Saturday Market, 1952

Every Saturday when I was very young my family would go to the market to shop for groceries. It became a ritual that I enjoyed until I grew old enough to beg to stay home with my friends. We lived in a small house on the side of a hill in Monterey Park, Calif. and the market was located on Garvey Avenue one step off of the sidewalk. The entire front of the market welcomed us with open accordion doors made of wood.

Bright oranges, red apples and green cucumbers with rich earthy aromas were piled in bins, tempting shoppers to pick them up and buy them. The shaded north-facing storefront offered a cool escape from the hot sunshine into an enticing world of soups, cereals, cookies and crackers. But the best item was found in the freezer bin -- delicious creamy ice cream that would be our Saturday afternoon dessert.

My mama, Dorothy, wore a dress. Pants suits were not known to me, if they even existed. Her dresses were always light-colored and sometimes featured a floral pattern. She was not one for dark colors, especially black, the word alone she pronounced as if it were the color of death. "BLACK." She would shake her head at the thought. She held that view throughout her life, always avoiding black clothing. Those Saturdays were designed for breezy blue and yellow dresses.

My daddy, Frank, wore slacks, a short-sleeved collared shirt and leather shoes. To me, those were the duds of a dad. I learned that word, "duds," from him, which he called fancy clothes, like those worn by TV cowboys including Roy Rogers, Johnny Mack Brown and Tex Ritter: shirts with ornate piping and fringe on the sleeves, scarves around their necks and boots with embossed patterns. His wardrobe was much plainer, yet as he aged and society became more casual toward men's and women's apparel, he started to wear Western-style duds and blue jeans. He loved country-Western music and got a kick out of learning that singer Tennessee Ernie Ford lived in the red house above our neighborhood.

    You load sixteen tons and what do you get

 another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go 

I owe my soul to the company store

At least a working man could get a day off which made Saturday our grocery-shopping day. My dad worked about six miles from our house at the main U.S. Post Office in downtown Los Angeles.

He drove us to the market in his Studebaker. My mother didn't drive or even consider getting her license. She didn't trust cars and mechanical things, preferred to do everything by hand, or on foot. I've seen a picture of her as a young woman riding a horse, but never near an automobile. The trip to market depended upon my dad.

Sometimes we waited in the car while my mother shopped: my dad, me and my younger sister, Mimi. That was her nickname, given to her by herself. "Me, me-me." She could not pronounce her real name, Mary. An adult neighbor of ours said to me, "I know that's me-me Are you, you-you?" I guess he thought he was being funny. I found it annoying. I didn't get the joke.

My dad parked his car in the lot behind the market. While waiting for my mom, I lay on the back seat, soothing myself by running my finger tips over the woven upholstery, staring into the blue sky, listening to the rumble of car engines, peoples' voices and slamming of heavy metal doors. 

I had heard my parents talking about trees and flowers. They referred to them by name, rhododendrons, hibiscus and geraniums. Wide-leafed banana trees adorned with green and yellow bananas grew in our front yard. Stalks of greenish-red rhubarb sprouted in the dirt next to our house, from which my mom  baked rhubarb pie, a family favorite. She poured lots of sugar into the bowl with the chopped pieces of celery-like rhubarb, creating a syrupy sauce that gave the tart rhubarb a tangy, almost sweet flavor, which tasted even better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

"What's the name of this tree?" I asked my dad, pointing at the large tree next to our car, mesmerized by the mighty trunk and gnarled bark. Long branches covered with thin green leaves hung from the tree like the cloak of a king. The canopy produced a wonderful, shady place in the parking lot.

"It's a pepper tree," he said.

A pepper tree, I thought to myself, a strange name for this magnificent tree. I imagined small bits of hot black pepper hidden on the narrow leaves. I didn't realize that pinkish-red peppercorns would appear when it flowered.

Since that particular Saturday in 1952, whenever I see a pepper tree, its feathery leaves, drooping branches and thick muscular trunk, I can sniff the woodsy fragrance from memory and feel the easy comfort of my family.

© 2021 Kevin Samson from working-title memoir Silence of the Oranges.

 

 

Beyond the Rainbow

Linda (Lombardi) Samson

Forty-five years ago today Linda (Lombardi) Marie Samson died at age 29 in an automobile accident on our way home from Lake Tahoe. Our terrible loss affected the lives of me and her two daughters, Molly and Vanessa, in immeasurable ways, as well as, I'm sure the lives of her friends and anyone who ever met her.

She possessed a glowing presence. She laughed and cried, understanding well the emotions of joy and sorrow. She loved to help those in distress, befriending many wandering souls who had lost their way. Her heart loomed large.

We knew each other since high school. We grew up together. We experienced our good and bad times, always finding our way back.

Thinking about her today, on the heels of September 11, puts me in a contemplative mood.

I don't believe I could have survived without the help of my friends. In particular, Kim (Fredericks) and David Safir, Paul and Bette Ann Greene, Abner and Maria Greene, Jenny Mackintosh, Michelle Dugar, Fred and Tony Lombardi, my sister Mary (Samson) and Mark Fotheringham, and my parents Dorothy and Frank Samson.

The greatest fortune came my way when I met Barbara Beverly who would become my wife and mother of our children, including a third daughter, Bryna. The timing and ease of our meeting, as well as her motherly instincts, came naturally as though an unknown pretense were guiding us, a force from beyond.

Some say there is no such thing as coincidence. I would agree, with the caveat that our universe may be simpler, more connected than we can possibly understand. Its randomness is every bit as true as its perfection.

The greatest loss resulting from Linda's passing, is that Molly and Vanessa never had the opportunity to know her better. And Linda never experienced the pride and satisfaction of how wonderful they and their children have become. 

Or perhaps she knows.

The Day the Music Died

The eccentric souvenir of the human shape

Wrapped in seemings, crowd on curious crowd

                                                    -- Wallace Stevens

New York City firefighter calls for help amid the rubble

The morning of September 11, 2001, I walked lightly into the front room, as I did every morning before going to work, rolled out my yoga mat and turned on NPR news. Stretching my back while resting on my hands and knees, I heard that two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.

The news startled me, my ears suddenly alert. We were under attack. Yet the voice over the radio spoke evenly with little emotion. I jumped up and called to Barbara who was still in bed.

"Something terrible is happening," I said. "Turn on the TV!"

By the time I left for my office, I understood that the airplanes were commercial jets that had been hijacked by suicide terrorists. Two additional airplanes attempted similar attacks, one on the Pentagon.

My initial thoughts were who are these terrorists who would so dramatically kill innocent people and themselves? What were they thinking? How perverted. How misled. How fortunate that we Americans, in our free country, would never entertain such an idea.

Twenty years later that thinking seems so naive. I sought comfort through a type of patriotism. That morning when I met my colleagues at work, I wanted to express gratefulness in the midst of chaos.  I hadn't learned yet about the extent of destruction, the horror for ordinary folks doing their jobs for themselves and their families.

I soon felt a greater sense of unity with my fellow Americans. 

The moment called for mourning and clean-up and we watched the FDNY perform heroic acts attempting to save lives and locate bodies amidst the toxic, choking air and rubble. You could almost smell the dust while watching the reports. But nothing could allow you to feel the unmitigated fear in the hearts of the victims careening to their death, or honestly imagine their voices, their final words or screams.

Before we had a chance to fully understand and digest what happened and why, the hawks flew in. They saw opportunity, souring, if that were possible, the already foul taste of our losses. Revenge filled the air. Blame. Racial stereotyping. Egos on fire. Sabers rattled.

"Shock and awe." This would be our strategy when we invaded Iraq. Why Iraq? Not because the leader of the terrorists was there. Because of unfinished business with Iraq's dictator. Because they had weapons of mass destruction, which they didn't. Because our leaders could not appear weak. Blah, blah, blah. The same old tune that was played in Vietnam: shuck and jive.

I talked to a good friend about it, who insisted we had to attack. "Would you send your son to fight in Iraq?" I asked. 

"Oh, no, he's not going," came the reply, tossing off the idea as if it were a far-fetched joke.

I attended a paddle-out that was arranged by a small group of surfers to protest going to war in Iraq. Paddle-outs are typically held when a fellow surfer dies. A circle is formed in the water, prayerful words are given followed by hooting and splashing. It feels ancient and sacred, a moment of brother- and sister-hood.

Very few surfers came to the protest paddle-out, causing the woman surfer sitting on her board next to me to say: "I don't understand. Doesn't everyone want peace?"

"Well, you know surfers," I replied, leaving it at that.

Many of the young hot-shot surfers were driving around in pick-up trucks with American flags fluttering in the wind. In the daily newspaper, the surf columnist wrote: "It's time to kick some ass in Iraq."

When the bombing started, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to cry. So began debacle upon debacle, for the next 20 years, only making matters worse. The hawks will tell you that it was worth it, because there has not been a major foreign terrorist attack on American soil during that period.

That's true. Most terrorist activities have been from within, shooting children at schools, or people in nightclubs, or folks attending concerts in places like Las Vegas. The worst president in the history of the U.S. was elected, who based his election campaign on a fear-mongering racist platform. Last January thousands of his followers staged a coup d' etat when they rampaged our Capitol because they didn't agree with our democratically held National Election.

I'll continue to look for silver linings and trust the hope in my heart, but September 11 will always be a day of mourning and sorrow for me.

 

Sharkey the Surfer Man

"Out of the water I am nothing." Duke Kahanamoku, legendary Hawaiian surfer

Copywrite 2021

There's a lot going on in Paul Theroux's latest novel, his 32nd, Under the Wave at Waimea, about an aging big-wave rider who resides on Hawaii's renowned North Shore. The title evokes Malcom Lowry's 1947 novel Under the Volcano, whose 12 chapters were symbolic of months in a year and more. Theroux's story takes 13 chapters, which no doubt has meaning, not the least is bad luck.

Beyond the title, at first I wondered if it was a thinly disguised tale about Popeye the Sailor Man, since the protagonist is linked to the ocean, boasts tattoos on his arms and falls for a woman named Olive. Silly me.

The story is about a 62-year-old surfer, Joe Sharkey, a hero and icon, at the end of his best days, who in a drunken, pakalolo-induced moment accidentally kills a man riding his bike. Sharkey was driving in the dark with Olive, 20 years younger than he, a health care nurse. The event sends Sharkey into a funk and a gnarly wipeout at Waimea, a notoriously dangerous wave.

The remainder of the book presents Sharkey's detailed back story, eventually returning to the accident, which Sharkey refused to honestly address at the time. Olive is instrumental in helping him sleuth out the identify of the unknown victim in the hope that this knowledge will restore Sharkey's failing self identity.

At age 80, following a prodigious career of writing books, author Theroux remains a master at his craft. He's got the surf talk down, Hawaiian-pidgin style. His descriptions are rich and sensational. Sharkey serves as his alter ego: a macho surfer who does not read, whose only life is in the water. Why read when you can surf? It's not that he is illiterate, rather it serves no purpose for him. He's got all the sex and adulation he could possibly want. Although his age has begun to reveal that his popularity is as temporary as a wave that rises in the ocean, swells to a liquid mountain of energy only to turn to foam and disappear.

The up-and-comig young surfers don't know him, see him only as an old guy in the water. His day is past, Now what? The water has been not only his identity but his escape from an unfortunate childhood.

In one chapter -- the Year of the Rat -- Sharkey meets a woman surfer, May, from a Chinese family and believes he has finally fallen in love, a relationship with a woman that is more than sex. Her strong connection with her ohana (family) impresses Sharkey who has no family. He meets May's family at a Chinese restaurant in Honolulu during Chinese New Year. This scene is possibly my favorite in the book.

Along the way Sharkey meets up with an old friend, the famed, drug-addled gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson who presents Sharkey with his lastest book, a Hawaiian tale called The Curse of Lono. Sharkey accepts the book knowing he will never read a page of it. Thompson figures in several chapters symbolizing celebrity from the perspective of a writer. Here is another theme: the misplaced values of celebrity and privilege. Thompson the writer is afraid of the ocean, yet the surf community holds a sacred paddle-out for him following his suicide. Sharkey the surfer receives a pass after he kills a man, because of his local surfing cred.

A surfer friend who has read Under the Wave told me that you could drop the parts about Hunter Thompson and it would be a better story. I believe you could easily eliminate 200 pages of this 400-page novel and still have a decent story. Yet I read the whole thing and enjoyed untangling themes and scenes that were worth the trip. The final chapters solve the mystery of Sharkey's victim, and teach him the lesson of compassion. In a metaphorical sense, Sharkey the Surfer Man finally eats his spinach.