Georgia & Pauline Visit About Growing Up

MOM’S HISTORY

Georgia Kalostos Schuett

BORN APRIL 24, 1927 IN OAKLAND, CA.  It is January 6, 2006, and I am 79 years old, and born in 1927, seems like a million years ago.

Current View: 840 43rd Street, Sacramento

 

HOME SWEET HOME.  I was the seventh child born into a loving, but very strict family of 9 kids. There were 5 boys and 4 girls. Being the depression era, due to the stock market crash, life was very hard. We had a 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom home with 9 kids. Imagine how hard that was for my mother and us kids.  Getting a turn in the bathroom was really fun. Bath time was, light the water tank, heat the water, fill the tub, and bathe 2 kids at a time. Winter time was really cold. We didn’t have heat and air-conditioning in those days, like we do now, just a small furnace to had to light and wait to warm up. Sleep time was 3 kids to a regular sized bed. A little crowded but we were small.

FOOD & WELFARE.  Food was very scarce. My father was out of work and even though he was offered a job on the WPA by President Roosevelt.  That was below him, so we went on welfare in the 30’s to get food. No food stamps then. We only got the basics which provided sugar, flour, rice, potatoes, and some canned vegetables. My brother Tom, who had our only transportation, which was a bike, on which he delivered 2 daily newspapers one morning and one evening, had to ride 40 blocks, one-way, to pick up these treasures (food). Bless his heart, the money he made from delivering these papers, bought us a quart milk, a piece of meat, and whatever he could. I know that on the weekends, we always got a pound of hamburger on Saturday night. I can’t remember what my mother did with that and Sunday we had a 50 cent pot roast. That was delicious!

 

CHRISTMAS.  We always had a Christmas tree, but no money for decorations, so Brother Bill carved out stars, squares, moons, whatever for the decorations. Quite innovative. No presents under the tree, but we hung stockings on the mantle and they were filled with an apple and an orange. We were excited about that. We did get a couple presents when Pauline wrote Santa Claus at the Sacramento Bee. The girl’s names were Mary, Catherine, Pauline and Georgie. They thought Georgie was a boy, so I got a basketball, necktie, and handkerchiefs.  Oh, how exciting! Needless to say, I was really disappointed. The neighbors across the street were really good to us. They always made sure that we got candy for Christmas, and on Easter, since we still believed in the Easter Bunny, they would go dig holes in our back yard, and fill them with real grass, and fill them with Easter eggs, and candy. And we’d go out there Easter morning, and “Oh, my!”, we were just so thrilled to see all those eggs and candy that the Easter Bunny brought. It made our day!

FRUIT TREES.  Mom really worked hard for us kids. Since we had fruit trees, plum, fig, apricot, and a walnut tree, she made lots of plum jelly, which was always in our school lunch sandwich. No butter, no peanut butter, nothing but jelly, but we did get to eat lots of figs under the tree. We used to just stand under the tree and eat and eat until our hearts were content.

CLOTHING.  Being poor was really hard on clothing all of us. I remember getting my 3 sisters clothes when they outgrew them.  We wore our shoes till they had holes in the soles, and then a rubber band around the shoe to hold the sole on. Our stockings were always full of holes. One wonderful teacher I had, Mrs. Waterhouse, felt sorry for me, and used to bring some used, but very nice socks. She also made sure I got graham crackers and milk at recess.

Mom had a treadle sewing machine, she must have rented cheap. Pauline said she made some of our clothes, but I don’t remember any she made. She did, however, make costumes for John. Thomas, and me, that she entered into a parade contest. John, at age 4½, was dressed as a hobo, Thomas was dressed in a tuxedo and top hat as President Roosevelt, (I believe he was 6½), and I was 8½ and was dressed as a flower girl carrying a basket of flowers. Thomas won first place as President Roosevelt, John came in second as the hobo, and I guess I probably came in last … I really don’t remember that.

PARADES.  Mom took us to just about every parade that came to town. I don’t know how she did it. We’d get on the street car, down near the corner of 43rd Street, and ride downtown, and see every parade that ever came around.  She also took us to the Memorial Auditorium, and all the Christmas programs.  Every Christmas, down at the end of our street was a firehouse, they always had a Christmas program.  All the kids and some of the grownups would come down. They had a stage and would put on a nice program and gave us all bags of candy. They had a great big Christmas tree there on the corner, absolutely beautiful.  The firehouse is gone now, apartment houses are there.  Our house is still there. It is over 100 years old, but its still standing.

JUST FOR FUN.  Anyhow, we did have fun as kids.  Our fun times were playing, we didn’t have games like they have today, no computers, no games like the kids all play.  We’d listen to radio. We’d lay on the floor and listen to Sherlock Holmes, Inner Sanctum, all kinds of programs.  And for outside play, we’d just play tag, kick the can, hide and seek, all the dumb things, which kids wouldn’t even think of doing today, but we did have fun.

Ice Box 1930s

APPLIANCES IN THE 1930’s.  Appliances have sure changed since I was born. What you call refrigerator now, we had an ice-box. It was really a box with a door in the front, and a hole in the top, where the ice ma would come a put a big cube of ice into the hole in the top part. That was supposed to keep everything cold. But we didn’t have much food to put in there anyhow, so whatever we had, it kept it cool. The only problem with this thing is that the water would drain out the bottom and we had to keep a pan under there to catch the water.  If we’d forget to empty it, water was all over the floor. We would try to pick the pan up and dump it real quick. Then we had to mop the floor and put it back under the ice-box, and start it all over again.  It didn’t take long for the ice to melt, and we kept forgetting to empty the darn thing. We did have a washing machine on our back porch, which was closed in. It was not like our washing machines today either. It did have an agitator, but we had to fill the machine with the hose, then run the washer, which would swish around. When that stopped, there was a rubber ringer that we had to take each piece of clothing out of the wash, put it through the ringer into a tub on the other side, that we had filled with water, so we could rinse them, then we had another tub, it was a double sink tub, we’d squeeze those out and put them in the other rinse water, then back through the ringer to squeeze all the water out. It was really quite a day’s job. Then we would have to hang them out on the clothesline, and we had clothes pins, and a big long clothesline and that’s where they dried, stiff as a board!  So, there was no permanent press then either, so everything had to be ironed.  We didn’t have a steam iron, of course, so we had to dampen everything that needed ironing, roll it up, and let it sit a while so it would kind of dampen all over, and then iron it.  We all took our turns on washing and ironing. Cleaning house was another chore. No vacuum cleaner. What we did was we wet newspapers, pulled them apart and threw them all over the carpet. Then we would take a broom and sweep the wet papers that would gather the dust along with them, and that’s how we cleaned our carpets, which we had all through the house. What a fun time!

We did have a large phonograph, I mean really large, very high. I don’t know what the whole bottom part was, I guess the speaker, and it had two side doors where we kept our long-playing records, so we used to listen to all the old records, Al Jolson, …I can’t think of all the names, but they were beautiful at the time.

THE SUNDAY PAPER.  Sunday mornings we’d just lay around on the floor and read the funny papers. We each got a turn with one piece at a time. That was our Sunday morning.

BABYSITTING.  We all took our turns at babysitting other people’s kids. We used to call them the rich people, and they paid us a whopping twenty-five cents!  That wasn’t for an hour … that was for the whole night! I bathed three kids, got them to bed, first you had to feed them, bathe them, put them to bed, and then, of course, the people left all their dishes for you to wash. If they came home, and they found the dishes still on the counter, they were quite upset, but that was never supposed to be included in the babysitting, but they expected it. So, I got 25 cents, and of course, when we got done, that went to my mother to pay for food and whatever. Actually, I was 12 yrs old when I started babysitting. Pauline and Catherine were a little older.

 

CONVERSATION WITH PAULINE (P).

P: Okay, I was just listening to your narrative, and its really good but there are some things that you might have forgotten, since I’m a little older, I probably remember a little more.

When you talked about the washing and ironing, before we had the old washer with a ringer, we used to have a scrub board, and I can remember scrubbing the sheets on that scrub board, with my knuckles going across, rinsing them out, and then hanging them up, and when we ironed, if you recall, maybe you don’t remember, we didn’t have a stove, we had a wood stove, and the iron, we had to warm up by putting it on the top of the black (G: top of the stove), and that’s how we warmed up our irons in the very beginning (G: I don’t remember that) well that’s because I’m just a little bit older than you and probably you just don’t…(G: I know, you just so much older!).  Ha, ha…I know, but I remember that really well, and I remember scrubbing the sheets and hanging them out.  That was a real .. I mean, washing and ironing was a horrible job. And then Speaking of not having a stove, we didn’t have heat either, for quite a while. We had that pot-bellied stove in the front room (G: Geez, I don’t remember that at all), Yah, they had to get up in the morning, whoever, she did, Bill or Gus, or somebody, and put the logs in the stove and light it and that was where our heat came from until we got a heater. We didn’t get a heater until Tom went to work and got that heater that was in the dining room.  (G: Was that when he started working at the store?) I don’t remember where he started, where he worked, but I know that’s when we got a heater.  We didn’t have a heater before. So that was another thing, when we got up in the mornings it was cold, real cold. (G: I know it was always cold).

 

G: I said that I don’t remember Mom making clothes for the kids.

P: Right, that’s what you said, but I remember it very well, and I remember the three pink dresses that she made for all three of us, and they were all the same with the “up” sleeves and they were for Easter Sunday, I don’t know what year that was, but we all three had the same dresses, and they were real pretty and we all loved them. She made those.

G: And how old were we then?

P: Probably ten and twelve, or maybe eight and ten.

G: You might have been eight, I must have been six

P: You may have been 6, I might have been 8, and Catherine might have been 10, because I know we all had those same dresses. And we were real proud of them, and we thought that we were really beautiful, and we went to church in them. We went to the Greek church.

G: I haven’t seen any pictures of us in those kinds of clothes.  All the pictures that were taken in those black and whites, were usually in those crummy looking bathing suits, all made of wool, and they itched, but I don’t remember…

P: I just remember those three dresses and she made them on that old sewing machine, that was in the dining room that she had to peddle with her feet, and I can just remember that really well.

G: And I used that machine…

P: I did too, Oh, and another thing I remember, I bet you don’t remember when Daddy used to sell wool, those suits.

G: Uh?

P: Yeh, he had all these samples of little squares of wool, and I had to sew those into a big quilt, and they didn’t have any backing, it was just all those little squares.

G” Why did you have to sew those all together?

P: To make that quilt, it was like a blanket, they were squares, they were samples.

G: You sewed it on that sewing machine?

P: Yes.

G: Ha, Ha…I can’t believe you did!

P: I did!

G: Oh, good Lord!

P: It probably took me forever and a day, maybe Mom did some of it too, I don’t know, but I remember having to do it. They were blue, and brown.

G: All of a sudden that rings a bell, but you know…

P: And that sewing machine was in that front bedroom, because, see that comes back to me, sitting…

G: Now, I remember it was in the dining room

P: It was in the dining room when she was making those dresses, but when I was working on that spread…

G: That’s before I was born …Ha, ha

P: It might be so, but anyway, …

G: So you were 2½, Ha, ha, ha…when you were sewing!

P: Ha, ha, ha …but anyway, that was another thing I remember was that sewing machine. That’s about all I remember.

G: How weird.

G: What did he do when I said he wouldn’t work for the WPA, what did he do?

P: I don’t think he did anything.

G: He just sat around the house?

P: I guess so, I don’t remember … I think they talked about him, remember he got real tan, he must have sat under a fig tree all the time, or a prune tree. He was picking prunes or something, … I don’t know, he kind a like labor work, something but I really don’t remember much about …

G: I remember him not doing anything. I thought he just sat around the house, out on the rocking chair out on the front porch.

P: He probably did.

G: Ya, I think Mama said, “That’s all he does is sit and rock, and sit and rock!”  Did he smoke then?

P: Oh, I’m sure.

G: Cause he smoked all his life.

P: Oh, yeh, he did

G: How did he buy cigarettes?

P: OH, yeh, that was a big trouble when he wanted Gus to go down to the store and get him some cigarettes, and Gus said for him to get off his butt, and go get them himself!  Because he wasn’t working, so there, I remember that happening, I mean I don’t remember it, but I remember her talking about it.

G: So, I wonder how in the world he ever got his cigarettes because he didn’t have any money, and he had been smoking since he was 7 years old, so he said.

P: I don’t have any idea, now see Bill and Gus and Tom were all contributing money to the household. Maybe he used that. I don’t know, he wasn’t a provider, that was for sure! So, that’s a memory I have.  All these little things come back to you.

G: Yeh, well it takes talking about them because …

P: Well that’s what I said, I think Jim wanted us to do that…because you can’t just sit here and try to… you know

G: Well, I was trying to do that, because it was hard for us to get together, and he’s waiting for this first tape

P: Well, now you can send him this first tape…

G: And there you are deary, your waiting for that first tape…

P: Now we’ll get together and do another one.

G: Yeh, it will be easier the next time, because I kept pushing the wrong buttons as you will notice on the first tape, dear… this tape…it is so bad… but maybe he’ll make sense out of it, who knows

P: I’m sure he will

G: And if you don’t, you’ll just have to send it back and I’ll have to redo it!  Ha, Ha..

P: well, we have to get on to another subject here, I want to finish this so you can at least mail that one.

G: Yeh, I’d like to mail this one too.

 

Next time:

 

G: Here we go…

P: Now last time we talked I think we went through the time when we were really young, and Grandma was making our clothes, and doing all that kind of thing, so now I remember when I graduated from high school, actually before that I remember one of her really good things that she did, remember when my thumb was all infected.

G: Oh, Lord yeh

P: It was so horrible, and she put that egg white on it…

G: I had one of those on my chin, cause I had a boil on my chin…

P: Yeh, to bring the infection up to the…, but anyway, nothing worked, and the pain was so bad so she took me to the old county hospital and they had a clinic there, and…

G: That’s the old home remedies, you know, when they didn’t have anything else, so they…

P: Yeh, and when she took me to that, I think I was at Kit Carson then, probably 13 or 12, and she had to take me over there, I think, maybe, 2 or 3 times a week, and the doctor had to cut it open and he put a rubber tubing inside so it would drain..

G: I thought you were going to lose your finger

P: I don’t think we had antibiotics so we didn’t have sulfur or anything, it just drained, but every time I went, I was so in love with the doctor… I remember that because he was so good looking, he had curly red hair, and I was really mad when I got well, because I couldn’t go again. Ha, Ha

G: Ha, ha

P: She always…, I don’t know how she did it, she took off work or whatever, and we went on the street car over to the old county hospital, which is now UC Davis Medical Center.  That’s one of the things I remember, that’s when I was at Kit Carson, I was 13.

G: Junior High School

P: And then when I was in high school, I remember that when I graduated she didn’t have a whole bunch of money but she had this old stick pin of Daddy’s and she took it to a jeweler and had a, it was a like a platinum setting and then it had a blue stone and a little diamond in it, but the ring part of it she had gold molded on it, so it didn’t really match very well.

G: She had what?

P: Gold, she made it into a ring, and the ring part was gold, and this all was platinum, and it should have been… but it was really a wonderful gift that she did, I mean that was just something she just did

G: I never got anything from her for graduation

P: So, that was for my graduation.

G: We got wrist watches from Daddy

P: Yeh, I remember that

G: That was the only thing I got. You were fortunate… you were the prize daughter.

P: Ha, ha …the Queen of Sheba

G: Ha, ha

P: Well then how did you get her beautiful lavaliere?  I would have much preferred that.

G: I got it with the stone out of it, the diamonds out of it

P: Oh, the diamonds weren’t in it?

G: No, the diamonds, I think, went into Catherine’s ring?  The black onyx ring. The diamond’s out.  I’m giving it to Jennifer. You were there when I gave it to her.

P: Does she ever wear it?

G: She’s afraid to because those little pearls are so delicate and they’re loose and the jeweler said he didn’t want to touch it

P: I wonder who ever, did Uncle Mike give her that? Who gave her that?

G: We don’t know. I don’t know

P: Cause that really is a precious piece of jewelry

G: Oh, it is. It’s an antique

P: We don’t know whatever happened to her wedding ring either

G: Well, that was just a band, wasn’t it

P: Yeh, but it was a wedding ring, I mean…

G: That’s how we found out the day she got… Ha, ha … the day she got married, because of her wedding band. How else would we know? But, I have no idea where that is.

P: I don’t either

G: In fact, I was wondering where mine was, I went looking for it, I do have it

P: What?
G: My wedding band from Carl

P: I have Ben’s. You have Carl’s?

G: Yep

P: I don’t know what to do with Ben’s

G: I mean my band, I had a plain band. That was the wedding band. Then, of course, the big diamonds for the engagement

P: So anyway, that was my graduation. Then Mrs. Harwoth came to my graduation from Oakland.

G: That was the old lady from Oakland

P: And Grandma sent me back with her to visit and Mrs. Harwoth was dying of cancer, and I didn’t know that…Ha, ha.. that her son, I think his name was Frank, he took me to the Hippodrome, the theater there, and I saw Ozzie & Harriet in person

G: Oh, you did?

P: Yeh, so that was neat!

G: That’s where I used to be the usherette

P: No, this was the Hippodrome in Oakland.

G: Oh, it was the hippodrome in Sacramento

P: But anyway, she did that.  Let’s see what else around that particular time? That she did, she did so many things, you know, and we already covered, like her taking us to the fair

G: Yeh, everything she did

P: All the things she did

G: What I would like to say is that she never got to go anywhere, do anything. Our lovely Father, never took her out to dinner. She never went out to dinner, unless we took her in later years. She never went to a movie, she never …, she just dressed like an old lady, because that’s all she had was old lady clothes and shoes.  Poor thing, you know, she just had a crappy life.

P: It was a hard life, but I thing a lot of older people in those days had those kind of lives.

G: Yes, we had lots of lovely, old neighbors that we used to familiarize ourselves with.  The picnics, I think I mentioned that before, the picnics we went on with the Weiskers

P: Oh, the picnics, oh yeh, I think I remember mentioning that, over at McKinley Park all the time. She always made a really good potato salad, and we had hot dogs, those were really fun!

G: How could we have afforded those?

P: I don’t know, I don’t know, but we sure did.

G: We were a family of nine kids, and I don’t think all nine of us went because the older ones were too old

P: No, I think it was just us five

G: But the Weiskers had 9 kids also and some of the older ones, and the younger ones, and us went together  to McKinley Park and had the greatest picnics

P: Yeh, we had wonderful times, we just walk down there and carried our big old sacks…

P: Turn that off and see if its working

G: Oh, its working

P: Just want to be sure it is, I won’t remember all I’ve said

G: The other thing is, Pauline and I both played the cello in school and we used to have to play for our old lady friends

P: Oh, the neighbors, and not only that, I had to sing besides that

G: Oh, God, yes, what was the name of your song, Pauline?

P: Harbor Lights, Ha, ha… “I saw the harbor lights”… I had a better voice then, Ha, ha

G: ha, ha so you said, ha, ha

P: That’s when the Blasasell’s came over, and the Weisker’s,

G: Yeh, anybody who came over, we had to bring out our cellos, anyhow, I was in the 5th grade when I started, and graduated from high school, playing in the band and the orchestra while we were graduating. Did you play all the way through school?

P: Yep, I did.

G: Did you play when you graduated?

P: I played at all the graduations, every one of them.

G: Isn’t that amazing!

P; In Stockton, we played over a radio station, we played at the Hotel Senator, here, over a radio station, it wasn’t the whole orchestra, it was just some…I think it was Dixie Milspa and me, it was a sextet or a quartet or something like that

G: I was in a quartet, with Stanley Plummer, just the four of us, and I played the Crocker Art Gallery.

P: That was kind of like what we did.

G: I was neat.

P: I think the paper used to put that on, the Bee, or maybe the KFBK probably.

G: Sure wish we’d get to the end of this tape, but its still rolling

P: Well, lets just keep walking and talking, Ha, ha

G: Ha, ha

P: After, I want him to ready this, and tell us what we need to go back to,

G: yeh, before we do the next one.  This is really hard, Jim

P: Well, it not the same as when you’re sitting around and talking, …and now you’re having to think

G: Like when we were there, if we’d of taped them, that would have been great. I don’t remember all we said

P: I don’t know, it was all just kind of crazy things, but again I remember her, after I graduated, of we all date, went to dances and everything, then when I got married, she was in the hospital with a terrible infection in her hand, she was in the hospital, she caught her hand in a door, it got infected, and they had her in a bed over there, but she insisted she had to go to my wedding, and she got up, and that Ellen Wart, I even remember who…

G: I remember her

P: Well, she was assigned to take her to the hospital, to go with her, take care of her during the wedding, and then I think she went to the reception, and then she had to go back to the hospital, because she wasn’t well, but she wasn’t going to miss the wedding! And how many women would have ever done that?

\G: I don’t remember that

P: Well, I do because it was my wedding

G: I remember being in the wedding

P: Yeh, well she was there

G: Didn’t we have a reception at our house?

P: Yeh

G: Well, she had to have been there

P: Well, she was, then she had to go right back to the hospital

G: For Heaven’s sakes

P: I remember that, and then when I had Bob, and they wanted to send me home, and she was working there and she got up and went over to the hospital, and she told the Nuns that, that was when they were at the Mercy Hospital, “If you send her home, I’ll have to stay home, I won’t be able to come to work, cause I have to take care of her”, so they just let me stay there, they kept me on a gurney for a couple hours till someone went home and I got a room. She was really, she just had all kinds of guts. That’s what she had! Ha, ha

G: She’s the one that when I had the first miscarriage in the Mercy Hospital where she worked, and the stupid two doctors, they were specialists, they sent me down for x-rays to see if I had, well a terrible infection inside, anyhow, I almost died, in that 10 day in there. I lost the baby at 5½ months. And she’s the one who said “get her in and give her “koretmet”, and that is what was wrong, they left the afterbirth in there

P: Can you believe that

G: Two specialist doctors, we didn’t sue, people didn’t sue then, anyhow…

P: She certainly did have lots of …

G: Well, all the changes we’ve gone through in our lives

P: She went to take care of her sister when her sister was dying of cancer

G: Chicago

P: Yeh, went back to Chicago, and gave her all the shots. Imagine that, doing that.  Taking busses here and there, when she went to Fresno, and took care of Mary, and when she lived on Dana Way, and I had the flu, she walked all the way over here, walked from Dana Way over here!

G: Good Heavens!

P: To take care of me, and ..Ha, ha..  I was wishing she’d go home, cause all I wanted to do was go to bed, cause I had to get up and entertain her,

G: It’s amazing what she did … she would spend her last dollar on who ever.

P: Oh, yeh

G: That time, I don’t know where we were

P: I still have her 50 cent piece in that envelope

G: and we were at the corner down here, that used to be that drug store that had gifts in there

P: Oh, yeh

G: And we were in there, and they had some jewelry in the counter in there, and of course, I always look at jewelry, I love jewelry, and I saw these pair of earrings, and she says “you want those?”, and I said No, Mom, I can’t get those, “I’ll get them for you”, they were only a dollar.  I still have them! They’re crystal, they hang, really pretty.  She just took that dollar, probably all she had in her pocket, but it didn’t matter, she just loved to…

P: Every time, I mean we all used to give her money, and she always spent it on everybody, she bought me the curtains at Tallac Village. Those criss-cross curtains, and she bought me the first table and chairs

G: I think that was the best part of her life, when she could give… she gave and gave and gave

P: She sure did

G: She gave me lots of whippings …Ha, ha, ha

P: Ha, ha, ha… She gave everybody that! You weren’t the only one

G: But we deserve it, everyone was deserved

P: Yeh, the old switches off the tree …Ha, ha

G: Oh, yeh, one wasn’t thin enough I don’t know how you’re going to write all of this. I just don’t know how you’re gone to do this.

P: How much more tape is there?

G: I can’t tell

P: Maybe it’s already over. Will you know when it’s over?

G: No, I’ll stop it and look

 

LATER, FROM MOM TO JIM.

G: Jim this tape is really messed up.  Pauline and I don’t get together very often and when we do, its just for a few minutes, anyhow, I think this tape should be taped over and start with the Kalostos children.

There were 5 Kalostos children: Catherine, Pauline, Georgia, Thomas and John

The 4 older children had different fathers.

My mother was married 4 times.

The first two children were named Bill and Gus Rudorf.

Their father died.

So my Mother married again to a man with the last name of Marren, she had Tom and Mary.

So that’s the 4 older.

Then she married my Father, George Kalostos, and had us 5 children.

She divorced him after 22 years of marriage, and later on she married a man she had known in Winnemucca, Nevada way back when, but that only lasted 4 weeks and she was back home again.

Oh, there’s quite a bit more tape on here so have to think some more to think what to tell you.

I forgot to say the first 2 men she married, they both died, before she married my Father.

Just wanted you to know that part.

 

Well, Jim, I held off on mailing this to you sooner because I thought my mind would get a little clearer and be able to continue with this. My mind is just boggled. I can imagine how writers, book writers, autobiographers, get stymied because they get kind of stuck, and I’m stuck! …Ha, ha… sorry about that.  I just don’t know where to go from here, all I know is that we all went to school, 3 schools in Sacramento, David Luben (1-6 grade), Jr High School (7-9), Sacramento High School (10-12), we all graduated except John, I think he quit school, probably in the 11th grade. Anyhow, I think that’s all I can do, I’ll mail it tomorrow because I don’t know when I’ll get back at it.  I just am really lost.  So, here we go…….