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 Mother had a peculiar fascination for hillbillies; country folk and illiterate goobers. Never knew why, but such it was. Her bestest girlfriend Wanda was a trashy tart of the first water. I have to admit, even for a little kid, there was something intrinsically sexual about this blowzy trailer trash who by merely walking into a room seemed to scream "Come Fuck Me!". Now get this - her husband Chuck made big bucks in the oil business up on Signal Hill yet they would immediately blow their paychecks on booze, parties and drunken revelry. They would fill their modest home with expensive but trashy furniture and like clockwork, get into a drunken brawl and completely destroy the contents of their house.- I sat in the backyard one day while Chuck, in a drunken rage, completely dismantled a brick barbecue with his bare hands; one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen... because he thought Wanda was being ogled by strangers (you put the two together). Now I can‘t say Wanda didn’t appreciate the attention; she and my mother would hit the bars at night, where Wanda would call Chuck on the phone, giver her location and claim guys were checking her out. He would show up at the bar moments later, grab her by the hair, screaming off the stool and back home where he would proceed to throw everything she owned into the street!
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Following three years behind Disneyland, Pacific Ocean Park opened its doors July 28, 1958. A cross between Nu-Pike and Disneyland, P.O.P. graced the seaside of Venice, once the haunt of beatniks and the avant garde. It out performed The Magic Kingdom it's first few days open and I was an ardent supporter. While Disneyland rocketed you around the moon, P.O.P.'s "Flight to Mars" not only took you to Mars, but let you walk through a Martian home and teleported you back to earth! You could fly through the Arabian Nights on a carpet, Davey Jone’s Locker was a marvelous walk-thru funhouse and an aerial skyway took you out over the water and back, but one of my favorites was the twin diving bells.- The first day I was there, actor John Payne was handing out free slices of pizza to a hungry throng. Admission was $1.50 and rides were free. Despite the attractions, there was still the uncanny feeling of a shoddy carnival. After several closings and financial problems, it finally closed for good in 1967 and promptly burned to the ground.
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- The ultimate delight of 1958 and my 11th birthday was getting a brand new Schwinn bicycle. Freedom by self propulsion was a sense of exhilaration I’d never known. Riding late at night with the generator whizzing and baseball cards on the spokes warning everyone a huge and gnarly motorcycle was heading their way. There was an old country bar on Cherry Avenue boasting a musical group called The Tennesseans where I would sit in the back unnoticed listening to the music for hours.
- In times of piety and sobriety we would undertake an all day adventure to Porterville, California where my brother lay - twisted and lonely in a dark room full of hissing and clunking iron lungs. In a gesture of misaligned charity, my mother would have me visit each of the lung-interred. While bringing a ray of sunshine to their unbelievably gray existence, I was horrified by row after row of twisted, gasping flesh; chests controlled by pistons and governors rising and falling by the whim of strange things mechanical while the smell of sorrow hung like a thick cloud of poison in the air.
- By the end of 1958, my grandmother and brother were no more. An early regret was not spending more time with my grandmother Georgia, an award winning artist, author, storyteller and visits to her flat in Santa Monica were an experience. Art pieces in various stages of completion and air thick of turpentine. I was fascinated by her typewriter and the concept of a mechanical devise creating words by pressing a key that sends a hammer whacking against a piece of paper; far out!
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 If there was a chance of dabbling in things imaginative, much of the responsibility lies with my mother. I was taken to movies - spectacular, terrifying, mysterious and saw much of the new wave of genre movies as they were released. “War of the Worlds”, “Five”, “King Kong” (‘56 re-release), “1984”, “The Werewolf”, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, early Ray Harryhausen films, and more. My mother liked them, I liked them. To top it off, my uncle Paul, (married to my father’s sister) was the projectionist at The Crest Theatre in Long Beach and The Belmont Theatre in Belmont Shore. He was the source of many adventures in and around movie theaters, and introduced me to the magic of the projector. - It was a thrill watching him thread a movie into an arcane machine and spark the carbon rods, not unlike laboratories seen on late night television. Like being God, in your own special room high above the masses and controlling all they see and hear. He was responsible for getting me an early job too. Cleaning the Belmont theatre was a distasteful job spent high on a ladder vacuuming ears of dust from troughs in the lobby ceiling where neon tubes ran the perimeter. At one point my elbow touched something that gave me a shock, nearly knocking me from the ladder! But at that young age, I was convinced this was show biz.
- Not only was Paul the master of projection, but a base player with his own musical group, The Paul King Trio playing The Villa Riviera, the snazziest hotel in Long Beach.
- I don't know how it came about, but when Jack Benny retired from television and took his comedy show on the road, Paul was chosen as musical director.
 In October of 1967 Paul and Kay flew to Southampton, England and took the final cruise of the Queen Mary to its resting place in Long Beach where, for $3.45 million, the city purchased the ship turning it into a floating museum and convention center.- And thus, 1967 comes to an end. Kay dies of cancer two weeks later followed by my father also of cancer. Paul on the other-hand, outlives everyone, buys a big-ass Cadillac, gets a young girlfriend and spends the last 6 months of his life making up for lost time.
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- Ahhh, but once again, I digress. . .
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