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, it 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 then 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, I don't
know, junior high and 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'd 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.
Oh, yeah.
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
who 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'd already have made friends with the neighbors and everything.
Wow.
And 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?
Why do you think?
Well, I was good at tetherball, I was good at kickball, which kickball, we played it
like baseball, instead of using the barracks to hit the ball, we used the kickball.
Oh, yeah.
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 you'd kick the ball out to the field and run it.
So I was good at kickball and I was good at tetherball.
And 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 was 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.
Oh.
That's all I ever wanted to be, was a baseball, professional baseball player.
So you played and like, 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 our ninth grade school, second grade,
third grade, fourth grade, it was baseball that was the big, 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, we were living in Lakewood and
I couldn't, wasn't allowed to play with the kids in the street.
Oh.
They wouldn't let me play because I didn't have a mitt.
Oh.
And eventually I got a mitt.
Then they wanted me, then I could play on one of their teams, but then, then they just
wanted to use a mitt and not let me play.
Oh.
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.
And so when he and I got together, it would have to be, my mom would have to drive me
or his mom would have to drive him to my house.
So we went to, we went to the same school.
So we were a good friend there.
It's my first girl, I think I was in second or third grade.
Wow.
And her name, her name was, yeah, her name was Sherry.
And 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 weren't like bunk, 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 came back
down.
Wow.
One's approach to never kiss a girl.
Yeah.
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.
One of my classes, 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'd 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.
And that was very humiliating to me.
Oh, yeah.
Very humiliating.
But I got in with a 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 Necron.
Uh-huh.
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.
Oh, thank you.
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.
I bet.
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, yeah, 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 like...
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.
Oh, wow.
And we had to, there were times when I traced 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 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 he sat towards the rear of the room in the corner and I would
just help him and then he would keep...
He wouldn't let in his gang people.
His name was Bustamante and we became friends and he wouldn't let in any of his gang people.
That hurt me.
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 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.
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.
That was a good period of time in my life and that's when I really got into baseball.
Me and Mark Peezy would go out for baseball leagues.
And that was junior high or that was high school?
No, that was grade school.
Oh, yeah. Oh, got it.
Yeah, that was in Ontario.
And one of our neighbors across the street,
what was in Ontario, they had a built-in swimming pool main.
And that's where I learned to swim,
is I taught myself to swim.
And 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.
It wasn't something she liked to do.
My dad knew how to swim.
But that's where I learned how to swim.
And you just taught yourself by watching people?
Yeah, I just taught myself.
I didn't learn how to swim really well, but 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 played baseball,
and I'd usually play in the outfield or shortstop,
or 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.
Go ahead.
I was going to say, didn't you later on,
did you do baseball like in college?
No.
I never did go out to baseball when I was in college.
No.
One of the places we lived was in Vista, California.
That's when I was in high school.
We used to play sandlot football in our house,
where our house was at.
There 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, we had Mexican,
one of our neighbors was Mexican family,
and one of their sons was a gang banger.
And he really got into gangs,
and he had a brother, but it was him, especially.
But anyway, he and his brother and other kids,
we would play sandlot football.
And one time we were playing that,
and he was very fast.
I mean, he was known as the fastest player in the world.
He was getting into high school.
And one of the times, I actually helped ban him.
I thought I was as fast as he could,
which is a surprise to them.
Anyway, we were playing sandlot football
on the back field behind our house,
there in Vista, and he,
and I think his brother Sizzle tackled me
which means one came from one side,
the other came from the other side,
and they hit my leg and my knee,
and ever since then, it was never right.
That's when it happened?
Yeah, that's when it happened.
And it got to where it would swell up,
and I'd have to go in to the doctor,
and they'd put a needle into my knee and drain it,
pull the blood, and I flew it out of it.
Wow, this is...
I hated needles anyway.
Yeah.
Because I'd had to get,
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.
Wow.
And so I grew to hate needles
and anything to do with doctors.
Wow.
Because it was extremely painful.
Right, yeah.
Wow, and you're sleeping here.
Sorry, go ahead.
No, I kind of overcame that in my later years here
where I ended up giving blood.
I'd given blood for years.
Oh, was it?
Of course I can't now because of the cancer.
Yeah.
They won't take my blood, but...
But in the eye...
And I can tell you how I got over that fear.
You were part of that.
When you had your...
ballot where you had to have,
I think, a mole removed or something.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And you did that without,
I think, without anesthesia or anything.
Yeah, I did.
Well, I did the guided imagery.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then
because I was afraid of...
They gave me like eight anesthetic shots
and I was super afraid of that.
Oh, okay.
And so I did the guided imagery
and I only felt like two of them.
Yeah, 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 get it,
then I start to give blood.
That's the interesting side note.
So you served as that inspiration.
Oh, awesome.
That's cool. I didn't know that.
Yeah, 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
is we moved along.
It was very difficult for me
but the main thing that I love
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,
then 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 clean 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'm the only kid in sixth grade
the only boy in sixth grade that had 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.
Daily chores.
And then from there we moved back.
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 grade.
So we moved up there
all the subjects I'd already had in fifth grade.
Oh wow.
So that was pretty easy
and I met friends up there,
Elton Allred
and Charles Hicks who are still
still seeing one on Facebook occasionally
and Larry Hunter
eventually
and
there was a fellow by the name of Rick
and what we liked to do was
we loved to play board games
and ride our bikes
and
play croquet.
We used to set up croquet tournaments
to see who was the best.
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 going on for days and weeks
or we might have a risk game
and we'd set up three risk boards all together
and play
three risk board games
and play marathon risk games.
Yeah.
Well 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.
Well
so that was
I remember going down in Carmel Falls
and I remember
after school we'd get home off to Boston
we would take our lunch money
because we wouldn't buy lunch at high school
we'd take it to school
and we'd go to the
convenience store
they didn't have selling them
and 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
we'd buy Cheetos or Fritos
and soda pop
the good stuff
of course
those were like
cupcakes that kind of thing
or Twinkies
or snowballs
those were like
I don't know if you've ever seen snowballs
they were like the pink
with coconut
yeah
yeah
so those are some of the things that I remember
when I was growing up
but I remember I was really really really in the baseball
I would even sit
I would go visit people
or
I think young Tim and I
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 at the end of the night
wow
yeah
no it's just that
I like baseball
yeah he just loved any baseball
yeah
and I couldn't hate the Yankees when I was younger
because they always won
now one of my favorite teams was the St. Louis Cardinals
because
one of my favorite players was a guy by the name of Stan Musial
who was a very famous
very famous hitter
in fact one of the record albums I ever
first albums I ever bought was the Stan Musial
baseball tutorial on hitting
uh oh
and that was when they had like 78 record albums
so
but yeah I ate, sleep, 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 working on 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 rare opportunity
I just remember him working a lot
and he did really well at Stanago
he worked his way up from being on the service stations
till became assistant to the vice president
in downtown San Francisco
oh wow
when my eyes is
he was the vice president of Stanago
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 I'm like my sister Chris
and my mom
I was more like her as were two of my sisters
she was
my mom was very quiet and shy
I took more after her
oh yeah
and then later on when I
grew up
I started doing jobs
when I was on the job
I became more like my dad
in fact my persona
work was different than it was at home here
oh
I was extremely outgoing
flamboyant
quite outspoken
interesting
um
and then when I came home
I was
pretty quiet
yeah
kind of like it is nowadays
with your mom being more
gregarious wife
and that's something that I always regretted
that I
wasn't who I really was
I think
it's cool to know
I guess
those different personalities
I guess
because I do see that
I've seen that anywhere
sometimes it's like
crazy
fun, outgoing
and just like
louder
and other times
it's more reserved
and calm
and
I don't know
talk about it
very much
but it's cool to be like
some of that you got from your parents
and it's just showing
different sides
of
of your parents
and different sides of how you grew up
and that's just really cool
exactly
yeah
yeah
my sister Chris was more
and very outgoing
made friends very easily
in fact she was so outgoing
gone all the time
she would get in trouble a lot
letting people know where she was
or getting in the things
that she shouldn't have been into
she was the one that always got in trouble
wow
yeah
that's cool
I like that
just yeah
thanks for sharing
I don't know
I find that fascinating
and I think that sometimes too
where it's like
I'm different at work
or 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
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
yeah
you know it's just like
in one place you act this way
in another place you act a different way
which maybe for some people
might not match up
but it's just like
it's just different sides of you
and I think that's cool
yeah
when Sid worked at Terminix with me
he was blown away
because he'd never seen that
side of me
it just kind of blew him away
he just
he even told me that I
didn't know you were that way
just was
very outspoken
and flamboyant
that's cool
yeah
I remember one of the things I used to like to do
when I was young
was build models
something you could do by yourself
oh yeah
I used to build car models
they used to sell
they still do the plastic car models
yeah we had them
paint them and glue them and put them together
yeah
so that was another favorite thing
my only 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
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
and so
most of us grew up with
love for reading
I think Chris did grow up with quite that same
love for reading
she was more of a people person
yeah sounds like
she was more into doing and being with people
than she was in the
stuff that was more solitary
on your own like reading and that
wow
so that was a favorite thing in mind that I can remember
that's cool yeah
I know my sister Tracy loves to read
and Debbie loves to read
I love reading
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
oh
he would
he would come home after work
and sit in the chair
and read about guns
and magazines
and hunting
that was his big thing
and he became an expert on
that kind of stuff
wow
yeah
and my mom and dad had me when I was young
he was
my dad was 16
my mom was 18
oh really
yeah 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
at 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
yeah
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 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
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
a short time with my grandparents
my grandma
Christians and became grandma Johnson
um
and
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
as a young child
because my mom and dad often had difficulties with the in-laws
because they all lived in Ogden
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
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
oh
and she wanted to be close to her son
oh wow
so
wow
so I remember those things
that's
I think we moved to Santa Ana was where we moved to
wow
that's cool
those are some of the things that I remember
yeah
wow well
we should probably
I should probably cut out
I need to go to bed
oh ok yeah
but that's cool
thank you
for sharing
as I was looking over these questions
I was like
I don't know some of these things
and
I was like
I don't know if we talked about it
and it's just been like
I just don't remember
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
yeah because you guys didn't know
that my dad was adopted
yeah
yeah that was like
wait what
yeah
yeah
and I didn't know that for a while
yeah wow
so
the mom is going back
yeah
so yeah I don't think
I don't think any of your brothers or your sisters knows
a lot of this stuff either
I'll type it up and hopefully the recording works well
and I can make sure it's available for everybody
yeah
yeah because it's kind of like a personal family history
yeah it'll be nice to
it'll be just nice to have
it's really cool
so yeah
well
you have an appointment tomorrow
Tuesday
I'm not that I'm aware
I don't think so because mom works Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays now
oh ok
originally it was just going to be two days a week
but now it's three
I wonder if you know what being five days a week is
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 of the dream but cut it short
as I was 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
with that realization
and so I
got up
and I had no pain in my groin bones
and so I got up and I thought I wonder if I can walk
and I did I walked
and so I pushed the walker ahead and then I walked 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 been able to do for weeks
and I was so ecstatic and then I just literally
prayed and cried
I was just ecstatic
yeah
anyway so today has been a good day
it sounds like
wow
it's been a really good day
that's awesome
but yeah Tuesday I
don't think I'll be going anywhere
yeah okay I'll see if I can
maybe I can call you around my lunch time
10 or 11 your time
okay yeah well yeah
I'll call beforehand and see
that's fine
awesome
well awesome
thanks yeah thanks for taking the time
thank you very much
it's cool to hear these stories
yeah as I get talking
it's for those thoughts that I didn't
have when I was thinking about writing about
I'm sure the same thing would occur when I start writing
I used to love to write
that's one thing
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
every week
and to my parents
in fact Debbie and I became quite the correspondents
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 yeah I should go get to bed
yeah
it's at 9.30 there
yeah we try to get up at 5.30
so
yeah yeah but if you know if we get to bed at 9.30
or close to it we get eight hours or or pretty close so
sure that's good that's what you want
yeah
yeah you don't want to be sleep deprived
that's not good for your health
yeah yeah
fine
okay well I've helped you a lot
I love you too
well we'll talk to you soon
yep I'm very proud of you and Catherine and Eve
well thanks
thanks a lot
okay
take care
and congrats on walking
thanks
that's really cool
yeah thanks
okay we will we will keep praying for you
alright thank you
okay bye
alright