Hello.
Hey.
How's it going?
Good.
Nice.
You can hear me okay?
Yeah.
Okay.
Perfect.
Nice.
Now is a good time?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Awesome.
Well, I guess, yeah, thanks for taking the time to do this.
Oh, so the first question is, what do you remember about growing up in your hometown?
And I guess, where was, what, yeah, I guess I want to know more about like what hometown
means to you.
Like where was that?
Well, that's a good question because my dad worked for Sterile in California when I was
growing up.
And so we moved every three to five years, so we moved quite a bit.
So like I went to three different grade schools, two of them in California and I remember one
in Oregon, in junior high, which for us was originally seventh and eighth grade, and then
I got there, got to be seventh, eighth and ninth grade.
I was in a junior high in Oregon and then I ended up being one in California and then
the high school, I think it was in four or five different high schools.
Oh, wow.
Was it all like Oregon and Northern California?
No, it was Oregon and Southern California.
Oh, wow.
Like L.A. and down by, well, about an hour north of San Diego.
Oh, that's cool.
I didn't realize that.
Well, I never felt, I never felt like any one place was my home, although I liked Oregon.
We lived there twice and then we moved away from there when, oh, I think I was in...
junior high.
That was probably the roughest move for me because I had really, really good friends
in Oregon, so I had three or four guys I piled around with all the time.
In fact, we moved to Oregon and then one of the summers I came up and worked on a potato
farm, potato ranch, moving irrigation pipe, and I stayed with one of my friends and his
mom and sister in Oregon.
How old were you then?
I was in high school at that time.
I can't remember what age I was, but I was in high school.
So I wasn't the kind of kid that made friends really fast, nor were my two of my sisters.
But Chris, it was the next oldest after me, she could make a friend within five minutes.
We'd move somewhere new and she'd be gone.
She's already made friends with the neighbors and everything.
So moving was extremely difficult.
I hated it when we moved to California from Oregon.
I just absolutely hated it.
But when we were younger, we lived in Southern California and we moved from...
Well, I lived in Ontario.
That's one of the places we lived in Southern California.
I would usually make...
In grade school, one of the grade schools I was in on third became one of the popular kids.
Oh, that's cool.
Why was that?
Well, I was good at tetherball, I was good at kickball.
Kickball, we played it like baseball instead of using the barracks.
If you hit the ball, we used the kickball.
So you'd run the bases just like baseball and that, but you'd kick the ball to...
They'd pitch it to you from the pitcher's mound and kick the ball out to the field and run it.
So I was good at kickball and I was good at tetherball.
Me and my best friend, nobody could beat us at tetherball.
And he and I would play...
We could play for hours on end and still...
Neither one of us would really win.
We'd come to a draw.
That's cool.
And he and I loved...
His name was Mark Peasley and he and I also loved baseball.
I ate, drank, and slept baseball when I was younger.
That's all I ever wanted to be, was a professional baseball player.
So you played and would watch or follow it, I guess?
I would play it and then I would watch it.
When we lived in Lakewood, California, which was ours in grade school,
second grade, third grade, fourth grade,
it was baseball that was the big thing that I played during recess.
And I got into the popular group again.
But I can remember when I first got interested in baseball,
when we lived in Lakewood,
and I wasn't allowed to play with the kids in the street.
They wouldn't let me play because I didn't have a mitt.
Then eventually I got a mitt.
Then I could play on one of their teams,
but then they just wanted to use the mitt and not let me play.
Oh, let him.
That was horrid.
Yeah.
And I had the best friend there by the name of T.A. Richards.
He didn't live in the same neighborhood I did.
So when he and I got together,
my mom would have to drive me or his mom would have to drive him to my house.
So we went to the same school.
So we were a good friend there.
She was my first girl, I think I was in second or third grade.
Wow.
Her name was Sherry.
I remember she was up on the steps of the school building that we were in.
There were a lot of school buildings.
They were small.
They were bigger than bungalows, much bigger than bungalows,
but she was on the porch and I just went up the porch and kissed her
and then I came back down.
I was supposed to never kiss a girl.
I think about that when I lived there.
I was good at kickball.
And when I was younger I had a speech impediment.
Oh.
And so in the second and third, possibly the fourth grade,
I used to have to go to speech therapy class.
When you're in grade school back then,
you would have the same teacher for all your classes,
but during one of the class times,
I don't remember what subject it was in,
I would be sent to a different class
and I had speech therapy because I couldn't say my S's and my R's very well.
Oh, huh.
And that was very humiliating to me.
Oh, yeah.
Very humiliating.
But I got in with the popular group again and had a lot of friends.
We also lived in Long Beach, California.
And the year that we lived,
that was just when there was just myself and my sister Chris.
We had a lot of friends.
One of my best friends was a black kid in April.
And back then you didn't really associate with him,
but he was one of my best friends.
And we would play together and we'd play with the girls
and play something similar like capture the flag with the girls.
Yeah, that was kind of fun.
And I lived in Long Beach
at a time when they had the famous, it was very famous,
it's on national news, Signal Hill fires.
Oh.
And that was famous because the oil fields caught fire.
It was called the Signal Hill fires.
Wow.
And they just burned for weeks.
Wow.
Yeah.
But we lived there during that period of time.
So I lived in a lot of different places in Southern California.
And we did live in San Jose when I was in high school
and I think early high school.
And that was probably a really difficult,
really difficult time when we lived in San Jose.
I just absolutely hated it.
Oh, just...
And I didn't have...
Not as many friends or...
No, I only had like one or two friends.
Oh, yeah.
And the friends that I had didn't live close.
And so if they came to visit or I came to visit,
I would have to walk to their place as well.
Some of the areas that we lived in, there were games.
Wow.
And we had to...
There were times when I'd chase through fields
and I can remember more than once getting chased by gangs
and if they caught you, they'd beat you up.
Oh, wow.
And more than once.
So it made it difficult.
I didn't get caught, but it was very scary.
Oh, yeah. Wow.
Yeah, and one of the places that we lived
I actually defended one of the gang member leaders
by helping him with his math.
I was always good at school subjects and I helped him.
I sat behind him in class
and we sat towards the rear of the room
in the corner and I would help him
and then he would keep...
He wouldn't let in his gang people.
His name was Bustamante.
Wow.
And we became friends and he wouldn't let in
any of his gang people.
That hurt me.
So I kind of had a protector there at that school.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I can remember, like I said,
when we lived in Ontario and moved down to Ontario
and I was...
I played in the school play, I became a mall
in the night visitors.
There was a play called The Mall in the night visitors.
I was a mall.
I remember battling out between me and Joe
to see who would get the lead in the school play
and, of course, you had a school play
before your parents and everything.
That was a mall.
I played the main character, Mall.
Oh, wow, that's cool.
That was fantastic.
That's, again, when I was good at kickball
and tetherball.
And...
So I...
That was a good period of time in my life
and that's when I really got into baseball.
Me and Mark Peasey would go out for baseball leagues.
Oh, nice, and that was junior high
or that was high school?
No, that was grade school.
Oh, yeah, oh, got it, yeah.
Yeah, that was in Ontario.
And one of our neighbors across the street
was in Ontario.
They had a built-in swimming pool made.
And that's where I learned to swim
because I taught myself to swim.
They would have what they call flag days
where if they put up the flag,
that meant the neighborhood kids could come over
and swim in the pool.
Oh, that was just like their thing that they did?
Yeah, if they put up the flag,
a little signal flag on their front porch,
that meant, okay, we could come over
and ask to swim in their swimming pool.
That's cool.
My mom never liked to swim
because she didn't know how to swim
and so it wasn't something she liked to do.
My dad didn't know how to swim.
But that's where I learned how to swim in my...
And you just like taught yourself
by watching people that are just...
Yeah, I just taught myself.
I didn't learn how to swim really well,
but I learned how to swim.
I learned how to swim.
That's where I grew to love baseball.
I would listen to baseball on the radio.
I would watch baseball on TV.
I would play baseball.
I would join leagues and we'd play baseball
and I'd usually play in the outfield
or a short stop at third base
or second base or first base.
Usually I played center field or left field
because I had quite an arm
and that's really what I wanted to do with my life
to become a professional baseball player.
Wow.
Didn't you...
Go ahead.
I was going to say, didn't you later on...
Did you do baseball like in college?
No.
No, I never did go out to baseball
when I was in college.
Okay.
No, we lived in...
One of the places we lived in was Vista, California.
That's when I was in high school.
We used to play...
Sandlot football in our house
where our house was at.
It was a big dirt field
before you hit the next subdivision.
That was huge and you could play baseball out there.
You could play football
and two of my neighbors, they were...
We had Mexican...
One of our neighbors was Mexican family
and one of their sons was a gang banger.
He really got into gangs
and he had a brother, but it was him especially.
Anyway, he and his brother and other kids,
we would play Sandlot football.
One time we were playing that
and he was very fast.
He was known as the fastest kid in the high school.
One of the times I actually helped ban him.
I could run as fast as he could
which was a surprise to them.
Anyway, we were playing Sandlot football
on the back field behind our house
there in Vista.
He and I think his brother Sizzle tackled me
which means one came from one side
and the other came from the other side
and they hit my leg and my knee
and they were sins and it was never right.
That's what happened?
In fact, yeah, that's what happened.
It got to where it would swell up
and I'd have to go into the doctor
and they'd put a needle into my knee
and they'd drain it,
pull the blood and the fluid out of it
which I hated needles anyway
because when I was younger
I had to get polio shots
because polio was a disease that was prevalent.
I was born in 1951
so I'd have to get needle shots in my butt
periodically to prevent polio.
And so I grew to hate needles
and anything to do with doctors
because it was extremely painful.
No, I kind of overcame that
in my later years here
where I ended up giving blood
for years.
Of course I can't now
because of the cancer.
They won't take my blood.
And I can tell you how I got over that fear
when you had your
ballot where you had to have
I think a mole removed or something
and you did that without
I think without anesthesia or anything.
Well, I did the guided imagery
and then
because I was afraid of
they gave me like eight anesthetic shots
and I was super afraid of that.
And so I did the guided imagery
and I only felt like two of them.
So I took courage from that
and I thought if my young son
can do that
then I can surely
get over my fear of needles
and when I did it
then I started to give blood regularly.
That's the interesting side note.
Cool, thanks.
So you served as that inspiration.
Oh, awesome.
That's cool.
I didn't know that.
So I ended up giving blood for years.
That's what gave me the inspiration to do that.
That's cool.
Yeah.
But that's what I remember growing up
and I moved a lot
and it was very difficult for me
but the main thing that I love was
was baseball.
One of the houses that we lived in
when we lived in Ontario
again where my best friend was Mark Peasley
and like you say kickball was big
and tetherball was big
and we got into baseball
and one of the houses we lived in
had a tree house
and it had a lot of fruit trees.
There were lemon trees, grapefruit trees,
a lot of trees on our property.
We even had walnut trees in the backyard
and part of my job
part of my growing up there was
we had to do the dishes.
That was what our parents taught us.
So one night it would be somebody's turn
to do the dishes, washing them
and the other person's turn to try the dishes
and then the other person's turn to set the table
and the other person's turn to clear the table
because there was four of us.
Oh yeah.
And I can remember
and I also had to mow the lawn every week
and that kind of stuff.
My sister didn't have to do any of that though
and I remember telling my parents
I'm the only kid in,
I can't remember what grade it was,
fifth grade or sixth grade
I think sixth grade
I said I'm the only kid in sixth grade
the only boy in sixth grade
that has dish pan hands.
Oh.
And after that they let me not do the dishes
but I still had to mow the lawn
and do those kind of chores.
We had weekly chores.
Wow.
And daily chores.
So.
And then from there we moved back
and we moved up to Oregon
when I was in the sixth grade
and I found out that their sixth grade
was a year behind
California's sixth grades
and I moved up there.
All the subjects
I already had in fifth grade.
Oh wow.
So that was pretty easy
and I met friends up there
and Elton Allred
and Charles Hicks
and Charles Hicks
who are still
Oh yeah.
still seeing him on Facebook
because he's the man
Larry Hunter
eventually
and
there's a fellow by the name of Rick
and what we like to do is
we love to play board games
and ride our bikes
and
play croquet
We used to set up croquet tournaments
to see who was the best.
That's cool.
And usually it would come down
between Charles Hicks and I
and there was Ronnie Young also
that was one member of our group
and we used to set up
we'd have marathon board games
like Monopoly go on for days and weeks
where we might have a risk game
and we'd set up three risk boards
all together and play
three risk board games
all at the same time
play marathon risk games
It would be all one game
we set up as one game
but with three different boards
so it would take
days to play it
and then
and then riding our bikes
around the neighborhoods
so that was
I remember going
that one in Carme Falls
where I can not remember
and after school
we'd get home off
to Bison
we would take our lunch money
because we wouldn't buy lunch
in high school
we'd take it at school
and we'd go to the
convenience store
they didn't have selling them
we'd go to the convenience store
and we'd buy soda pop and chips
after school with our lunch money
instead of lunch
yeah
instead of lunch at school
we'd just save our money
and do that
you know like Cheetos
or Fritos
and soda pop
the good stuff
horse stuff
or like cupcakes
that kind of thing
or Twinkies
or snowballs
oh wow
those were like
I don't know if you've ever seen
snowballs or anything
like the pink
with coconut
yeah
yeah
yeah
so those are some of the things
that I remember
when I was
growing up
but I remember
I was really
really in the baseball
I would even sit
my dad would go visit people
or
I think
John Timonani
and I would sit out in the car
while he was in visiting
and I'd have the radio on
listen to the
LA Dodgers
the games being broadcast
and Vince Scully
would be one of the
announcers
he was a very
famous announcer
for the
Los Angeles Dodgers
I'd be out there
wow
was the Dodgers
your favorite team?
no it's just that
I like baseball
yeah you just loved any
baseball
yeah
and I grew to hate
the Yankees
when I was younger
because they always won
now one of my favorite teams
was the
I hate Los Cardinals
because
one of my favorite
players was
a guy by the name
of Stan Musial
he was a very famous
very famous hitter
in fact
one of the record albums
I ever
first albums
I ever bought
was Stan Musial
baseball tutorial
on hitting
and that was
when we had the big
78 record albums
so
but yeah
I ate, slept
slept and drank
baseball
and my dad
worked quite a bit
and so
when I was younger
and I was in the
baseball leagues
he only made it to
one game of mine
which was a very
severe disappointment
of mine
so when I was a dad
I tried to make it
to all your kids' games
oh yeah
you were in that too
you came to a lot of
soccer games
yeah
that's cool
yeah
so that's
one of the reasons
I did that
because my dad
only came to one game
all my time
and once in a while
he would come home
and he'd hit the ball
to me
and then catch fly balls
or grounders
or he'd play catch
with me
but that was a rarity
I just remember him
working a lot
and he did really
well at Stargo
he was way up
from being on
the service stations
till he became
assistant to the
vice president
in downtown
San Francisco
oh wow
in my eyes
yet he became
assistant to the
vice president
of San Diego
a company in California
so he was quite
quite good at what he did
he was a people person
people loved him
he was an outgoing
person now
like my sister Chris
and my mom
my sister
my mom was very
quiet and shy
I took more after her
and then later on
grew up
started doing jobs
when I was on the job
it became more like
my dad
in fact my persona
work was
different than it was
at home here
oh
I was extremely
outgoing
flamboyant
and quite
outspoken
interesting
and then when
I came home
I was
pretty quiet
more reserved
you know
kind of like it is
nowadays with your
mom being more
gregarious wife
and that's
something I always
regretted that I
wasn't who
I really was
no I think
but that's
it's cool to know like
I guess that
those different
personalities
I guess
cause I do see that
like I've seen that
in you where like
sometimes it's like
crazy
fun, outgoing
and just like
louder
and
and yeah
and other times
it's more reserved
and calm
and
it's
I've never
I don't know
like I've never thought
about it
very much
but it's cool to be like
oh yeah that's
like you got
some of that you got
from your parents
and like
it's just showing
like different sides
different sides of
of like
of your parents
and different sides
of how you grew up
and that's just
really cool to make
exactly
yeah
you know my sister
Chris was more
all the time like my dad
very outgoing
made friends
very easily
in fact she was
so outgoing
gone all the time
she was getting
in trouble a lot
letting people know
where she was
or getting in
kind of thing
that she shouldn't have been into
so
she was the one
that always got in trouble
wow
that's
that's yeah
that's cool
I like that
I think that's
just yeah
thanks for sharing
I don't know
I find that fascinating
and I think
I think that sometimes too
where it's like
I'm like
I'm different at work
or you know
whatever
and
I think I was talking
to mom about it
or something one time
years ago
and she's like
and it was the same kind
of feeling like
am I not being myself
and she's like
no you just have
a lot of different
there's just a lot of
different parts
there's a lot of different
facets of you
you know
it's just like
in one
in one place
you act this way
in another place
which maybe
for some people
might not match up
but it's just like
it's just different
parts of you
and I think that's cool
yeah
when Sid worked
at Terminix with me
for a brief while
he
he was blown away
because he didn't
he'd never seen that
side of me
it just kind of
blew him away
he even told me
that I
didn't know he
was that way
it was
very outspoken
and flamboyant
that's cool
yeah
but I remember
one of the things
I used to like to do
when I was young
was build models
because it was a solitary
thing you could do
by yourself
I used to build
car models
they used to sell
they still do
the plastic car models
paint them
and put them together
yeah
so that was another
favorite thing
my favorite thing
I used to do
was read
I just could read
and I still
love to read
I can remember
when we were young kids
that my mom
before we ever
went to school
before any of us
were in school
she would read to us
every day
a certain amount of time
that was one of our
favorite times
for me anyway
to listen to her
reading
she would read
different books to us
so most of us
grew up with
love for reading
I think Chris
didn't grow up
with quite that same
love for reading
she was more
a people person
she was more
into doing and being
with people
and she wasn't
stuff that was more
solitary
on your own
like reading
that
so that was
a favorite thing
in mind
that I can remember
I know my sister
Tracy loves to read
and Debbie loves to read
I love to read
and mom loves to read
and my dad was
quite a reader too
but most of the stuff
he read was about
hunting and about guns
I mean
he would
come home after work
and sit in the chair
and read about guns
and magazine
gun magazines
and hunting
that was his big thing
and he became
an expert on
that kind of stuff
quite an expert
and my mom and dad
had me when I was young
my dad was 16
my mom was 18
oh really?
my dad was
my dad was still a senior
in high school
and he was in the football game
because he played
football in high school
for the high school
and they announced
during the game
that he had a new baby boy
was born
so my mom was in the hospital
and my dad was at the game
playing football
oh I had no idea
when I was born
yeah my dad
used to tell that story
quite often
but it was announced
over the loudspeaker
the high school football game
that Larry Christians
had a baby boy
oh wow
and so he was still
a senior in high school
when I was born
I don't know
if I was born
out of wedlock
or anything like that
I'm not clear on that
I do know that
my grandparents
on both sides
they never liked
one another
oh
because
my mom's grandparents
my mom's parents
from what I get
they never thought
dad was good enough
for her
and
and my dad was
an only child
so his mom
was
very very protective
of him
and thought
that he could do
no wrong
yeah
so
hell that wouldn't
mess
yeah
yeah
so when I was
first born
in Utah
I lived in Utah
for a year
before I was sent out
to California
lived a short while
with my grandparents
my grandma
Christians
became grandma Johnson
but
during my brief
young life
I lived with my
great grandma Stoker
who happened to
have the same birthday
as I did
September 25th
and I would
live with her
and she would take care
of me when I was a young child
because
my mom and dad
often had difficulties
with the in-laws
because they all lived
in Ogden
oh
and so my great
according to my great grandma Stoker
she told
my mom and dad
you guys need to get out
of the state
and away from your parents
if you're going to
survive your marriage
wow
because they don't get along
and they're tearing
you guys apart
and you need to be
somewhere where you're
alone
and you have to cling
to each other to survive
and so they
moved to California
and I think
shortly after that
my
my dad's mom
and her husband
moved to California
because my dad
had moved to California
and she wanted
to be close to her son
oh wow
so
wow
so that was
I remember
those things
wow that's
and I think we moved
to Santa Ana
was where we moved to
hmm
wow
that's
some of the things
that I remember
yeah
yeah
wow well
we should probably
I should probably cut off
I need to
I need to go to bed
okay yeah
but
that's cool
thank you
thanks for sharing
yeah like as I was
looking over these questions
and this thing
I was like
I don't know
some of these things
and
yeah
or
I was like
I don't know if
I don't know if
we talked about it
and it's just been like
I just don't remember
or it's like
I don't know
or I don't know
if we just never
talked about it
I don't think
we've ever talked about it
I never asked about it
so
yeah because
you guys didn't know
that my dad was adopted
yeah
that was
yeah that was like
wait what
yeah
yeah
and I didn't know
that for
yeah wow
so
the mom is growing up
wow
yeah
so yeah
I don't think
I don't think any of your
brothers or your sister most
a lot of this stuff
I'm sure they don't
well yeah
I'll make
I'll type it up
and hopefully
the recording
works
well and I can
make sure
it's available for everybody
so
yeah
yeah because
it's like a
personal family history
yeah
yeah it'll be nice to
it'll be
just nice to have
it's really cool
so
so yeah
well
do you have
you have an appointment
tomorrow
do you have anything
Tuesday?
I'm not that I'm aware
I don't think so
because mom works
Tuesdays, Wednesdays
and Thursdays now
oh okay
originally it was going to be
two days a week
it was going to be
eventually
I wonder
feeling like
being five days a week
oh wow
I'm sure it's not
fun staying home
with me
because
I can't
do a whole lot
although today
I walked
without the walker
not a whole lot
but I did that
I had a dream
last night
that I
in the dream
I was walking
I remember more
in the dream
to cut it short
as many of you
have been walking
and
as I'm dreaming
all of a sudden
I realized
wait a minute
I'm walking
without a walker
and that instant
I woke up
this morning
oh
that's cool
with that realization
and so I
got up
and I had
no pain
in my growing bones
and so I got
up and thought
I wonder if I can walk
and I did
I walked
and so I pushed
the walker
ahead and then
I'd walk to it
and I was doing
so well that
I took a shower
without
holding on
to anything
in the shower
I was even able
to raise
my leg
individually up
to the shelf
to wash my feet
with a wash cloth
both legs
to do that
which I haven't
done for weeks
and I was so
ecstatic
and then I just
literally
prayed
and cried
I was just
ecstatic
anyway
so today
has been a good day
it sounds like
yeah
it's been
a really good day
that's awesome
but yeah
Tuesday
I don't think
I'll be going
anywhere
yeah
I'll see if I can
maybe I can call you
around my lunch time
so
10 or 11
your time
okay
yeah
I'll call
beforehand
and see
that's fine
so
awesome
well
well awesome
oh yeah
thanks
yeah thanks
for taking the time
thank you very much
it's cool to hear
it's cool to hear
these stories
yeah
as I get
talking
it spurred
other thoughts
that I didn't
have when I was
thinking about
writing about
yeah
I'm sure the same
thing would occur
when I start
when I start writing
I used to love
when I was younger
I would write
letters when I moved
away from home
I'd write letters
to my sisters
on a weekly basis
oh cool
every week
and to my parents
and in fact
Debbie and I
became quite the
correspondence
oh
and there wasn't
a week that didn't
go by
that we didn't exchange
letters
wow
that's fun
yeah
anyway
well
well
yeah
I should
I should go
get to bed
yeah
at 9.30 there
yeah
yeah
we try to get up
at 5.30
so
yeah
but if
you know
if we get to bed
at 9.30
we work close
to it
we get
8 hours
or pretty close
that's what you want
yeah
you don't want
it's not good
for your health
yeah
yeah
fine
okay well
I love you a lot
I love you too
we'll talk to you soon
yep
I'm very proud of you
in transferring me
well thanks
thanks a lot
okay
okay
take care
and congrats
congrats on walking
thanks
that's really cool
yeah
thanks
okay we will
we will keep praying for you
alright
thank you
okay
bye
bye