B. Wells Author

That Summer part 4

This is part four of a series on a summer that impacted my behavior. It’s about when I started to make stupid mistakes. If you haven’t yet, I recommend starting with “That Summer part 1” and read part 2 & part 3. This blog expands on those posts. Also, it’d be great to hear from you, post a comment and share.

For context I’d like to start with Oskar Shindler. The movie “Shindler’s List” is based upon his time in Krakow heading a ceramics factory. It is a compelling movie in the radical change Oskar Shindler goes through.

Oskar Shindler was an opportunist and became a spy for the military intelligence service of Nazi Germany. He later told Czech police that he did it because he needed the money. When Schindler witnessed the liquidation of the ghetto, he was appalled. From that point forward, Schindler "changed his mind about the Nazis”. He decided to get out and to save as many Jews as he could. He bribed guards with food, diamonds, and gold to free Jewish people from going to the camps.

His life after WWII was a mess, he went bankrupt more than once, drank too much and had a massive heart attack. However, the Jewish citizens that he freed honored him and kept in contact with him until his death. He radically changed his mind and took action to save lives. It’s what makes him heroic, not that he was perfect, he wasn’t. He was finally willing to do something for someone else.

I will return to Mr. Shindler, but now it’s off to 1965 in Palos Verdes Estates.

As I’d mentioned there was a Texaco Station adjoining the Frontier Market strip mall. That summer, they ran a promotional game. It was a kind of pull-tab thing. Each time a driver bought gas he was given two sections. One was a long section with two drawings of fruit, two oranges, cantaloupes, grapefruits, apples, watermelons or cherries. The second section was small and had only one drawing. The drawings had to match to get a prize. Monetary prizes started at $5.00 and went up to $30.00. Naturally, there were lesser prizes such as a bottle of soda or a pack of cigarettes. If you matched cherries you got one of the lesser prizes. Lots of people matched cherries. It generated excitement and crowds.

My mother loved that game and collected her strips each time she bought gas. She drove a Buick Electra from Palos Verdes Estates to USC daily. Traffic wasn’t as congested as it is today, but it was 50 miles round trip per day. That Buick sofa on wheels ate up a lot of gas.

One day she came home gleeful. Pushing the tabs in my younger brother and my faces she said, “See? Three oranges. That’s $30.00, kids!”

Thirty dollars in today’s money would be close to two hundred and seventy-five. Score, right?

In case you haven’t guessed, my mother loved excitement and being with people. It was part of her charm to welcome any impromptu guests that’d drop by day or night, or to accept last minute invitations with delight. That impulsiveness was also in how she handled money, or didn’t. She was what we called a spendthrift.

Impulse control wasn’t one of her top priorities. When I was in high school and living with my father, he told me that in their first week of marriage she bought eight pairs of shoes in one day.

“Eight pairs! Who needed eight pairs of shoes?” he sputtered.

It was a different era. They married in 1947 and the world was still recovering from WWII. Shortages were everywhere, meat, gas, rubber, and leather for shoes. It was considered extravagant to buy two pairs, but to buy eight? Whoa.

As I said, impulse control wasn’t one of her top characteristics.

In that last week of summer, money became very important to her. In the past year, my older sister gave my mother her job earnings. I’d suspected as much when she told me not to give her money I earned. Now that my sister was gone, that dried up. So, to win $30.00 was a godsend.

Except she didn’t.

I don’t remember why I checked the tabs, but something was off. I picked them up and stared at them for a few moments. The drawings were similar but definitely different. When I examined the key of what shape was what fruit, she had pulled three cantaloupes, not oranges. Three cantaloupes equaled $0.00, not even a bottle of soda.

To soften the blow, I could have shown more compassion in exposing her error. I could have told her it was an easy mistake. The difference in the pictures was small. Oranges had bumps on the rind, whereas the cantaloupes had indents. The drawing wasn’t very good or clear.

I held the pictures up and said, “These aren’t oranges.”

Yep, that was all I said.

“What?” she shrieked and grabbed them. After staring a long time, she finally realized her mistake. Color drained from her face as she handed them back. She shuffled into her bedroom. I put them on top of the breadbox where other coupons and receipts were filed. I thought that was the end of it.

The next afternoon Jim arrived. I wrote about him in the last post (See here. Reminder, he was my mother’s married boyfriend.)

Jim called me into the kitchen. He sat at the head of the table, my mother next to him. He pointed to a chair and said to sit. Confused as to why I was being asked to join them I hesitated. Jim gestured with his hand to the chair next to him directly opposite my mother. I slid into the chair not moving it.

Whatever was coming, I wanted no part of it. My legs shook under the table.

He asked, “Where are the tabs from yesterday?”

I rose slowly, retrieved the slips from atop the breadbox and handed them to him. As I sat my mother avoided eye contact. Her hands folded in her lap head down.

After a pause, Jim said, “She’s right.”

My mother lifted her head, her eyes boring into mine red with anger. She bared her teeth and hissed at me.

My mind went blank. I stopped breathing. What just happened? Did my mother blame me for her error?

Jim snapped, “Hey.” He glared at my mother. She faked a laugh, one of those demeaning deflections in a just kidding attitude.

Jim gave her a look that stopped her cold. He turned, gently thanked me, and patted my arm. I got the silent message to leave and I quietly walked down the hallway and slipped into my bedroom.

I was clear he had stood up to my mother and protected me. It wouldn’t be the last time.

The argument between my mother and Jim built to a crescendo, filled with shouting and door slamming. In the next week there were late night phone calls that resulted in slam ups. In those days there were two parts to a phone. The base contained the rotary dial and the handle where one talked and listened. Pix

Those handles were great. One could slam the handle on the base to let the person on the other side know just how pissed off you were. Having done it to telemarketers it felt righteously golden. Ah, memories.

School started and I was too preoccupied with being an eighth grader to notice the silent drama brewing between Jim and my mother.

Tina, Cath and Syndi and I went shopping up at the Peninsula Shopping Center for clothes the one night a week stores were open to 9PM. Thursday. We were so excited. I hadn’t raised enough money to get the hip hugger skirt and poor boy I wanted so I bought an orange flower dress. (pix).

Syndi’s father picked us up and drove us back to his house. He and Syndi said good night and went in. Tina’s mom was to pick her up soon and I waited with her out in the driveway. Tina giggled and asked if I wanted to see something. Cha, yeah, of course. She opened the bag a crack and allowed me a peek of the poor boy sweater she lifted from the store.

I sucked in air and asked how she did it. She said she slipped it in the bag with the skirt she bought. All when the sales lady wasn’t looking. She said it was easy. She’d show me next time we went to the mall. All I could think about was my own poor boy sweater.

I walked back home and Jim was there making spaghetti for my brother. I showed my mother and Jim my new dress. Jim said the color looked good on me. That made me smile.

Later that night my mother informed me she and Jim had decided to take a trip to Mexico for a long weekend. I was in charge. They left late Friday night.

My younger brother and I had a blast. We feasted on hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, cookies and watched monster movies. Only the B-- movies for us. “It Came From Beneath the Sea” and “The Creature with the Atomic Brain”. We loved those movies. Still do.

They returned before dawn Sunday. I woke and got up to greet them, but my mother ordered me away. She looked very tired. Jim helped her to bed and got water for her. Then he checked in on me, asked me if I was all right. He said he’d be back later in the week and left.

My mother recovered quickly and was back teaching her classes by Tuesday. She found my orange dress and wore it. Apparently, Jim came to my rescue and asked, “Isn’t that your daughter’s dress?” He then told her the dress was a little young for her. She glared at me.

When she came home she threw the dress at me. I hung it up. When I wanted to wear the next day, it was gone. I never did know what happened to it.

Jim came to my defense me a few more times but the affair between he and my mother faded. Jim became involved with a woman named Aurelia. (My mother’s nemesis.) Eventually his wife divorced him. He traveled to the Rocky Mountains, drank too much, and wrote poetry.

As goofy and opportunistic as he was, he will always be my Oskar Shindler, the guy that realized his mistake, stepped up and helped needed.

I had complained about Jim bitterly when I had to clean up his mess in the kitchen, and told me to get better grades, but he stood up for me time and again. For that, I will be ever grateful.