The Strong Arm of a Ghost

I was married 20 years to a man I was very unhappy with and contemplating divorce, we no longer had anything in common except children and the fact that we lived under the same roof. I was tired of just being the maid of the house being used only for cooking, cleaning an for sexual purposes without the mere asking how my day was or caring about me as a human. I was just awaiting the right time when I had a job and to be self supporting to proceed further to fulfill this all. Our marriage had been on the rocks for some time, but with children in our home I adjusted myself to this life for the time being holding on to the future dream of mine.

We were no longer sleeping together, mainly it started when I was pregnant with our last child when we purchased a water-bed because I could no longer sleep in our conventional mattress due to pregnancy. The first night we slept in the new bed he threw his back out and it took three days for it to go back to normal. Asserting it was just a fluke he attempted it again and once more, his back would not take this new bed, but me on the other hand, I sleep like a baby.

He was from Mexico and his back was used to a hard surface for sleeping, so for the mean time he felt safe sleeping on the front room floor for fear of throwing out his back which he loved and was able to get a good nights sleep.
Time had passed and our baby was now 14 years old and we had come used to the sleeping arrangement he insisted while I felt guilty occupying the bedroom alone but not enough to get a regular bed as I had grown used to not hearing him snore and just sleeping alone.

Earlier on, we would be a normal married couple just before bed time then separate into our different beds and rooms everyone was happy, but since a lot of time had gone by and we had grow apart, I was no longer interested in a sexual relationship with him and was planning my divorce.

This one particular night he was hounding me for sex, it was nothing I wasn't used to because that's what turned me off to him, the basic hounding and never caring about me one bit until all the kids were in bed and 3 minutes before bedtime. He never bothered to talk to me or even remotely care anything about until this time. It was obviously to me all he wanted from me was a clean house a meal and sex, and knowing this made me that much more determined to stand my ground.

It was the usual thing, all was quiet then he would stare at me as I walked by giving me that look that I dreaded, then the question would be asked to me "Wanna have some fun?" To which I would give and either have a look of disgust rolling my eyes at him or I would flat out say "Hell No!" This night he was more insistent than usual, I sat on my bed getting ready for bed as he came in my closet to get his blankets for the front room floor, then the fighting started.

This night he was way more forceful then I had ever remembered he'd ever been. He argued with me why he should get his way, I argued back the same old story, saying "Until you treat me like a wife 24 hours then maybe things would be different." He begged, he pleaded but I just kept saying No No No! Until he left with his blankets in hand calling me a fucking Bitch as he slammed my bedroom door behind him. I had a very uneasy feeling because he seemed almost violent and something was warning me deep inside, like a still small voice telling me he is different and you can't trust him. Because of all that had gone on just then I had a creepy feeling inside that he could get violent for some reason I was very frightened of him for the first time in my life and the look in his eyes almost made me see the natural man who is capable of killing someone and maybe me. It was just a look I had never seen ever.

Never before had he ever hit me or raised a hand at me or thrown anything at me in anger, he would always walk away, besides that we never had any violence between us th 20 years we were together, so thinking these thoughts were surprising to me, but at the same time they were all too real. Having this ugly fearful feeling inside I got up and locked the door to my bedroom taking heed to the warning I was feeling. I went to bed and tried to get it all out of my head, but the feeling inside my bedroom was not a good one. Once again I was going to bed unhappy and feeling like I was fighting for no reason at all, if he could only see his errors maybe things wouldn't have gotten as bad as they are now between us. I was tired of telling him exactly what it is he did to make things bad between us and to no avail whatsoever he somehow didn't listen even when I directly told him what was my complaint.

I fell asleep somewhere around midnight or a bit later. Around 3:30 in the morning I was fast asleep on my left side like I always slept, when all of the sudden I felt a large strong arm go directly under my upper arm moving to my chest area, I instantly though to myself waking up " Oh shit my husband got into my bed while I was sleeping and wants sex!" I felt his body press hard and firmly against and the grip tightened around me when the other arm wrapped around my right side. All of the sudden I remembered I locked the door! Within seconds I looked over at the door with the glow from the outside street light, and clearly saw it locked and knew it wasn't him the the reality set it and began to feel a sheer panic come over me fully knowing it wasn't him. I was unable to move the upper part of my body then sensed it was something evil feeling the weight and the tightened grip around my body and knew and I was about to be rapped! I said out loud " In the Name of Jesus Christ Satan Be Gone" instantly the grip was loosed and I turned on my light in the room and got up scared to death, I repeated my rebuking and got on my knees and said a prayer for the Lord to bless my house and rid it of all evil. I was passing the floor withing seconds of all this happening and decided to go out of my bedroom fully awake.

I wanted to talk to someone, but didn't want to wake anyone in the house up. I walked quietly into the kitchen making myself a cup of coffee, my husband sat up on his bed on the floor and said "Hey Linda, something happened to me just a minute ago!" Hearing his voice scared me and made me jump I looked at him not wanting to tell him about what just happened to me. He continued to say that just a few minutes ago while he was sleeping something had it's hands around his neck and was chocking him and holding him down with extreme force and he couldn't breath, then suddenly it loosed it grip and went away leaving him gasping for his breath. He was scared and I was in shock hearing him tell me this, so I confessed that was the reason why I was up because of what I had just gone through. After I told him he couldn't believe what we had just gone through and was terrified after hearing me tell him my side of things.

I have never felt more scared of anything, mainly because I felt it's strength, I felt the depth and weight, and thinking about it afterwards It would be near impossible for any man no matter how strong to get it arms under my body with dead weight the way it did to mine with the greatest of ease. When I felt that thick arm around me and the pressing up against my back side like as if it were a real human body and the what it wanted with me just frightened me so much even until this day, it just came from out of nowhere!

Years later I have gone over this in my mind so many time to reason with it all and there is no explanations for this, I was awake! I felt it all, I know it was real whatever it was. I've have thought that the altercations before hand must have had something to do with it. I wondered if somehow evil entities were surrounding him egging him on because of the look I saw in his eyes before he left my room, I felt scared of a man I had never feared for one second in my life, something happened then, I saw it, and I felt it. Maybe somehow the entity what was in my home that night was acting out what the two of us wanted to do to each other, someone was listening or someone was there all along, as soon as we started to enter in the area of discontent.

We Call It Bone Bone

The Adventures of Mr Bone Bone


I you are reading this story because you think Mr Bone Bone is something nasty, then you will be greatly disappointed.

Jenny Bear is our kitten that was sent to us from above, she was one of 5 kittens born in our bedroom closet one freezing winter in the wee hours of the night. Her mother was a stray that climbed in looking for a warm place to have her kittens. I called her Sandy as she was a flame point Siamese that seized an opportunity seeing our bedroom window open while it was snowing outside.

Jenny was the first born - looking like her mother with the exception of gray instead of orange on the tip of her tail, ears and paws. In the beginning we named her "Johnny Bear" only to find out HE was a SHE so Jenny Bear it was!

She is just so dam cute looking like a little bear, and is now about the age of a pre-teen she has the personality of something neither my husband nor I have ever experienced in a cat before. She's almost human, well anyway we think so, she's our baby girl.

There is always an adventure with Jenny Bear.

One night I made Mark a breakfast ham steak with a round bone in it, then after finishing his dinner he gave Jenny Bear the small round bone with a bit of meat on it to see if she liked it. Well Jenny just went crazy over this little round bone.

After eating all the meat off it and licking it all over, savoring every bit of it munching and licking it clean, the bone fell on the floor and she went mad, rushing off the bed to grab it. She hops back on the bed with the bone in her mouth like a little dogie, we always laugh seeing her like this, it's just weird looking for a cat to be carrying a bone around in her mouth.

Soon we learned how much she loved this little bone we now call "Bone Bone" or "Mr Bone Bone." She'll carry it with her in the front room after playing with it on our bed. Mark and I pick it up and thrown it across the room and she runs like crazy to go fetch it. She also plays with it like it's her friend. She'll be playing with it on the floor then look at it, walk away like she is pretending she doesn't see it - them all of the sudden she attacks it like it snuck up on her or moved. She is one kooky cat! All we say is Jenny where's is Mr Bone Bone? She'll look up at us and let out a tiny meow then look everywhere for it crying the whole time as if to say help me find my Bone Bone please. Then with satisfaction she finds her Bone Bone and plays with it tossing it in the air herself, then chasing after where ever it lands.

Many times in the morning Mark has gone to put on his shoes only find Mr Bone Bone inside, Jenny hides it there so no one takes it from her.

We have thought about buying more breakfast hams to give her a second Bone Bone, but for right now Mr Bone Bone is her best friend she play with on a daily basis.

Peanut Butter and Rags

My Father was always intolerant with people of color, but I was starting to see my mother was just as intolerant as he in her own ways. One day in particular I came home to find her in her usual spot of the afternoon asleep on the sofa, sobering up before my dad got home. She was either taking a nap, watching TV or reading the magazine she liked when I would come home from schools. Her favorite magazines were “Family Circle or Mc Calls," But “Hints from Heloise” was her favorite part as she glanced over the pages, often reading to one of us kids the latest nifty new remedy or solution out of the; “Heloise Hit’s” section. One of Heloise hints she just had to try was using peanut butter on the coffee table to polish it.

Every weekend we would be busy cleaning the house perfectly because my father was home, so this was the only time I actually saw my mother quite busy with house work duties, giving my father the illusion that this was the normal way her day went. Every Saturday we would polish the maple and walnut furniture around the house. This one Saturday she decided to try out the new Hint from Heloise which was a strange one to us all, but smelled good to us kids.

The new hint was to take ”regular creamy, not nutty; Peanut butter” and use it instead of furniture polish on all your wood furniture! Heloise claimed it worked better then the expensive polishes in the store. So mother on her last visit to the grocery store bought two jars of peanut butter. One of the cheap brands, for the polishing she would have us try out, and the other more expensive brand for us to use in making our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. One jar went straight into the cupboards where all the canned good were stored, and the other went on the top shelf of the kitchen sink cupboard.

This Saturday she was anxious for us to try out this new hint she read about in Heloise. I was given the honor to try out this new discovery for the first time in our home. So I opened the jar and she gave me some old rag for spreading it around. It smelled good as I rubbed the goo all over the table then wiping up the excess with the rag and folding it over, then in circular motions I would go to town rubbing away all the excess peanut butter to make a high gloss polish on the front room coffee table.

It worked and my mother was proud her little hint worked, not to mention the smell was by far much better than that of the chemical polish sprays of that time. This would continue on every Saturday mid morning for quite some time, then after each use the rag was stuffed back into the big jar and put back up on the shelf and once the chores were complete I could go outside and play.

Next door to us was an Indian family that had a house full of kids with a single mom that left them with barely anything to eat and to fend on their own. The mother was somewhat of a lose woman, always bringing home different men to spend the night. She was probably looking for a husband to help support her and her children, but rumors were going around the neighborhood that she was a part time prostitute going out and meeting men from the navy who had just come into town on a ship.

None of them seemed to stay long, in fact most left and never came back after the first night. The house was always untidy and unclean with sticky stuff on the floor at all times. The kids were always dirty and had a bad odor to them, and just looking at their hair you could easily see they hadn’t had a bath in awhile. Their ages ranged from 1 year to 12 years, one for every few years. Out of all of them there was only one boy, all the rest were girls.

I was young, and when you’re young none of that nonsense bothers you about them not being clean except one time when I saw “Cindy” (one of the girls that was my age) put her dirty long fingernail in her mouth to clean it, scraping it along her teeth as she licked away all the dirt embedded within them. That about made me want to vomit, for some reason that has stuck with me to this day, as I myself am absolutely intolerant of any dirt under my own nails since witnessing that, it’s just something that stuck with me and made impact on me.

Cindy had a younger sister named “Linda” her and I used to joke about our names being the same and how all Linda’s were beautiful because that’s what the name meant in Spanish. She and I were more friends than Cindy and I were, we just got along better and we seemed to laugh more together than Cindy and I ever did.

One afternoon Linda came over tapped on our screen door and asked my Mother if she could borrow some peanut butter, my mother quickly replied "sure hold on!" I was in the kitchen at the table making a peanut butter sandwich so I screwed the lid on and went to hand it over to my mother having heard the conversation at the door. I turned around to hand it to my mother when she looked over at me shook her head silently back and forth, then smiled and said “No not that one!” She then reached up and grabbed the one we used to polish the furniture with, quickly opening the lid and taking out the rags tucked down within the jar, closing it back up, then headed straight for the front door and handed it to Linda with a smile, and said “here you go!” I was astonished and mortified! She used that disgusting one we used to polish the dirty furniture with and the one that had an old rag in it to feed these poor kids next-door.

I felt so ashamed and sorry for them, and so mad deep inside towards my mother and father and how sometimes they were just crappy to people and treated some people so badly, it was embarrassing to me and I felt gutted. Not so much just because she was a friend, but because she was a person and their family was poor and I knew the kids didn't have a lot to eat most of the time.

We would always seen programs on TV about the "Starving African Children" and that was used against us to make us eat our food, it wasn’t used because the had sympathy for these people nor was it used to make us appreciative of what we had when others were less fortunate than us in this world either. It was used because they were heartless people forgetting the hard times they had experienced through in the depression era, they just wanted us to finish our dinner faster.

I went to my room and thought this all over sulking in my own way, in shock over what she just did. I called these people friends and enjoyed playing and talking with, walking to the candy story, eating pickles from the deli on a summer days, talking about toys and just hanging out and making clubs in the garage. I was feeling some hatred towards my parents because they were such merciless intolerant bigots. All I thought about was how they judged people and were ever so wrong about all the crap they used to try and sell me on.

In my own way I tried to prove them wrong, without me shouting it back in their face. It was my secret not theirs and sometimes they proved themselves wrong while I did nothing but sit back and laugh as they made their judgments and comments about others in the neighborhood.

I recall thinking “what’s wrong with them?" “Why are they like this?" I was always the odd ball, worrying about innocent people, which seemed to come easy for me thanks to the fine examples my intolerant parents set for me. What fine examples of bigots they were at times, only fueling my questions and observation to be called upon at later dates.

There were poor people amongst us in our neighborhood, mostly comprised of single mother's, not having the fathers income coupled with women’s wages being lower than that of a men back then, often times this alone was the cause of their poverty, just too many mouths to feed and not enough to make ends meet which left some hungry children at school during lunch time or after school let out.

Ricky Johnson was one of these kids; I will never forget the look on his face at lunch time one afternoon. I recall one day in the cafeteria 12 noon all the kids gathered to eat the lunches their moms had made. Brown paper bags lay on the table and some lunch box's with cartoons on them, thermoses poring special Kool-Aid or juices into their thermos cup lids. The smells of cheese, lettuce, white bread and potato chips were in the air. Everyone was busy eating and enjoying their food when I looked over to the side of me and there was Ricky's big eyes looking at my food as I took a bite. He shyly looked away but soon was drawn back to my food with mouth hanging open and licking his lips as he tasted my sandwich visually. He couldn't’t seem to take his eyes off my food, over and over he would glance at me eating and then quickly look away.

He was pretending to play and too busy to eat but the truth was he didn't have anything to eat! I remember that feeling of him looking at me and me doing nothing. Here I was overweight and within the cupboards of our home was enough food to feed them all, they were always full along with fridge and freezer, just chock full of Food of every kind, and he had nothing to eat! To this day that look in his eyes still affects me I can see it right now or whenever I need to be reminded of it.

Ricky changed my life that day.


Ricky's family was comprised of 6 kids and one Mother working her tail off to support them after the Father left one day following one of his drunken binges. Mrs. Johnson was a tall Black woman with a large body frame, but she had a very kind face and always a sweet smile. I used to watched her walk up that hill every day rushing home from work after being on her feet all day at the hospital, with her white nurses’ uniform on and a purple sweater, walking up that hill with long strides.

Her one son Ricky Johnson was my age and been in my school and classes for years since kindergarten. Ricky was the poorest kid in class, all the kids made fun of him, especially the other black kids that came from proper home and dressed even better then some of us white folks. Ricky was made fun of every day, but he was always nice, never speaking back to any of the comments thrown at him. His big black eyes bugged out of his football shaped head with short nappy hair and pieces of lint stuck to it, and most times snot crusted on his upper lip and wearing clothes with missing buttons, made him an easy target for other kids to make fun of.

I remember one day in particular when he was laughed and pointed at by all the class except me. I was in shock because that was something I have never seen before in an actual classroom. Everyone knew he was poor, but this time someone said it out loud in class most his ridiculed was done on the playground where he could easily escape it, but this time he couldn't. I remember being confused by and shocked with the teacher listening and laughing along and not saying anything in his defence but behaving like one of the brat kids. Something was wrong I could see it in his eyes.

He had lifted his leg up to cross his legs with one foot shooting straight across on his knee. He thought nothing of it, just getting comfortable in class when all of the sudden, Fred another black kid in my class that was from a very well off black family, looked at Ricky's shoes and started laughing an obnoxious laugh while pointing thus erupting the whole classroom and teacher in laughter.

What was visible to the eye was a shoe with a huge hole in the bottom and the "Corn Flake Rooster" showing through the hole. Fred laughed and laughed pointing until Ricky's face turned dark purple with embarrassment. Fred was on the floor and the class followed suit even the teacher laughed. I saw Ricky's face and the shame he was feeling, I knew he couldn't help it.

“Skillet” was the nick name Fred gave him and Ricky hung his head whenever Fred called it out to him. "Hey Skillet" Fred would shout in front of everyone, "Did you eat your corn flakes today?" Laughter would always ensue because everyone saw the hole in Ricky’s shoe he had patched up with an empty box of Corn Flakes that day and no one would let him forget. Fred had a hatred for poor blacks that represented him in a white man's world, but Ricky didn't know anything other than poorness and hunger. Unlike Fred whose parents had good jobs and nice things, dressed nice and had a beautiful home.

Later that same summer after my mother gave the poor kids next door the dirty peanut butter, Ricky came over to my house when my mother wasn't there; he was probably more hungry then I could comprehend at that age. He too knocked on the screen knowing it,s day time and my father wasn't there or he wouldn't have made it up the stairs, with his rich chocolate Skin and dusty looking hair. I answered the door and said “Yea Ricky what's up?: He said humbly "Do you have any peanut butter I could borrow." Remembering what my Mother did a few weeks before when asked that same question, and fully aware that the power was in my hands, because she wasn't there to dictate the outcome. I said to him “Hold on,” then walked to the kitchen opened the cabinet and reached up and pulled the Crunchy Skippy out and walked into the front room opened the screen and said, "Here you can have it we have another one" He smiled and said “Thank you!”

I was a rebel from way back wanting a change in the way things were done from the old. This was my little way of making up for Ricky staring at my sandwich and Linda from next door getting the Peanut butter with the rag, and never being able to react. My mother later on that week needed to buy more peanut butter because as she put it us kids made pigs of ourselves and ate the whole jar too quickly.

I softly smiled inside like I have done before when seeing my parents make fools of themselves and having that feeling inside that comes from doing something so opposite of what you are taught when you know what you were taught was wrong. Little did they know that their teaching me to hate others of color and difference was going to actually do the opposite and make me colorblind, and who ever knew Peanut Butter could taste so good.

The Summer of Old Black Water

The year was 1971 Daly City California. It was summer time, school was out and not long before it would be starting back up again. Nothing so far had been constructive or exciting for me. No siblings were left at home to fight with any longer so it was just me, the TV and all the spare time a teen could have, which left nothing much too do but masturbate and eat in excess out of boredom.

My usual friends were all gone for the summer, busy on vacations but really mostly they were being sent away to some pacific Island to learn the culture their parent left behind or as punishment for the previous school year or bad behavior. The one thing they learned in their parent's native country during the summer was respect something that was not found in the American school systems or culture anymore.
And them being raised now in America a good humbling was way over due and nothing does that better than a coconut husk broom right to the side of the head or an Island sandal whack on the rear when they displayed the more American attitudes to their elders.

I lived close to a Navy & Marine Military Housing unit just a few blocks away. So this area had grown with the influx of military personnel and their families from the Philippines and the American Samoan Islands over the past few years so the cultural demographics were changing since my parent moved into this mainly white middle class in the 50's.

The neighbor now was racially comprised of an eclectic mix of all races and cultures. My house was the second house on the bottom of the last block of Oriente St. American Indians, Blacks, Irish, Swedish, Polish, Scottish, Filipinos, Samoans and added to that list were, Mormon’s Catholics, Baptist, Lutherans, and anything else you could throw into the melting pot of this great country.

With the mix of cultures many of which that were my age, were first born of this country explaining why some got send to their families homes to far away places their parents came from, to learn more about it during the summertime.
I had friends from each category of the list of cultures and loved learning about the difference in them all. My best friend was a male by the name of Neil, he was a big 6'2", 250 pound Samoan that lived around the block.

During the 1970’s it was popular to wear your hair in big Afros emulating the black panthers, a rebellion of such old hair styles that people of color would wear hiding the true nappy hair they had and conforming more to white men styles by chemically treating it to make it all straight.

The newer styles were their way of truly saying they were black and they were proud. It was all the fashion and the bigger the Afro the cooler you were.
Samoans hair was similar to black hair, but had way more texture so this was a very welcome style among many races that had unmanageable hair that did not conform to previous white hair styles.

Neil’s Fro was cool especially when he wore a dashiki, it made him look like a black man, I was all too proud to be his best friend, with the exception of whenever my father was around who was similar to “Archie Bunker” in mentality and had an unexplained hated for all black people. He would never allow me to hang around any black people whatsoever or anyone that looked black and he made that perfectly clear all the while growing up, we all knew never to allow any black person in our house, and no black person ever dared to stop foot on our stairs in the front, he had always made snide comments to them whenever they were out side making sure they fully understood who was welcome and who wasn't.

While walking home from school Neil and I would innocently be walking up our street laughing and just being teens having silly fun, then all of the sudden like nothing we would separate quickly seeing my fathers Red El Camino coming up the street. Neil looked too much like a black man and that was forbidden and he knew it so it was an automatic response while I kept my watchful eyes open looking for him at all times where ever I was.

This all happened too many times and I never gave it a second thought as to what this did to my friend Neil inside, being told (in so many words or less) “because you look like a black man or because your skin is darker than mine, you have to pretend like you don’t know me just for a moment!" It didn't’t really all hit me until later in life when reminiscing back, then I begin to comprehend the hatred I had grown up around everyday.

The times were different then and racism still existed for some of the older folks, but my generation was beginning to step in, bringing the races closer together. I made friends with all the people of colors and didn’t understand when my father told me such things as “All Blacks stink!" "Indian’s are all dirty!" "Irishmen are all drunks!" and "Scottish men are all cheap!" This left me with no choice but to see the truth and the truth was that was my father was ignorant, and a predigest bigot. All because I had seen the absolutely opposite of what he spoke of, through all my friends.

I remember as a young girl of about 7 years old playing hands games with Kerry a young black girl from up the street from me who was sent to a private school. We only seen each other on occasions, so when we both had time we would play around the corner after school where my parents couldn't see us play the old had game Old Marry Mack. Slapping each others hands standing closely face to face, I remember thinking about what my father told me about black people stinking and while standing next to her I would breath in deeply hoping to get a whiff of the horrible smell blacks were supposed to have, but she didn't stink to me, in fact she smelt good, she smelled like honeysuckle Avon perfume! Her mother always bought her Avon girly perfumes and lotions and at times I was envious of her nice girly things and smells.

When I was invited into the home of some of the other black families in the neighborhood, I did at first walk in expecting them to be dirty and stinky, but instead seen with my own eyes they were beautiful, decorated with French provincial furniture and beautiful drapes. They would even make me take my shoes off before entering inside or standing on their new carpet. Their homes didn't stink, they smelled clean, in fact they were prettier then the home I was raised in and smelled batter too.


My friend Neil was away for that summer because he had received a bad report card the school year previous, he and I were always cutting school to go the to mall or hang out down town just getting high and watching people. His parents were so furious with him for not receiving a good report card, that they sent him to the Samoan Islands as punishment shaving off his Afro to rid him of his American proud ways leaving him feeling bald and humiliated and worst off leaving me all alone and with no choice but to discover a new friend who had recently moved in the house behind mine.

Jerry was his name and he was a 16 year old, a Hispanic juvenile delinquent. His sister who was only 12 had been diagnosed with cancer so his parents gave her all their undivided attention, leaving Jerry with nothing much to do, but try and get some attention back if only in a negative fashion, after all negative attention was better than no attention at all.

Before he moved to our neighborhood he was living most his life in the Mission district of San Francisco in one of the poorest parts of town. He did drugs, drank and listened to his music and Jerry loved his music! He was good buddies with “Jorge Santana” the little brother of “Carlos Santana” who was also our age.I met him at Jerry's home one day when his parents were off taking Jerry's sister to the hospital for her Chemo treatments. I could see Jerry's bedroom window from my back kitchen and saw he had male company over, so I went outside and waived, then Jerry motioned me to come over, while opening his window he blew out a huge puff of smoke and laughed as I claimed over our conjoined fence. Inside his bedroom I met Jorge and we all sat on Jerry's bed and got stoned together.
I, never knowing who he was or who he was related to at the time, only knowing him as Jerry's friend Jorge from his old neighborhood in the mission. All I knew is he was staring at my over exposed cleavage for the few short minutes we all hung out together.

Jerry and Jorge met in high school. Jorge, with the help of his Big brother Carlo's recent fame and help, when on to form his own band called “Malo” they were busy working on a new album and song “Suavecito" that was released 9 months later and went on to become a one hit wonder. Jorge's new band and claim to fame took up much of his days, which left little time for his buddies, leaving behind his old friends that summer, and Jerry was one of them.

So being out of his old neighborhood, I became Jerry's only friend in his new environment and the only reason we met was because I lived directly next door to his aunt Yolanda who was more like a girlfriend to me but was old enough to be my mother. She tried tried to fix us both up, but we just became hang out buddies instead. Yolanda later divorced her husband and married Tito Fuentes the San Francisco Giants Baseball player.

On this particular sunny summer day I was baby sitting across the street for a hippy woman that had two young children while she went to have lunch with her husband in the city. I was bored so invited Jerry to come hang out with me at the house I was baby sitting at. We sat around while the young children slept flipped through some of the porn this young hippy couple had in their bedroom then we ended up on their bed. Jerry tried his best to get into my pants but I wasn't interested because I wasn’t attracted to him so instead we sat on the hippies bed that was on the floor and smelled like incense while the kids took their afternoon nap and lighted up a joint. We talked and laughed and then Jerry asked me to give him a massage if nothing else, so I agreed to that much.

Then after I was finished we went back into the front room to watch TV, waiting for Joanne to come home from her afternoon lunch in the city to release us from our boredom in her home.

She finely arrived then paid me, so out the door we went not knowing what to do next. We were walking past my house on the way to his, when all of the sudden he stopped dead in his tracks and said excitably “Do you hear that” "Hear what" I replied, "I can hear music coming from the Cow Palace, don’t you hear that base!”

The street I lived on was Oriente and the cross street was Martin. Martin went a few block up then right into the back parking lot of the Cow Palace, which was and still is a big coliseum, build originally to hold the Grand Nationals live stock shows. Over time and since the 1960’s, such famous bands as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to name a few, preformed big concerts inside the Cow Palace. It was at that time, the biggest place closest to San Francisco that could hold such crowds. But all round the back of the parking area were stables and sheds to house the live stock while the Grand National were going on in the Month of October.

I listened and I began to hear the music faintly he was talking about. I said “I can hear it now, what do you think it is” He said back, "I would recognize that sound anywhere, it’s the Doobie Brothers!”

It was a Thursday June 10th 1971 and the Doobie Brothers were playing at the Fillmore in the city on Sunday, so why would you be hearing them now and over here” I said to him. He could think of nothing at that moment other then the two of us walking over a few blocks to where the sound was coming from.
We headed towards the back of the Cow Palace walking towards the parking lot through all the ice plant on the side of the hill, quickly approaching the sheds in the back, and as we got closer the music grew louder and louder.

We snuck up behind one of the sheds near were the music was heard coming from, only to see a man in a snazzy grey suit get into a green Jaguar and spin off.
The music had come to a stop, but picked right back up after we heard a man count out loud “One Two Three.”

Jerry was right, his ears didn’t deceive him after all, we were on the brink of standing right next to the “Doobie Brothers” practicing for the big concert in a few days or someone that sounded exactly like them.
I had all their albums and couldn't’ believe it was actually them right here loud and clear and just few steps away. No one else except Jerry and I were there to witness this.

Jerry was gutsy and wanted to walk right into the semi closed door to the shed, but I pulled him back by his jean jacket on his first attempt, I was thinking they might get mad at us, but the urge to see them up close took me over too, so we both then headed towards the shed door. Jerry took the lead and I followed behind as he peeked his head through the door. It was them! It was actually them! I was looking right at all of the band members recognizing them from the album covers and then the lead singer motioned for us to come in then said “Come on in!”

They finished up with the song they were playing and stopped playing for a moment to ask us a few questions. They introduced themselves and we did so we told them we lived around the corner and how Jerry heard them playing, and he proudly said with the innocent boyishness showing as he smiled he said "I would recognize the base player anywhere", which made them all smile and even more so the base player. The lead singer was starting at me then said to me "hey I like your hair", and I proudly told him “I cut it myself” I said back to which he replied: “they I guess I'll have have to have you cut mine then." He had long hair parted in the middle down to his waist, mine was down to my waist but cut in the ever fashionable layered cut short on top and long at the bottom.

I was beaming from ear to ear just shooting the breeze with the lead singer,feeling like the moment was lasting forever, then all of the sudden we heard a car drive up outside in front of the door. The car door slammed and in walked their manager that had drove off to buy their lunch. With paper shack lunches for everyone in hand he walked in and instantly had an angry look on his face as the manager took one look at us in shock and started yelling at Jerry and I yelling out "What are you guys doing here!" then he looked at the band members and said, "Their not supposed to be in here What’s wrong with you guys, this albums not even cut yet and your letting people listen!" "Now were going to have to move your location so more punks don’t just pop in and hear your new song?” He was mad as hell at both of us and the band as well, because the music they were playing was going to be off their new album and he didn't want anyone stealing the songs that were destine to be hits.

All the while yelling at us he held the door open and made us leave in a quick hurry, but we managed to look over at the band and say “Good bye” and see them smile and wave back at us before heading out that door we came in with smiles on our faces. Although it was a brief encounter it was one I will never forget and I’m sure Jerry never did either. It was like meeting a band back stage after a concert, but we had one up better on everyone else our age seeing and talking to them in person.

The guys in the band were all very nice to us and treated us like we were neighbors coming by for a visit. We walked back to our homes and went back and forth about what we had just experienced bearing huge smiles, “no body was going to believe us after we tell them this story” Jerry said, we both knew it was true and that’s all that mattered was us seeing them, never mind the rest. So as soon as that album was released Jerry and I ran to the stores to buy it, listening to each song and remembering all that took place from the moment he first heard the faint sounds of the base guitar to the final walking away with smiles on our faces.

For a summer that started out in absolute boredom and filled with envy of my friends vacations in far away Islands and images of then sipping on coconut juice basking in the sun next to palm trees, my experience would be something they would now be envious of. As for my best friend Neil, he came back excited and jealous to hear my story and walked around the remainder of that summer pulling on the front of his shirt to hide the man boobs he developed and feeling self conscious sporting only a bald head where his once prize winning fluffy, full Afro stood out in a crowd. His parent punishment worked, he was now humble.

To this day when ever I hear any of the Dobbie Brothers songs, it takes me back to that day as clear as if it were yesterday, especially when I hear the song “Old Black Water” which was the song they were playing right before we walked in, it always brings a faint smile of remembrance to my face hearing it every time makes me reminisced of Bell Bottom pants, Afro's and Shag hair styles.
This turned out to be the best summer a teen could have.

What Did You Do To Crystal?

The cloud filled room of cigarettes smoke with a spicy, peppery, herbal smell mixed with the smell of a cheap incense from India, lingering in the room momentarily keeping down the stench of body odor that burned in your nostrils like hot curry when up close to the two Hippies that occupied the one room studio. Jeff and Freddy were two buddy's that lived in this small by sufficient space. It was just barely big enough to set a bong on the table or bang a girl when needed and to fill whatever space was left with clutter that never found it's way to the garbage can.

They were two friends that found this space, escaping the crazy city life in San Francisco in 1964, just due south in the suburbs, called Daily City. They happened on this place, which was owned by Crystal's parents, who owned several acres of land on a hill down from Guadalupe canyon, which has an infamous history of being the place where the movie "Bullet" was filmed and Steve Mc Queen had his big race. While viewing this movie over the side of the road, can all this land be seen where we grew up.

Crystals father Ray was an American Indian and her mother Artie was Irish. Crystal had the perfect mix of cultures, the strong beautiful cheek bones and warrior bone structure from her father and the fair hair and eye of her mother, making her a beautiful, young, strong girl with a strong body to match and the prettiest green eyes for miles. She came from a family with all boys and her being the last child born, and being a girl was a sealed fate she would be spoiled beyond belief the rest of her life.

Ray being a long shore men and working down at the dock of San Francisco, was a big strong man with a big belly and neck that aided him in being a good provider for his family, and although as many years as he has lived and worked in the big city he was still a country cowboy at heart, and noting in all those years could ever take that away from him, he could always be seen wearing his black cowboy hat and cowboy boots.

After he and Artie were married they bought several acres of land on that hill in a new neighborhood on Sherwin St in Daly City California to start their family.

They had horses in stables on one side of the house and chickens in the back yard by the kitchen and a few pigs is pens off the other side of the house, right at the base of on the hill. They were living the life of the country right smack in the city. Little by little they owned the whole hill and the house at the end of the block, it was a piece of country heaven breathed in by all the neighbors who for blocks in either direction could see their horses roam the hills at most any given time.

Walking inside their home and looking out of the side window you could see nothing but acre after acre of rolling green hills and the beauty of small yellow wild flowers everywhere and not a building or man made structure inside, just as if they lived far into the country.

Across the street they build a small house that was later converted to a small upstairs studio and the downstairs into a large garage that was used by Crystals brothers who were avid car loves, and just by the side of the apartment was a 1933 Ford Essex with broken windows and doors unhinged, waiting for the brothers to get out of trouble and start restoring it, but for now while it waited, stray cats from the neighborhood found warmth for it's frame on cold San Francisco nights.

Her brothers were infamous with the Daily City Police Department, anywhere in that town could you say the name "The Crosby brothers" and any cop would know just who you were talking about. Rich, Burgess and Craig, all trouble in the biggest way known at that time. Drugs, Robbery, you name it and they were probably some how connected. All powerful manly men all good looking, Craig was the Al Pacino type dark hair, too handsome for his own good and cool beyond belief with his black leather coat and slicked back hair do.

Crystal was born late in life to Artie and Ray, a sort of Pre-Menopausal baby, as she was born after all the boy were all adults, this was a new start for them having a girl they could watch over and protect, unlike the brothers that seemed to find trouble no matter where they were city or country, raise to be men and alpha males they were.

Artie clung tightly to Crystal and enjoyed her while she could and the female company she provided and lacked for all those years raising and living with nothing but males. Being in a home of all alpha males it's hard to be feminine and keep the order of femininity being drown by testosterone, girlishness would never survive out on the range, so she too wore cowboy boots and never a drop of makeup.

Artie wasn't the best house keeper, there was always dust on the hardwood floors and some clutter somewhere in the house, but all my memories of her were of her in the kitchen fixing Ray something to eat in the late afternoon before he left to work on the late shift. It Didn't matter what she was doing there was always some story she would tell Crystal and I as she cooked his supper, making us girls giggle, while she herself would laugh along with us. She was a funny woman as I recall with a good sense of humor and took nothing too seriously, always smiling and ready for a quick come back and a laugh. For Artie humor came so natural and was an escape of the harsh realities her sons and husband left for her in their ever challenging lives they created for themselves.

I guess that's how she stumbled onto these two hippies in a grocery store by over hearing them say they were looking for a place and hearing one of them say something funny that caught her attention. Fred was the funniest one of the two and he and Artie laughed together walking to her truck inquiring about the apartment she had up for rent. "Well it's nothing to write home to mom about" she told them, to which Fred laughing replied "That's OK, my mom gave up on me when I started growing my beard and hair out, and besides, do I look like someone that cares about fancy decorating?" Artie laughed at his realistic humor and handed them her address and gave them directions to where she lived. A few days later they came over and took the tiny place, when she mentioned the rent would only be $40.00 a month.

"Just a couple of crazy Hippies, "but so what!" She thought, they wouldn't be doing anything she hasn't seen already with her son's and besides she didn't think that smoking a little reefer was as bad as the heroin and LSD her sons did.

1960's San Francisco was the mecca for such activity and people with long hair were everywhere to be found, and smoking Marijuana was almost common place. Sex, Drugs & Rock N Roll was born alive and breathing in the lungs of the pulse of life in every inner city but San Francisco was the city of love, drugs were as common as sex tune in and turn on was the mentality. They were harmless crazy hippies just chilling out and relaxing smoking their pot and listening to music with a few friends over all day and night never hurting anyone, at least that's what she thought!

Crystal first introduced them to me by saying "Hey let's go over and visit Fred and Jeff, my moms new tenants." She would barley knock on the door and then open it, to which Fred would say "Oh Crystal come on in Crystal" after she was already halfway through the door. "Hey don't knock next time you might scare us in thinking it's the police or something," or "No wonder you mother gave us such cheap rent because we would be babysitting Crystal a lot."

It was sarcastic humor and neither of us got it, but Crystal was fascinated by these guys and loved too just sit on their couch and listen to them talk and laugh. They were kooky and did bazaar things for a laugh. I sat down next to Crystal and they asked my name, I was shy and didn't feel that comfortable being there. I didn't know them or what there were doing with that big glass pipe they would take deep breaths through then blow out of it coughing. This was my first introduction to drugs and I think it was for Crystal too, even though her brothers did drugs I don't' think they did them around her because they idolised their baby sister and would do anything for her to keep her innocent. Beside none of her brothers lived at home coming over only on occasion to visit with her and bring her some new toy to show off to me and everyone in the neighborhood making us all wish we had big brothers like her.

Soon after being in this crowed unfamiliar studio apartment, I found myself laughing along with Crystal when Fred thought it would be funny to call someone in China. So he picked up the phone and called the operator first and then asked her how much it would cost. It was something like $20.00 a minute. So he said what the heck, I'll just talk for one minutes and hang up, it'll be worth twenty dollars just for the fun and experience of it all. And so he did, as we all sat in great expatiation while this crazy guy was actually going to call China, how bazaar was that. Getting the area code for China from the phone book he then dialed random numbers until the phone on the other end started ringing. We all gathered around him listening with eyes and mouths open in anticipations to who was going to answer the phone, then a females voice was heard saying something like "Nee HeOw!" quickly Fred replied "Ching Ching Fong" then paused! All that could be heard was all of us laughing in the room as he continued with his fake Chinese language "Fong Fong Ling Ling"- "ching - ching - ling - ching - fong - bong! The woman said something back but he didn't understand so he quickly hung up looking down at his watch making sure he didn't go over the minute costing him more money.

We all were cracking up over what he had just done. It's always funny when an American tries to speak Chinese. Fred and Jeff were talking back and forth, as to what possibly he could have actually said to the poor woman that answered the unsolicited and uninvited phone call. Jeff surmised Fred must have told her that her husband was screwing a panda bear, or maybe he said, "You look like the most beautiful dish of pork fried rice I have ever seen." What ever he said, that was something I have never forgotten about and don't think I have been in the same room when someone made a call to China since then. Pass the bong one said, then we were out the door off to some new adventure.

Back then we were buddies although Crystal was two years younger than I, we got along well and had several laughs each and every day together. Her home was always dusty and dirty from the big hill behind them, but was far more fun than my home. There were so many things to do and most of all, she had horses we could ride.

Over the years we would play and once in awhile ride the horses or go to the show, but by the time we reached our teens, we weren't that close anymore. The age difference caught up with us and she went her way and I went mine. I left that town after my mother died shortly after I turned 15 and moved to Idaho. Crystal stayed behind like everyone else. I grew up and had a different lifestyle than everyone from the old neighborhood, because I was the lucky one who had left just in the nick of time.

I came back to the old neighborhood to hear all the old gossip of what happened to everyone and nothing was good about Crystal's life. Someone told me she had become very wild, but was still gorgeous to look at. Her mother, Artie had died, which I knew Crystal and her mother were close and I expected nothing good from her since Artie was gone. With her being gone there was nobody to save her from the crutches of what laid awaiting her out there. I didn't dare look her up, even though we were good friends at one time, but knew all well the path she was on, when I last saw her at age 15 right before I left to go live in Idaho and make the big transition. She was a wild, party girl and had the looks that any man would kill for drinking beers with her older boyfriend Barney who must have been in his late 20's if not 30's bearing tattoos proof he'd been in and out of prison.

A few years later I moved back and got married and had my first child, a new born son. Then one day I received a phone call out of the blue. It was Crystal begging to see me and for me to meet her at the bar she and others friends were at. I badly wanted to see her, just for the sake of old times and to show off my new prize baby boy I was so proud of, but I was a new mother now and going to a bar wasn't on the list of things I did anymore, so I made up an excuse and we said our good byes. She then handed the phone over to another friend, who knew I was not the same person I was before I left. She explained how she ran into Crystal and she was asking about me. So my friend dialed the phone, then called Crystal over to speak to me, without giving out my number. Everyone told me how good she looked and how wild she was in the bars, too, everyone knew who Crystal was.

Time has done nothing but pass, leaving behind the old scars only to create new ones from all those years gone by. I happened to run into a friend of mine that became a Police Officer for San Francisco who then later transferred to the Sheriffs Department working with women correction facilities in San Francisco and she mention to me, she saw Crystal. She said, "do you remember a girl name Crystal, she loved to party, in the 70s. I think she lived on Sherwin, on the hill. I think she and you rode horses together a lot when you were young? Well I saw her a year ago in custody and life has been hard on that gal, her face is worn out, she has no teeth and she's very thin. She used to be so very pretty. I guess the choices we make, when were young, truly affects our lives later."

This news about Crystal made me wonder about her life, coming from a home where she received lots of love from a mother who loved her dearly and kept her close to her and brothers that idolized her and protected her. What happened to her? Who is to blame for this life being destroyed? "There by the grace of God, goes I," I say to myself thinking how easily it could have been me she was talking about too someone else.

Could I assume a small bit of blame by not wanting to see her and show her my new baby and how much I had changed, perhaps seeing me and the transformation I made in my life could have given her some hope for change in her own? Did Fred and Jeff, the two hippies play a part in her demise by smoking dope in front of her, at age 6 and thinking nothing of it, or have they ever even wondered whatever happened to that little girl that used to come over and bug them? What would they think if they knew she has been in and out of jail on various drug charges, a heroin addict no doubt? Or would they believe it seeing her, toothless and shriveled and old, this once beautiful girl with all the potential to be whatever she wanted to be?

Or is she in fact like my friend said, a victim of her own choices? Wherever the reasons lay, I will always wonder about her and the words, "What did they do to Crystal", will always stand as a metaphor to me, about our role in life and how perhaps all of us play a part in bringing a person to life, or being a part of a system that tears them down. Little by little with every word we say to each other, with every reason we muster up to ignore people around us we play a part be it ever so tiny bit of a fragment, collectively it becomes big to the person being destroyed and in the end some survive and some go on to be nothing more than a good memory, gone bad.

Black Bats and Ouija Boards (A true story)

It was days before Halloween the year was 1968, you could just feel the creepiest in the air. Being 11 years old, Halloween was still fun, if not more fun the the year before because I was allowed to stay out a bit later without the watchful eye of my parenst. Besides back in those days we didn't have to worry too much about strangers and receiving razor blades in apples..Basicly we had the run of the neighborhood and knew everyone and looked forward to this time all year long.

My father was working late this one October night. It was day light saving time as the sky grew dark early. My mother was visiting a neighbor up the street who always offered her a highball when she visited, my mother never refused an alcoholic beverage.

The woman she was visiting had just lost her husband a month before and so she drank too much then called anyone in the neighborhood and cried about her problems, my mother happened to be the lucky recipient of her call that night. She told my sister and I she would be back in a little while, she was off to help Nancy out. We had already eaten dinner and were feeling a bit spunky with no adult supervision and were quickly bored with the house empty.

My sister Bonnie was a tom boy, always looking out for bugs, rodents, stray dogs and birds that fell out of their nest, hoping to bring them home to make as a pet. My father never let her keep anything, so they did not get along too well. My mother was the sucker for Bonnie's impulses, she always let her keep her finds but they had to be well hidden up from my dad, because if her found them he would make her set them free and yell at her because he wasn't going to pay to feed any animal, well except his dog Peppy.

Halloween was in the air, things seemed more spooky, with the sky gone dark. Peoples houses were decorated with the scary pumpkin faces on their porches or sheets hanging from on top the porches made to look like ghosts blowing in the wind.

It was too early to settle down and watch TV, besides no one was in the house to give us directions on what to do, so being kids we decided to take full advantage of this situation and go run around out side. My Mother was 5 doors up and so we did a sneak peek through the house she was in ,spying on her and listening to her conversation through the mail box in the door, slowly we would lift it up and could see them talking, siting on the sofa with their cocktails and yakking. We couldn't hear much and what we heard was boring, so we took off back down the street.

Running and giggling about being able to spy on our mother and her friend. All of the sudden bonnie came to a halt! Out of the corner of Bonnie's eye she spotted something dark flapping around on another neighbors lawn. She gasped. "Linda look at this", "what is it?" I said back.Her voice had excitement as she came closer for inspection I could hear her gasp again.. "Oh my God she said, I think it's a bat!" she was all too excited with her find. "A bat" I thought how spooky to find one days before Halloween.. I knew the stories about rabies and bats, I was cautious about approaching any closer letting Bonnie do what she does best, rescue hurt weird animals. She called out with urgency " go get something I can put it in!". "Like what" I said back, not wanting to look at it or go run an Eran for her. "Go get a bucket or something I can use, something with a lid or some sort of top and would you hurry up" she said loudly back to me.

So I ran across the street to our house, looking frantically for something to put a stupid bat in, I was really more excited then I let on. Finding a bat at Halloween time, what were the chances and what possibly could it all mean"..
looking around I finely came on an old Halloween bucket we used last year it was faded from leaving it in the sun all year and this was what bonnie kept her turtle in until it died,"this will do" I though.

I snatched it up came running back to where Bonnie was, and she quickly snatched it away from me. Taking the lid from the bucket she then put the bucket upside down on top of the bat and with the lid she scooted it inside quickly flipping it over and securing it on, she stood up with a grin wide as one of the pumpkins on one of the porches.. She could not be happier with her odd pet find.

We both ran back home wanting to see it in some light Bonnie commented on the way that she wanted to bring it to school the next day to show everyone.. I got was afraid of it, I worried but not letting on to Bonnie how scared I was.. I thought "Could it get out in our house and then we would then have a bat somewhere hiding and waiting for us to fall asleep so it could bite our neck and drink our blood?.. Oh no way I thought, I'm out of here. SO I took off outside where i was safe from the latent vampire..


I ran as fast as I could up to were my mother was and furiously banged on Nancy's door.. Nancy answered the door and I say " I want my Mom" Jumping up and down with excitement, before she ever got a chance to say anything.. She looked over at my mother and said "your wanted at the door my dear".

My mother approached the door with an unpleasant look on her face, and said "What do you want?" I said in a hurried voice with as much excitement an 11 year old could muster up and blurted out " Mom Bonnie found a bat on Carmen's lawn she has it in the house. I was out of breath and panting, when my mother said, Sorry Nancy but I guess I better go see what the hell is going on over there..


I think the reason why my mother always sided with Bonnie when it came to her strange obsession with creatures is because she was once like how Bonnie is now.. She seemed to be just as excited as Bonnie was. On our walk down the street, my mother said something that sort of scared me and made my mind start thinking.. She said "Finding a bat just before Halloween ,this must be an omen"..

What's an Omen? Why did she look funny when she said it? I remembered that word from scary movies like Rosemary's baby and others, all I knew is it wasn't a good term used everyday
My mother was always saying things that scare me, she wasn't like other mothers I knew, she had certain physic powers of sort, she would always have dreams that came true and not to mention all the times I tried to lie to her and she would wake up the next day telling me what her dreams told her and how she knew I lied because of her dreams.

She had always been in the occults, her mother was likewise and raised all her children to believe in them too. My grandmother used to conduct seances with my mother and her twin sister present.. She used to scare me with her stories.

The most scariest story she ever told me was when she was sleeping one night after she was married and woke up all of the sudden and saw woman standing at the foot of her bed. The woman was dressed like someone from the Victorian era with a long empire dress on and her dark brown hair in a Gibson style bun on top of her head.. It scared my mother so bad that it went away.

The next morning she called her mother and told what happened and described the woman to (my grandmother) and she said "From the way you described her, I think you saw my Mother!" "She was probably trying to tell you something, so next time she comes to you don't be afraid, just listen to her and what she has to say, it must have been important!" This is something I never wanted to experience, never, never, never do I want to see a dead person at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night.. So night time was scariest for me in fear of seeing something like my mother saw..

My mother opened the door to find Bonnie knelling on the floor with a ice pick in her hands poking hole in the top of the plastic bucket so the bat could breath.. My mother said to Bonnie " You know Bonnie with bats it could be very dangerous, so don't touch it whatever you do". Bonnie smiled from ear to ear starring at it through the see through plastic lid with holes in it..
My mother once again commented "how odd to find a bat at Halloween time isn't it?"
Bonnie was proud because no other kid on the block had a bat at Halloween time she could not stop grinning.

After carefully considering the situation, my mother told Bonnie she could only keep it over night in the basement then she must take it to the hills behind out house and let it go.. Not only could it have rabies, because it's out of it's normal patter of flying at night, it might be injured and die and could bite you if you get too close and who knew if it had lice either.. So Bonnie agreed to let it go in the morning, and headed to the basement when there was a knock at the door.

The knock scared us because the house had gone silent for a few moments when Bonnie was about to pick up the bat taking it to the basement.
.
It was my friend Crystal coming to play, she had a Ouija board in her hands, it gave me the creeps just looking at it, with all the weird lettering on it..

My mother said "Oh Crystal what you got there"? Then told us to "be careful because it's not a toy".. Even my mother the physic and someone familiar with the occults was weary of the Ouija board.. Bonnie was downstairs playing with her new pet who knows what she was up to down there probably finding a good spot as to hide it from my father.. Crystal and I took the board into the kitchen while my mother turned on the TV and quietly smoking her cigarettes while we played.

Crystal set it on the table and started off telling me how to hold on to the disc, and said we need to ask it questions and then it will answer us.. So crystal started out first asking it questions, stupid ones like, "What was I in another life".. The Ouija would answer back.. "You were a needle in Gods eye"!.. I thought Crystal was moving because it seemed to move in such easy, but she swore she wasn't. So next it was my turn.. OK I will ask the same, " What was I in the life before?" "You were a nail in God hand", it answered" Shoot it keeps saying the same stuff I said". OK, lets try something else. OK "What boy's do I like?" It answered back, "GO TO HELL!
Crystal laughed, and said, " OK who will I marry?" It said back.. "You will marry the devil".. I didn't like this board it was starting to scare me, because no matter what question we asked it said something no so nice.

We continued.. I asked the stupidest question of them all! "Is there a spirit in our house now?" It did something that shocked us both. It started pointing rapidly back and forth to each letter,bam bam bam one after another until all the letter in a row spelled out "WEAREHERE" It took us a few moments to figure out what it said and when we did see what it was we bother got scared and let out a girlie scream.

My mother shouted back to us to keep it down.... But we continued to ask it more.. What were the name s of the spirits in the house... Spelling out words, and names we could not understand... Then gain I asked it.. I asked where did you come from.. It spelled out "HELLWHEREYOURGOING" . We let out another small scream then stopped ourselves because of what my mother said.

This time my mother got up to see what was going on, she said she had a bad feeling come over her and wanted us to stop.. Too late crystal asked something else, so quickly my mother grabbed a pen an paper next to the phone in the kitchen, seeing how fast it was going she wanted to know what it was saying and then proceeded to record the letters it was forming.

Now this time the broad was faster then before and it seemed like we no longer had control over what it was saying or doing. For a minute I thought, "If I let go, it will move by it's self !" That's how thick the stench of fear was in that room. Even my mother was feeling uneasy and frightened as she jotted down each letter it spelled out
WEAREHEREANDWEWONTLEAVENOW..

My mother wrote as fast as the pointer pointed to the letter, then it started using swear words one after another until my Mother scream " TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF IT NOW! It was frightening! You could feel the cold chill, and the look on my mothers face was more frightening as she separated the letters making sense of the long word.. We begged her to tell us what it said.. WE ARE HERE AND WE WONT LEAVE NOW! We both looked at each other and almost got teary eyes being so scared, looking at my mother I could see her fright too, which caused me to panic ever more..


Just then we heard BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! Coming up the back stairs, it was Bonnie swinging open the back of the kitchen.. She was frighten and had a look on her face that described it all.. She was almost about to cry, running over to my mother she said gasping for breath! "Something touched me downstairs her bottom lip was quivering, something slapped my back.. No ones down their mom and something slapped my back!.. My mother gasped lifting her shirt she could see the red mark on her back! Bonnie still in shock said and I heard voice say something, then she started to cry full blown.. We were about to pee our pants hearing this OH My GOD I screamed.. My mother said "what did it say bonnie?" Bonnie nuzzling hers face in my mother chest cried more just thinking about it.. She uttered, still crying, It said "You hate your mother!"

My mother comforted us by telling us "It's OK" nothing is going to happen.. But this is enough!
"That it" she said Crystal put that thing on the coffee table and don't forget to take it home with you!.. You three go outside for a few minutes and cool down and go play it all right just go get some fresh air....

Crystal placed the Ouija board on the coffee table as instructed, and my mother was walking to the bathroom and bonnie and I followed closely behind Crystal. I touching the door after bonnie when through ready to pass through the open door, when all of the sudden something from the corner of my eye went flying across the front room and swishing by my mother and crashing on the bedroom floor next to the bathroom..


My mother shouted out "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" I couldn't believe I SAW SOMETHING FLY THROUGH THE HOUSE SO FAST! I couldn't even tell what it was but we all heard it crash.. My mother came running out of the bathroom thinking we threw something and we all three swore it was none of us that did anything.. She turned on the light in the bedroom to see what it was that hit the hardwood floor it left a nick in the hardwood floor..
"What was on the table next to the Ouija Board" she said? Then spotting it under the bed she said "Oh My God, this is interesting!". It was her camera, she left laying on the coffee table that was right next to the Ouija board Crystal laid down. The camera had been broken with such force she knew none of us could have done that. It was mostly made of metal and plastic but was broken into a lot of pieces.

She quickly grabbed the film that had been exposed and commented how she would take it to the pharmacy in the morning and try to get the film developed and see if there was anything on it. Crystal was told she needed to go home and to never bring that thing back to our house again by my mother. Bonnie and I were shaken up over this ordeal and I'm sure that walk home for Crystal was one she will never forget, walking home in the dark, with a spooky Ouija board in her arm that had caused so much trouble in one household..

Halloween night while Bonnie and I were out trick or treating we saw a bat fly overhead, making this the most frightening Halloween in our life. who is to say if it was the bat Bonnie found or not checking up on us or in some way showing us that we now opened the door to evil in our home and in our lives.

A week later the film was developed and the pictures that came out were that of a hazy black figure on a Smokey like horse looked very spooky.. My mother said never again we will have a Ouija board in the house.

That Halloween was the creepiest I had ever experienced with the black bat and the Ouija Board. I have never had any desire to play with another one since, and raising my own 4 children I would never allow them to play with such a dangerous tool letting something happen to them like it to did to us that Spooky Halloween..

There were many sleepless night in that house after that occurrence.
As adults all us children would bring up that happening and explore the different things we experienced in that house. Like being alone in a room and all of the sudden something overcomes you with such a fright you have to run as fast as you can to get away! Or the feeling of being watched. Even my father years later who is nothing but a hard nose skeptic and realist commented on hearing voices and feeling something poke him in his ribs one night while down there in the basement..

One never knows who or what is waiting behind those doors waiting a chance to come into your life and your home to take up permanent residence with you, watching you, touching you when your not aware of their presents. Once they are open they can never be closed once you have crossed the line..

The Smell of Beer

It was 3:30 when I walked through the front door from school. Mom was still asleep on the couch and beer cans were still on the coffee table, the house reeked of beer. I reached for the air freshener and sprayed all around the whole house. My sister Bonnie came through the door minutes after me heading straight for our bedroom, throwing her books on her bed she then headed for the kitchen where I was standing with the air freshener.

We had 30 minuted to race and get all the cleaning up done, ridding the house of all my mothers empty beer cans before my dad got home and presenting too him a spotless house. As usual we kicked into gear without a word. Bonnie grabbed a large paper grocery bag from under the slink that I stood in front of ready to wash the dishes my mother didn't wash during the day. Bonnie quickly headed for the front room without waking my mother. We didn't dare wake her because the longer she slept the more sober she would be when my dad got home, thus making a more peaceful evening. Bonnie quietly picked up all the empty beer cans off the coffee table and headed for the back door as I got busy washing up all the dishes and wiping down the table and sweeping the floor.



When my mother and father met right before the end of the war, my father was just about finished with his navy duties when he would come into town on leave, together they would go out to the famous night clubs on Geary street in San Francisco and party until the places closed. They would be joined with my mothers bother, his wife and some new friends they made. Together they would listen to big band music and drink highballs until the party was over and time to go home, it was all apart of the celebration at their ages.

After the war my father married my mother taking on two children of hers from a previous marriage. Then soon afterward my sister Candy was born. After countless nights of partying with the neighbors and waking up to people sleeping on the floor, beer cans all over the house and my mother drunk beyond belief, with young children making their own breakfast, my father woke up one morning and said loudly "THIS IS ENOUGH!". He kicked the neighbors out, woke my mother up to take care of the new baby girl who was being watched by my older bother and sister and proclaimed his new rules. He'd had enough of drunken nights and the feeling of doing wrong by his children and loudly told her "NO MORE DRINKING, THAT'S IT! No more booze was allowed in this house ever again after that morning.

From that moment on my father stuck to his words, he never touched another drink the rest of his life or smoked again, nor would he ever even be in the presents of anyone that did, but my mother was unable to live up to his standards.



Bonnie made the climb over our neighbor 6" chain link fence on her way to empty the days beer cans that lingered in our house. A deal was made with my mother and the neighbor allowing her to dump the remains of her drinking in exchange for cash they always needed. I dried the wash dishes then put them away, Bonnie and I took turns vacuuming each day. Laundry needed to be put away and now since the house was clean mother needed to be woke up to start dinner and once again be a normal happy family.

The sheer panic I always felt when walking home from school not knowing what was to be expected, became second nature to me and my sisters. We together assumed the responsibility not knowing when this all came about. Was it an unconscious action on our part not wanting any trouble with my father seeing my mother drunk, or if at some point we were told to do my mothers work. It was never clear to me till this day, nor did I know that our family was so different then the others around us. It was never talked about.

I can still recall at least two occasions when my father found beer cans and this lead to a brutal fight with my mother who was turned over the kitchen sink where my father bitterly screaming at her. She was crying while he proceeded to pop open the cans and pour them one after another over her head while yelling at her. Those were the times I wished he were dead and wrote "I hate my father" on my pillow case with ink one morning during one of these fights, as I remember well this was my first introduction to God during these times.

Despite the risk of it all, my mother still found a way to hide her beers by keeping them in my top dresser underwear's drawer, slipping one of my t-shirts over the popped top or a sock to cover it and keep it hidden from my father. This is why she would occasional come into my room and take sips throughout the night with my father unaware or wondering why she keeps going in our room and closing the door throughout the night, every night! I hated the smell of beer, most of all going too school and smelling it while in class I always worrying if others around me could smell it as well. Most of my childhood memories were mixed with this as a constant routine.

This went on for years or more until she grew sick and continually complained of back aches, then we started noticing her stomaching growing as if she were pregnant. It wasn't until I was 15 and my older sister Candy who was already divorced with 2 small children living back at home, attending to my mother while she was ill, Bonnie had since moved out living with the father of her child. When my sister Candy called me into the bathroom and asked me to help bathe my mother because she was not feeling well, then I got a glimpse of what was happening to her, seeing her that size stomach on a woman who all her life had a nice slim body was shocking to me.

Her body was wasted away, her stomach was the size of a watermelon and she couldn't have weighed anymore than 90 pounds. I was sick seeing her body looking like a starved African child she had once used as an example, scolding me for not eating my food because there were people who would kill to have the food I had. Here she was looking like a photo of the one's she used as in national geography as an example to bribe me from some third world country. Days later my Father's denial after all these years must have turned around and for once he saw some reality, and between he and my sister they called an ambulance and had her put in the hospital. I was only told to leave the house while they take her away, so I went over a friends house and never discussed it with anyone never knowing fully what was going on, no one ever sat me down and explained.

This was also a time I learned about intuition, it was my first introduction to seeing into the future which has been rare for me but when I do, I always remember my first experience with my mother.

While my mother was in the hospital, she had been there for about a month or more, my father received a phone call of urgency one day after work, so he an my sister Candy left me at home to babysit her two young daughters as they went to say their good byes. I had asked the young girl next door named Janie to come over and help me because it didn't look good from what Candy had said to me before she left with my dad, "Momma may not make it through the night she slipped into a Colma," I remained calm because I had no emotion at this point about my mothers dying I didn't know what to make of it all, all I knew was it wasn't fair that I didn't get to go and say my goodbyes to her rather she heard me or not, it just didn't feel right to me deep inside, Janie would help me because I didn't feel much like watching any kids.

I stayed home and Janie put my nieces to bed, afterwards she came in the front room where I was standing, starring out the window on the front door, she put her arm on my shoulder seeing me gazing out the window she felt the pain I was going through, as I looked out the font room door window, I saw something amazing, what I saw was a plain as day, it was a digital number reading like that of a clock radio that read in bright orange letters SAT 7:00 AM. As I stared it not knowing what it was or where it was coming from it hit me inside, and I was excited! I shouted to Janie, "My Mother is not going to die today on Wednesday, but instead she won't die until Saturday at 7:00 in the morning. I said this as I turned to my friend Janie only to see a very concerned look on her face, but I knew I was right and I was certain of it, no one could tell me any different, it was locked into me because it was inside me too, that firm knowledge that was just there it was true and I knew it.

My Father kept a vigilant post at the hospital as Candy and I waited for his call. Than at 7:03 Saturday morning the phone rang, Candy and I standing by the phone, she picked it up and he said Mommy just died at 7:00. At such a horrific time I had such a wonderful feeling inside knowing it played out just exactly as I was shown mixed with the passing of my mother needless to say I was very mixed up at the time.
But one thing I did know is something out there knew more then me and it told me and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt of the time of her passing.

Her diagnoses was "Cirrhosis of the Liver" with " Chronic Emphysema", all cause by drinking, smoking and not eating properly. After her death I went home and started the usual of cleaning the house, now it was my turn to start cooking and caring for my father, he didn't know I had been secretly doing it since I was a child.

Years had passed by, I never forgot this time of my life the loss of my mother at such a young age, and how it played a major role in my life in all things.

When I was later married and with children of my own, I became frantic about certain things, never wanting my children to experience the childhood I had. In someways I tried to be the perfect mother to them, making cookies for them when they came home from school, and always having the house spotless upon their arrival. Most of all I made sure their underwear's were always good smelling, for some reason that was super important to me.

"Everyday was a day they may remember!" This was something I daily told myself. Something good needed to be done in case they picked "THIS DAY" to remember for the rest of their life, and my life was consumed with this until they grew and left the home one by one.

Not looking back with regrets and coming too terms with my mothers alcoholism and my father's role, both being from different eras, I can now lift my head high and say I did my best! And knowing, had I not been raised in such a home the turnout may not have been so crystal clear to me on how I was to raise my children. Perhaps making me more grateful for all I had gone through despite it all, because I was allowed to raise my children better thus re-placing their pleasant memories for my unhappy ones.

In the beginning blog 1

Hi my name is Linda, otherwise known as Machinegunmomma. I'm 50 years young, living in the state of Colorado.. I moved here 2 years ago from San Francisco. I was born and raised there and raised all my children there but the cost of living there was too high and all I was doing was spinning my wheels. I refuse to spend a million dollars on a fixer upper home in a ghetto. Beside just the economy in California I just wanted a change.

I had family over here in Colorado some one suggested I move up here. Now I don't do crazy things like just up and move because someone invited me to. But at that time the universe spoke to me so directly and everything clicked in place. A job transfer that normally takes up to 8 months possibly or longer happened in 1 week from my request. Everything and I mean everything moved with the greatest of ease, so I am here. And don't think I will ever be moving back to California.
I have 4 children 1 son 28 who is my oldest and a returned Iraq veteran Marine he lives in San Francisco.. And I have 3 daughters, 2 living down In Frisco ages 19 & 26 and 1 still living with me, she's 16...

And now for the important part... I'm married and I'm married to a wonderful Englishmen, he's 18 years younger then me but we get along with no age gap between us. No one ever knows he's that much young than me in fact most are shocked to find out there is 18 years between us.. I was graduating from high school when he was born. Sounds weird when I say it out loud...
I'm immature for my age and he acts older than he is so we meet in the middle.

We met online by accident or shall I say by fate. Yes we did. I was looking up something for a friend and I saw his picture. What struck me about him was that he said he was from England. Now I have always love the English accent it turns me into butter, melted butter that is all gushy mushy.. So I popped him a short email and said I loved English accents and that's all.

That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship that developed over time. We became best friends and helped each other out with what was our current struggle at the time.

Then right from the beginning we both started noticing so many coincidences happening left and right. We were on the right track... 18 months later we met in real life and we have been together ever since...I call him my White Knight!