don't you love when a picture you find brings back all kinds of memories??



This picture was taken somewhere along the Santa Cruz beach area in the spring of 1978. I was 8 years old. In front of me somewhere in that water is a basket style crab trap stuck amongst the rocks and as any eight year old will try to explain "We got to get it unstuck!!". I distinctly remember this entire time frame and specifically this trip itself. No, not like it was yesterday. But pretty damn close. I know what time of day, the weather, who was there, what everyone was wearing, and why we were there. And no it was not to catch crabs. ( I wouldn't do that until I met a little Asian girl 9 years later but I haven't decided whether I will post that story or not yet) The why of this trip doesn't matter. Its all about the memories that come with it.

When this picture takes place I only got to see my mother maybe once a day for about an hour or two. You see my father was a sailor serving in Japan at this time. We were very poor. How poor? I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that my mother worked two minimum wage full time jobs at two separate McDonald's in San Jose, California just to make the rent on the house my brother, sister, mom and myself lived in. Two doors down from the house we lived in for two years lived the head of a Hispanic gang. His name was Henry Gozales and the gang was "Los Locos de San Jose". You could call the part of San Jose we lived in a Barrio. At the time I called it home and it felt like it. I did not know we were poor. I was very well loved, always had good tasting food on the table( my mother not only was a hard worker, she could take garbage and make a meatloaf out of it and you would never know it wasn't beef pate) an immaculately clean home and clean clothes on my back. We played outside when the sun was up and stayed inside at night. While my mother was at work, for a short time my sister would watch me but most of the time during this two year period my brother really raised me. For what it is worth, he was the best father a 12 year old could be to a eight year old. A better father figure then most adults I know to tell the truth. However this is not about my upbringing or the quality of parenting I received( damn good if you want to know) it is about the strength of memories.

I am now a father with a family of my own. I really don't think about my childhood that much because I have the here and now that is happening occupying my thoughts most of the time. Except right now. Right now I am an eight year old boy playing on a seawall watching my mother eat lapaz (one shell limpits that live on the rocks) as my brother stands fishing 5 feet away. I am wondering what we are going to do if we get this crab trap unstuck and what is that smell coming from the rocks right below me. I am wondering if Kristin in my second grade class is ever going to let me hold her hand or if Kurt is going to let me go over to his house on the other side of town near the Lucky's grocery store and play in his pool with the rich kids.

For a short time what I am not is a 30 something father and husband worried about bills, wife, job, or child. I am just a kid. With kid worries and kid dreams and kid thoughts. Taken back to a time when my biggest worry was what my brother was going to do when he finds out I hid tacks in his bed to get him back for pushing me out the front door naked while the neighborhood kids played baseball out front.

Yes, these are powerful memories.

Thanks for the memories.

-CHefdino-