A 1940s early childhood

For the first fifteen years of my life, my family lived in a modest two story gray stucco house. I have mentioned a couple of times the alley that ran adjacent to the house. The bedroom I shared with my sister was on the second floor above that alley. On the other side of the alley lived a family whose adult son did not like his mother. When he drank too much alcohol, which seemed to occur daily, he could be heard saying to his mother "Ahhhh, Shaddup!" He would drag out those two words. I would be the chorus, repeating those two words until I cracked up my sister.

My own father would often get similarly frustrated at my mother, although alcohol was never a factor. His nickname for her was "Bump." When "Bump" would become unreasonable or selfish, one could hear my father exclaim, "Goddamn it, Bump, just stop it!" Dad, like my sister and I, found Mom's behavior maddening at times. For example, I loved to read. If it was a sunny day, and I was using a lamp to read, Mom would come over and turn off the light and move my chair across the room to "God's light." This was a vestige of her experience growing up during the Great Depression, I am sure. "Waste not, want not," was a motto she lived by. By the way, to this day, when I see one of my kids reading in poor light, I urge them to turn on a light.

Mom had several sisters. The ones I knew best were Aunts Dorothy, Midge, and Harriet.
Midge was like Mom in never wanting to throw anything away. She lived in Washington D.C., and had an important job as Executive Secretary to the Secretary of the Army. I remember once going out to a restaurant with Midge and her husband Walter. Walter was very smart, but very annoying. He invented many items for the corporation he worked for, proudly wearing his photo badge that evening at dinner. He would never think of demanding to be compensated for his inventions. I did not like the way he treated Aunt Midge. He belittled her. Then, when we arrived at their house, he went straight to the family organ and played love songs throughout the evening! The house was jammed waist high with newspapers, with a narrow passage to traverse the pathways.

Aunt Dorothy also had a prestigious job as Executive Secretary to Nevada's U.S. Senator McCarron. She arranged for me to attend a Senate debate on civil rights between Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator William Knowland of California. Midge arranged for me to have a tour of the White House. They were redecorating, and I got to sit in the chair formerly used by President Harry Truman, in the room where things were being stored.

Aunt Harriet? Well, I remember two things. One, after her husband died, she gave me his used hair brush as a Christmas present. Two, I remember her stripping naked in our car to change clothes for wherever it was we were going.