By Doris
California was a dramatic change from Adak, with it’s beautiful sun filled days and perfect temperatures. The house and yard were perfect playgrounds for Jennifer and Kent, who now had a treehouse and a sandbox, and a great play area inside next to their bedrooms. Every room had a door to the outside because Don Stivers had a fear of fire and wanted to be able to escape in case of an emergency. However, this now meant that children could also escape without Mom or Dad noticing. Kent pulled this off one day when he decided to get our mail from the mailbox located at the end of the long winding driveway next to the road! We quickly became more vigilant, especially when things would become strangely quiet! Jennifer took swimming lessons at the local pool, where we sometimes had to drive through the cool early morning fog.
When we moved in Kent had the chickenpox so I was unable to meet our neighbors the Kline’s right away. Jennifer became acquainted with two of the boys, Steve and Johnny, in their backyard. (Like Meridian our next door neighbors had four boys!) After a few days when Kent was recovered, I met the family and was surprised to learn that Johnny had cerebral palsy, either used crutches or crawled, and had eyes that didn’t focus well. His mother said “he can do everything but mind,” just like any normal kid.
Jennifer never mentioned anything, he was just a kid to play with, and years later in New Orleans a down’s syndrome child Linda, was accepted by the neighborhood children the same way. How great that she saw right past the disabilities. They spent a lot of time together, along with some little girls, Betsy and her sisters. All of the properties were an acre so we were probably among the first to arrange playdates.
Jennifer started kindergarten and became good friends with a little girl named Karen. Fast forward 35 years to Tucson, Arizona and to a golf course at Saddlebrooke where we lived. One day my golf partner was a new resident and as we chatted between holes, we learned that we both had lived in Oakland and our daughters were friends. Jennifer had a class picture standing next to Karen, where Karen has her head turned and is talking. Her mom said they called her Chatty Cathy, after a popular doll.
We spent a lot of time outdoors. When Grandma Mae and Grandpa Rudy came to visit we went to the nearby Knowland Park Zoo and to feed the ducks at Montclair. It was wonderful because Kent was 15 months old, Jennifer was four, and they saw Kent for the first time. Until I was a grandparent I never really understood how that must have been for Grandma.
Our “grown up” lives were centered around the base and the people in the squadron. We hosted a Super Bowl brunch for a huge group. The whole squadron came, including guys on their way to and from flights. It was a great house for a party. I made eggs and muffins with the help of a wife named Dawn, who was almost deaf. She and her husband were young idealists and conflicted about the Vietnam war. He made the unfortunate decision to march in an anti-war parade in full uniform and was gone immediately from the squadron.
The 1960s were the decade that changed the country, starting in California and Berkeley with the anti-war demonstrations, the counterculture movement, the summer of love in 1967, the founding of the Black Panther movement in 1966, and the advent in 1960 of the birth control pill.
The Black Panthers armed citizen patrols to monitor the behavior of officers in the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city. Sound familiar?
When Martin Luther King was assassinated, it was reported that the Black Panthers were marching. The Oakland schools dismissed all students without any pre-planning. Fortunately I had arranged to pick Jennifer up so we escaped the chaos that ensued.
During the summer of love in 1967, 100,000 people in hippie attire and flowers gathered in Haight Ashbury, opposed to war, against the materialistic society and into poetry, music and meditation. Contrasted with this was the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 in Los Angeles.
Our friends Ron and Kay Pickett from Meridian were now stationed in Alameda, with their two children Cindi and Brent. Ron did three tours on a carrier, flying missions over Vietnam and was gone for nine months at a time. Kay, who was married right after high school, used this time to take college courses which eventually led to a degree. To quote an old World War II saying, she was one of “the women who wait for them.”
Don, meanwhile, was busy ferrying servicemen back and forth on the California coast on their way to Vietnam. Days off were rare, but we did manage a few day train trip to Keddie in the mountains, which Jennifer and Kent loved.
Don and I managed a few trips to San Francisco, one of them to the Hungry I, where we saw a young Bill Cosby. The Hungry I was a small, intimate club where you were very close to the stage. We also saw Mort Sahl who was a rather avant-garde comedian. We rode the cable car with an old high school friend one night. Other California memories involved our friends Ceci And Kennedy Snow from Bermuda. They and their children stayed with us for several days on their way back from Kodiak.
For a number of days, Don was speaking with a German accent. Kennedy used to refer to him as Sea Kraut, as in senior Kraut. One night, the four of us went to San Francisco to the top of the Mark at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. We were in the elevator when the door opened and a very proper gentleman entered asking for “twelfths pleese” in a thick German accent. That was all it took, as Ceci and I collapsed in a fit of giggling to the Top of the Mark. Kennedy was an aficionado of lamb, so off we went to the restaurant, Charles. The plaque on the door read “A San Francisco Lambmark.” The bartender who spoke with a passable French accent turned out to be from the Bronx!
The officers Wives Club was the source of a lot of activities, including bridge, which I learned to play in Bermuda so I could be a fourth and available for games, as needed. I never was very good as my mind wandered while playing, and concentration is needed. Also talking was frowned upon! But I did play, anyhow. We went as a group to see Gypsy and also there were the monthly luncheons and squadron picnics. I was secretary of the Officer’s Wives Club and due to become president, but was spared that responsibility, thank goodness, when orders were received to go to New Orleans. Navy orders are interesting, sometimes you have three months notice, this time was two weeks. Coincidentally the Stivers wanted to sell their house, so it was a nice tidy ending. I was so organized we went to a vacation bible school picnic the day before the movers came. I found my calling, I was good at this moving thing!
One interesting Oakland and Skyline Drive fact not to be missed is that Tom Hanks is from Oakland and graduated from Skyline High School!