Mel's Passing

This is a sad time for me. Yesterday I got the message that my friend, Mel Salvat, had passed away. While Mel could be a monumental pain in the ass at times, he had a great love for animals and wrote engaging stories. I invite you to read them on his blog at http://melsal80.blogspot.com.

Our move to Northern California

Well, fans, here is a continuation of my childhood memories.

Just about my last memories of my childhood in Southern California were (are? I’m not quite sure of the grammar.) about Pearl Harbor Day. The family was visiting with the Prindles (Sp?) in Gardena. We had been to the beach that day. I recall being upset because their son had “stolen” my name: Robert Neal vs Robert Niel. And I vaguely recall Roosevelt’s “…a day that will live in infamy” radio address.

While I do not recall having been consulted or even being offered an explanation, the decision was made to relocate to Northern California in 1942, specifically to Santa Rosa. I can only assume that the reason was for my mother to be closer to her aging parents in Petaluma. My father gave up his teaching position at Riverside Junior College and took a similar position at Santa Rosa Junior College.

I recall very little about our home in Santa Rosa other than it was on a corner lot at 642 Dexter Avenue. It had a two-car garage behind the house, facing on the side street.

Speaking of the garage reminds me that over the Thanksgiving school recess my father drove to Oregon to visit with his family. While there he harvested a trailer load of Douglas fir Christmas trees from his 100 acre parcel. He towed the trailer home to sell the trees out of the garage. Incidentally he hid a box of apples under the trees to get by the agricultural inspection station.

The garage also reminds me of my first bicycle. My father bought it for me for $2.00.

My brother, Jerry, and I walked the few short blocks to school. We typically took a short cut through an apricot orchard. There was a small clearing inside the orchard that was planted with what we thought were green onions. So we helped ourselves and ate several samples. It turns out they were garlic and we reeked of garlic for some time.

Our departure from Santa Rosa comes with an interesting story. As I have noted, my father was teaching at the junior college. In early spring of 1943 he flunked the first five members of the basketball team in his Spanish class. The president of the college called him into the office and explained that “We don’t do that around here.” My father’s response was that students who do F work in his classes got F grades. He was not going to change the grades. The president’s response was “In that case we will be missing you around here next year.” To which my father responded “In that case you will be missing me a lot sooner than that.” He went to his office, packed his things and left.

Jerry and I finished the school term in our Santa Rosa school before joining our father on the chicken ranch in Petaluma that my parents had purchased from my maternal grandparents.

An interesting technical note: the electrical power frequency in Riverside was fifty cycles per second while the frequency in Santa Rosa was sixty cycles. So we had to get new clocks to keep accurate time.

I shall have to spend some time organizing my memories of life on the chicken ranch. There is so much to tell. (You have already heard about Woodrow.) More to come.

Introducing Lil Maya

Although Riley and I became good friends in her old age, she was always Mama’s dog. Alexander was a cute puppy but he grew up to be a bit aloof. And while Chico has always been a needy, cuddly dog, he clearly has adopted me. So, Evelyn wanted a “her dog” to replace Riley. As a volunteer at the local animal shelter Evelyn let it be known that she really wanted to adopt a girl Boston.
On April 1 of this year we heard through the grapevine that a very pregnant girl Boston had been picked up and was up for adoption. We hurried down to the shelter and immediately fell in love with the little girl. We rushed through the adoption and took Lil Maya to a dog sitter after having her checked out by our vet. We were going to Mexico the next day to spend a week with our daughter in Cabo San Lucas.
While we thoroughly enjoyed our visit with our daughter and her family in Mexico, we were anxious about Lil Maya and were on the phone several times a day to check on her status. On April 6 Maya began delivering puppies. In all she had seven puppies. Unfortunately none of the five boys survived. They were much too big for Lil Maya’s delivery system. So when we returned home from Mexico we picked up Lil Maya and two puppies: Sasha and Meesha. (If I can manage the mechanics there will be a picture of Lil Maya nursing them, somewhere around here.)
Lil Maya is obviously a purebred Boston. She had a microchip that never was registered. We have since registered her with AKC. She also had been running loose for some time because she was terribly emaciated. She weighed in at twelve pound, very pregnant, when we first had her checked out by the vet. Her spine stood out like the knuckles on your hand, only more so. Lil Maya’s age was estimated at three years, so we have adopted April 1, 2006 as her official birthday.
After eight weeks of nursing the two remaining pups we had her checked out again by the vet. She weighed in at seventeen pounds this time. Just shows how much underweight she was when we got her.
My daughter’s two children have now adopted Sasha and Meesha and are doing a great job of caring for and training them. So they are still in the family.
You may wonder how Lil Maya interacts with Alexander and Chico. She an Alex have become very close. Lil Maya insists on play fighting with Alex, biting him (very gently) on the neck and front legs. They sometimes race lickety split around the house and yard. Chico for the most part just stands aside, out of the way. On occasion he participates in a quiet “licking” party with Alexander and Lil Maya. Alexander and Lil Maya love to play in the water. Chico avoids it.
Lil Maya has a distinctive white streak on her right ear. Evelyn says that she has an “I didn’t do it, Mama” expression. I agree.
So life goes on with Alexander, Chico, and Lil Maya in our Thousand Palms household.

My Mother’s Family

I shall return to my family’s move to Northern California at a later date. At the request of my sister-in-law, Linda, I shall take a slight detour and recount my recollections of my mother’s family. I apologize for the lack of dates, but I remember very few.

My maternal grandfather, Niels Nielsen, was born in southern Denmark. The story was that it was a part of the country that was German as often as it was Danish, and my grandfather left to avoid conscription into the Kaiser’s army. He entered the U. S. through Ellis Island. He made his way to San Francisco and, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, he owned and operated a drayage business there. Niels married my grandmother, Eunice Caltoft. Eunice was born somewhere in Sonoma County, California, of Danish parents.

My aunt Catherine was born in 1902, I think. My mother, Irma Marie, was born in 1904.

After the 1906 earthquake, Niels and family moved to Petaluma, California. There Niels bought and operated the bottling works for several years. After disposing of the bottling works, my grandfather purchased a forty-acre chicken ranch just outside of town on Magnolia Avenue.

Carl Westerberg, a retired ships carpenter, was the ranch foreman. He and his wife lived in a small house on the property. His crew consisted of two single men, typically parolees from San Quentin prison.

My grandfather was a member of and an officer of the Poultry Producers of Central California. This was a marketing cooperative selling eggs under the trademark “Nulaid”.

My grandmother was a founding member of the “Magnolia Heights Social Club” or some similar name with “Magnolia Heights” a prominent part of the name. The ladies from up and down Magnolia Avenue would gather at one or another of the ladies homes on a regular basis for tea and/or coffee. Like so many Danes, my grandmother was an excellent cook – especially pies, cakes, and cookies. So you can imagine the goodies that accompanied the tea and coffee. My grandmother had a rather large quilting frame and on occasion had a house full of ladies for a quilting bee.

Grandma and Granddad moved into a modest house at 506 Melvin Street in 1942, or about then. Aunt Catherine and her husband, Herbert Mikkelsen, moved onto the ranch and ran the operation for a short period of time before my parents bought the property.

In town, my grandfather continued to drive his Buick. He repeatedly scraped the right side of the car backing out of the garage.

Granddad died of a massive stroke. He had been standing on the back porch at 506 Melvin Street when he jerked violently backwards and fell about ten feet onto his back on the gravel driveway. I was there when it happened.

Aunt Catherine was my mother’s only sibling. She married Herbert and had two sons: Stanley Willis and Jon Keith. Jon is nineteen years younger than Stanley. When Aunt Catherine and family left the ranch they moved to Ferndale, California, where Herbert ran a sporting goods store.

The only extended family of which I am aware was several of Granddad’s brothers/cousins living in Hollister, California.

There were a number of people related by marriage, the exact connection of most I do not remember.

My Great Uncle Louis-in-law, Louis Lausten, whom I have mentioned earlier, was my grandmother’s brother-in-law. Louis sister, Cina (?), was married to Ted Ward, an Englishman. Ted and Cina had two children, George and Helen, neither of whom ever married. George was a very expensive dentist in San Francisco. He was a next-door neighbor of George Burns. I shall probably have something further to write about George Ward at a later date.

Somehow related were two Lausten brothers, Caltoft and Leonard. At one time Caltoft was an executive at American Can Company. I seem to recall that the two of them lived in Burlingame, California or close thereby.

Returning to Aunt Catherine’s family, the last I heard, Stanley was living in Eureka, California. I believe he has three sons, the oldest of whom is named Todd. I do not recall the other’s names. I lost track of Jon years ago.

And so you have been subjected to yet another rambling of an old man.