Born at the end of the baby boom, Steve was a wild, hyperactive child. He had always fought authority. He was the oldest of three children. He spent the first nine years of his life in a small wood and stucco home his father had purchased after borrowing the $1,000 down from his father.
It was a small, two-bedroom home with hardwood floors, a small kitchen, small living room, and what seemed to Steve to be a giant backyard. Steve’s father was in school to be an electrician. Times were tough after the war, and there wasn’t much work in the small, quiet town. Many times they only ate because his father had gone down to the harbor and would bring home fish he had caught off the pier. When he was very small he would cry at night. His father was less than patient with him, and would come into his bedroom yelling and spank him.
Steve’s sister was born three years after him. Year’s later Steve would recall the day his sister came home in his mother’s arms from the hospital. There was quite a fuss and this intruder seemed to demand much more attention than necessary. She couldn’t even talk. Steve couldn’t understand how this small, loud person managed to rate space in his parent’s bedroom. He wasn’t allowed in there and now she had her own bed at the foot of their bed. His mother said his sister’s name is Sheryl and that he would come to love her as much as father and mother do. Steve asked his dad why mom couldn’t take the baby back to the “hopittal” where she found it.
Steve’s brother, Randy, arrived two years later, by then his sister was moved into his bedroom. So when the crib appeared at the end of his parent’s bed again, he didn’t feel as if his space had been invaded. He had an ally and friend in his sister, who helped divert his attention and fears that came with having a new, loud little person in the room next to his. The house seemed smaller after his brother arrived.
The house was only five blocks west from the railroad tracks. Steve used to love watching the “Milk Train” chug past as he stood on the sidewalk in front of the little house on Islay Street. It was called a Milk Train because it was slow. During the war it hauled containers of milk from the farms north of the town, to the dairy in another town to the South.
It didn’t carry milk anymore. Mostly loaded with walnuts and avocados during season, now it hauled mail. It still chugged past his street blocking traffic for at least ten minutes each morning. Steve loved to listen to the clickitty-clack of the wheels and look at the big words painted on the sides of the boxcars. Sometimes one or two of the boxcars had doors open on both sides, and he could see the silhouette of men sitting in the middle, smoking cigarettes.
One day Steve thought he saw a real Steam Locomotive going south. It was the last time the old steamer would ever run along any tracks. He would never forget the steam hissing from the big silver piston driving the long arm turning the big black wheel. Some of the cars had windows all along the side, all painted with new trim setting off the shinny finish of the varnished wood. White smoke was bellowing up from the stack of the shinny black engine as the train chugged down the tracks. Even the noise it made was exciting.
That night Steve told the exciting story of the big Steam Locomotive to his parents. They explained to Steve that he really didn’t see a Steam Locomotive because they have been replaced by diesel-generated electric motors and are not used any more. It was a diesel he saw, and probably just confused. The smoke he saw was from the diesel engine and not smoke from a boiler. Steve didn’t believe it. He knew what he saw. When he was older, Steve learned it was headed for a museum.
On the opposite corner and across the street was Ken and Dottie’s General Store. Steve would often go there to buy candy when he could get his hands on some pennies. Usually from his Great grandfather when he would come to visit. Ken, an old man by the time Steve was big enough to be allowed to go the half block and across the street to the corner store, would some times except a button or two along with Steve’s pennies when Steve bought his favorite Bazooka Gum, two pieces for a penny. Ken’s wife, Dottie, would complain to Ken, as soon as Steve was out the front door, for taking the buttons. Dottie never did.
Just one block west from the railroad tracks was the home of a baseball player that was years later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And around the corner to the West lived Dave Wilson, Steve’s best friend. Whenever Steve was late for dinner or didn’t come right home from school, his mother would call Dave’s house and most of the time Steve could be found along with Dave playing in the tree fort in Dave’s front yard.