My 5th Summer
The summer I turned five, in 1958, my father was really excited
about driving the brand new interstate highways across the country.
He even bought a brand new Ford station wagon for the occasion.
That summer the TV news was filled with the drama of school
integration. There were angry people making other people unhappy.
We saw images on television from Little Rock, Arkansas, where cops
were knocking people to the street with powerful water from fire hoses and beating others with clubs.
At that time, there was a row of new car dealerships on Colorado
Blvd in Eagle Rock. When someone said they were giving my dad a ride to pick up his new car in Eagle Rock, I heard Little Rock. I threw a fuss insisting that he had to take me with him. I didn’t want the cops to kill my dad, but I didn’t say that out loud. He really didn’t want to take me, but he did.
On the whole drive there. I was on the look out for police and rioters.
We got to the dealership and my dad poked around the car, and he
calmly looked under the hood, and signed the papers, and we drove
back home in our new car.
No riots, no cops.
We left before dawn the next morning. I was so excited and proud
helping my dad load the car.
Off we went, my mom, my grandmother, and my nine month old
brother in the back seat. I rode in the front with my dad, with my books, and was put in charge of the radio. I liked to search the dial for the Monitor Radio Network. The song Volare was a big hit and was on every station in every town all across the country. The new station wagon needed to be serviced every so many miles so we stopped at dealerships all the way to the east coast and back.
The memory of small children is not often reliable, but I do have some very vivid memories of a couple of things.
When we got to St. Louis Missouri, the hotels and motels wouldn’t rent a room to my mom and dad. I suspect now it was because they suspected that my dad was black. My mom and grandmother and brother stayed in a hotel, and I went with my dad to the YMCA. I was so happy having an adventure with just my dad, and the room we stayed in had a bunk bed, and I don’t think I had ever slept before in a bunk bed.
I was overjoyed to sleep on top. But my dad was unhappy.
The next day we went on. My dad wanted to see Miami. Somewhere on the road, I was getting a drink from a water fountain. A very angry old white woman started yelling at me that I shouldn’t be drinking from the black water fountain. My father was upset, and I think right there he decided that we weren’t going to go to Florida.
We went north.
I have a few vague memories of New York City.
Down the street from our hotel, at a corner bodega,
I remember being terrified by a Mr. Peanut mannequin.
It gave me nightmares.
.
After everyone had gone to sleep, I got up. I remember looking for
quite a while at the city and at the Empire State Building out of our hotel window.
I remember a very large
theater marquee.
The movie was The Vikings,
with Kirk Douglas.
In Yellowstone National Park, we saw a mama bear and her cubs by the side of the road. One of the babies kept trying to get onto the road and the mama kept pulling it back. Finally, she got tired of doing this and slapped the little cub with such a blow. My mom was praising the mama bear.
I really identified with the cub.
There in Yellowstone, we stayed in a tent, maybe not the first time on this trip. I remember many Boy Scouts in small tents nearby.
We went to Children’s Fairyland in Oakland. A plastic souvenir key from that place was a cherished object long after the place itself had been forgotten. Taking three year-old Thea there the place was dimly familiar.
Then all of the memories of a five year old came flooding back when I knelt to Thea's height.
Soon after getting back to Los Angeles, I started kindergarten.
It wasn’t exactly what I expected it to be...