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Rich wrote the following in preparation for my 60th birthday. They were given to Lindsey and somehow I never saw them until he packaged them in a card for my 70th birthday. I enjoyed reading and remembering these times with my brothers and my good friend.
We had a lot of fun on Pope Street. The sidewalk was fairly wide, a perfect football field for a team of two or three. We played many a mini Super Bowl, rounding up a handful of brothers to fill the teams. Inside the garage there was a place under the stairs and a rear door under the bathroom and a place to crawl up above the parked car area that ran from the washing machine to the front entry door.
Somehow and for some reason, The Farrell family had a wall map of the united states. It unrolled just like a movie screen and was probably 7 feet wide and 6 feet tall. For one class project, we traced the United States on to a few connected pieces of butcher paper, ending up with a 6 by 7 map that they thought we drew. We got an"A".
The Farrells introduced me to the comedy of Bill Cosby. We would listen to a few of his albums and then crack each other up repeating what we heard. Cosby spoke a lot of his childhood and his good friend Fat Albert. One of his stories was about a game called Buck Buck. One guy would grab the telephone pole. Another would grab his waist and a 3rd or 4th person, in turn, would grab the waist of the person in front. Once lined up, the other team would jump on top of the group. So we grabbed a handful of Farrells and headed up to the corner telephone pole. Wasn't as fun as Cosby's version.
Every year, after the 4th of July, we would walk the neighborhood collecting all of the firecrackers that did not explode the night before. Duds we called them. Then we would unwrap them collecting all of the gun powder. One time we got a small plastic bottle, maybe 3 inches tall and the diameter of a quarter. We packed the gunpowder into the bottle and then crammed Kleenex or paper in to fill the void, making it solid. One we took a metal bucket about the size of a large coffee can. We placed the bucket upside down over our creation in front of the house on Pope and lit the fuse. Looking back, we really didn't realize the power of our mini-bomb. We could have easily blown off a hand or a finger. We never saw much of that metal bucket, but I do remember that we found a piece in the backyard.
Some times I would sleep over on a Saturday night. Sunday morning we would sit on the tailgate of the white station wagon with Irene at the wheel, and deliver the Sun day paper up in Southern Hills. Up at the crack of dawn, these 45 year old memories are the best.
On occasion, Gary and I would go to Castle Lanes to watch his Father bowl in a league. We would sit on the concourse watching these old men who were probably in their 40's. Young and immature we had our little comments and nicknames for these ancient men. I remember one guy that we called Tit-man for obvious reasons.
This memory was discussed in the last year. I remember a little dog, which we now recall was Jack's. In my garage on Concord street, my father had a bunch of 8 or 10 foot, 1 by 12 boards. One day, or maybe more than once, we placed the boards all around the 2 car garage. From the ladder to the chair. From the chair to the stair. From the stair to the box, creating a elevated track. Melba the wonder dog would walk along these boards to our amazement. We were easily amused and obviously had a lot of time on our hands.
As a kid, I don't remember ever going golfing with my father. But I do remember going with Mr. Farrell (I'm sure I didn't call him Bill) In my mind I can clearly picture the tee box at one hole at Lincoln where he let us each hit a ball. For all I remember I may have missed the ball completely. Sadly enough, my game has not improved much.
This one is short and sweet. Worst car ride I ever had was on a Farrell outing to Lake Berryessa. We drove in the 3rd seat of the white station wagon, riding backwards. I was so sick after that winding road, it wasn't a good day for me.
When Gary got out of the Air Force, he was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, and he had a car and a motorcycle. Craig and I flew to Vegas so that Gary and I could take turns driving both the car and the bike back to San Francisco. First of all, this was Craig's first flight and I guess I was a seasoned flyer, with 20 or so trips under my belt. Craig was a little scared about flying but I tried to reassure him that this was great. Now I had flown to and from L.A. several times, but had never flown over mountains. I didn't know about turbulence. As the plane shook and bounced over the mountains I tried to relay that this was normal. Secretly saying a prayer, Craig probably soiled himself! We landed safely. I guess Gary also had a teddy bear. We strapped the bear to the back of the motorcycle and drove home.
The attached picture may not be you, but you have to remember the car at that time of our lives. Sliding the car sideways on rollers to get it to the garage door was cool. A couple of trips to the Car Barns (SF Muni maintenance yard) where Mr. Nilan (or Cliff, as his daughter Mary called him) would check a generator or alternator or just talk way over our heads about what he did there. He was a nice guy to have experienced in our lives.
