Leaving Berkeley and 1958 flashback

I have had three marvelous weeks in Berkeley, played a bunch, worked a bunch and even made a side trip to Santa Cruz to see Avery the newest addtion to our family (my grand nephew) You can see he loves his pet chickens.

I feel great gratitude for my California friends and family.  It's nice to get away from Winter weather and especially nice when I have a creative job or two to work on. This year we did a fairly major kitchen utility room remodel/face-lift at Masia's house in Berkeley.

Here's a clip of "Hobbitville" in Berkeley a very cool (and old) building complex in
Berkeley.   Hobbitville

Had a great two day drive North to Shay and Rob's house and big fun playing with Jenica and some new toys (big kid and little kid)


I am experiencing an old phenomenon I call "So much external stimulation -  no time for reflection"


My choices at this moment, sit here and journal some more, get outside and enjoy a beautiful sunny Groundhogs Day in Oregon City, talk my son in law into taking a break from his work and flying (rc airplanes) with me, go get the fixings for dinner tonight, have lunch with my daughter.

I choose "all of the above -- minus the sit here and journal part.  However, I promise myself to get back on track with my mission to tag or bookmark significant times in my life. Maybe the firecracker in my dad's cigarette story will be next.

Here's that story: The year was 1958, my best friend and fellow hell raiser was Nandor Kuhlman, a Hungarian friend from St. Thomas Catholic School.
We had a great fort out in the back yard made from 3 or 4 appliance boxes hooked together. For some reason we had a firecracker we didn't know what to do with.  Then we got the brilliant idea to steal an unopend pack of cigerettes from my parents, carefully open it from the bottom and take one of the smokes and conceal a firecracker in it, then reseal the package. When we were done, it was a masterpiece you could not tell that the package had been opened. Then we were a bit perplexed about what to do with it so we hid it in our fort. (I think the complete plan was to go into a store and sneak it back into their inventory.  Pretty lame if you ask me.)


Fast forward several months,  it's Saturday morning, I'm upstairs watching cartoons and my dad comes in from cleaning up the back yard. (demolishing our fort) he has a pack of cigarettes in his hand and a very stern look on his face. Color me stupid, or color me utterly naive, but I talked my way out of being in trouble for smoking, and completly neglected to tell him about the firecracker.  (I think it must have been the raw fear that caused my mind to blank out)

Less than an hour later I am rocked back to reality by the sound of a BANG coming from the yard. My dad appears almost instantly, the stern look back on his face, but I think he was secretly  proud of my "prankster abilities." I remember what he was most upset about was it could had been mom smoking that cigarette.  That was the last cigarette I ever loaded with a firecracker, but it was just the beginning of my pyrotechnic adventures.  There was the bomb blast of 59 that had me in the doctors office having dirt picked out of my face, and the 4th of July circa '78 that punctured my eardrum. (That was the last of my "boom boom" adventures!)