Couple of New Things

Entryway Bench

The bench above was modeled after our Sofa Table minus the fish tile. 

And our newest Sofa Table.

So So Warm

Flowers are beginning to bloom.  The days are getting longer and warmer.  It's making me itch to get outside and do some yard work.  There's plenty to do out there!  We'll have to set some time aside to get started on this soon.  A few plants died from the frost this year and we'll have to replace those.  Even though it wasn't too cold, we did have some freezing days and nights. 

All in all, we've had a pretty warm winter around here with not nearly enough rain and the weather is now very springlike.  In the mornings when we go hiking, we dress warm just in case it's cold outside to start with, and we always get too hot and have to strip off a layer and throw it in my backpack.  

Some Childhood Memories 1960's

When I was a child in the 1960's, my family lived in Oakland, CA..  For several years, we lived on 63rd Avenue.  Across the street from us lived one of the early members of the Oakland Chapter of the Hells Angels, Tom Thomas.  We knew him as Tommy.

 Tommy seated far right.

Ralph "Sonny" Barger, president of the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels, reads a statement during a news conference in Oakland, Ca., Nov. 19, 1965. Barger announced they will not show up for the Vietnam Day Committee's march on the Oakland Army Terminal, Saturday. The members of the Oakland Hell's Angels chapter from left are, Cliff Workman, treasurer; Barger; Tiny Walter, sergeant at arms; Ron Jacobson, secretary; and Tom Thomas, vice president, seated far right. (AP Photo)

I was going through some old pictures of mine and for some reason I began thinking and wondering what ever happened to Tommy.  When I began researching the Oakland Hell's Angels, I knew he was a popular member of the gang back then, but what I didn't know is that he was the vice president of the Oakland Chapter.  I only found this out when I saw him in the above photo that I discovered online and to the link above.  Looking at that picture they each seem vaguely familiar to me now, ghostlike faces from the past.

Every week, on Friday night, Tommy, would throw a huge party and Hells Angels from all over would show up on our street.  You could hear the rumble of the approaching bikes and we knew what was about to happen. Motorcycles would be parked facing into the curb up and down both sides of the street for blocks.  There was lots of drinking and fighting amongst them.  I can remember kneeling on our sofa and peeking out between the curtains at Tommy's house on those nights because of all the ruckus and being a curious girl.

I spoke to my dad recently to see what he remembered and we began reminiscing about those days and our neighbors.  My dad said he remembers one day having a talk with Sonny about the bikes being in his way when coming or going from our driveway because they were parked too close to it and he told Sonny that he wouldn't want to accidentally hit one or knock one over.  Sonny was nice and he told my father that there wouldn't be a problem and from then on, the bikes were parked clear of our driveway.

In later years, whenever I spoke to my mom about Tommy, she would tell me that he was protective of us girls, meaning my two sisters and I.  We lived in a very rough neighborhood in Oakland and I can imagine that is what she's referring to.  We were the only white people living on the block besides Tommy, our landlords, and an elderly man living next door, and this was during a time when the black power movement was uprising and there was a lot of racial conflict going on.  The Black Panthers roamed the streets.  Tommy watched out for us.  I think that I had a little girl's crush on him.  He was a nice guy from what I remember and a cute one at that.  I only wish that I knew what happened to Tommy.

Of the five men that were seen frequently in our neighborhood in those days, from what I've learned online, Michael 'Tiny' Walters simply disappeared, Ron Jacobson died in Sweet, Idaho in 1972, and Skip Workman died in 2012.  Sonny lives in Cave Creek, Arizona.  And Tommy?  

A video of Skip Workman confronting the author Hunter S. Thompson.

Clifford Clark 'Skip' Workman.  The link to the left will take you to a site that tells a little interesting bit about his life and how Skip came to join the Oakland Chapter.

 Tommy was featured in the May, 1968, Issue of Chopper Magazine.

It seems so long ago.

Our Aunt Verna and Uncle Alva (we pronounced his name Alvie) came to visit us from Willits in 1966.  I only know the year because it's printed on the back side of the photograph.  This is me and my Uncle Alva on one of those rare visits.  Actually, it might be one of their only visits to the city.  Why the photo is clipped, I honestly cannot remember.  Who else is in the picture or why or how it got clipped, I don't know.  Although I do remember Uncle Alvie wanting to sit on my bicycle for the picture and me laughing and telling him that he was too big.  One day I'll share more on my summers spent in Willits with my family.  Many fond memories.

This was our dog Candy.  This might sound strange but I used to believe that I understood her, in a telepathic sort of way.  It's silly, I used to believe that I could hear her thoughts and I secretly knew what she was saying to me.  I've kept this picture of her all these years which was taken in our backyard at 2506 63rd Ave. 

Our landlord and his wife lived across the street from us in a boxy little peach colored house which is still there and is next to Carol and Shot's old house described below.  On Christmas Eve the landlords would walk over to our house and give each of us girls a coloring book and some crayons.  We looked forward to that each year and they were the nicest people.

Across the street at 2481 lived a couple named Carol and Shot.  Carol used to babysit me, she was a big loving woman.  I can remember playing outside by myself, listening to the birds singing, picking the yellow spikes in the center of the calla lilies and pretending to be or do I don't know what.  I don't think Carol ever got mad at me for doing this, perhaps she was unaware I was picking them.  Carol and Shot used to have the most fun parties with Motown music and dancing.  That's where I learned to love to dance at a very young age.

We had an apple tree, a plum tree and an orange tree in the backyard.  One day I picked a bowl of little green apples and was sitting on the step outside sulking.  I wanted to make an apple pie but my mom was busy with something and told me no.  Our next door neighbor, an elderly gentleman, saw me and asked if I wanted to make an apple pie with my apples.  He took me into his kitchen and together we made an apple pie.  I thought it was the best apple pie that I'd ever eaten.

After school each day, we girls would run home and then run down the street to our friend's house and watch Dark Shadows.  Here's the introduction to Dark Shadows, I'm sure many of you have seen.

I can remember when Martin Luther King was killed.  Riots broke out everywhere in Oakland and at our school, people were going crazy.  My sister, Debbie, and I, ran all the way home from school that day in fear for our lives.  It was frightening.

My sisters and I used to walk to the tiny market on the corner for a bag of candy and we had a cat that would follow us and wait outside the store and then follow us back home.  It's now called Pete's Market and I'm not certain if that was the name of it then or not (the name sounds familiar) but the front of the store pretty much looks the same to me.  It was a very small store situated within a residential neighborhood.  I could be wrong but I think the row of candy was located on the right as you walked into the store and they had bins of brightly colored flip flops outside in the summer for a dime per pair and we would buy several pairs for the warmer weather.  Boy, we could get a lot of candy for a quarter or less.  Even for a penny, sometimes two things for a penny!  This is only a small sampling of the candy I grew up eating and can vouch that they gave me plenty of cavities.  They still make mostly all of these candies today.

Once the lemon candies were gone, the box itself made a whistle sound if you blew into one end.

Some hot candy.

Loved these flavorful wafer candies.

Cigar shaped bubble gum.

Wear the necklace and bite off candy as needed.

Like a sweetened Kool-Aid powder.

Everyone in our family smoked cigarettes.  I used to pretend to smoke these candies but I never liked real cigarettes, even as a kid I hated them.  I never smoked even though my friends took up the nasty habit.  And guess who has asthma problems?

Chewy is right!  Chewy goodness by Annabelle's.  A local bay area company.

Juicy wax lips for Halloween.

And the juicy wax syrup bottles.  Bite off the top, suck out the juice and then chew the wax.  Nothing better.

These were one of my favorites.

You could crack a tooth on one of these.

Good old fashioned lollipops.  They used to give these to each child in the car at the gas stations when you pulled in for a fill up.  Gas stations back then used to give away all kinds of cool things.  Glasses, mugs, cereal bowls, etc..  They'd come out, fill up the car, wash the windshield, check the fluids, check the tire pressure and give us a freebie.  Those were the days!

My Birthday

Michael surprised me for my birthday by taking me to San Francisco for the night.  Before heading into the city, we drove up to an overlook point on the Marin side and I hopped out and took this pretty picture.  Coming down the hill, we passed a man on his motorcycle with his little doggie strapped on the bike behind him.  He was yapping away, but being curious, he stopped long enough for me to capture this cute picture.

We then drove into the city to check into our room at the motel, Cow Hollow Inn.  

Since we had a few hours to kill, we walked around the block to Chestnut Street which runs parallel from the inn on Lombard Street.  Another of our favorite shopping districts in the city, lots of cute shops and restaurants and bars.  Lots to do and we would like to plan a date to come back to spend more time here.  Maybe go to Happy Hour at one of the local bars.  That's always fun.

Walking down Chestnut, what should we come upon but a cute little bakery?  SusieCakes.  Of course, we had to go inside and check things out, it was my birthday.  They had all these wonderful and temptingly delicious looking cakes under domed glass cake plates lined up on top of their display case.  Inside the case are pretty cupcakes, cookies and other mouth watering sweets captivating my attention.  I'm trying to decide what to have and right away I hear Mike choose to get a slice of some kind of cake.  I wasn't really paying attention to what dessert he chose, I was too busy looking at everything.  Then I see a sign on the counter but the cake plate was missing.  I put two and two together and asked the woman cutting his cake if it was German Chocolate.  She said it was and so I asked her to cut me a piece, too. 

I only wish she'd warned me of how large the slice would be.  Honestly, it was too much for both of us and we'd been better off had we split a piece.  It was yummy though.

We walked around a little more, to walk off some of the cake.  There was a Pottery Barn store that we went into and I bought a sweet little rabbit plate and a set of rabbit napkins.

Pottery Barn Bunny Napkins

For dinner, the plan was to go to Capps Corner which is right next door to Beach Blanket Babylon. 

Capps is a family style Italian restaurant.  All you can eat minestrone soup, salad and french bread with butter is served with every entree. 

The real treat was going to see Beach Blanket Babylon.  It was my first time seeing it and really didn't know what to expect other than some wild and crazy hats.  I didn't realize it was going to be a musical with tons of talented singers.  It was a comedy with a story line about Snow White searching the world over for her Prince Charming.  You'll never guess who she ends up with in the end.  What a cute play and a fun night.  Thank you, Michael!  

Rainy Days and Nights

Yesterday and the day before it rained steadily all day and all night.  The room was dark, just how I like it, when I awoke to the pitter-patter of the raindrops hitting the rooftop on the back porch.  I peered over Michael to see the clock on his side of the bed, it was only 5 am and my head plopped back down on the pillow and I snuggled down under the quilt.  I was too warm and cuddly beneath the blankets and wanted nothing more but to go back to sleep.  The next thing I knew it was 8:30 a.m..  We pulled the curtains back to let the light in and lay in bed for another minute or two adjusting our sleepy heads awake until the chores of the day loomed before us and told us we'd better get up and get going.

On Saturday we both worked on a bunch of orders.  Me painting and trying to keep things from getting wet in our slightly flooded conditions in the side yard which is where my work station is set up.  Michael had to put some boards down for me to set things on to lift them up off the ground which is where I normally set pieces to dry (on the ground) before going on to the next step.

Michael had a large umbrella stand set up at the garage door opening so that when he cut the wood on the table saw,  it would stay dry and keeps him dry, too.

In the afternoon, I showered and had to go to the store to get some much needed groceries and mainly laundry detergent.  I'd been out of that for a week and even did a load or two of laundry using some dish soap with Borax for a booster.  They came out fine and smelling clean.  I even got to wear my Sorel boots for the first time this year.  These are my old boots that I used to wear in the snow but I figured that they can be used in rainy weather just fine.  They kept me dry as I splish splashed in the puddles throughout the parking lot.

Sunday we slept in again, more coziness and raindrops and sleepy eyes.

After breakfast I had a bunch of wine rack orders that I painted.  Because it's so wet everywhere, I needed a place to set them to dry and couldn't find any location to do this.  Thinking I was clever, I stood them up in neat rows on my work table but every time I went to add another row of wooden wine rack pieces, the freshly painted piece would barely touch the one standing behind and they would all fall down like a bunch of dominoes.  I would fix them and stand them all up and it would happen again...and again.  It was very frustrating.  Please stay.  Don't fall over.  Pretty please with sugar on top.  That's what my mom used to say.  With sugar on top.  And I'd say, and a cherry.

And eventually they behaved like the good little wine racks they are.

Our Newest Floating Wood Shelf

Floating Wood Shelf

This shelf can be made in pretty much any dimension and has custom made trimwork. 

From the Depths of Despair

I've been wanting to watch this documentary, it's been in my Netflix queue for over a year, bumping it's way up the list, and the dvd finally arrived yesterday and we watched it tonight.  Through my tears, I post.  We must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust or fail to teach our children.  It's inconceivable to understand how over six million people can be murdered.  But they were. Documentary by Alexandra Zupruder.  
 

I’m Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People During the Holocaust is from another place and time.  Diaries written by Jewish children.  These testify of hatred, persecution, antisemitism, racism, and the power used to discriminate and eliminate every man, woman and child identified as Jewish as well as anyone deemed not worthy to live by the Nazis.

Diarists:

Klaus Langer, age 12

Began diary in Essen, Germany

March 1937 

Peter Feigl, age 14

Began diary in France

27 August 1942 

Elisabeth Kaufmann, age 16

Began diary in Paris, France

February 1940 

Diary of Dawid Rubinowicz, age 12

Began diary in Krajno, Poland

March 21, 1940

Diary of Yitskhok Rudashevski, age 14

Began diary in Vilna Ghetto, Lithuania

September 1942 

Diary of Ilya Gerber, age 18

Began Diary (no photograph of Ilya)

in

Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania

August 1942 

January 1, 1943
We, the Jews, stand on the threshold of 1943. Of this year it was said that the Jews will not see it--they will not survive that long. …The Jew, the people cursed by Der Stürmer as the criminal of all crimes, the one responsible for the world war, the betrayer of nations, the enemy of the people, the parasite who lives at the expense of others, the Bolshevik, the capitalist, the eternal exploiter, upon whose head all curses are heaped, guilty of everything--he, yes he, has survived to a new year, the year 'forty-three!

Ilya Gerber, the younger of two children, was born in Kovno, Lithuania in July, 1924. His father, Boris Gerber, was a well-known music teacher and conductor in Kovno; but little is known about his mother and older sister Chaya.

The Jews of Kovno were forced into the Kovno Ghetto in August 1941, when Ilya was just seventeen. One year later, he began writing his diary. A keen observer of the world around him, Ilya filled his diary with vivid descriptions and colorful drawings of the ghetto inhabitants suffering around him. For Ilya's immediate family, life was made a bit easier by the fact that his father was well connected to high-ranking members of the ghetto leadership. These connections allowed the Gerber family access to food and other luxuries, and Ilya's diary reflects his unusual status as a "privileged" person in the ghetto.

Ilya wrote his final diary entry on January 23, 1943. The diary breaks off at that point, and no other notebooks belonging to Ilya have been found. Ten months later, in October 1943, there was another massive roundup in Kovno. The ruthless destruction of the remainder of the Kovno Jews followed, and in July 1944 Kovno was emptied. By war's end the vast majority of the former Kovno Jewish community had perished. It is presumed that Ilya and his family were among them, though nothing specific is known of their fate.

Ilya's richly illustrated diary is now in the archives of the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum in Lithuania.

Diary of Petr Ginz, age 15

Began Diary

in Terezín Ghetto, Czechoslovakia

October 1943 

February 8, 1944

“After thinking about it for a long time, I decided to write a diary. I’m doing it for my Mom,

Dad, and Eva, to whom I cannot write everything I would like in a letter because, first, it is

not allowed and, second, my German is not good enough.  I’m also writing it for myself so I

won’t forget the great number of incidents and types of people that I have come into contact

with.”

— Petr Ginz

Peter

Eva and Peter Ginz

Diary of Eva Ginz 14

Began Diary

Terezín Ghetto, Czechoslovakia

June 24, 1944

Ghetto by Peter Ginz

Moon Landscape by Peter Ginz

Diary of an Anonymous Girl, age unknown

Began diary in

Łodź Ghetto, Poland

February and March, 1942 

‘There is no justice in the world, not to mention in the ghetto.’ So begins the diary of a young

girl writing in the Łodź Ghetto in late February and March of 1942.  Her identity is unknown.... The language of the diary is Polish; the diarist and her family were most likely native Poles, but whether they were originally from the city of Łodź or settled from a smaller village nearby is likewise unclear. 

Above, is a section from an unknown girl's diary.  Her diary ends in the middle of a sentence on March 18, 1942.

Miriam Korber, age 18

Began diary in Transnistria, Romania

December 1941 

“Miriam’s diary was hidden from her for a long time, first by her mother and then by her

husband, who feared the emotional repercussions of her reading the diary and remembering the

horrors of life in Transnistria. After the war, she went on to become a doctor, and in the 1990s

she published the diary in Germany and Romania. The original remains with her to this day.” 

Elsa Binder, age 21

Began diary in Stanisławów, Poland

December 1941