As Fair and Balanced as a Rat's Ass on a Hot Plate

The heading for this post had nothing to do with anything, really. It just came to my mind as I was trying to think up a "real" title for today. Do funny metaphors and similes pop into your mind at any given time of the day or night? They do for me. I love to play with language; to interrupt customary discourse with something fresh and new. And preferably funny--humor helps immensely.

Any frequent visitor to my Web sites may have noticed a slight change. Yesterday I migrated all my old journal postings from 2003-2005 to this blogger address. That way I can free up disk space in my home page's directory for more pictures and text. The old journal took up so much disk space that I could no longer add new material to my personal page on RoadRunner.

Weather report: today is a sunny but cool day in San Diego. The sky is light blue and laced with clouds. Overall, it's quite pleasant. Why do I even bother mentioning the weather? Well, after Edith Smith, my grandmother, passed away in 1991 I saw some of her journal entries that she kept in a notebook. Always, the weather was mentioned. Same with my grandfather, Richard Smith, who died in 1988. He used his weather entries to remember how his gardening fared from year to year. These notations had a certain charm, a quaintness that I found somehow endearing. And besides, it is kinda cool to be able to look back and say, "oh yeah, last year at this time it was hotter than a firecracker on Venus!"

I wish I had been able to note more of my grandparents' lives--what they did and how. I remember what they used to tell me, but as a kid I only processed small amounts of the information. Here is what I do know:

My grandparents (my mother's parents) were born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. My grandfather, Richard Laughton Smith, was the son of a pharmacist in Providence. His parents were divorced and he worked as a young man doing maintenance on the family rental properties, which were scattered over the city's domain. He had two sisters: Dorothy (the eldest) and ---- (I suddenly forgot the name) the youngest. They were both spinsters who died childless. Actually that's not completely true, Dorothy married a guy named George, and she had a stepson with him, but when "Dot" and George died (on the same day) they split the last remaining house, on 36 Geneva Street in Providence, with my grandfather and the stepson.

My grandmother's maiden name was Edith Lind. Although her family and my grandfather's family can trace their roots back to the founding of Rhode Island--supposedly I am a descendant of Roger Williams--the Lind family name originated in Denmark, from whence came one of my grandmother's grandparents. I also remember her mentioning "Grandpa Wild" who from the stories I heard, was just that.

My granfather studied to be a carpenter during the 20s. He worked on, among other things, the huge spiral staircases rich people so loved to install in their mansions at the time. Then in 1929 came the Crash, and he was out of work. He told me that he was working in a shop full of Italian Catholics, and he was let go because he was neither. Those were the grand old days of capitalism, when employers were free to discriminate.

My grandmother's family was large. She had several sisters, not all of whose names I can recall. The youngest was Louise ("Weezie"), then there was Laura, Martha ("Marty") and Jenny "Jen"). In 1935 my granparents came out to San Diego in the family Dodge. My grandmother's father had been injured in a car accident and had won a settlement that allowed him to move his family out West. My uncle, David Smith, was a small boy at the time and also rode out with the family.

Upon arriving in San Diego, my great-grandfather purchased a ranch out in El Cajon to raise poultry. My family referred to it as "The Chicken Ranch." My mother was born in Escondido during a period when my granfather was picking oranges for a living. Escondido at that time was just a simple, rural community. My mother, uncle and their cousins have many memories of life at "The Ranch," including confrontations with a stubborn turkey and a mean old sow. Supposedly my great-grandfather who had wanted to be the poultry farmer didn't have the heart to behead that old gobbler, and my granfather was compelled to do the ugly deed. That Ranch is still visible out on a hill off of old Highway 80 as you approach El Cajon. Some other buildings were added to it later.

Eventually my granparents struck out on their own and lived, among other places, in Point Loma. The old Theosphical Society buildings had been rented out and my family lived in one of them. Those buildings are now part of the Point Loma Nazarene College campus.

During WWII my grandfather worked at Convair, assembling the Navy's PBY amphibious aircraft. My grandparents moved to Linda Vista, which was a community built by the Federal Government to house war workers. After the war, my grandfather was laid off from his aircraft job and went to work for Western Parcel. This company did the deliveries for Sears all over San Diego County. He spent the rest of his working career as a driver and later a "helper" for Western Parcel, which was later called Cornell Cartage. Grandfather was a short man and hefting heavy refrigerators and stoves for a living definitely took a toll on his health.

My granparents bought a home in Linda Vista in 1960, on Upton Court. The houses in Linda Vista have a certain utilitarian charm. They were built to last 20 years, but most of them are still around today. The house, where my uncle still lives, is a simple, square, 2-bedroom 1-bath affair with a huge back yard. The yard is filled with trees, many of which my grandfather planted. One tiny "living Christmas tree" grew into a dominating giant pine during the time I was growing up.

My grandfather retired in 1966 at the age of 62. That was young to retire, but he was just burnt out from all those years of delivering furniture and appliances for the retailing giant. Out of boredom, he signed up as a Watkins salesman and went door-to-door throughout Linda Vista and Clairemont selling the famous Watkins spices, soaps and flavorings (chocolate pudding made with Watkins chocolate was the BEST!!). Just before retiring, he bought a 1964 Rambler American 2-door sedan. The plain but inexplicably pretty light-blue car with a sticky transmission and a flat-head six engine is still in use today. After my grandfather's heart condition made it impossible for him to continue to drive, he sold it to my best friend Harold, who partially restored it (it still needs a fresh coat of paint) and toodles around town in the antique.

Because my mother was single and worked full-time, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house. The special school bus for disabled kids dropped me off each afternoon around 3:30 at my grandparents' little yellow house. I would spend afternoons and evenings reading books from my uncle's copious library, or drawing pictures and making up stories to go with them. I had modeling clay out of which I would fashion gigantic T Rexes and Moby Dicks to be slaughtered by adventurous imaginary hunters. And there were cartoons and "Dialing for Dollars" on TV. Often I would spend the weekends with them, and ate many delicious home-cooked meals that my grandmother prepared.

Eventually I went on to the university, graduate school and a career, and was able to see my grandparents less and less as they grew older. When they passed away, it left a huge hole in my heart wich will never be filled.