Kaboom, Swat, Clang

My memories of growing up in Southern California in the 1930s are marked by three experiences: an exploding whale, a killer earthquake and a bitter business lesson. All three revolved around my father, the dominant figure in my childhood.

Until I left home in my teens to join the Navy, I believed Dad knew almost everything worth knowing. He was only a couple of inches over 5 feet, skinny and coughed like a camel. But, as he bragged, he was “tough as an old boot and smart as a new whip.� I felt his toughness when I broke the rules. He would thump me across the backside with whatever came to hand--razor strop, belt or drain hose from the washing machine. Swat. Swat. Swat. Gritting his teeth, he would mutter: “It’s time I knocked some sense into your head.�

Dad had left school after the eighth grade, and said his only good memory was of beating Charlie Paddock in a 100-yard dash on the playground. Dad went to work as a clerk in a warehouse; loser Charlie finished high school, served heroically in World War I, was an outstanding sprinter at USC, won four medals in two Summer Olympics and was dubbed by sports writers as the “World’s Fastest Human.�

Paddock married a newspaper publisher’s daughter and in 1920 lured Dad away from the warehouse job by offering him $15 a week to cover cops for the Pasadena Post. Scratching for a living wage, Dad moved on to the Los Angeles Times and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as a reporter, and to the Santa Monica Outlook and the Associated Press as an editor. He wore a .32-caliber Colt automatic in a shoulder holster and a small gold badge, engraved with “L.A. County Sheriff’s Department--Press,� pinned on the underside of his coat lapel.

My mother wore her badges outside. Pinned to her uniform was a gold and blue medal. Perched atop her bobbed black hair was a white cupcake cap with a black velvet ribbon. Both proclaimed that she had trained as a registered nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital. When she came home after work, her wool coat smelled of ether. She was, in this order, a teetotaler, a Republican and a Congregationalist.

“I am certain she’s Jewish,� said our neighbor in the other half of our rented duplex, Rose Schneiderman. “Some Sephardim have her black hair and washed-out blue eyes.� Rose was my baby-sitter, or kind-hitter, in Yiddish. Rose had no children of her own, was comfortably zaftig, kept kosher and, for all I knew, was a Democrat. She played mournful songs on a windup Victrola and smoked Cigarrillos Indios. She said her cigarettes came from Paris and contained cannabis, a medicine to cure her bronchitis.

Rose wrote poems that didn’t rhyme and was passionate about books. She’d walk me home from school, going the long way by the library, where she would check out the limit: three. We’d sit on her sofa in what she called a “literary salon,� and I can still remember, after more than 70 years, some authors and titles: Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,� Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories,� Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows� and L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.� Rose played all the parts in the “Oz� book by changing her voice, even squeaking like the Munchkins.

Mother read to me too, when she wasn’t too tired. She introduced me to the book I came to love most: Monica Shannon’s “California Fairy Tales.� Mother said it was my Irish side that made me want to hear over and over the stories of “Last of the Leprechauns� and “The Hobby of Hugh Midity.� Some nights, if she didn’t have to work and I’d been especially good, she’d read Shannon’s story of “An Enchanted Gypsy� until I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up most mornings to the roar of Mr. Schneiderman’s Hupmobile Straight-8 as he backed it out of the garage to go off to his sausage factory. The car, fire-engine red with white balloon tires, was Mr. Schneiderman’s pride. On Sundays, he’d park it at the curb, wash it with soapy water, polish and wax it. He took special care to shine the brass nameplate engraved: “Guaranteed for Life.�

We didn’t have a car. Dad said there wasn’t any point in owning one when we lived so close to the trolley stop on Pacific Avenue. Dad and my mother rode the streetcars on the Venice Short Line to Santa Monica and then transferred to other lines to get to their jobs. In a Depression, Dad said, they were lucky to have jobs and be able to ride what he called “the world’s greatest rail transit system.�

Our duplex on a side street off Windward Avenue was a drab island in a sea of opulence and hoopla created by Abbott Kinney, an asthmatic heir to an Eastern tobacco fortune who had created a grand Venetian city on the marshes and sand dunes south of Santa Monica--complete with canals, lagoons and an ornate Italianate business district. To fill cafes and stores and attract buyers for mansions with gondola docks, he built a streetcar line, a huge amusement park and a boardwalk. People flocked to his “Coney Island of the Pacific.�

It was a wonderland for a kid, even one whose father thought carousel rides were a waste of money. He and I did free things together on his days off. We’d admire the boats in the lagoon, peek over the mansion walls and people-watch on the boardwalk. Dad would swing me from the ground to perch on his shoulder. Piggyback like that we were taller than everyone we met.

“We’re a centaur, you and me,� Dad said. “With you on top we’re probably 7 feet tall.�

On one Saturday ramble, the centaur was assaulted by a stink worse than the outfall beyond the end of the pier where Venice’s sewage flowed into the bay. The odor was coming from a plywood and metal shack on the beach that must have been as long as a couple of cars laid end-to-end. On the side facing Ocean Front Walk was a sign that read: “See the Gargantuan Denizen of the Ocean Depths. Adults 5 cents, Children free.�

“Jimmy,� Dad said, “I do believe that overpowering, obnoxious, gut-churning stench is coming from the whale exhibit.� He swung me off his shoulder, reluctantly dug a nickel out of his pocket and put the coin in the outstretched hand of a blubbery-looking man standing in the door of the makeshift exhibit hall.

“My apologies for the unpleasant odor,� the curator said. “We’re having trouble with the embalming. But you’ll find that getting up close to this sperm whale, one of the world’s largest toothed cetaceans--called Physeter macrocephalus by the scientists--is an experience you’ll never forget.�

I was certain we’d remember the stink forever, but the words already were jumbled in my head.

“I’d like to direct your attention over here,� the museum man continued, pointing to a gray object, big around as a telephone pole, which towered over my head. “This is the great beast’s penis. Or with whales, it’s properly called a dork.�

Penis was a word I understood. If your father is just about the smartest man in the world and your mother is a nurse, they don’t mince around with baby talk about body parts. They’d never call a penis a dork.

“I’m very impressed with your exhibit,� Dad said. “But the godawful stench is bringing tears to the boy’s eyes. We may return some other day.�

We never went back. A couple of days later, my father met me after school with news that the whale exhibit was no more. He said gas from the putrefying whale carcass had exploded, blowing the shack to smithereens and spattering the beach with whale meat, guts and blood.

Looking back, I am certain Dad was pulling my leg--and had amazing prophetic powers. Seventy years later, his tale of the exploding whale still echoes as the stuff of urban myths, books and interminable Internet postings.

A smaller, but very real, explosion brought our days in Venice to an abrupt end. Dad was cleaning his .32-caliber automatic at the kitchen table, swabbing out the barrel with Hoppe’s No. 9, a solvent that smelled like bananas. He wiped down the gun with a rag, shoved the loaded clip into the grip and pointed the pistol at the wall--and Blam!

He had squeezed the trigger with the safety off. The slug ripped through the kitchen wall into the garage and--Bong!--punched a neat hole in the radiator of Mr. Schneiderman’s pride and joy.

The sausage maker, my baby-sitter Rose and neighbors from every direction gathered at the scene of the accident.

“It’s a crime,� sputtered Mr. Schneiderman. “I’ll have your badge for this.�

Before week’s end, the landlord had served Dad with an eviction notice. That--and help from my grandfather in South Pasadena--is how we got to 853 22nd St. in Santa Monica in 1933. Our house was a two-bedroom rental in a neat row of stucco bungalows, each with a cypress hedge and grass that had to be mowed once a week. Grandpa, my father’s father, had been a salesman for Cluett, Peabody & Co., the people who made Arrow shirts. He had a small pension, and Dad announced that his father had loaned us the $20 first and last month’s rent and a $50 cleaning deposit.

Dad quit wearing the shoulder holster and badge to work and kept the pistol, with its clip removed, in a dresser drawer. He quit the AP and found a much better-paying job as the assistant publicity and advertising manager of Southern California Edison Co. Moving to the big tower at 5th and Grand put him on the climb to corporate conformity and financial reward. But it wasn’t newspapering. It was flackery. In the name of “public relations,� he started inviting his cronies from the AP, Times and Outlook to drink Canadian bootleg whiskey at our kitchen table.

“You know,� I heard him tell my disapproving mother, “I’ve convinced some papers to replace the phrase ‘power failures’ with ‘power outages.’�

Santa Monica was not like Venice. We were 22 blocks from the beach, and the air had a different smell. I missed the salt tang and the decaying kelp. Instead of the rotten-egg odor of sewers and canals, the north wind smelled of coal smoke from bungalow chimneys, of wet Bermuda grass and cypress. When the wind changed and blew from the east it was pungent with eucalyptus and, in spring, the cloying sweetness of orange blossoms.

The air had seasonal vibrations too: the monotonous groaning of foghorns, the croaking of frogs and, as the earth warmed, the buzzing of cicadas. Traffic sounds were much gentler then. Away from the thoroughfares, they were a distant symphony: soprano autos, baritone buses and an occasional basso truck. Airplanes were rare. At their sound people craned their necks and squinted skyward.

One complex chord rose above the murmur: the clanging bell, guttural whistle and thrumming roar of the Big Red Cars. Before they were doomed by Angelenos’ craving for autos and politicians’ appetite for freeways, the 1,150 miles of Pacific Electric Railway tracks webbed four counties. In 1944, I’ve read since, 900 fast, energy-efficient and comfortable electric trains carried more than 109 million passengers.

My family rode the Big Red Cars 30 miles from Santa Monica to South Pasadena on weekend visits to my father’s family, a trip that took perhaps four times as long then as it would now by freeways and surface streets. Fares for the three of us were little more than a gallon of gasoline at today’s prices. A more expensive weekend jaunt would take us 85 miles east to Redlands to see my other grandmother, my mother’s mother. The best part of that ride to the end of the line was a picnic lunch we packed in a straw hamper and ate while the conductor looked the other way.

We rode the train from Santa Monica to South Pasadena one Friday afternoon because Dad said he was tired of showering in our stand-up stall and wanted to take a bath in a “real tub� at Grandpa’s house. He was soaking in soapy luxury at 5:54 p.m. on March 10, 1933, when Southern California was hit by a 6.4 earthquake. He jumped from the tub, grabbed a towel and ran downstairs as the Victorian frame house groaned and shook. He ran out of the front door and into the street just in time to see the brick chimney crash to the ground.

It was then he realized that Diamond Avenue was crowded with frightened neighbors, that he was naked but for a hand towel and that in times of emergency his first duty must be to call the Edison Company.

The phone lines were jammed, but he finally got through to someone who told him that only operating personnel such as repair crews were needed. They suggested he tour the devastated cities if he could get there, taking pictures and gathering information he could use later in press releases. It was just like the old days, Dad said, when he’d covered such tragedies as the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam.

Our house and the other bungalows were far enough from the epicenter to have suffered only minor damage, but Franklin Elementary at 24th and Montana had lost part of its red brick facade and appeared to have been shaken to its foundations. National Guardsmen were everywhere, protecting against looting and erecting big World War I pyramidal tents at Franklin and other schools that had been declared unsafe. The Franklin playground looked like a dusty infantry encampment.

As the weather warmed, the tents became unbearably hot. Fourth-graders sweated and squirmed. Our teacher, Mrs. Gant, had fainting spells and was replaced by a series of young, perspiring substitutes. None of them could keep order. Students and teachers alike nodded over their books. Lessons went undone. Older kids sneaked out under the canvas side panels and played hooky.

Once again, Grandpa came to our rescue. He told Dad that a two-story house in South Pasadena--with three bedrooms and a bath and a half--could be rented for $35 a month.

It sounded like a small fortune. But Dad and Mother agreed that the Edison paycheck, plus a raise she’d gotten at the hospital, would cover it, with some left over. Plenty, as it tuned out. Dad bought a new summer suit and a Panama hat, Mother got a new hairdo and we moved from Santa Monica to 1631 Wayne Ave., between Huntington Drive and Oak Street in South Pasadena, in our very own used 1928 Model A Ford Tudor sedan. It was green, with black fenders, black trim and a black roof. Dad parked the Ford in “the barn,� as he called the garage. He shut the doors and padlocked them.

“This isn’t a toy,� he said, “We’ll use it when we need to. Maybe I’ll take mother to church.�

It was plain that he and Mother would continue to commute on the Big Red Cars, approaching Los Angeles from the east rather than the west. They could walk down to Huntington Drive, climb aboard an Oak Knoll or Monrovia train, find seats and in less than an hour be at the 6th and Main terminal downtown.

I took the same journey when I was 12, and for the first time was allowed to ride the Big Red Cars by myself. Wearing long pants, an Arrow shirt, necktie and sweater, I stood in the shelter on Huntington Drive and looked up and down the tracks. I heard the train before I could see it. First the rhythmic ding-dong of the bell, then the whistle, its reedy note like a huge saxophone. Finally, the Big Red Cars of the electric train came into view, with the rumble of steel wheels grinding against rails.

I boarded the car confidently, one hand on the half dollar in my pocket. “Please give me a round-trip to Los Angeles,� I said to the conductor. He punched the ticket and, waving at the nearly empty car, said, “Sit where you like. I’ll keep an eye out for you.�

I slid into the seat, polished by a generation of commuter bottoms, and looked out the window. The Big Red Car started smoothly with a surge of power from the lines above. Bell clanging, whistle blowing, we rolled toward the city.

Looking up, I could see men in the tower atop the station pulling levers that controlled signals and switches. “All aboard-d-d,� the conductor shouted, though no one had gotten on and I was almost alone in the car. The interurban started up again, rolled through suburbs and past stores and factories, stopping occasionally to pick up or discharge riders. Rocked and lulled by the sounds, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I catnapped and woke with a start when the conductor said: “6th and Main terminal. This is where you get off.�

Walking out of the terminal, I followed Dad’s explicit instructions: I walked over to 5th and Main--only a stone’s throw from the forbidden delights of the Burbank and Follies theaters and the Main Street Gym, where boxers trained--then up 5th near Pershing Square to my father’s office in the Edison building.

We met in the ground-floor lobby and walked down 5th Street and over to 6th and Hill to the Globe Coffee Shop. Dad introduced me to the waitresses and explained the intricacies of the menu. He suggested the meatloaf sandwich and a glass of iced tea. The bill came to $1 for the two of us, plus a dime tip for the waitress.

From our table at the Globe’s street window, I remember seeing a corner of Pershing Square, an oasis in the city filled with palm trees, grass and benches. Men in old clothes, who apparently had all the time in the world, dozed or read newspapers on the benches or lay on the grass.

“Why are all those men in the park?� I asked my father.

“They are unemployed,� Dad said slowly, giving the word an ominous sound. “Some of them are perverts too, and I don’t want you ever to walk through the square.�

“Why are they unemployed?� I asked, leaving the question of perverts for another time.

“Because we’re in a Depression,� Dad answered. “Because they can’t find jobs and they have to eat in the soup kitchen and they have no beds to call their own. They can’t bum enough to feed themselves. God only knows what’s happened to their wives and children.�

“Will you ever be unemployed?� I asked.

“No,� said Dad. “The men in our family work hard. Your mother works hard. We never stop working, and there’s always food on the table for the three of us. The Edison Company paid me $325 last month. There will be a lot more where that came from, and when I die your mother will have a pension for as long as she lives.�

This was serious talk and I was impressed. I never wanted to sit on a park bench waiting for a soup kitchen--whatever that was--and I made up my mind to get a job. Finding one was easier than I had imagined.

All things are possible when you are 12 and starting junior high school--if you have a good bike to call your own. For my birthday, my folks had given me a very used Schwinn Cycle Truck, with a large rear wheel, a smaller front wheel, nubby tires, a handlebar you could raise and lower, a flat leather seat, squeaky coaster brakes and a big wire basket over the front wheel. It was remotely unlike any other bicycle in the racks at junior high. I hated it.

Salvation came in the person of a seventh-grader we called “Peter the Slicker.� He was a wheeler-dealer long before the words had a derogatory ring. He once sold me six homing pigeons for a quarter apiece. When I let them out of their cage, they flew back to the pen in Peter’s backyard. He said that was one of the risks of being in the pigeon business.

Now I had something he really wanted, my hated Schwinn Cycle Truck. He said he needed it to make deliveries for the Oneonta Market--a job he didn’t have but was sure he could get if he had the right vehicle: a bike with a huge basket. He offered to trade me a newspaper route for the Schwinn. He didn’t own the newspaper route, but knew he could get it from the boy who had it.

“It’s a cinch,� Peter the Slicker said. “You pick up three bundles of the Evening Herald-Express and ride the Short Line to the car barn above Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Almost everyone will buy one for 3 cents if you shout out the headlines as you walk up and down the aisle. You’ll have time to make three or four trips before dinner.�

A job riding a Big Red Car on the Short Line? It sounded like a dream come true. In the back of my mind, though, were vanished pigeons and what my folks might say if they found out I’d sold my birthday bike.

“Lemme think about it,� I said.

“I think we’d better strike while the iron is hot,� said slick Peter, the consummate closer. “I’ll take the bike home now. You can start your new job right after school on Monday.�

I was at Oneonta Junction at 4 p.m. sharp on Monday. The district Herald-Express man met me with three bundles of the tabloid, bound with twine. “You tell the conductor you’re the new boy on the job. He’ll help you put the papers on the car. You grab a bunch, put them under your arm and hold one paper up to show people what they’ll read tonight.�

“As you walk up the aisle, you holler: ‘Get yer Herald-Express. Get yer paper right here. Rape and murder. Man hurt in car bombing.’�

This was heady stuff. I was in the newspaper business, just like Dad had been. I was giving the commuters the latest news. And the district man said I’d get a penny for every paper I sold. A Big Red Car might carry more than 50 commuters who’d buy the Herald-Express.

But not once in my four afternoons on the job did I sell even half of my papers. It was long after dark when I got home and hid the leftover bundles behind the house. When I returned the unsold papers to the disappointed district man he said, “Jimmy, you’re not much better than the last kid I had to fire.�

I wasn’t cut out to be a salesman. I was certain about that on Thursday evening, when Dad came home early from the office and saw me counting leftover papers at the station. He grabbed me by the arm and hustled me out so fast I dropped half a bundle. The tabloids’ pages blew across the tracks in the wake of the Big Red Car, going on its way with the bell clanging ding-dong and the whistle blowing a melancholy whoo-wee.

“Jimmy,� Dad said, “no son of mine is going to sell a scandal sheet like the Evening Herald-Express on the train. If you want to sell papers, you can do it before school in the morning. Get a decent L.A. Times route and throw them from the basket on your bike.�

As we trudged the five blocks to Wayne Avenue, neither of us spoke. Every step was taking me closer to exposure as an ungrateful snake and a fool who had traded his birthday bicycle for an empty promise. Dad was clinching his teeth. I could feel the sting of the lash.