Memories of My Early Childhood

First Memories

In April or May of 1935 I recall standing in the dining room of a small house at 4200 Ramona Drive, Riverside, California while my parents were negotiating the purchase of that house. My recollection is that my mother was very fat. It turns out that she was pregnant with my brother, Jerome Caltoft (Jerry), who was born on May 30, 1935.

4200 Ramona Drive

4200 Ramona Drive was a two-bedroom, one-bath house. Facing the house from the street there was a driveway along the left side leading to a one-car garage. I remember at one time my father, who was an avid gardener, had a row of poinsettias along the side of the garage. One winter night there was a hard freeze. All of the poinsettia foliage that was not directly under the eaves was burnt black by the frost.

On occasion a young man would show up on the back stoop looking for any kind of work in exchange for a meal. Although I was very young I do remember the Great Depression. In order to make ends meet, my father sold his blood for $20.00 a pint. He was O-negative blood type. Once, in an emergency, he was called upon to “donate” twice in one day.

In those days many people still had ice boxes, rather than refrigerators. The ice man would drive down the street every few days delivering large blocks of ice.

Ramona Drive ended in an orange grove. There was a large vacant lot just before the orange grove. Shortly before time to harvest the oranges a large pile of wooden orange crates appeared in the vacant lot. The youngsters in the neighborhood took advantage of the opportunity to create elaborate forts using the orange crates. This brings to mind the favorite “toy” that our father brought to Jerry and me: a pickle barrel. That fifty-cent purchase became, in turn, a submarine, a tank, a castle, or anything that a young child’s imagination could concoct.

Every afternoon Jerry and I were supposed to take a nap. One day we decided to sneak out and go play with the neighbor kids. So, I opened the window and, in the process of climbing out, knocked the screen from the window. While I held the screen, Jerry followed me out of the window. It turns out there was a sharp metal flashing around the edges of the screen. Jerry landed on the corner of the flashing and opened a very large tear in his leg. We did not want to alert our parents to our situation so we took a large quantity of adhesive tape and tried to put his leg back together. Needless to say that did not work.

The Petersons lived next door. Mrs. Peterson was a piano teacher. My parents decided that I should learn to play the piano (both parents were aspiring opera singers.) My recollection is that I spent a great deal more time reading comic books at the Petersons than I spent at the piano.

As I have mentioned, my parents were aspiring opera singers. Their voice coach, Norman Spohr(?), had a story about another of his pupils. He said that he once told her that “I am playing on the white keys and I am playing on the black keys and you are singing in the cracks!”

I went to kindergarten and grammar school a few blocks away. There were no school busses at that time so we all walked to school. There were interesting thing along the way to school; among them was a potato chip factory. We would occasionally pause on the way home from school to watch the owner cooking potato chips on a large griddle, and, if we were lucky we were treated to a few samples.

Between the potato chip factory and the school lay an old “China Town”. There was a single street with very narrow, two-story buildings on either side. Only one or two of these buildings had any occupants. One day, one such occupant invited us to come in to see some “firecrackers”. Nothing like a case of dynamite sticks to kick up the adrenalin.

Summers in Petaluma and Oregon

My father was a language instructor at the local community college so we all had long summer vacations. Typically we would drive from Riverside to Petaluma where we would spend a week or two with my maternal grandparents on their chicken ranch. We did not stay longer because, I am sure, while my father was a true-blue Democrat; my grandfather was a right-wing Republican.

From Petaluma we would drive to my paternal grandparents’ place outside of Oregon City. Sometimes we would stop at Castle Crags State Park and camp for the night before continuing on to Oregon.

My grandparents lived in a house that my father had built for them, along with my father’s least favorite brother, John Myers Beatie (Uncle Jack) and Uncle Jack’s wife, Ada. There was about forty acres associated with the house. My Uncle Bob (Robert Hood Beatie) raised hay on the land not occupied by the house and truck garden. Uncle Bob had about one hundred acres across the street where he raised strawberries, black raspberries, and filberts. Next to Uncle Bob’s place my father had one hundred acres of timber and live-oak trees.

Move to Northern California

…more to follow.