Spitball Army

If my mother had asked us this question as kids, or something similar (like “Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL of South Oceanside children’s future from OUTSIDE of our kitchen?”), we would have just looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head on her shoulders.

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I either (1) snatched the handbill off of a counter somewhere on or near the campus, (2) took it down off a wall, (3) she (my sister, not Linda) scored it for me, or (4) I just “appropriated” it. I had the “hots” for Linda beginning around this time and on through into college, and it was no secret, so I am putting my money on Number 3.

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It was rooted in the corner of a corner lot, dwarfing the Spanish-style bungalow next to it. Its branches extended high and far out over the street in all directions, safely out of danger from the automobile traffic below, and sheltering the pedestrians and others, like me, on bicycles. I would slow my pedaling to marvel at this tree whenever I rode up the hill to Laurel Road, and would slow my coasting when I returned on the downhill route to Laguna Street. The tree’s age and size seemed to engender respect automatically. I called it “Old Man Tree.”

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I hesitated barely a millisecond before touting my yard sale coup after scoring a $3 Polaroid camera some while back. I still consider the camera a bargain, especially since, after finding some fresh film, I discovered that it works almost perfectly.

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While I was growing up, our house was the evening stop on Christmas Eve for relatives and friends, who would congregate in the late afternoon and early evening for a meal centered on the contents of two very large pots on my mother’s stovetop. One contained pinto beans, soaked and seasoned for a couple of days, and piping hot. The other contained her wonderful chili, a crock-pot treatment of which I have perfected over the ensuing decades. The meal also had a few other key ingredients.

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