The Real World

As a kid I wanted to have a puppy dog but my mom said: “You’re not old enough to take care of a dog and that means its more work for me.”

So my mom asked my older brothers to take me to the pet store and find me something that’s less work to take care of than a puppy dog would be.

My three older brothers drove me to the pet store and had me look around at all the pets. The place smelled pretty bad but it was fascinating. There were dogs and cats and birds all over the place. I asked if the storeowner had any monkeys.

“No, but you might be interested in something over in the reptile area.” He answered.

I took a look in the reptile and I was mesmerized by all the creatures crawling around and staring back at me.

“Find anything you like?” The pet storeowner came over and asked me after a few minutes.

“Yeah, I want a snake for a pet.”

“You do, huh? Well, we have some nice ones here but you know, your snake needs to eat too, you know.” the pet store owner informed me.

“Ah, well, what does he eat? Cereal?” I ask.

“Oh, no. He eats rodents.”

“Rodents?”

“Yes, rodents – like rats and mice. I’ll sell you some of those too.”

So with a gofer snake all coiled up in a gunny sack on my lap we drove back home from the pet store.

There was also a shoe box on the floor next to me with 2 white rats for my snake to eat. They were not so little but they were cute things, with white fir, wiggly noses with whiskers, pink eyes and bony, little white human-like hands with sharp claw-like nails on them. And they had large testicles that dragged on the ground underneath their long naked tails as they ran around. Cute as hell.

“How do you play with rats and snakes?” my mom asked me with her mouth open when we got back home.

“Well, look, ma! Wanna hold them? They feel good! My snake’s name is Slinky!”

My mom just looked at me and my pets with her eyes wide and said nothing.

“I haven’t really named the rats yet.” I said as I tried to hand them to her.

“No. No. No. You hold them fine.” My mom quickly answers back with a look of revulsion on her face.

“Where will they… Where will Slinky and the rats stay?” my mom asked in distress.

“Huh? Stay…? Oh… I don’t know… Not in my room, huh..?”

The front porch outside became Slinky’s new home in a 2 foot by 3-foot metal box that my dad got from the garage. We put a couple inches of dirt on the bottom and a window screen covering the top opening with a brick on top of that.

We put the rats in an old birdcage I found in the back alley. I stuffed cardboard and newspapers in their cage and they chewed it all up and filled it with urine and little hard, black, oval shaped, rat turds into a nice nest.

They seemed happy.

I’d look at Slinky daily whenever I remembered to and I’d pick him up and he’d wrap himself all around my body and cling to me and hold me tight. I guess I thought it was sort of like a secret love affair we had with each other.

It was fun to watch the neighborhood girls scream and run whenever I’d come over to them with Slinky warped all around my arms and my neck and I’d ask if the girls wanted to hold him with a crafty smile on my face.

But Slinky wouldn’t eat the white rats that I also had to keep on the front porch next to him. I guess the rats might have been a little bit too big for the snake to eat. He managed to survive for weeks on just water in the dark metal box with dried up mud and rocks on the floor of his home.

“Look, Phil, there’s a rat’s nest in the empty lot behind the alley. Catch the baby rats and your snake can eat them since those big, fat white rats are too big for your snake to eat and you seem to like the rats more than you like the snake anyway.” my dad says.

“Ahhh…Are you sure it’s safe… for me to pick up wild rats, Dad?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s safe. Go ahead and get them and put them into this box.”

So several tiny, finger sized, brown rats are carefully picked up by their tails – with my fingers – as their big, angry mother rat made threatening aggressive motions and sounds from a few feet away.

Slinky ate at long last once he caught the small rats in the front porch courtyard.

He coiled up the small, brown rats, squeezed them until they stopped moving and then he swallowed them whole. It was an amazing sight. All the neighborhood kids would come by to watch and hoop and holler as Slinky lunged at and caught the rats and he opened his mouth wide and he swallowed them in one big slow swallow. You could see the bulge go all the way down his body to his middle and just sort of stay there for a couple days.

The day after Slinky had his first meal in weeks, he also had his first bowel movement in weeks and he drank a lot of water. He seemed happier after he ate. He moved around more. A few days after I ran out of baby rats for Slinky to eat, he manifested enough energy to escape the cold, dark 2′ x 3′ metal box by slipping under the window screen 3 feet high and he escaped out of the metal box. I found out when a neighbor kid came running, “Phil, Phil, your snake got out! You’re snake got out! He’s in the street! A car ran him over and I think he’s dead. You better go get him!”

I had to bury Slinky in my dad’s garden in the back yard.  He helped to grow my dad’s cherry tomatoes for many years after that.

I’m sorry Slinky.  I really liked you a lot. I guess I just didn’t realize that my job was to help free you up into the hills where you could catch all the small rodents you’d ever want to eat.  Maybe next time.

I liked those white rats too though. I would let them run loose on the front porch out of their old metal bird and they liked to crawl up on me into my clothes and pockets and down my neck. They were actually very nice loving creatures.

One rat was a little more particular about what he ate than the other rat was. He was skinny. So I called him Skinny. But the other rat was quite a bit fatter. So I called him Fatty. Skinny and Fatty would pretty much eat any leftover table scraps I gave them but what Fatty really liked and loved to eat as much as he could were the big cockroaches I’d catch and give him.

Fatty would grab hold of the cockroaches I’d hand him and he’d take them with his little hands, hold them tight and chomp away on them with their feet wiggling around. You could hear their hard shells crunching as Fatty ate them with a lot of enthusiasm. He’d eat off their heads first and then he’d happily finish them off, licking his hands clean.

Skinny seemed to just sort of watch in disgust. Fatty would run and climb up on me and go into my pockets looking for more cockroaches. I caught all the cockroaches I could catch for him that were running on the kitchen floor when I’d turn on the light late at night. They’d be scurrying about and tying to get away but I’d usually be able to catch one of two of them for Fatty.

I would just leave the door to the cage open so that Skinny and Fatty could run loose if they wanted to – but they seemed happy to just always stay all covered up in their cage. At least they did in the daytime. I don’t really know what they did at night.

Sometimes for fun, I’d take Skinny and Fatty down the block and put them on the ground to see what they’d do. They’d sniff around a little bit and then they’d find their way back home and get back into their cage where they were happy. So they must have gotten out of their cage at night but they always came back.

Slinky wanted freedom. The rats did not.

Are people more like snakes or more like rats?

Put them in a box and they want to be free.

Or set them free

and they want to be

in a cage.

Fatty and Skinny

Slinky

I was seeing a shrink while going through a breakup with a lady that I wanted to stay with and my shrink asked me what the problem was.

“Well, I love the lady and she doesn’t want to stay with me. That’s the problem.”

“She doesn’t want to stay with you and you love her?”

“Ah, yeah, I guess I do.”

“Why would you want to stay with someone who doesn’t want to be with you?”

“I guess that’s a good question and I guess I don’t really know the answer.”

“What do you like about her?”

“Well, I’ve been with her for a couple of years now and I’ve been though a lot of losses in my life and I don’t want to go through another loss.”

“What losses have you been though?”

“I put my first child up for adoption when I was very young. That was after my first girlfriend was raped and murdered a couple of years before that.”

“Oh, I see. Those are tough losses.”

“That’s not all. My best friend was killed a couple years later.”

“Oh, that’s a pretty rough loss too.”

“Then a few years later my mom died and 4 months later my dad died.”

“Oh, yes, that’s a lot of losses.”

“That’s not all. I went though a divorce when my son was 2 years old.”

“I see. So that makes you want to stay with a lady who doesn’t want to stay with you?”

“Ahhh…well, ah…”

“So, what do you like about her?”

“Ahhh…Well, ah, let’s see. It might be easier to say what I don’t like about her. I don’t like how she’s always mean to me or how she’s got to always be right and she always has to have her way and always criticize me.”

“Yeah, okay. Nobody likes that but I asked you want do you like about her?”

“Oh, haha, I guess I didn’t answer that, did I?”

“No, you didn’t answer that.”

“Okay, well, let’s see, she’s pretty and….well,  she did come after me even though I was seeing other ladies at the time but then I stopped seeing those ladies and started seeing only her.”

“Okay, so what do you like about her now?”

“Ahh… Well….I really can’t think of anything right now….Ahh… Well, ah, she’s pretty smart and… ahh….”

“And you really want to stay with her just because she’s pretty smart?”

“Well, no, that’s not the only reason although, my mother says that as soon as she finishes college, she’s going to get a job, get a new car, get a new place to live and find a new boyfriend.”

“And what do you think of that?”

“Well, I think that’s crazy. She’s not going to do that to me.”

My shrink looked at me, nodded his head and said, Sound like what you need is a quality control check list so that next time you choose a lady, you know you’re getting what you want.”

“A quality control checklist?”

“Yeah, write down the top 5 things you want in a lady and then write down the top 5 things you don’t want in a lady and then when you meet someone, check your quality control check list and make sure she fits it and not just how good she looks and how much you’d like to sleep with her, which is probably the  number one thing for most men who don’t have a list.”

“The top 5 things I want in a lady?”

“Yeah, what do you want in a lady besides her looking good.”

“Ahh.. well, yes, I guess I want a lady who is attractive.”

“Yeah, and what else?”

“Well, I guess I want a lady who is good to me and who is nice to me and who I actually like.”

“Good. And what else? Remember I asked you for 5 things.”

“Okay, what else, huh? Well, ahh… I want a lady who is nice and has a sense of humor and is playful and doesn’t always have to be right.”

“Okay, that’s 5 things you want. So write them down and make a list of 5 things that are deal breakers.”

“Deal breakers?”

“Yeah, what you can’t deal with. Like can you deal with a Nazi chick even if she’s attractive and sexy?”

“Haha, no! I couldn’t deal with a Nazi chick or a biker babe or an anti-Semite although sometimes it feels like I have been.”

“Okay, those are deal breakers. What else is a deal breaker?”

“Well, I’ve been with women who always seem to have to be right and always have their way. That’s a deal breaker.”

“What else?”

“Too serious ladies. I don’t want that. I need a lady who doesn’t take herself too seriously.”

“Alright. That’s a couple more things. What other deal breakers do you have?”

“A lady who is controlling. I don’t like that either.”

“Okay. Time is up for today. For next week, I want you to come to our session with a quality control checklist. 5 things you need and 5 things that a deal breakers.”

I spent the next week writing down what I wanted in a relationship and what I didn’t want in a relationship. I realized that my quality control checklist had been two things; that they’re attractive and they like me. That was pretty much it and it had gotten me in a lot of trouble over the years with women who weren’t good to me.

My shrink’s advice stuck with me and I’ve used it many times over the years since then by writing down my quality control checklist for more things than making a decision how to choose a lady.

A few years later one of my children was struggling trying to make a decision about keeping or quitting a job and I told him about my quality control checklist.

This is what I said and then I wrote it down and sent it to him in a letter:

The way I usually go about trying to make a decision is by writing down what I call a “positive and negative list.” I also call it “The Plus and Minus Game.” I list everything I can think of about what I’m trying to decide upon and then give each one of them a score of one to ten.

I make two columns and put a + on one side and a – on the other side and then I decide a score for each item I wrote down from one to ten.

I call this my “quality control checklist. I write down all the pluses and all the minuses I can think making a change or not making a change. I’ve done this often with things such as staying in a relationship, buying a house or selling a house, making a move, etc.

I find it’s fairly easy to do this and it seems to clarify things by writing them down rather than just trying to remember everything in your head. It seems to make things more concrete and giving each item a score gives everything a value and then I add up each column and see which side wins. If one side is way more than the other side, it seems to clarify things and make the decision more obvious.

Here’s an example I might use trying to make a decision at keeping a job I don’t really like:

Positive:

1)     Decent pay 10

2)     Steady job (don’t have to worry about getting fired) 8

3)     Don’t have to think about doing something else or maybe making a mistake leaving a good job. 5

4)     Friends you like working with. 8

5)     You get exercise while working. 8

Then you make a column for the negative side:

Negative:

1)     Stand on feet all day long. 10

2)     No future for advancement. 10

3)     Have to deal with the public 10

4)     Bored to tears (not challenging) 10

5)     Kept from finding something more satisfying and rewarding. 10

Then I would give each item a score from one to ten. That’s fairly easy, such as decent pay is a 10. Steady job might be a 8. Don’t have to think about doing something else, maybe a 5, etc.

For the negative, you do the same thing, such as:

1) Stand on feet all day long. That’s easy, it’s a negative 10.

2) I there a future in the job? Maybe an 10.

3) Have to deal with the public: Negative 10

4) Bored to tears, another negative 10.

5) Kept from finding something better: negative 10

Then you add them up and what do you have? In this case, it’s 39 on the positive side and what’s on the negative side? Add them up and what do you get? 50.

Then you make sure you’ve considered everything involving making the decision and have been fair in scoring each item.

Then you give yourself enough time to have thought everything over about the decision. Give yourself as much time as it might take. Give yourself a few days if you have the time. At least one or two days and then come back to your quality control checklist and try to be objective as possible as if you were helping someone else make the decision.

Then add them up again and include anything you may have forgotten and see what you have.

This works a lot better for me than just trying to keep everything straight in my head until I get a headache and just say the hell with it and wait until I can’t stand it anymore and just do whatever comes out at the last moment when I have to make a decision and haven’t really thought things out enough to be fair to myself in making a decision.

I’ve done this in making decisions about making a big purchase like buying a house or moving away or staying in a relationship. It usually helps make the abstract more concrete and therefore easier to make the decision or at least see it more clearly.

This has worked for me and I use it in every decision I’m struggling with. I hope it helps you too.

Love, Dad

Oh, by the way, the lady I was talking to my shrink about not wanting to lose,  just like my mother said she would, the month after she finished school, she got a new job, got a new place to live, bought a new car and found a new boyfriend but it turned out for the best. I found someone who treats me a whole lot better.

Phil & Sweet Lady T with birthday cake made by my daughters for our birthdays, May, 2013.

My three older brothers told me how scary school was going to be and that I would hate kindergarten. They told me that people were going to be mean to me.

My mom said it won’t be that bad so when the first day came, I was crying and begging my mom to not leave me there when the teacher impatiently looked up at her and sternly told to her to “Just leave!” And my mom patted me on the head and walked away and left me there with a bunch of scary strangers, including the stern teacher and a whole bunch of rowdy, rambunctious kids while I was screaming my head off for my mom to please don’t leave.

Somehow or other I made it through that scary, seemingly endless first day of school. And then there she was, in what felt like forever, my mom came back. She didn’t forget all about me.

I was so relieved as I holding her hand and walking the several blocks back home, that when she asked me how it was, I wanted to act brave and I forced myself to softly say, “It was okay” as I kicked a rock on down the road. And then my mom dropped the bombshell and said; “Good, then maybe it won’t be so bad for you tomorrow.” I about fell over as I looked up at my mom and quivered and meekly said, “You mean I have to do that all over again tomorrow?” To which my mom said; “Oh it won’t be so bad.”

I made it through that first year of school and all the years from grammar school through high school after that. I can’t say I ever particularly cared for it though. Why? Maybe it was because I was just one of a multitude of the Baby Boom generation where I never really got the individual attention that I needed but that was nothing compared to getting drafted the year after high school and being sent to Vietnam as a medic. Suddenly school seemed like a cakewalk.

So when I managed to survive Vietnam and got back home, I applied to college and enjoyed every single day of it. As a matter of fact, I look back at my college education and think that it was the most carefree, happy time of my life.

Of course I also enjoyed going to many anti-war protests while I was at Cal State LA but I guess that was part of my education as well.

I guess one of my biggest struggles has been how to make a decision. With all the years of going to school I’ve had I wish some of it was focused on how to make a decision.

I think I’ll call my next blog, “A Quality Control Check List” and talk about how I’ve learned to make a decision.

 Phil, June, 1950 in LA.

I grew up in LA, land of too much traffic and noise, tons of smog, a lot of crime, gangs fighting over territory and too many people wishing they’d get out of each other’s way. Some people say that’s the price of  ”progress.”

I moved to Ventura in 1972, which at the time had a lot of open space and beautiful blue skies and lots of orchards and peace and quiet and strawberry fields everywhere. In the three years I lived there, orchards were being cut down, much of the open space and strawberry fields were being filled in by housing developments and factories and noise and the blue skies were turning grey and the peace and quiet was being replaced by too much traffic, noise and people wishing they’d get out of each other’s way, crime and gangs. More progress I guess.

So in 1975 I moved 500 miles from LA up to Chico, which at the time had a lot of open space and beautiful blue skies and lots of orchards and peace and quiet and no gangs but that gradually changed in the 27 years I lived there. Orchards were being cut down and the blue skies were turning brown due to all the burning, the noise was getting loud, crime was increasing and the gangs began to fight for territory so in 2002 I moved up to Forest Ranch which is nice and quiet and has lots of open space without too much traffic or too many people and no gangs.

Yes, I miss being able to go out my door and do things like ride my bike through Bidwell Park or just run to the store or to the bank or to a nearby restaurant but I can walk out my door and take a nice long walk through the peace and quiet woods without being assaulted by noise, traffic, crime or gangs.

But now it’s 2013 and I see while driving up Highway 32 from Chico to Forest Ranch (up from Bruce Road and Forest Ave), oak trees are being cut down and there’s a huge development going in what is only the start of 1300 housing units being built and with that will come a whole lot more traffic and road rage on Chico streets which already has too much traffic for the infrastructure to safely handle.

How can they make more streets in Chico for the increase in traffic? Well, I guess we can’t worry about that, huh? Oh, that’s right, the developers of the 1300 housing units and factories are going to widen a little bit of highway 32 a few feet. Let’s see if that really happens — and even if that does happen, how is that going to help the traffic congestion all over the rest of  Chico? Oh, that’s right, it won’t. But, hey, we can’t worry about that. There’s money to be made!

Yes, it’s good for the economy and there are temporary jobs and people will have homes to buy and live in but soon there will be much more traffic and more smog and more crime and more gangs in what will make Chico more like LA suburb.

There’s got to be a better way to do things rather than just closing our eyes and not caring about how we are not planning for our future and calling it progess.  Is it not possible to have progress that does not make our problems worse?

I guess if there was money to be made in doing that it would be happening but in the meantime, I guess people will just keep closing their eyes, hope for the best, accept the increase in traffic and accidents and noise and crime and gangs and smog and call it progress — and people like me will just have to keep moving away.

 LA smog. A lot of the time, while driving down Highway 32 from Forest Ranch, Chico already looks a lot like this.

Picture your son (or you daughter) walking home at night from the 7-11 store when he (or she) went to get some candy. As he/she’s walking back home he/she gets a creepy feeling and notices someone following him/her. That can be pretty scary. I’ve experienced it and I’m sure many other people have experienced it too. And then that someone gets out of his car and he hassles your son or daughter and he happens to outweigh them by 100 pounds and your son or daughter tries to “stand their ground” by fighting him off to protect themselves — wouldn’t you want them to? And then the person following your child shoots and kills them — then he’s judged to have stood his ground and your child was judged to have been the problem?

Nice so-called “justice” George Zimmerman was able to buy from our legal system and much of the money came from donations. Doesn’t that give you a nice warm, safe feeling inside? What was it Bob Dylan said in one of his songs? “Money doesn’t talk, it screams.” And in this case, it screams INJUSTICE loud and clear. What we call this in East LA is: “Que gacho!” (Loosley translated: “That’s pretty damn lousy”)

I was going to East LA College carrying the 12 unit minimum required to keep from getting drafted into the army. I wasn’t anywhere near as interested in school as I was in being with my girlfriend, Marissa. I didn’t think I had to worry about getting drafted until I was maybe 23 years old and hell, I was still only 19 so I dropped the class I was failing and went below the safe 12 unit requirement.

It was 1965 and LBJ had just begun “The Big Buildup” sending another 50,000 troops to Vietnam. There were already more than 200,000 troops there already. I wasn’t paying any attention to the news. I was more interested in the weekends and getting together with Marrisa.

I got a letter from the draft board telling me to report for my pre-induction physical exam but I thought that was just a formality and wasn’t really going to effect me.

For some reason I wanted to pass the physical exam and I actually felt sorry for the guys who were told they didn’t pass. What’s wrong with them? I wondered.

On Dec 23^rd, 1965 I got my draft notice to report for induction into the the United States armed forces. The letter said I had to report for induction in 10 days on Jan 4^th, 1966 or go to prison for five years and pay a $10,000.00 fine. Which at the time was big bucks.

I remember one of my older brothers asking me if I knew what side we were fighting for, north or south? I had no idea and I was surprised that I was right when I guessed South. Hell, I didn’t even know there was a north and south Vietnam.

How bad could the army be? I wondered. Five and a half months later I found myself in the middle of  The Central Highlands of Vietnam as a medic with the 1^st Cavalry Division.

 Phil in the army.

One day while we were on patrol we were ambushed and got into a bloody firefight with the Vietcong. Several of our guys were hit and had to be medi-vaced (choppered out) to a field hospital back at base camp in An Khe. There were also four dead Vietcong laying on the ground who I had to look at them twice to make sure they were dead.

We captured three wounded Vietcong and had them hog-tied on the ground as prisoners next to their dead comrades. I went up to look at them and I was surprised at how young and how afraid they seemed to be. We looked though their pockets and found their personal belongings including sweets and pictures of their families.

Suddenly I realized that these guys were probably also drafted into their army and probably didn’t want to be there anymore than I wanted to be there. They might have actually even been glad to have had the opportunity to go to school and probably never would have dropped below the required 12 units – especially if that kept them from having to fight in the war and be laying on the ground here now.

I knelt down and tried to talk to one of the Vietcong prisoners and was surprised that he wasn’t angry or tried to spit at me. He looked skinny, weak and very frightened. I offered him some water from my own canteen and held it up to his mouth and saw him take several swallows and he thanked me in Vietnamese. I said you’re welcome in Vietnamese and asked the other two Vietcong if they wanted water. They also took drinks from my canteen. I could see they were scared to death and grateful for being given a drink of water.

As I walked away from the prisoners, one of the guys in my unit came up to me and inches from my face angrily yelled: “What the hell are you doing giving them damned Cong water?!”

I hadn’t even thought it wasn’t okay.

I looked at the guy and said: “They’re suffering enough, aren’t they?” as I felt myself also getting angry.

“They’re the enemy, man! It’s our job to kill them, not to keep them alive, you dumbass!” the guy screamed in my face.

“What do you think? These guys are gonna to go home and be with their families anytime soon?” I said as I walked away before we got into a fight.

Later that day the lieutenant called me over and told me the guys were mad at me for showing kindness to the enemy.

I was made to walk point (to be the front guy on patrol) for the next several days until we got back to base camp. Most of the guys just ignored me and didn’t talk to me.

We’d all been in country long enough to be promoted but there wasn’t enough allocations for promotion available so the lieutenant drew names out of a helmet. Everybody was disappointed when my name was one of the three names chosen for promotion from PFC to Spec 4.

The following week I was transferred to another unit. The guys in the new unit said they heard I was a “Vietcong lover.”

I thought about that experience for the rest of my time in Vietnam and often wondered if I would have done the same thing again if I knew the consequences.

It’s been a long time since then and I’m glad I did what I did. They were human beings and I know – had the tables been turned and I was hog-tied on the ground next to my dead comrades – I would have wanted to be shown that someone still thought of me as a human being.

I can’t help but wonder what the other guys in my unit think about the situation today and what they might feel when they see Vietnamese living in America today as American citizens – and maybe even as their neighbors – and wonder – if they were ever Vietcong.

I wonder what they would say to me if they saw me today. Would they still shun me?

I also wonder what the Vietcong might say to me if I met them again today.

 Phil eating C rations in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, 1966.

Getting High

 Marijuana plant

I remember writing a paper in a sociology class about smoking pot.

It was 1969 and the hippie scene was happening big time all over LA and everywhere else too. I was going to Cal State LA and I had very long, bushy hair half way down my back and a big beard and I was taking a Deviant Behavior sociology class. I remember wearing a tee shirt with a giant green marijuana leaf stenciled on the back of it. The teacher liked a paper I wrote and asked me to read it to the class. I remember thinking about how much I hated to make “oral reports” in high school and how the teachers always made every one of us do one in grammar and high school.

But this was college after I got back from Vietnam and I got up in front of the class and I basically said: “Pot is good for creativity and relaxation and sleep and dancing and even making love. Pot is good. It should be legalized. Here’s a petition for you to sign that I got out of the LA Free Press.” I even rolled up a bunch of look-alike joints made of tobacco and passed them out to the class. That, in itself got people excited.

 Phil in LA 1969

Most of the students thought it was a crazy idea and wouldn’t sign the petition. I was amazed that they didn’t want to see pot legalized. “How could they not?” I wondered.

So here it is now 40 some years later and it’s just about legalized. People say most of it is in the hands of drug cartels that are making billions of dollars dealing it. They say if it was legal altogether the government could tax it and the incentive for criminals to grow it would be lost.

I’m sure there are some good reasons for using pot like pain control and glaucoma and all you need today is a prescription that you can get just about anywhere for just about any reason; “Oh, you got headaches, here’s a script.” All you have to do is pay some clinic (and there are hundreds of them) a hundred bucks and you’re legal to smoke and grow up to six huge plants.

And then you get 10 other people with scripts to grow a bunch of plants and people are making a lot of money doing just that and there ain’t no way it’s all for legal (medicinal) purposes. I mean the stuff sells for $1800.00 a pound and it grows like a weed.

Each plant can grow several pounds of some very powerful pot. Multiply that by 10 or 100 or 1000 and we’re talking some big bucks. I hear it’s now the largest crop in California.

The large pot farmers get away with it on the guise of a bunch of people having scripts. A neighbor of mine knocked down his house with a bulldozer, put it in a pile and burned the house up completely. Then he cut down a bunch of beautiful old tall oak and tall pine trees, put up a tall fence with “No trespassing” signs all over it and he’s now legal to grow marijuana for himself and a bunch of other people with scripts.

That’s bad enough but now huge parcels of land in the hills of Butte County and much of Northern California are being stripped of trees and graded down to make terraces for thousands of plants and polluting the land and water with harsh chemicals used as fertilizer.

How do I feel about getting high today? Well, I’m thinking two things:

1) I had a good friend who lived across the street from me in Chico for several years who I used to go swimming with and running with all the time. We both had kids the same age who all went to school together. She was a terrific lady. She was on a run a couple of years ago when someone hit and killed her with his car while he was stoned on pot. She was in her late 40’s and was a teacher who all the kids loved.

What happened to the driver? I read in the paper that he had to go to court to deal with some legal issues but naturally he said he was he wasn’t stoned. He said something distracted him. I don’t remember if he was convicted of a crime or not but he’s probably free today and probably still getting stoned. Meanwhile my friend suffered a horrible death by someone driving a car while stoned on pot, her kids are motherless, a school lost a good teacher and I lost a good friend.

I know people say whether it’s legal or not, people are going to smoke pot and they are going to get high. Yes, they are, but I guess I’m afraid legalizing it only encourages it more and therefore more people will probably smoke it (or ingest it in other ways) and be on the road driving while stoned and more people, like my friend will be hurt or killed.

2) What’s up with so many people wanting to be intoxicated? I mean if it’s not alcohol, it’s drugs of some type or other, whether it’s legal prescription drugs or illegal drugs, including the so-called “harmless” drug of marijuana.

And back when I was smoking pot, it was basically “rag-weed” with lots of seeds and stems where you could smoke a whole joint and basically just get a buzz. But, let me tell you, the stuff being grown today is not like that. You take one hit and you are high. You take more hits and you are stoned and you can’t remember your name, not to mention how to safely drive a car or operate any other type of machinery.

I don’t care if people want to use drugs. I do care if and when it endangers other people on the road or other places like pilots flying airplanes or conductors driving trains or people driving boats while intoxicated – which they do all the time and it causes causalities every single day. 30,000 people are killed on the road every year in the US caused by alcohol related and other DUI so-called “accidents.”

So, for me, I don’t care if people want to get high. Fine, get high if you want to. I just don’t want them to hurt anybody else while doing it. Stay home if you’re getting stoned.

And I’d like us to deal with the reason why so many people seem to want to use drugs and get high so much.

I’ll write about why I think that is in another post.

 Hillside degradation in Butte County caused by marijuana plantations.

“What did he say to you in Spanish as we were leaving, Darla?”

“Hmm…Well, he said that you seem to be a very nice man and that he doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“Yeah…?”

I sat there driving wondering what that could mean.

“And what else did he say?”

“He also said that his mother was married five times.”

“Really? Wow…..”

“Yes, the first time she got divorced was when Johnny was 3 years old.”

“Wow, so….”

“She married and divorced 4 more times after that. Did you see the pictures of her on the wall? She was really a beautiful woman when she was young…”

“So, I guess Johnny’s had a lot of father figures…. But he basically grew up in East LA with a single mother.” I said as I stared blankly out the windshield of the car at the LA freeway.

“He also said that he wished you’d found him when he was younger.”

The drive back was hot and smoggy and seemed short as we pulled up into Richard’s driveway. I put the sunscreen up against the windshield and just sat there for a long time before I got out.

“Need some time to yourself, Phil?”

“Huh? Oh, no… No… I was just thinking….”

“Yeah? What are you thinking?”

“Well, a lot of things, I guess…  I’ve finally met him. I’ve finally met my son…. Amazing.”

“Yeah? So, how do you feel about it?”

“Well, I guess I feel a lot of things….. One, I feel relieved that I was able to actually find him after all these years. Surmount that monstrous void of a black hole. Bad enough that instead of being a father and a family man, that they sent me to ‘Nam instead but to have never supposed to ever have anything to do with him or ever hear anything about him for the rest of my life… Well, that’s just down right mean and sadistic, don’t you think?” I ask Darla with amazement and pain written in my voice.

“Yes, I do Phil… Especially for somebody like you who’s so sensitive and so close to the people he loves…. Yes, that was terrible.”

“Yeah…. I feel relieved that I was able to find him in my lifetime before it was too late. It fills the big black hole in my heart that’s caused me so much pain and suffering in my life.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Darla said nodding her head.

“I guess I also feel sad that I was not there for him all those years…  I wish my mom and my dad could have met him before they died.”

“Yes, that sure would have been good for the both of you. For all of you.” Darla said quietly.

“Yeah, that sure would have been nice. But I would like to help him with his struggles now if he’d let me become close to him… Do you think that will ever happen? I mean, it felt pretty obvious to me that he’s happy with his life the way it is now and that he has some reluctance and fears about allowing me into his life, don’t you think?”

“Yes, well… He needs time, Phil. Give the kid, the man, Johnny… Give Johnny some more time.”

“Yeah, I guess this is something I’ve struggled with and have been dealing with now for 35 years. He’s only had a few weeks to think about what it means to have someone call you out of the void and claim that they’re your birth father…  That’s got to be overwhelming… I’m sure…”

“Yes, that is for sure, Phil. Especially with someone like you….You’re so heartfelt and loving and kind and sensitive. It’s something to take in, you know… I’m really only getting to know you now, after knowing you for 6 months…”

“Right… Right… Yes….. Of course….” I said as we got out of the car and Richard came out of the house to ask: “So, how’d it go? How’s your new kid?”

“Well, it was good… Damned good to see him….. A mind blower… Something I’ve wanted and needed to do now for a long, long time….”

“Yeah? How’d he look? Did he look like you? Like his birth mother, Marissa? Like Josh?”

“Gee…. I don’t know….. None of us, I guess… And all of us….” I answered as we walked into the house and got something cold to drink.

We sat down and I said, “I guess it’s going to take some time. Some more time… To process it all and try and figure out where we go from here…”

“Yeah, but you did it, Phil. You were able to find your son!” Richard said emphatically with a big, bright, congratulatory smile on his face as he looked me intently in the eye with his fist raised in an acknowledgement of triumph.

“Yes, I was finally able to put it all together and find him. Amazing that I was able to do that… Yeah, just amazing…” I said as I nodded my head in agreement with Richard and then shook my head in disbelief at the same time while chuckling to myself.

Then, as it began to sink it, I added: “Thank God they’ve finally begun the open adoption program to help facilitate possible reunions for future searching adoptee and birth parents…”

AFTERWORD:

I saw Johnny May 21, 2000

Two days later Darla and I drove back to Chico. I excitedly and anxiously waited in anticipation trying to decide what to do next. I nervously wondered if I’d hear from Johnny again.

On June 8, I wrote Johnny a letter saying how glad I was that we were finally able to meet after all these years. I said I thought he was wonderful. I also said how great it was to meet him and that if there’s ever anything I could do to help him with his struggles at making decisions or just with everyday life, that I would feel very honored and happy if he came to me for help.

I was waiting for the pictures of our reunion to be processed at Costco so that I could send them to Johnny along with the letter.

I hadn’t heard anything from Johnny since we left LA 2 & 1/2 weeks before.

I finally sent the letter to Johnny without the pictures.

The pictures never came back to Costco. Evidently they got lost somehow.

As of September 28, I still had not heard anything again from Johnny.

I guess waiting 35 years has not been quite long enough yet.

Darla decided to just up and move out October 1st…

And life goes on….

Darla and I broke up October 1st…

4/19/03:

Today is Johnny’s 38^th birthday. I will not call him or send him a birthday card because he asked that I do not call or write (not to mention visit) him again.

“I want my life back.” He wrote me upon the last correspondence I received from him last December as a response to a Christmas card I sent him telling him that I am available for him if he needs somebody to talk to about his problems.

And what are those problems? I remember looking at a picture on the wall of Johnny’s bedroom and asking who that was? He said it was “Me, when I wasn’t feeling very well.” I didn’t recognize the picture of him because it didn’t look like Johnny. It didn’t look like him because the picture on the wall was a picture of Johnny with his weight at least 30 pounds lighter. I didn’t ask what illness he had because he didn’t seem to want to talk about it.

Since first finding Johnny and then finally meeting him three months later, I realized that it’s a lot for him to absorb after 35 years to suddenly hear from someone he does not know telling him he’s his birth father. I tried to go slow and not rush things with him. People have suggested that he needs more time and eventually he’ll come around. It’s been five years.

I wrote Johnny once or twice a year, called him a couple times year and asked to visit him but after a while I realized that he is dealing with something besides who I might be. I tried to assure him that I don’t want to take anything from him and that in fact, I’d like to add to his life. I’d like to tell him about his lineage and give him some insight about who I am, who his birth mother was and some background about his heredity. Most adoptees are more than a little curious about their family background.

I could tell that Johnny was very apprehensive and did not want to investigate what I’ve made available to him. After a couple years went by I thought I’d try a different approach and I sent Johnny a letter explaining that I’m not here to judge who he is or who he is not. At first I was hoping to make up for lost time and get together as often as possible, which was maybe only once or twice a year due to the 500 mile distance. I even had fantasies of Johnny maybe moving up to Chico and going to Chico State University. I slowly realized that Johnny really would rather I not attempt to establish a relationship with him at all or even contact him again for that matter. I guess I was not prepared for that. After talking to adoptees over the past 3 and a ½ decades and hearing how lucky they thought Johnny was because I was trying so hard to locate him, I guess I was hoping for Johnny to be at least lukewarm to the idea and not what turned out to be basically freaked out.

I was hoping we could make up for lost time, get to know each other and maybe all of us, that is, Johnny, myself and my other three kids, could all get to know each other at long last. Johnny assures me it’s nothing personal; it’s just that he’s not ready.

After a couple years of thinking Johnny’s not ready, things began to dawn upon me. I gave some thought to some very important and obvious or maybe not so obvious telling signs.  The last letter I’d written Johnny and trying to make it very clear and obvious that I only want to help him find himself and maybe offer some insights as to how he might be able to reach his goals and find what he wants in life. How could he not wan that? How could he turn that down? I even thought of the perfect thing to say, I wrote that: “if you’re not interested and would prefer that I don’t try to reach out to you anymore by not writing or calling anymore, I’ll honor and respect your wishes and I’ll leave you alone altogether.”

To my great surprise, Johnny wrote right back within a week and thanked me for the letter and said: “Yes, I think it would be best if you did not write or call me anymore. I know you’re a loving, kind and wonderful man and I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me but, honestly, I’d prefer that you not write me anymore. Please don’t be sad. It’s okay, I’m fine. This is for the best.”

I was beyond surprised. It was not what I was expecting to hear form Johnny. I guess I was hoping to hear him say: “No, no, don’t give up on me. I just need a little more time. Just a little more time and I’ll be ready.”

I guess I was hoping Johnny would buy my bluff and that he would finally be receptive to the idea of establishing some sort of connection with me and we’d finally be able to get to know each other a little bit.

One of the last conversations I had with Johnny before he pulled away completely was where I took a chance and asked about “his friend” who he mentioned a few times during our conversations. When I asked about the wedding ring he was wearing when we met Johnny said: “Oh, it was given to me by a friend who recently died.” Hmmm, I thought to myself, his friend died? Hmmm…what other young man have I ever known would wear somebody else’s wedding ring, on his ring finger, no less? Later, when Johnny mentioned that he was moving in with another friend, who happened to be a man, I thought: Hmmm….Ok…He’s in his mid thirties, he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he doesn’t have kids and he does seem to be struggling with something…Hmmm…?”

From all the bits and pieces of information Id’ gotten from Johnny since we met, I took the risk of asking him if he was gay. Johnny got real quiet and didn’t know what to say. I reassured by saying that: “I think if he loves somebody, it doesn’t matter who the person is, not the age, race or sex. It’s good to love somebody and be with them as long as he’s happy and the person treats you right.” Johnny finally said: “Ah, well, this has not been easy for me. Nobody else knows, not my sister or my friends or anybody else, especially not my mother.”

I said: “Don’t worry, Johnny. I won’t say anything to anybody. I give you a lot of credit. It must be very difficult for you to realize who you are and to have the guts to be yourself and go after what you want, especially being Hispanic and living in East LA.”

“Yes, it sure is.” He answered quietly.

“I can’t imagine how painful that must be for you. I want you to know that I think it’s good that you know who you are and that you have found love. How does your friend treat you?” I asked.

“Well, you know, he’s from Mexico and you know how that is. He can’t really accept it. He hates himself for being gay. He knows he loves me but he can’t go back home because they don’t accept him there and he still can not accept who his is either.”

“As long as you’re okay with it, that’s what important, Johnny. You’ve got to be okay with it and love yourself.” I said.

I did not bring up the other thing I’ve been concerned about since I met Johnny. That is, that I’m afraid he’s HIV positive. It only makes sense. He’s been sick with some mysterious, secret illness where he was very thin a while back and he’s since mysteriously gained back his weight and he’s okay now. And, nobody seems to know anything about what it is or wants to talk about it. But, to me, it seems pretty obvious.

One thing that seems to make sense to me is that Johnny might be trying to ‘save me’ form the grief and sorrow that I would certainly feel had he told me he’s HIV positive after searching for him so hard and for so long. Little does Johnny know that I’ve been fairly certain that he is HIV positive now ever since I first met him and put all the clues together.  Is that better than knowing for sure? Maybe for Johnny it is. But how could tell me when he can’t even tell the person he’s closest to in his life. That is, his adoptive mother. And, no way he can ever tell her. So I guess Johnny feels running away from it is the only thing he can do.

On April 19, 2005 Johnny turns 40 years old. I have not heard form him in more than two years.  I sent him a birthday card on his birthday last year. I haven’t heard anything back from him. My birthday was May 7^th. For all I know, Johnny could be doing anything at all and could be living anywhere in the world, just like it was for the first 35 years of his life.  He could even be living in Northern California and be a neighbor of mine or he could not be living at all anymore.

8/17/13

A lot has happened since I wrote about meeting my birthson. I thought I’d better call him up before I totally lose touch with him again so I called him up in 2009 just to touch base.

“Oh, hi, Phillip. I’m so glad to hear from you!”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that.” I answered.

“I would have called you by now but I lost your number.” He said.

“Well, I’m glad I called you.  Me and Trudi and Josh and Nadia and Riana will all be in LA next week and we’d like to see you.”

“Great! Terrific! Where and when?” Johnny answered.

“Well, actually, we’ll be in the Long Beach Port coming back from a cruise to Mexico. Matter of fact, we’d love for you to come with us if you could. I’d be happy to pay for you and your  boyfriend.”

“Oh, thank you, Phillip. I would love to but my mother’s been in and out of the hospital for the past few weeks and it doesn’t look good.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“But maybe I can see you when you’re in LA.”

“Alright, great! We’ll be at the docks at 3 PM Saturday. You think you could meet us there and maybe have lunch or dinner with us?”

“I think so.”

And so Johnny and Josh and Nadia and Riana and Trudi and I all got to be together and have lunch at a nice restaurant in Long Beach.

Trudi and I will be going to LA again sometime soon and getting a chance to hang out with Johnny again for a couple of days.

It’s been a long time coming.

I hung up, packed up the car and begun the long drive to Fresno for Darla’s conference and the longer drive, still back to my young adulthood of 35 years ago.

The heat wave had begun and even with the A/C on it was a hot and smoggy drive. We spent the night in Fresno and left the next morning for LA.

Upon pulling into LA’s Friday afternoon’s traffic, there’s no way around it, we hit the bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic. I drove the 30 miles past East LA to my brothers house, hot, nervous with anticipation and emotionally drained. It was good to see a friendly face.

I didn’t call Johnny that night or all day Saturday. I wasn’t up for another busy phone line.  Instead, Darla and I drove to East LA to check out the old neighborhood. It looked somehow familiar and yet, at the same time, like a foreign country. Nothing was spelled in English. The colors of the houses and storefronts were painted bright and colorfully with the sights and sounds right out of Tijuana, Mexico. We drove by Johnny’s house just to be sure I could find it… I hope it’s not that old beat up house with the junked car in front of it… Oh, that’s across the street. There it is. That’s where Johnny lives. Wow… Nice little house. We drove up and back again.

I called at 9 AM Sunday.

The phone rang twice, then 3 times. I could feel my heart beating fast, hoping the phone would please be answered.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Johnny?”

“Yes, this is Johnny.”

Thank god! I thought to myself as I said, “We still on for today?”

“Ahh… yeah, sure…. I’ve got to go to church first though.”

“Well, that’s okay. What time is that?”

“11 o’clock. Or, 10 o’clock. I’ll be back by 11:30.”

“Ok… I’ll get there by 12. That work okay?”

“Ahh… sure.” he answered somewhat reluctantly.

I nervously paced the floor as I tried to eat something. Would I be able to find the house again? Do I have enough gas? Will the traffic be too bad and make me too late?

We jumped into the car and got on the freeway with plenty of time to spare just in case.  I sped down the freeway, afraid traffic would come out of nowhere on this Sunday morning. It wasn’t too bad. Hot and smoggy but not too bad. I found the place with no problem. I pulled up with the blazing hot sun pounding down upon us. Five minutes early. Is that okay? I asked myself.  Would be weirder to just sit here sweating in the car, so we got out. I stared at the stairs that led up the hill that the house is build on and waited for Darla to get out of the car. Why is she always so slow? I hear myself ask myself. Relax. Relax. Everything’s okay. You’ve waited for this moment now for most of your life.  I took a deep breath, looked at my tall, white, thin, blond girlfriend, who just happens to speak Spanish better than anyone I’ve ever known. We started up the stairs. Don’t tell me? Oh, no, don’t tell me I’m going to cry?! Oh, no! I felt myself choking up. I took a few deep breathes and felt like fainting.

We went up the stairs and I knocked on the door. A moment later, the door latch opened. There he stood, looking gorgeous. Nervous but gorgeous. We shook hands and then we hugged.

I looked at him and I couldn’t say a word. He smiled nervously and said, “Come on in.”

I waited for Darla to walk in then I went into Johnny’s house.

I stood there and looked at Johnny. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

The tears were by now streaming down my face unabashedly. I felt like a child.

“Hi. Good to meet you.” Johnny said as he looked us both over, smiling nervously.

I smiled my biggest smile and could not take my eyes off of him for ten minutes, just studying his face, his smile, his eyes, his teeth, yes; they’re something like I remember Marissa’s teeth looking. A little less than perfect. I guess not many people can afford braces in this part of town. I looked at his beautiful black hair and his dark skin and his body as tears streamed down my cheeks and onto my chest and shirt and onto my hands. Johnny got up and brought me a box of tissues. Oh, do I need these? Is it that obvious that I’m crying?

Finally I could catch my breath and I took over from Darla, speaking alternatively in English and in Spanish. Again, I felt like the lost child being found.

Johnny’s sister, Sally, 3 years his senior, brings out some Dr. Pepper on ice in glasses and some chips and salsa… I’m too busy taking it all in and talking to even think about eating or drinking.  We basically rehash all we’ve talked about over the past 3 months on the phone, that is, go over the last 35 years of our lives but the main thing different is that we can sense each other’s beings as we study each other’s expressions, body movements and mannerisms.

I pull out one of several photo albums I brought along at Darla’s prompting to show Johnny a chronograph of my life with pictures in black and white and faded color behind plastic covers of me as a child and as a youth and as a Cholo (inner city street tough) and as a medic in Vietnam and as a hippy after Vietnam and with my mom and dad and my brothers and with his brother and sister and with many different women over the years.

“Wow, Phillip, you’ve been with a lot of different women and married a lot of times, haven’t you? He laughs as we all do and I realize how obvious it is when looking over pictures of my life.

“Ahh… Yeah…. Guess I have been… “I answer nervously as I squirm and hold Darla’s hand.

Johnny holds the albums and looks intently at each photograph as he turns the pages that represent years of who his birth father has been as he probably wondered who I just might be these past 3 & 1/2 decades.

I point out pictures of Joshua, his younger (who up until very recently has thought of himself as the oldest) and of his 2 very pretty and very obviously White sisters.

But nothing seems to hold his attention as much as the pages that hold pictures of Marissa.

“That’s Marissa back in high school” I say pointing to a small black and white photograph of a smiling and very pretty Hispanic girl with a sexy haircut and seductive look on her face.

Everybody in the room takes their turn holding the album as they study her picture and shake their heads with acknowledgment.

We flip through a few more pages that have a few more pictures of Marissa on them. Marissa looks young and confident with obviously no idea of what the near future had in store for her. The photo album is again passed around. Words are spoken in Spanish and again acknowledgement is read on everybody’s faces. There’s a picture of me with my arm around Marissa with beaming faces smiling at the camera and the sun shining in our eyes. We look very young. We were much younger than Johnny is now, who was staring a hole in the photo album.

Johnny appears nervous and begins speaking to Darla in Spanish as we get up to stretch after an hour and a half of sitting on the couch, talking and looking at pictures. I look into Johnny’s room, completely fascinated by what he has on the walls and the way his room is set up. I look at pictures of his family and realize, of course, I could have been in all these pictures had things only worked out a little bit differently. 35 years and this is the first time I’ve ever been in his room. I look over his CD collection of what is completely all Mexican music. Johnny grabs a CD of Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits and hands it to me. “You can have this one if you’d like it.” he says with a very sweet smile.

“Thank you, Johnny.” I say as I take it and hold it in my hands and realize this is the first thing my first born child has ever given me. The tears begin to well up again and make my glasses even more splattered with tears. I try and not say anything more to keep from betraying my suppressed crying and make everybody even more uncomfortable.

I take the CD and put it into my bag with the photographs.

“I wish you were my father.” Sally says. “I’ve been hoping he calls me now for a long time. I remember when I was only 3 years old how my mother took me to the place we got Johnny at when he was just a baby. She told me to pick one out and I picked Johnny.” she went on with a distant smile. “Of course, she’d already had it arranged to take him before but, I remember how she made me feel like I was the one who choose Johnny. That always made me feel like I was sort of his mother too.”

“Want to go get something to eat?” Johnny asked as he walked out of his room and I found myself exploring the rest of the house, the hallway with pictures on the walls, the bathroom, nicely kept with fresh towels set out and nice fragrance soaps. We walked into the kitchen and out into the backyard, only 100 yards or so away from LA Country General Hospital.

“The hospital wanted to tear out the entire neighborhood in order to expand the hospital but all the neighbors got together to stop it for now.” Johnny informed us as we got into his car and drove into the alleyway and down the street toward what is now Caesar Chavez Avenue but what had once been, for many years, Brooklyn Avenue. The neighborhood that I’d ridden my bicycle in for years as a child and driven my car in as a young man, looked somehow comforting and yet, somehow sad. My mom and dad used to love to come down here to pick up corn beef and real Jewish rye bread while it still had some vestiges of what was left of the Jewish community it had once been. A block away stood the large Jewish temple on the corner of Chavez Avenue and Pomeroy. It was surrounded by a high chain link fence, topped with rolls of razor wire and signed marked “No Trespassing! Keep out!”

“This is where Hilary Clinton made her speech when she came to speak in LA recently. She said they’re going to restore the old temple into the place it had once been and make it a historic building.”

I looked up at the building as we drove by and saw the large Jewish star embedded high in the arch of the facade and remembered being in that same building as a child dancing the bunny hop with my mom and dad celebrating somebody’s wedding.

“That’s Manual’s also known as El Tepeac restaurant, where most people want to go. But it’s gotten too popular, crowed and expensive now. We can go to Ciros instead. It’s just across the street and the food is just as good and there’s no wait.” Johnny said as we got out of the air conditioned car and emerged onto the hot pavement and walked the streets where I drove with my friends as a teenager many years ago. I looked over at Johnny and at Darla and saw two people who looked very different and came from very different worlds and yet who are both very special people in my life now. Darla held my hand as we walked into Ciros and looked at what could be a local restaurant in any town or city anywhere in Latin America. All conversations were in Spanish and everybody looked up at us as we walked in and were shown to a table. Heads turned again to take a better look at Darla once she began speaking perfect Spanish to the waitress.

Darla has Swedish and Norwegian ancestry but she grew up in Spain and Ecuador and Panama as a child because her father was a diplomat for the US Foreign Service Office. It is strange to see someone look so gringo and yet have such mastery over the Spanish tongue. Even after being with her for several months it still impresses me.

We placed our orders and I couldn’t order a beer fast enough. As we ate the delicious food, I asked Johnny how it feels to know that he’s half Jewish. “Hmmm… wonder what it would be to tell some of your friends that you’re Jewish too. Ha ha.” I laughed.

“I think it’s cool. At the restaurant, John O’graths, where I work at in West LA, there are a lot of Jewish people and I’ve learned a lot about the culture. I really like them a lot. They’re always nice to me. There are a lot of celebrities who come in there and at first I thought it was really neat. Then I realized they’re like everybody else only they hate it when you recognize them. They want to be left along and my job really, is only to serve them.”

After our meals and more catching up, Johnny said: I’d better get back now.”

“Okay.” I replied and felt his anxiousness to get back to his familiar surroundings.

We got back into the car and drove back to Johnny’s house, walked up the stairs that I’d only been up once before and walked into the house.

“Are you wondering if I really am your birth father, Johnny” I asked him.

“Huh? Well, you know….Yeah….It’s pretty strange…”

“Let me see your hands…. See how square and block-like they are, just like mine. I always called mine Russian hands.” I said as I held his hands and Johnny looked at and compared our hands.

“See how we both have these thin wrists?” I added as I smiled up at his handsome face and could see his mother’s dark eyes and black hair staring intently back at me.

We walked up the stairs and Sally, her husband and son were in the kitchen talking. “I’m really sorry my mom’s not here but she had to go visit my aunt Veronica in El Paso, Texas since her younger sister passed away last week. She’ll really be sorry to have missed you, Phillip and Darla.”

“Tell her hello for me would you?” I asked. “And, please thank her for what a fabulous job she’s done with Johnny. I mean, he’s really had everything anyone could ever possibly have, a warm, loving home and family and good health.  There really isn’t anything more important in the world…..” I added.

“Well, I hope to be able to see her another time soon.” I said as I looked over and smiled at Johnny. “I guess we’d better get going now.” I said as we shook hands and hugged all around.

As Johnny walked us back down the stairs he said: “I hope you’re okay if we don’t get together tomorrow too. I’ve got some other things I’ve got to do.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah… Well…..it’s okay. I understand. I know how it is.” I said as I wondered when we might see each other again. No one said anything about a next time.

I hugged Johnny again and he and Darla exchanged something in Spanish. I felt my eyes well up again as we drove off and we headed toward the San Bernardino Freeway on ramp toward City Terrace and East back to my brother, Richard’s house in Diamond Bar.

Part 5 will be here soon.

“No, I’m not your boss. My name is Phillip. I think I’m your birth father.” I said at last.

“You’re kidding!!! This is a joke, isn’t it??” He said while obviously taken aback.

“Yes, my name is Phillip. Were you born on April 19, 1965?”

“Yes, that’s my birthday.” He answered. He paused for a moment then he added: “Phillip…? My parents were going to name me Phillip when I was born.  But then they changed their mind…”

“At last!” I said as I looked up at the ceiling with tears rolling down my face.

We covered the past 35 years of both of our lives. Where he went to school. Johnny lives on the very next freeway exit, one mile from the one I took where I grew up in City Terrace. You can actually see his house from the freeway I’ve driven by, literally thousands of times in the past 35 years.

“Was my mother nice?” He asked me.

I hesitated and answered, “Oh, yes… Ahh… she was very nice and ahh….very beautiful.”

Johnny whispered softly so that his adopted mother — who he lives with — (thus, the woman who answered the phone) to insure she would not feel that Johnny was being disloyal or ungrateful or showing a lack of respect.

“I have to go Johnny said after what seemed like only a few minutes but was probably more like a half hour. “They’re some people waiting for me.” he added.

To me that was a confirmation that this was indeed my son. More concerned about someone waiting for him than talking to someone he’s wondered about all his life.

Darla and I went to the nicest restaurant in town to celebrate. When we got back home, a call was on the answering machine. I knew it was Johnny.

“Oh, hi again, it’s me, Johnny. I just wanted to say, thank you for calling me and that you sound so nice and that, I’m so happy that you called and that, well, I don’t know what to do…Ahh… Thanks again…. Bye…”

I called him back and talked for a while more. We covered everything you always wonder when you have a lifetime to wonder about someone. Who, what, where, how, why…. He asked my age. “53” I answered.

“Wow, only 53. That’s young. My mom’s 78. She was 43 when I was adopted. She couldn’t have kids.”

We made a few more calls and then I said: “I’d like to come meet you.”

Silence on the other end of the phone line. Johnny was not ready to meet me.

“I don’t know…..Maybe later,” he answered.

Weeks went by.

I remember him saying, “Thanks for calling me on my birthday. I’ll call you next time.”

6 more weeks went by. Finally on my birthday, Johnny called me to wish me happy birthday. I was thrilled.

“I’d like to come meet you sometime soon.”

“Ok. I think I’m ready now.”

“What about next week? Darla has a conference in Fresno and wants me to go with her. It’s only another 200 miles to LA.” I said.

“Ahhh…Ok… I guess I’m ready. He answered.

“Ok. I’ll call you Wednesday at 6 O’clock to confirm it. OK?” I asked.

“Great,” he answered.

I called at 6 on Wednesday. His brother in law answered the phone.

“He’s in the shower.”

“Ok. I’ll call back in a little while.” I answered.

I called back a half hour later.

“He left,” his brother in law answered with annoyance in his voice.

“He did? But…? I……Ahh…… When will he be back?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered impatiently.

I was beginning to get the picture. Johnny wasn’t yet ready to meet me now, if ever and even though I was set to drive the 1000 miles round trip to see him, it could very well be for naught. Johnny’s brother in law, maybe 40 years old, lived in the house with Johnny’s sister and their 16 year old son. The brother in law was playing the protector. The 6′ 5″, 250 pound man of the house. I was being put off.

I called again at 9 PM. No answer. I called again at 10 PM. The phone was busy. I called every 10 minutes until 11 PM only to get a busy signal.

Next morning I got up at 5 AM to get ready to make the drive to LA, very likely for nothing. Would he come to the door if I knocked?

AT 6:15 AM I called again. The phone rang. Johnny answered.

“Johnny?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, hi, ah, I’m glad you’re there. I tried to reach you last night but I couldn’t get through.”

“Oh, I’m sorry; I had to go some place…… Ah…. Some place…ah….really, really important.”

“Yeah, okay, fine, that’s okay. I understand.” I heard myself say as I sighed with relief that he answered the phone.

“So, ah, are we still on?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh, sure.” he answered.

“Ok, good. I’m leaving in a little while. You’ve got Sunday and Monday off, so can we got together those days and spend some time getting to know each other?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Ok, I’ll give you a call when we pull into LA.”

See Part 4 coming up.