Category: flashbacks

Barb left to start her drive back Kelly back in mid-November. Back then until yesterday was 93 days. The last time Barb and I were alone and together at the house. Just the two of us. Normal times. Then three months of:

Barb goes to get Kelly and brings her back for her normal stay. Then drives back with her in mid-January. Then she heads to Yuma to pack up her sis and mom for a trip back to Florida. Beginning of February Barb is home with sis and mom who stay for two weeks for there new rental. The day they leaves Kate and Frank and family come for the weekend. We didn’t realize it until was all said and done that it so long. It wasn’t a bad thing just different. I am glad that we are back to normal times. At least for now!

Mom left a few memories, random thoughts and notes to Dad  in a small note book I found with her things.  Transposed here.

 A Great story because Mom’s shorthand ” I love you” was is part of our family history

When Dad and I were going together he used to go swimming every week on 18th and Mission. he had bought a suede jacket and always wore it if the weather was cold. When he first got it I was going to business college and one day I wrote (in shorthand) “I love you” I the lining of the jacket.  To make a long story short, someone stole the jacket and dad was fit to be tied. One day he was going swimming and saw a guy with his jacket. The guy denied it was Dad’s but dad ripped it off the guy and showed the guy what I had written in the lining. Needless to say, he got the jacket back and we used to laugh about it whenever we thought of if.

Remembering when Anne Marie was born. Beautiful!  My Dad’s mom was blind so when mom talks about  feeling her from head to toe….  Its too much. I’m tearing up here! 

Remember when we brought her home from the hospital dad?

We couldn’t go into the hospital ourselves because the nurse thought it best that her mother not see us.  We were so nervous – the 1/2 hour wait in our old Chevy coupe seemed like hours. We had brought all the baby clothes she  would wear home. She was dressed in pink and white.

She was blond and beautiful. Do you remember we drove about 3 blocks from the hospital and parked the car and cried like two fools. We were blessed that’s for sure. Our first detour was to Ma Flaherty’s house so she could see her 8 day old grand daughter. Ma felt her from the tips of her toes to the top of her very beautiful blond head.

Then just some random thoughts

Walked to Marchbanks park in hopes of seeing a baseball game trying to re-live our “little league” days

and memories

Remember Mike – the day you got in a fist fight with a “street fighter” and you wouldn’t take his pushing you?  I wasn’t there but dad said he beat the hell out of you. Dad wanted to stop the fight but didn’t think you wanted him to interfere. He said you cried after the fight- not because you lost but because – “Dad, its the first time you saw me fight and he beat me up!” There was so much love and hurt in you.

Retirement is not- “thank goodness the kids are raised and no more responsibilities – we can live it up”

Retirement is thinking back over all the wonderful fond and loving memories of our four  and later including our two grandchildren 

Retirement taking a walk and spotting something and saying, “remember when……………” 

Walking past the pipeling along Lake Merced = “Remember when Anne Marie and Mike walked on that big pipe?  You would have had a fit if you had been here- but even at that age – 3 or 4 – what balance and fun they had!” 

Johnny was the best left handed first basemen that OLPH ever had.

“Dad can you leave work and come see Anne Marie on ice skates?!   I can’t believe she is going around the rink like an old pro!  Can you get here?  Good!”

Jimmy shouldn’t be on a skateboard, especially down a hill! He was lucky to get off with a black eye and bruises – poor Rita, she had to tell me how it happened”

Walking around Stow Lake with Alanna and Erika skating in front of us – both of us ready to kiss away any hurt that might result. “remember when Anne Marie climbed to the top of the falls?” Remember when Mike was showing off in front because some girls in  his class were coming? He slipped on a rock and fell into the lake! what a wet and embarrassing walk back to the car – Poor Mike!” 

How blessed we were – Anne Marie, then 3 months later I was pregnant with Mike, then John, then Jim- We enjoyed them so much. We had problems but our love for each other and for them overshadowed everything else – maybe we were too possessive, but on our side it was L O V E.

We had so many beautiful memories to share with each other. 

Remember mass at OLPH when I told Johnny to be quiet. Evidently I was too harsh with him because he cried and very loud he said to me ” YOU HURT MY FEELINGS!” Did I feel like a mean mother!

If I could leave my children the most important legacy, it would be that they have the same  memories of their children as we have had with our four.

They are all grown up and are on their way to becoming parents but they left us many many beautiful and wonderful memories which are stowed away in our hearts. Dad, you have taken these with you, but I have been given this time on earth to to think about you,  our lives and loves for each other, and our four children – we were blessed and that I realize day by day. 

So remember 

When they were small enough to ALL crawl into bed with us on the weekends

All the games we went to, our kids being the best

Taking them around to say good night to ALL the pictures in the house (especially Anne Marie so she wouldn’t  have to go to be early- she was smarter to us, even then)

Taking them to the Cliff House and play land at the beach to ride on the merry go round and roller coaster and Mike putting his arms around her because she was scared

You teaching them all to swim from the time they were in diapers!

 This morning I work up thinking about the time Jim came down the hill on the skateboard and ran into a parked car – Rita had to tell me the news (I was working for Paul Huff) what a scare and yet it was a blessing was not as serious as we thought! But God again was with us.

 Mom’s last entry was to Dad….. 

The last ten years for me have been a nightmare, because I never thought I would lose you. I feel for the children because I put hem through 10 years of trying to make me feel as I did when we were together. I hope if they read this they will forgive me.

We do. Love you Mom

Most Saturday rides are peaceful and quiet.  We had done our normal route and were taking a break on the bench when a pack or runners came by and asked for directions. They wanted our advice on what way to run. Either back towards Coyote hills or over to the Dumbarton Bridge and the long way back to Coyote. They wanted to do a 10 mile run and had already run 6 miles. After they got our advice they asked that we take a couple of pictures. We obliged and I even took a couple with my own camera. Its not too often that we get a crowd our here where we take a break. Good thing we had a long bench!

Nice little afternoon ride yesterday.  Sure didn’t feel like November weather!  When I got out to the bus stop, I took this picture of the sun reflecting on the water. The cool thing here is that the rock pile in the foreground is what the boys and I started building a few years ago. That’s a lot of rocks in that pile!  Its cool that it showed up with the sun reflecting around it.

Years and years and years ago. Maybe 45 years ago,  my dad and I spent a summer weekend in Santa Rosa and stayed at the Flamingo Hotel.  The Flamingo is a nice hotel. Beautiful grounds, rooms and amenities. GREAT swimming pool. Dad and I were there for pool anyway. We spent our day just lounging around the pool and swimming all day. The best part of the pool was that it was HUGE and deep. Deep enough to have both high and low diving boards.  There weren’t that many people around so it seemed we had the pool to ourselves.

There was a nice older lady working there, who was a cross between pool monitor and food server/cocktail waitress around the pool. Older lady who wore the old style Laverne and Shirley, 1950’s style eyeglasses. As late afternoon rolled around, we headed back to the room as the staff was getting ready for a big party in the area next to the pool. The next morning we were up bright and early and ready for a morning swim. We go out to the pool and the police are there. Yellow tape up around the pool. Dad asked some one what was going on and was told that someone had drowned in the pool last night. It turned out it was the pool lady that was so nice to us the previous day!

So sad. After talking to a few people, we learned that the lady was working the party the previous evening, may have had too much to drink, and late at night fell in the pool and drowned. By the time we got there everything was winding down and they were almost ready to open the pool.  Not that there was anybody around anyway, but when they said the pool was back open, I was the first one up the high dive. I’m standing at the end of the board ready to do one of my famous swan dives, when I notice a reflection on the bottom of the pool. I nailed the dive and made my way to the bottom of the 14 foot deep pool.  As soon as I got close I knew, it was the poor ladies glasses. She must have lost them when she fell in and they sank to the bottom.

So I come up to the surface holding up the glasses in my hand and turned them over to whoever was still standing around. In retrospect, its sort of sad and disgusting to be swimming in a pool that someone was floating dead in a few hours before. But what did I know?  I was ten. Not sure if dad gave it much, if any thought.  Either way,  dad and I went on with our little mini-vacation. We talked about this over the years but it was mostly forgotten. When Barb and I got married in 1985 we stayed at the Flamingo on our wedding night. Of course I recounted the story then and pretty much forgot about it again until this week.

So I’m talking to my good buddy Bill Sindona about nothing in particular. Somehow we ended up talking about Santa Rosa.  He had worked at Denny’s in Santa Rosa right near the El Rancho motel where the Raiders used to stay when they did training camp up there back in the day. I knew that the El Rancho and Flamingo are almost next to each other up there so I asked Bill if he knew of the Flamingo.

Yes,  he said.  As a matter of fact, his mother used to work there and one time she found a dead lady in pool.

DON”T EVEN SAY THAT!! I yelled at Bill.

At first he thought that I was accusing him of making up a story. When I told him, we BOTH could not believe it!!

“You probably met my mom!”  I probably did.  I might have given the glasses I found at the bottom of the pool to Bill’s mom.

Anyway, we couldn’t get over this amazing coincidence from 45 years ago, that we both knew of, but only shared with each other this week.  How wierd is that?

Wow!!  It was 44 years ago that we went to the Cow Palace to watch the first ever world wide  broadcast of a World Cup final, in COLOR!!

Click here to read the post from 2006

Took  a Sunday ride on the dirt side of the Creek trail, and ended up going someplace we’d never gone before. I had been checking  out Google maps and saw that there were some offshoot trails on the north side of Alameda Creek that looked like we could take out and around almost clear up to the San Mateo Bridge. Little did John Downing know that this was my plan when I asked  him to ride with me today.  All was well and good. We took a right off the creek trail and headed northwest on a trail we had never been on before. After a about a half mile or so, a road block. Ugh!  A gate and barb wire fence and sign saying Eden Landing Ecological Reserve  – NO TRESPASSING.  That was good enough for me and I was ready to turn around there,  but John  had other ideas.  At first he suggested throwing the bikes over the gate. I said why don’t we just climb over the gate and check things out. Over the gate we went.  There was a trail going in both directions as fas as the eye could see. Then John spotted it,  a clearing beyond the barb wire where people had  created a way to get around the gate. The lure of the unknown and the glorious day clouded our better judgement and on we went.

  Beautiful ride in a true “no man’s land.”  On our left, the marshiness of the 2000 feet or so of distance between the Alameda Creek trail and us. Nothing but  marshy wetness, pools and vegetation. On our right, the remnants of  an old duck hunting village. Little make shift duck blinds (8-12 that we could see) that must have been great back in the day when duck hunting was king in this area.    We made our way out to where the trail bends and heads north along the bay waters. What a cool and out of the way place.  We took our break here and marveled at the beauty and untouched splendor that was all around us. This was obviously a place where the wind, tides and bay waters push alot of drift wood  onto the the shore. We checked out tons of drift wood, found more than a few tennis balls and even a few coconuts.  After a well deserved break we turned around and headed back. Good thing John was paying attention else we would have missed our turn and ended up somewhere in Hayward.  Before we got back to the creek trail and familiar ground, we did see this 4 foot snake taking a sun bath on the trail. All in all a great day and a great way to end a Sunday Ride.

A month ago we saw the posting on the Creek Trail that they would be closing the trail to do work on the levee.  When John and I went out today the fence was up and the sign was posted. Not Good. When we knew the trail was going to close we had talked about alternate routes. We could have scooted around the fence like we did all last year when they were doing similar “improvments” further down the trail, but today decided to take a another route.  Right where  the fence is, is where a dirt trail starts that eventually gets to  Coyote Hills, so we took that. We meandered through some trails that neither of us had been on before, just taking a right when there was a fork in the trail, and hoping for the best. We eventually found familiar ground and made our way around the backside of Coyote , back to the creek trail, and to the end and the bay. It was a beautiful morning out there. Still and warm. A BIG bitch’n billowy cloud sort of day.On our way back we did scoot around the fence for one last ride before they start to move in equipment and materials

When Barb and I started going out 30 years ago, she lived in a little one bedroom apartment in Milpitas.  We had the chance to drive by the old place a couple of weeks ago when we were meeting Tim and Linda for coffee at Starbucks in Milpitas.

The apartment that we shared for a little while was on the upper floor facing the street.  Things haven’t changed much in 30 years.  We moved out 6 months after we got married, and the rest is history!

Our Kuerig coffee maker went on the blink last week.   Since we got this a couple of years ago I figured we were screwed because the machine had a one year limited warranty. I  called the company to see if there was a fix or some troubleshooting I could do. The guy from Kuerig asked me a bunch of questions and took our serial number. he comes back on the line and tells me that the machine is still under warranty!! I guess I answered all the questions correctly.   They shipped a new machine and we were back in action two days later!   Good thing considering we just went out and spent about $50 on coffees that only fit in the Kuerig coffee maker.  We would have had to pay $119 to replace the machine.   Thumbs up to Kuerig!

Cable TV has been giving us problems for months.  Some channels that we should be getting  are not coming through at all. Other channels are so “pixilized” that its impossible to watch. We called Comcast a few times, they did remote troubleshooting but found no problems. We replaced the DVR box and checked to make sure that all was connected properly yet the problems persists.   FINALLY got Comcast to come out and look at the problem. When the tech showed up yesterday, he look at the cable coming into the house and asked when the last time a tech was out. I said never. We’ve had the same cabling ever since we moved in 25 years ago!  The cable was so old that it could not properly support the new digital signals and hi def programming.  So the tech spent the next 90 minutes running new cable from the outside box to all the bedrooms and living room.   Sweet!   In addition,  I was able to sweet talk the guy into upgrading our DVR to the new HDMI version.  Now the picture is so crisp and clear its almost like having a new TV.

And the coffee tastes great too