sonora2sonoma

By
Tim Konrad

A collection of short essays on my recollections of growing up in the Sierra foothills in the 1950s.

Adventures with my favorite cousin

1953 was a long time ago—68 years ago, to be exact.

In the summer of 1953, I was a few months shy of ten years old; I had absolutely no notion back then of what it might feel like to be able to reflect back, as I do today, on what I was doing that many years ago.

And today, while I still can’t say I understand any more about time than I did back then, I feel no less marveled by its mystery.

That year, 1953, stands out for me as significant:

—a milestone, perhaps;

—a marker, denoting the point in time at which I came into my own in terms of my recall of events;

—the point around which the bulk of my early memories suddenly became organized.

Prior to that summer, my recollections had lacked organization. They’d consisted solely of random bits of memories, scattered about like fragments of dreams, with little in the way of threads with which to connect them. My memories prior to that point had existed more as vague impressions of moments separated from one another by the passage of unknown quantities of time.

That all changed in the summer of 1953 when my favorite cousin, Linda, came to visit us from her home in Hayward; a few weeks later, I would make a reciprocal visit to her house. Each visit spanned about a week, but they were precious weeks.

I regarded Linda, about a year and a half my senior, not only as someone to look up to, but, as we were both raised without siblings, my surrogate sister.

We had grand adventures, Linda and I. Entrepreneurial in spirit, Linda came up with the most novel ideas for activities with which to occupy our time.

Together, we dabbled in print journalism, producing single-page editions of the news of her neighborhood, with the help of her Dad’s old typewriter and plenty of carbon paper.

After she’d heard somewhere that there was a $50 bounty being offered for the capture and delivery of transients, or “bums,” as they were called back then, we dressed ourselves as bums and wandered the vacant lots by the railroad tracks in hopes of luring some hapless indigent.

Since we’d neglected to work out a plan for what we would have done had we ever succeeded in capturing a bum, it was probably fortuitous that our efforts were met with failure.

On one occasion, when my parents and I were in Hayward visiting Linda and her parents, I was disappointed to learn that Linda was confined to her bed with a case of the chickenpox.

While we weren’t allowed to play together during that visit, Linda was nonetheless generous enough, when we were leaving, to send me home with her ailment. 

On another occasion, while my parents had gone out with Linda’s parents to attend a burlesque show, Linda and I were left home with a babysitter.

There had been a rash of burglaries in her neighborhood around that time, and Linda, fearful someone might try to break into her house while our parents were away, enlisted my support in setting a series of booby-traps just inside her front door,

We put out pots and pans and other objects, all intended to create lots of noise in the event some unwanted visitor were to trip over them in the dark.

We believed our scheme was sufficient to alert us in the event any uninvited person should attempt to gain entry.  

Again, however, the plan lacked foresight, since we had no idea what we would have done had anyone succeeded in breaching our fortifications.

My memories of Linda’s visit to Sonora that summer revolve mainly around one particular event that has remained with me down through the years.

As mentioned previously, the Sonora of my youth had two movie theaters. One night, Linda and I went to the movies but we didn’t go together because we couldn’t agree on which movies to see.

Linda wanted to go see a horror flick called “House of Wax” that was playing at the downtown theater. The movie starred Vincent Price, and was the first major American film shot in color and in 3D.

I wanted to watch the Disney animated cartoon “Peter Pan,” which was showing at the Uptown Theater. Both movies got over around the same time, so we walked home together afterward.

I remember Linda complaining she wasn’t all that happy with the movie she had seen, whereas I was thrilled with my choice. Peter Pan was the perfect movie for a nine-year-old boy to see. Upon hearing Linda had regrets about the choice she had made, I was convinced I had chosen the right movie to attend.

The memory of that movie stayed with me for years.

If, on the other hand, I’d gone to see House of Wax, I probably would have forgotten it shortly afterward.

My sweet cousin is no longer with us, having passed on after a short illness two summers ago.  

I think of her nearly every day. I dearly miss her presence in my life. Every moment we shared together is a gift I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Thank you, Cuz, for your wisdom, your compassion and your gentle, caring nature.

Our roles change with the passage of time;

with Linda’s passing, I am now the patriarch of my mother’s side of my family.

To be continued: