In 1958 Disney re-released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to theaters in the USA. I was in Phoenix at the time visiting my cousins with my folks. One afternoon all the kids were stacked into a 1942 Plymouth (with the velvet rope of safety across the back of the front bench seat) and dropped off at a local movie house to watch the twenty year old animated film. It was easily as satisfying as Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier which I had enjoyed for free simply by wearing my School Safety Patrol sweater one Saturday in San Diego.
Continue reading “Who Wrote the Book of Love”Tag: San Diego
The Hot List
When I was young the family would visit relatives in Arizona in the Spring. Since my father was a school teacher, it was natural to spend a week over the Easter Holiday communing with cactus, irrigation, and burning creosote. But one year we went to Phoenix for some sort of convention and it was in the heat of the summer. Back then few people had air conditioning and had to rely on water coolers to take the edge off the heat.
Continue reading “The Hot List”Racism: Chopped and Channeled
I grew up in post-war San Diego. My family lived in plywood rooms tossed up for the influx of the wartime factory workers. We could have conversations with our neighbors without leaving our mutual homes. When I went to school I was exposed to a lot of people who didn’t look like me—tow-headed blue-eyed white speaking kindergarten English. Spanish was common and I often wished I had been dark haired, dark skinned, and dark eyed. Years later I learned that my brunette mother had considered brown eyes preferable but she kept having blond haired, blue-eyed children.
Continue reading “Racism: Chopped and Channeled”