1965: The Summer
Things Changed.
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
1965 The Summer Things Changed
Newton’s cradle is a device that illustrates the conservation of momentum and energy. It’s a hypnotic toy of five steel balls. When one sphere at the end is lifted and released it strikes the stationary sphere transmitting a force through the other stationary spheres that pushes the last sphere forward. One of my college professors had one on his desk and one day he showed me something interesting.
He said, “If you only see half of the device it looks like one sphere is behaving erratically. It’s only by stepping back and expanding your view that you can understand the ripple of cause and effect.”
I’d been told for most of my life that my actions had consequences, but it never occurred to me that I might be one of those steel balls, either reacting to stimuli or causing others to react. With no thought of repercussions, I’ve taken impulsive actions. Looking back on it now, I wonder what spurred those decisions. Were there unseen ripples at cause? I intend to explore that question in this series of blog posts. Perhaps I will come to a greater understanding of not only myself but of those around me.
When my parents divorced, I was five. Theirs was not a friendly divorce. The battle lines were clear. In the ensuing chaos, I remember being told I’d have to figure it out. We kids were on our own. This was the era in which people believed that nothing affected children. They grow up and any rough edge eventually can be worn smooth. It’s only been in the last thirty years that we understand decisions made in childhood impact a lifetime.
This post is about a time when I made the decision that I didn’t matter.
It was 1965 and the summer between seventh and eighth grade. I was eleven and the youngest in our collective of friends. Kathy had turned twelve in February, Lynnie in March, Syndi (pronounced Cindy, it’s a long story and I’ll get to it) in April, and Cathy had turned twelve way back in January. Let me mention, we had to work out how to address Kathy with a K and Cathy with a C but I’ll get to that, too.
My birthday wasn’t until the last golden week of summer. I was comforted knowing I would be twelve at the start of eighth grade. I had that going for me. At this point, I was the flat-chested lanky one of the group.
Two summers earlier, after the dust had settled from the long and messy divorce of my parents, my mother drove us halfway across the country to sunny Southern California. Even at nine years old I knew for my mother this was a new beginning, a chance to escape the gossip of righteous relatives and the Catholic community in which we lived.
Somewhere in that long hot drive from Minnesota, past the Rocky Mountains, Las Vegas, and into the basin of Los Angeles, any normalcy guiding our family completely evaporated. My mother’s newfound freedom would set in motion disruptive consequences. At the time, blame was placed squarely on us kids for misbehaving, acting out, and causing trouble. My older brother, already in rebel mode from the divorce, caught the brunt of it much like that fifth steel ball in Newton’s Cradle.
We moved to California because the University of Southern California granted my mother a full scholarship to complete her master’s degree in English Literature. It was the 1960’s and universities were looking for older students that’d make a positive impact. As an intelligent, newly divorced woman seeking a profession, she was an excellent candidate.
We arrived a week before school started and rented a house in Palos Verdes Estates. My older sister and brother enrolled at Palos Verdes High School, my younger brother went to Lunada Bay Elementary and I was placed at Margate Intermediate.
That first year was a shock. A Midwest family settling into a wealthy California community, putting it mildly, we stuck out. Our shoes, hair, and clothes gave us away. Hard-soled shoes, fall-colored sweaters, and ‘done’ hair were the essentials of living in the Midwest but foreign in the land of canvas Vans, tropical-colored shirts, and long straight hair. After the first day of school, I never rolled my hair or wore my saddle shoes again. I caught it from my mother that I wouldn’t wear those shoes, as she paid ‘good money’ for them. How could I explain what she didn’t want to understand? For her, this was beautiful sunny California the land of fulfilling dreams. Why was I causing trouble?
The streets curved and twisted gently in Palos Verdes Estates. Not the hard right and left angles of which I had known. Overgrown jasmine bushes and eucalyptus trees dominated the sides of each house. Two-car garages were the focal point. I remember feeling unsettled by these fortressed homes.
In the Midwest, homes were decorated with flowerbeds cheerfully greeting visitors and passers-by. Front doors proudly stood in the center of the house with wide porches to protect people from the weather when arriving and to offer a place to sit and enjoy a cool summer night or watch a thunderstorm. Behind the houses were alleys where children of every age played games. Touch football, basketball, baseball, capture the flag, and kick the can were occasionally interrupted by cars as fathers returned from work to park inside garages not attached to the house.
My school friends Syndi and Lynnie lived down the street kitty-corner from me. Their houses hid behind great walls of greenery. When Lynnie offered to walk with me to school, I waited for her in the driveway. It didn’t feel right to go inside her home.
My first year in California passed in a blur.
By seventh grade, I gained acceptance in the pre-teen community. Singing in chorus helped this integration. An eighth-grade boy, Brad Starr, (he looked exactly as his name sounded) sat next to me and word got out he liked my singing voice and said I was funny. I was oblivious to his feelings. In my mind, why would he like me? Beverly Hermann, also in chorus, in eighth grade, was the girl every boy liked. She had long skinny legs, blond hair, and wore white lipstick. Nevertheless, his nod to my singing and sense of humor gave the tip to my acceptance.
Our collective of girlfriends had expanded to include Tina and Kimberly. Calling out “Kathy”, or “Cathy” became confusing. Tina would add, “Kathy with a K”, or “Cathy with a C” when addressing either. Syndi suggested Kathy add her middle name and be called Kathy Ann. Kathy said she’d rather die. (Ann was her mother’s name so, you know, gross.) Cathy with her practical mathematical mind said, “Oh, just call me Cath.” And that was settled.
As to Syndi and the spelling of her name, I asked her once as we hiked up the dirt trail to school. Her mother and father thought they were unable to have children and they fostered a girl, her older sister Monica. Two years later, much to their delight and surprise, they got pregnant. Convinced it was a boy, they settled on Sydney, a nod to their Australian homeland. And being rather hard-headed when he turned out to be her they named her Syndi. Pronounced Cindy.
Finally, the school year ended and the beach with sun and surf and boys beckoned. But first, we needed new bathing suits. It meant only one thing: a trip to the Peninsula Shopping Center. With twenty dollars burning in my pocket from babysitting and cleaning houses, all that was needed was a ride.
Turned down by Cath’s older brother and Tina’s mother, Lynnie bit the bullet and asked her mother for the second time. She agreed with the stipulation that we were given one hour to shop. She would take us when she did her grocery shopping and if we weren’t at the car in time she’d leave without us.
None of us wore wristwatches so how we were to keep an eye on the time wasn’t discussed. We were just happy to be going. Cath, being both mathematical and practical, every so often, asked the salesladies the time. Even with that, we were five minutes late returning to the car. Luckily the market was crowded that day and Lynnie’s mother, ever the social butterfly, sat on one of the outdoor benches and chatted with friends. We waited for her twenty minutes. But, no harm no foul.
All of us bought two-piece bathing suits except Lynnie. She felt she was too fat for a two-piece and got a pretty one-piece with a small skirt around her hips. My suit was a Hawaiian floral pattern in sage green and ivory. I remember it cost $12.99 (a fortune in 1965) but it was well made and fit me perfectly so, Cath told me I couldn’t pass it up. The next hurdle was to get it past my mother before she coveted it as hers.
She’d already taken over a navy blue dress and a pair of dark green suede shoes my grandmother sent me for Christmas, so I felt justified in being cautious. I hid it between the box springs and mattress until I could wear it to the beach. When she found it in the laundry basket, she hit the roof that I dare buy (and more importantly wear) a two-piece to the beach. There were threats to return it. Fortunately, I had already baptized it in the Pacific Ocean. There was nothing that could be done. I suspected, however, by how she threw the suit in my face, she’d tried it on but it didn’t fit so it was mine now.
Our group went to Torrance Beach as often as we could beg, barter, or cajole a ride from family members. Kathy told us she just had to go to the beach as often as possible. I suspected it had to do with her acne, which was massive because she rarely went in to swim. I was in the water constantly. I loved to body surf. It felt like I was flying. With every mother and older brother fed up with driving us to the beach, eventually, we had to come up with an alternative.
Palos Verdes had no busses and none of our bicycles worked so we were stumped. One day we decided to walk. It was a little over two miles to the Torrance Beach Cove from Kathy’s house. At 10 AM that Wednesday we were a small group. Kathy, Syndi, Lynnie, and I met, put on our tennis shoes, and headed north on Palos Verdes Drive.
I should mention now, athletically the four of us were very different. In track and field, I was one of the fastest girls in cross-country and the 800-meter run. Kathy pulled her weight in relay races and short sprints. Syndi could jump any height with grace and style. Lynnie, politely said, was not athletic.
Lynnie was cherubic with blue eyes and blond curls. Her compassion and kindness inspired the rest of us to behave better. Walking to the beach that day, we slowed our pace for her. I carried my aqua blue pocket transistor radio and sang along with “The House of the Rising Sun” as we set out.
Palos Verdes Estates borders the rocky edge of the Pacific Ocean. The main road winds along the shoreline buttressed by craggy hills. That winter, a scene from a movie was filmed in the main cove. Tony Curtis starred. Lynnie’s mother got word of the filming and we raced to the spot to see a real live movie star and film crew. Remembering that day, we giggled as we went over the details of how short Tony Curtis was and how big his head looked. We couldn’t wait for the movie to open in theatres.
By this time, we had walked about a quarter of a mile in our quest to the beach. Rounding the curve that brought the road up against the craggy hills to our right, we slowed. Perhaps because we were out of the direct sun and the cooler air gave us a moment of comfort.
Along this stretch, the boulevard funneled into a one-lane roadway and hugged the contours of the hills for the next mile. There were two separate dirt areas large enough for a car to pull off to the side if needed to let faster cars pass or change the inevitable flat tire.
The first outlet was the largest. A natural inlet surrounded by wild prickly bushes that dominated the hill with room for two cars. The second was much smaller, easily ignored, and desolate. We passed the first area and Kathy demanded we pick up our pace.
The path along the road was single file at this point. There was no sidewalk on either side of this strip of PV Drive, just a dirt trench. We rounded the curve. Nestled in the smaller turnout a white van was parked with its rear door wide open. It was a curious sight and we slowed slightly. As we continued, our view shifted to gain a perspective inside the van. A man, perhaps thirty, with dark hair, sat naked, fully erect and wickedly smiling at us.
Kathy screamed. Then shouted to us, “Run! Run!”
Kathy, with her talent at short distances, vanished around the corner in a cloud of dust. I, being the long-distance runner, was just getting my legs going when from behind me I heard Syndi yell, “Wait! Wait!” I looked back. Lynnie was gasping trying her best to move quickly to no avail. Syndi was pulling her. I slowed and placing Lynnie’s arm around my shoulder supported her around the curves towards Malaga Cove shopping center. Syndi and I spotted the man in his white van speed past us, and the hair on the back of my neck crackled.
Lynnie began weeping. Syndi, her eye on the van reassured her, “It’s okay. He’s gone. He’s not stopping.”
We finally made it to where Kathy stood, which was at the edge of the shopping area. Kathy, still shaking by the time we joined her, told us we needed to go to the police immediately. “You don’t understand, we have to report this,” she spoke through gulps of air.
Luckily, I knew the ‘Welcome to Malaga Cove’ sign was ahead with directions to local businesses. A gold-painted arrow pointed to the right for the police station. We walked into the small front office and spoke to the desk officer.
Kathy was upset and a woman officer offered to speak with her privately. The older officer addressed Syndi and I. Lynnie was silent and held my hand in a gesture of thanks.
“Did he have facial hair, a mustache, or a beard?” No. “How tall was he would you guess he was, about my size?” No, he was smaller. “Was he muscular like me or thin?” No, just normal. “How old was he? Younger than me or older?” Younger. “And you saw him drive past you when you were coming here?” Yes. “Did he look at you when he drove past?” Yes.
The older officer calmly listened and a young officer was dispatched to cruise around the area to see if he could spot anything. By how quickly they responded and how carefully they dealt with us, something told me they knew this man. They’d dealt with him before.
That man’s face is burned in my memory. He wouldn’t be the only strange man inappropriately exposing himself to me, but he was the first. I can give you a detailed description now that I couldn’t as a tongue-tied shocked eleven-year-old. He was a white male about 5’9’-5’10” in his late twenties or early thirties with hairy legs, arms, and chest. He looked like he hadn’t shaved that morning, with a wide toothy mouth, and fierce eyes that could have been blue but assuredly not brown. His hands had thick fingers and wide palms when he waved to us. And his head was round not long or angular. The only thing he wore was tan slip-on boat shoes.
I said none of that at the police station.
The police gave us cups of water and took down our names, addresses, and phone numbers. Asked if we could identify the man if we saw him again. I could and Syndi could. Kathy said not really and Lynnie gave a flat no.
They asked who we could call to come pick us up. Lynnie’s mother didn’t have the car today because her father was on a job at the San Pedro harbor, Syndi’s mother and father worked downtown LA, and my mother was at USC. I had no idea how to reach her.
Kathy called her mom at the Real Estate office. When she showed up she held Kathy tightly and rocked her gently, saying “My baby, my girl.” They both cried. It took Kathy a year to tell us about her first incident with a peeping tom and how it escalated.
That night the police called my house for a check-up. A woman officer spoke with my mother. I hadn’t told anyone what happened simply because no one was home to tell. My sister came home in a fit at four o’clock and stormed around the house, my older brother was out with friends and probably wouldn’t be home until after curfew and my younger brother, who returned from Cub Scouts at three o’clock, was seven. What would I say to him?
By six o’clock my mother and her friends arrived all excited to grill burgers, talk about poetry, and drink wine. What was I supposed to say? “Guess what? Some guy was naked in a van when we walked to the beach today. I saw his thing.”
It seemed inappropriate to break up their party. I got busted when the police called. After the call, I overheard one of my mother’s friends whisper to her, “Don’t make a big deal of it. She wasn’t hurt so why go over it again?”
No questions were asked. Ever.
It wasn’t my first experience of careless indifference and it wouldn’t be my last. It was difficult, like that steel ball in Newton’s Cradle, not to make up that I wasn’t worth the trouble.
Next blog: The next incident of that summer
Blog Post Title One
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Blog Post Title Two
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Blog Post Title Three
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Blog Post Title Four
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.