Shakespeare and Ashbery

Though we were very poor, and didn’t even have a car, I found much to do as a teen in Hollywood.

For one thing, at that time, Hollywood boasted any number of excellent, small bookstores, used, rare, etc. Once I found them, I spent much time in them, and the owners did not seem to mind me standing in the close packed, usually dusty and dim, aisles, reading. I didn’t have the money to BUY a book, but I did much ‘spot reading’ in those wonderful shops.

It was in those stores that I discovered Shakespeare’s Sonnets and John Ashbery’s poems. I was enchanted! I would note what pages I was on so I could pick up where I left off when I went back.

I had not yet thought of writing poetry, didn’t think of myself as a ‘poet’, but the seed was planted.

PBX Operator

My Mother (Aldine) was a PBX Operator. She learned the occupation at the American Red Cross in Kansas City Missouri at a very young age. It may even have been her first job.

She went on to work at the Kansas City Hall, (Where my Grandfather was the Garage Superintendant) the Coca Cola Company (boy do I wish I had just a few of the promotional items she brought home!), and then the Veterans Hospital in Kansas City.

Once we moved to California, she went to work for the Retail Clerks Union Dental Office on Hollywood Blvd. She worked there for over 10 years.

I never heard her express an interest in doing any other type of work. Her job, and the places where she
worked, played a very big part in our lives.

Rats!

My Grandparents (Thomas Earl Garrett and Grace Garrett) house on Jefferson St. (and the houses surrounding it), were literally infested with rats. You could set a jillion traps and not be rid of the rats!

Now we are not talking cute little field mice here, but big huge rats!

It was so bad that there was a ‘stick’ in a corner of each room (usually from the bottom of an old window blind), to beat them off with!

In fact, my half-sister Donna Fuqua was badly bitten by one of them in the middle of the afternoon while taking a nap (I remember it well – though I was younger than she was.) In her sleep, she had let her hand dangle out of the crib slats, and a rat almost bit off one of her fingers.
I remember her screaming, crying, and her Mother, Irene Fuqua, rushing to pick her up. Her hand was bleeding profusely. It was such a bad bite; they even took her to a doctor (a rare event for such a poverty household.) Her hand was bandaged for days.