she telephoned and wanted to come over, this time she arrived with a different type of apricot dessert on a lovely hexagon-shaped, porcelain plate of Oriental design. She told me how much she has enjoyed delivering and serving things on that plate, so I was instantly aware that the plate was not part of the gift and was to be returned. I was taught that you never returned an empty plate, so after 10 days had gone by, I baked some almond yeast rolls, placed them on her plate and delivered them to her home.

I wondered if we were experiencing a culture conflict, one of those without a finish. The plate was now in her court, and within ten days she picked it up, yes, she came again with that same porcelain plate with some cookies. The cookies were lovely, but I was getting discouraged. The return of the plate meant that there was still another exchange in the offing. I had to bake something for the plate and return it, which I did. That seemed to do the trick. It was the final gift,. We evidently reached a proper conclusion that satisfied her.

She was a lively little woman and her wide range of interests made her quite intriguing. She always commented on the current book that she was reading. She could wear a person down with but her boundless energy, enthusiasm and talking. She was a master at marathon telephone calls where subjects flowed seamlessly from one to another in a natural progression, and with hardly a breath taken between changes. “I went to Belva’s house, her son in law was there. His daughter, Mary, went to MIT and got a degree in engineering. Mary and her husband just got back from a trip to Florida. They saw her husband’s cousin there, the one that pilots a boat. The boat sails from Florida to Nassau where Teresa , their cousin who graduated from UCLA lives.” and on and on and on. Talking with machine-gun rapidity, she burned up subject material like a race car burned rubber. She went through 21 different subjects within one seven minute conversation. Her 90 year old husband was hard of hearing, I wondered if this nice little lady wore out his ears.

Always in search of an acquaintance from her past, she knowingly attends memorial services honoring people who are complete strangers to her hoping to see someone there whom she has known sometime during her forty-some years residency in Palo Alto. She walked out of a recent funeral, because, after looking around the room, she didn’t see anyone she knew. She is the first hyper 84 year old lady I’ve ever run into, and I like her.

I checked into the Senior Center Gym. There was no one there. I signed my name as usual an the attendance sheet and began my workout in the empty gym. The quietness was interrupted when a 60-ish man wearing a reddish hairpiece arrived. When he signed the attendance sheet, he noted my name on the list above his and immediately began addressing me as “Jean”. The order of the dialogue, perhaps I should say “monologue” went like this.

1. He observed that I must have had a nice figure when I was younger. (Now, this is one charming fellow!) and added that working out was wonderful to keep in shape. He should know, for he had worked in Vic Tanny Gyms in Los Angeles, years ago. In fact, while working at Vic Tanny’s he helped Christopher Reeves, the Superman actor, develop that Superman physique. Not only that, my newfound friend did stunts in the movies--jumping off burning buildings and the like. (I should have said “Gee Whiz, you are something else again,” right there and saved the exaggerations that followed..) He was indeed trying to impress.

2. He then wanted to know if I lived in Redwood City. Where in Redwood City? Was I in a house or an apartment? (I thought he was being nosy and vaguely waved my hand in the general area of ‘that part of town’).

3. He then asked if had I ever heard of Norman Rockwell, the famous painter. He used to work with Norman Rockwell. In fact, years ago my gifted friend had even done the artwork for a cover for Collier’s magazine in a pointillism style. He also designed the cover for a musical record. (The man was oozing talent.)

4. His father died when he was 13 and at that tender young age he supported the family but still managed to graduate from college when he was 18.(A Horatio Alger story coming up)

5. His business partner “did him in” and ran off with their joint bank account of six figures. (He had known great wealth and was in a temporary slump)

6. I interrupted his monologue to ask if he still did any artwork. “No,” he replied, “I don’t have time for that now. I am a microbiologist!” (Note how he started telling of macho professions, but as he spun his tales he worked himself into microbiology).

7. At this point he came to the treadmill where I was walking along. He stood directly before me forcing me to make eye contact. He confided that he also did odd fix-it jobs for people, and would you believe it-- he gave Seniors like me a discount! This seemed the perfect time to tell him that my retired engineer husband is just terribly handy around the house, however, I certainly would tell my friends about him. (How many microbiologists can break away from the pressure of work to help out the elderly - this fellow is a prince among men!)

8. I grinned all the way home thinking of that dialogue. What if I had stayed longer? Where would his personal history have gone after he worked it up to microbiology? Nobel prize? Governor? Senator? House of Representatives?... Darn it.. Now I wish I had stayed a little longer.

One day I parked my car by the Senior Center gym right alongside the big old Oldsmobile with the tattered vinyl roof and the back fender spray-canned gold. This car belonged to the old guy I refer to as “Mr. Excitement”.

He rarely spoke if more than one person was present in the gym. He probably is not sure to whom he had told which outrageous stories, so he shuts up. That day he was alone and I was again in for 1/2 hour of sheer excitement. All I had to do was sit at the rowing machine and row away as he spun and spewed imaginative tales in which he was always the hero. No need to ask any questions, in fact, it is better if you don’t.

“I used to be a stunt man in Hollywood - jumped off buildings and stuff like that for movies. I got hurt real bad-- jumped backwards off a five story building and missed the mattresses by EIGHT inches. I was paralyzed for 5 months - but I was insured by Lloyd’s of London and they paid for it.”

He continued with hardly a break, “My brother-in-law is a diver and has made lots of diving inventions. He dives with another fellow for the government, going down to get plastic bags of cocaine and jewelry and stuff like that. One day, the two divers went down and left one fellow up in the boat. He was s’pose to switch the oxygen tanks supply by turning a switch when the divers signaled by jerking the line. Unfortunately the fellow up in the boat went to sleep and he completely missed all the jerking oxygen line signals. Those poor divers were in bad shape. All of a sudden the fellow in the boat woke up and quickly turned on the fresh oxygen full bore- -- and you know what happens when you do that?... Those divers popped RIGHT up to the surface so fast, one of them came right up under the boat and hit the boat bottom with such force that his whole body was crammed right into the helmet. The bones were all mush.”

Long Silence.---I quickly picked up my jacket and decided that I had to leave before I exploded into laughter--and all my bones turned to mush.

This guy was full of stories that were OUT OF THE ORDINARY. He said he was in the Merchant Marine, fell off the ship and was saved by a dolphin. Whatever the current heroic news story, he has a tale that fits right in. I think he listens to the news as he drives to the Senior Center and concocts a similar story with himself in the leading role. The Winter Olympics will soon be here, and there will no doubt be a story made up for the occasion.

I knew it, I just knew the Olympics were made for a man like “Mr. Excitement”. He came through with a story to fit his unending talents, which border on the supernatural.

Again I found myself alone with him one morning. The Olympics were being played and replayed on television every night. His imagination had grabbed him by the seat of his pants and was swinging him in wild circles and he was enjoying the spin.

“Y’know, when I was younger my chest was so big I couldn’t see my feet when I stood like this.” He stood and projected his chest. This short man must have surely worked out a lot to get himself in the physical condition he described. He had been one buffed-out fellow. As he looked at his feet during this big chest demonstration, one could see the burnished red-brown colored hairpiece contrasting with the fluffy outgrowth of white sideburns.

He rambled on, “One year I went to Europe for the weight lifting part of the Olympics.” I decided not to let that remark pass unchallenged and said, “Oh, how did that work out for you?”

“Oh, I had some bad luck,” he said, “ I was training so much, that while practicing on the morning I was supposed to appear in the Olympics, I strained my back and just tied up in knots. The Olympics were over for me.”

But, never a man to let disappointments get him down, he found a new skill to fall back on. “Y’know,” he said, “ I used to be an Opera singer. Yep, I have this rich baritone voice. I sung all over the place. I even went back to New York to get in one opera!”

Long silence. I thought he was ending the subject right there, but then I encouraged him by asking, “Well, did you like that?” Surely, the story had a dramatic ending. It did.

“Oh, well, it turned out that I burst a blood vessel in my neck the day I was supposed to sing.” This fellow’s life was crammed with stunning opportunities missed by incredible bad luck.

Another man entered the gym to begin his exercise routine. Mr. Excitement suddenly became mute and added nothing to his stories. He was a person who preferred an audience of one.

I must tell you that culture is oozing from my ears and fingertips and I must unload some of it on you. You heard it from me, yessir, culture. You see, I happened to meet a former art teacher from an outdoor painting class I attended 20 years ago. We planned to renew our friendship and do some outdoor painting together. She had a Master’s degree through an Art fellowship at Stanford University. Already you can see I was in over my head. She invited me to attend a lunch hour seminar about women artists to be held at Stanford University. That sounded interesting, so away we went.

Two women professors conducted the seminar, half of the period was devoted to the works of a women poet and the other half to famous New Mexico artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. It was an audience participation event with poems and art works projected onto a screen. They first showed a poem, which was heavily loaded with symbolism and I’m not sure what else. Our job was to decide what the poet “meant”.

Well, this sort of stuff leaves me cold for two reasons: No. 1 - It is intimidating, No.2 - I think a good portion of this sort of talk is a bunch of bunk.

A number of audience participants were happy to offer their analysis, in fact they were downright enthusiastic. Some of their reasons were: “Memory could be a projection”, “Cosmic connection”, “Being in the body of another person”. I was astounded to hear what these people had extracted from those few lines of verse. Had I stepped from the real world?.. I quickly wrote down their comments to peruse later as I would never remember some of these pearls.

When they projected a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe onto the screen, the following question that was put to us: “What the generative experience would be.” We were to write down our answers. I could hardly wait to hear the responses as I didn’t even understand the question. I was becoming more relaxed. It was evident that many speakers were falling all over each other wanting to express their ideas so I knew that I wouldn’t be called upon to embarrass myself or my companion. Some of the audience suggestions were: “A play between macro and micro,” “Kinetic,” “A depiction of menopause and the end of fertility,” and one waggish man stood up to say the picture seemed to show someone finding a bright earring on the floor of a dark closet with the use of a flashlight.” No one laughed.

At the end of the Georgia O’Keeffe portion, the Professor announced that artist O’Keeffe had no patience with people who analyzed paintings. O’Keeffe said, “Art cannot be Verbalized.” I’m with you Georgia, old girl, but that didn’t stop the Professor and the class from doing exactly that.

Well, this is enough of all this culture. I must now go to my easel and try to paint something obtuse and kinetic that has a cosmic connection.